Analysis: How Xi Jinping haunts remote Hokkaido fishing towns

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff 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.

For fishermen on Rishiri, a remote island off the coast of Japan's northern tip of Hokkaido, checking their smartphones for news on China has become a daily routine. They are especially interested in what Xi Jinping, China's powerful leader, is up to.