Cai Qi, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) meets with a delegation led by Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of Japan's ruling coalition party Komeito on November 22, 2023. Photo: Xinhua

The leader of the junior partner in Japan's ruling coalition Natsuo Yamaguchi visited China on Wednesday, as analysts said they hope Yamaguchi will continue the Komeito party's traditional friendship with China to promote the stabilizing of China-Japan relations and help correct the wrong perception toward China in Japan. 

Cai Qi, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC), met on Wednesday with a delegation led by Komeito party chief Yamaguchi, who is visiting China for the first time since August 2019. 

Cai, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, called on the two ruling parties to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, accurately grasp each other's development and strategic intentions, promote positive and friendly mutual understanding, and work together to build China-Japan relations that meet the requirements of the new era.

Yamaguchi is reportedly set to meet senior Chinese officials including Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, during his two-day visit in China, according to Kyodo News. 

Komeito, which is widely regarded as a pacifist party, has built a long-term friendship with China. Some Japanese media had expressed the hope that Yamaguchi's visit may help find a breakthrough to fix frayed China-Japan relations, which analysts said have become strained since the Japanese government has aligned with the US in containing China and kept hyping topics related to China's core interests, such as the Taiwan question. 

Yamaguchi's visit, closely following the meeting between the Chinese and Japanese top leaders in San Francisco, is expected to continue the benign momentum, seek stable improvements in bilateral relations and reaffirm the positioning of their strategic relationship of mutual benefit, Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in San Francisco, California on November 16, during which Xi highlighted the need for Beijing and Tokyo to reaffirm the positioning of their strategic relationship of mutual benefit and to add new dimensions to the relationship.

Japanese media reported that Yamaguchi is expected to present a personal letter from Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed to President Xi during his two-day trip.

The Komeito party has become a pioneer in promoting the thawing of China-Japan relations in history. They have sent delegations to China multiple times and mediated between the Japanese government and Chinese side, ultimately contributing to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries, so some Chinese analysts expressed the hope that Yamaguchi will carry on with the spirit and political legacy. 

"It is hoped that Komeito party can continue its tradition of the 1960s, guiding Japan to rectify its understanding of China-Japan relations, and it is also hoped that Yamaguchi can discuss China-Japan relations from a long-term perspective with Chinese side," Xiang said. 

The Komeito party has maintained cooperation with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for more than 20 years, playing a role in "stepping on brake" over the conservative right-leaning tendencies of the LDP, thus contributing to the maintenance of China-Japanese relations, according to Xiang.  

Some analysts also noted that to promote the fundamental improvement of bilateral relations, Japan needs to change its perception toward China. The crux for China-Japan relations lies in the Japanese side as it has viewed China-Japan relations more from the US' political perspective.

Stable China-Japan relations benefit the two countries and the Kishida government needs to take concrete actions to fix relations, analysts said.