Chinese officials must have let out a loud groan when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took a clean majority of the seats in the upper house of parliament in late July.
The win for the Liberal Democratic Party signaled the end of more than seven years of political turbulence in Japan. It also cleared the path for Abe to pursue his economic and military policies， known as Abenomics.
It is hoped that this new political unity will lift Japan from a decadeslong trough. Thus far， Abe’s key economic move has been to weaken the yen， therefore lowering the price of the country’s exports. At home， businesses have rallied around the plan on the prospect of Japanese products becoming more competitive abroad.
The Japanese military has unveiled the Izumo， the biggest battleship in its armada since World War II and named after a vessel from Japan’s imperial-era navy. The country is expected to continue to boost its military capabilities.
Taking all this into account， it is no surprise that a strong Japan spooks China.
Since 2006 when Abe began his first， ill-fated term as prime minister， politics in Japan have been in turmoil. Abe lasted less than a year in the prime minister job， and five others filtered through the PM’s office before he once again took up the mantle in December.
That period also witnessed Abe’s party temporarily lose power to the Democratic Party of Japan， as well as an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that did widespread damage and ignited a nuclear crisis at a reactor in Fukushima.
China no doubt benefited from Japan’s discord in those years. Japan could hardly form a cohesive plan for reviving its own economy let alone muster a robust response to China’s growing assertiveness on a range of topics including territorial disputes.
Now Japan looks far more organized on the international stage. If China’s President Xi Jinping meets Abe in the near future， as is rumored， he will deal with a leader emboldened by popular support， not mired in political struggle.
Monetary easing under Abenomics has irked China. Japan began actively devaluing the yen late last year and has promised to continue. As the yuan strengthens against the yen， Japan will import less and less from China at a time when mainland exports are already sagging.
The devaluation has tapered imports from across the East China Sea. Chinese exports to Japan slowed by 2% year-on-year in July， the sixth straight month of falling shipments. During that time， the yen fell by more than 21% against the yuan. The currency tussle is not the greatest of China’s worries. Of bigger concern is popular support for Abe’s military ambitions. With the backing of two smaller right-wing parties， the Liberal Democratic Party could potentially hold the two-thirds majority in the upper house needed to change the constitution.
Japan already has a powerful military which it calls a “defense force.”Abe wants to call this an army， something that is prohibited in the current constitution. The technical change in wording may not seem substantial， but the move is at least partially directed at an increasingly assertive China.
Beijing can be sure that a revamp of Japan’s military will not lead to a concession over the Diaoyu islands， a small archipelago in the East China Sea that both countries claim. Tensions over the five uninhabited islands and three barren rocks have risen and fallen since the 1970s but have now become a worrying flashpoint.
If China thought Japan headstrong during its politically fragmented years， unity under Abe should prove perturbing on the issue of the Diaoyus.