New Party Sakigake
After Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa resigned in 1994 and the LDP returned to power in a coalition government, Koizumi and Hosokawa teamed up with Shusei Tanaka of New Party Sakigake in a strategic dialogue across party lines regarding Japan becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Although this idea was not popular within the LDP and never came to fruition, Koizumi and Hosokawa maintained a close working relationship across party lines, with Hosokawa tacitly serving as Koizumi's personal envoy to China during times of strained Sino-Japanese relations.