Japan's ex-PM Noda urges Takaichi to mend ties with China

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Sunday urged Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to make efforts to repair relations with China, according to local reports.

Noda, now the leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said the current tensions between Japan and China clearly started with Takaichi's radical remarks, Kyodo News reported.

Takaichi needs to continually explain her true intentions and Japan's official stance, he said.

The strategic relationship of mutual benefit between the two countries must at the very least be a relationship where dialogue is possible, said Noda, adding that misunderstandings should be dispelled through multi-layered dialogue, not just talks between leaders.

The remarks of the former Japanese prime minister came days after he criticized Takaichi's recent erroneous remarks on Taiwan as going "too far" and "dangerous."

"It seems she thinks she is popular with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party supporters. I think it is even more dangerous," Noda said last week.

He said it is a lack of self-discipline for her – the supreme commander of Japan's Self-Defense Forces – to make such an explicitly reckless statement.

At a Diet meeting on November 7, Takaichi claimed that the Chinese mainland's "use of force on Taiwan" could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan and implied the possibility of armed intervention in the Taiwan Strait. Takaichi later insisted that her remarks were in line with the government's longstanding view and refused to retract the remarks.

Japanese people held a protest in front of Takaichi's official residence in Tokyo on Friday, demanding that she retract her remarks and offer an explanation and apology, according to Xinhua.

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