How Xi Jinping Accidentally Created Japan's Strongest PM

67% of the vote. It's the most crushing electoral victory in modern Japanese history. But Sanae Takaichi has an unlikely person to thank for her historic triumph: Xi Jinping.

The Chinese leader's punitive campaign against Japan over the past 18 months didn't just fail—it spectacularly backfired, uniting Japanese voters behind a prime minister who promises to stand up to Beijing.

When Pressure Becomes a Gift

China's playbook seemed straightforward: squeeze Japan economically until it bends politically. The results speak for themselves, but not in the way Beijing intended. Japanese seafood exports to China dropped to zero after the blanket ban. Toyota and Sony saw their China revenues plummet by over 30%. Chinese coast guard vessels made 847 incursions near the Senkaku Islands last year alone.

But instead of capitulation, these moves triggered something Beijing didn't anticipate: a rally-around-the-flag effect that transformed Takaichi from a hawkish outlier into Japan's most popular leader in decades.

"Every time China tightened the screws, Takaichi's poll numbers went up," notes Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei's veteran China correspondent. "Xi Jinping became her best campaign manager."

The Miscalculation

Beijing's strategy rested on a fundamental misreading of Japanese public sentiment. Chinese policymakers assumed economic pain would translate into political pressure on Tokyo to soften its stance. Instead, Japanese voters interpreted the pressure as an assault on their sovereignty.

The numbers tell the story: favorable views of China among Japanese citizens collapsed from 23% to just 11% during the pressure campaign. Even China's suspension of panda diplomacy—once a reliable soft power tool—only reinforced perceptions of Beijing as a bully.

More damaging for China, the campaign pushed Japan to accelerate its economic decoupling. Japanese companies are now actively diversifying supply chains away from China, with government subsidies sweetening the deal. What Beijing saw as leverage, Tokyo reframed as dangerous dependency.

The Broader Pattern

Japan isn't China's first miscalculation. Similar pressure campaigns against South Korea over THAAD deployment and Australia over COVID-19 investigations also backfired, strengthening rather than weakening resolve in both countries.

The pattern reveals a blind spot in Chinese statecraft: the assumption that economic interdependence automatically translates into political compliance. In democratic societies, however, foreign pressure often becomes a domestic political asset for leaders willing to resist it.

What's Next?

Takaichi's landslide gives her unprecedented political capital to reshape Japan's China policy. Her campaign promises included doubling defense spending, strengthening ties with Taiwan, and creating a "China-free" supply chain for critical technologies.

For American policymakers, the election result is a windfall. Japan's new government will likely be more willing to host advanced missile systems, participate in Taiwan contingency planning, and coordinate economic measures against China.

But for Xi Jinping, the Japanese election represents something more troubling: evidence that his signature "wolf warrior" diplomacy may be achieving the opposite of its intended goals.