Strong election win by Shinzo Abe could affect Sino-Japan relations

China will be cautiously watching Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after his expected solid victory in tomorrow's general election as Beijing considers whether to resume high-level contacts with Tokyo.

That is the assessment of analysts studying the state of ties between the two neighbours that have been marred by tensions over the past two years, and which eased only slightly when President Xi Jinping met Abe at an Apec meeting last month in Beijing.

Before the meeting, exchanges between the two countries had been largely confined to city-level governments.

Analysts worry that a big win by Abe would encourage him to push harder with his long-held nationalist agenda on diplomacy, especially his policy towards China, in the next four years. Since Abe took office in 2012, Beijing has seen him as a troublemaker over his hawkish views, especially his comments on wartime history.

Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including a number of war criminals, late last year further strained ties with China that were already frayed after territorial disputes over Diaoyu Islands, or Senkakus to the Japanese, in the East China Sea.

He has publicly pushed for the reinterpretation of his country's pacifist constitution that would allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defence. If approved, that would mark a significant shift in Japan's military stance since the end of the second world war.