Xi Jinping and China forced Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan to play catch-up with a sooner-than-expected application to join a trade bloc currently being presided over by Japan. (Nikkei montage/AP/Wataru Ito/Presidential Office of Taiwan)

Analysis: China and Taiwan bids catch CPTPP chair Japan off guard

Distracted by race to replace prime minister, Tokyo took its eye off the ball

KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer

September 30, 2021 04:00 JST

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff writer and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

TOKYO -- After Taiwan's main opposition KMT party elected Eric Chu as its new leader, Xi Jinping, in his capacity as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, sent a congratulatory message calling for the two parties to work together to achieve national reunification and "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."