Rory Stewart

See you soon.

Thank you.

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Lovely.

It could be hard, but we'll try.

Okay.

I'm not going to take your challenge on not mentioning Trump because the first question that we're getting is from Matthew Wright in Wiltshire, which is about Japan.

What does Japan's election result mean for its relationship with China and tensions in the Pacific?

I mean the beginning of the answer of course Matthew is that

Taiwan has become the big flashpoint between China and Japan in this election because Sanae Takeuchi, who is the Japanese prime minister, has now said explicitly for the first time as Japanese prime minister that they would effectively go to war to defend Taiwan against China.

And she is somebody who's seen as being closer to the man that you don't want to mention in this podcast and the US alliance.

Just this episode.

And it's going to be weaponized a great deal

And we'll get into that a bit later on the podcast, how the Chinese might perceive it.

But first, tell us a little bit about this election.

So she's gone from a minority to basically nearly two-thirds of the lower house.