On October 20th, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) signed a coalition agreement that allowed Sanae Takaichi to be elected prime minister, the first woman to hold this position in the history of the Land of the Rising Sun. The preamble to the document emphasises the common national vision
of the two parties and their desire to launch a government capable of overcoming the national crisis and realise Japan’s revival
. In a situation described as the most severe and complex
since 1945, autonomy is needed to support strategic stability [...] in the Far East and contribute to global security
. To do so, in addition to its bilateral alliance with the US, Tokyo must assume a leading role
, adopting a worldview of international politics and security grounded in realism
.
Rebalancing to the right for the LDP
The breakdown of the coalition agreements with the Buddhist Komeito party on October 10th, after 26 years of political partnership with the Liberal Democrats, had cast doubt on the possibility of a Takaichi government. She quickly found an ideal partner
in the JIP, a national-libertarian party based in Osaka, described by Le Figaro as a Western Japan league
with ambitions to become a national party. The new combination shifts the political balance of the country and the LDP to the right, after the centrist season inaugurated by the premierships of Yoshihide Suga, Fumio Kishida, and Shigeru Ishiba; this period began with the crisis of the Seiwa-kai, Shinzo Abe’s faction, after his death in 2022. That centrist recalibration, favourable to rearmament, did not hold up at the polls, in the face of a combination of inflationary pressure, American fluctuations, and social unrest linked to increased immigration. The migration issue fuelled the rise of Sanseito, a national-populist formation that recycles the themes of the AfD, the Rassemblement National, and Trump’s MAGA.
According to Kazuto Suzuki, director of the Institute of Geoeconomics think tank, linked to Japanese multilateralism, the country’s generational shift
is leading to changing social norms
. Domestically, immigration is generating anxiety and creating fertile ground for populist unrest; internationally, China’s rearmament, Pyongyang’s missile threat, the Ukrainian conflict, and Trump’s re-election have undermined trust in an international order based on the rule of law
. For a growing number of voters, it is necessary to strengthen national capabilities, including military capabilities
, in the face of the risk of domination by foreign powers
. According to Suzuki, like other Japanese commentators, it is precisely her long association with Abe that may allow Takaichi to temper her nationalist vision, in line with a pragmatic realism
that is also conducive to a balanced
relationship with Beijing and neighbouring Asian countries. In this light, The Nikkei sees a parallel with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who enjoys a fair reputation internationally
, a clear allusion to both the Euro-solubility and Atlantic compatibility of the Italian brand of sovereignism.
Heavy metal, motorbikes, and Matsushita
Takaichi, 64, is a native of Nara, the ancient imperial capital in the Kansai region, home to the metropolis of Osaka. The daughter of a police officer and a business executive, she developed a passion for heavy metal music as a teenager, playing drums in a high school band, and for large motorcycles. She graduated in business economics from Kobe University — less prestigious than the Imperial universities of Tokyo — and obtained a scholarship at the Matsushira Institute of Political Education, founded in the late 1970s by Konosuke Matsushita [1894-1989], founder of the Panasonic group.
It was while listening to a lecture by Matsushita, the man of action
from Osaka, considered the god of management
, that Takaichi, at the age of 24, developed an ambition to enter politics. In his lecture, the big businessman not only predicted a Japanese recession for 1990 but also emphasised how the economic centre of gravity was shifting to Asia; Japan could no longer focus on the US; the global framework [was] changing
. According to his American biographer John Kotter, Matsushita was a self-made man who built an industrial giant in the 1920s and 1940s. He disliked politicians, whom he considered without a long-term vision
, and in the early 1960s he explored the possibility of starting his own party, eventually opting to create an institute for training new talent.
Kotter notes that Matsushita, although he never expressed an opinion on Japan’s military expansion in China and Asia from 1931 to 1942, as a patriot
presumably considered the liberation of Asia
from colonialism to be a worthy mission
. Certainly, this expansion convinced him that Japan’s economic destiny lay in kokusaika, economic internationalisation. Kokusaika was effectively implemented through conflict: by 1945, Matsushita Electric had most of its plants in China and Southeast Asia, which were commercial outlet markets, compared to a domestic market mobilised for the war effort. Although the group lost those factories following defeat, it retained a network of local relationships, which it used during the years of Tokyo’s economic miracle. In 1979, Matsushita opened its own factories in China, following direct talks between the founder and Deng Xiaoping, who thanked him for believing in Beijing’s policy of reforms and opening up. However, Panasonic’s path to modernisation and internationalisation began with its relationship with the Dutch company Philips, before its connection with the American market.
The national liberals of the Seiwa-kai
In 1987, Takaichi did an internship with American Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, leader of the so-called Japan bashing
movement, at the height of the Japan-US trade dispute. According to her, she did this to understand the US and its attitude towards Japan: she noticed how little her country was understood by average Americans
. She later became a popular presenter for the Asahi television network. She entered politics in 1994 as a member of the Shinshinto, a short-lived political party that split from the LDP in 1993, in which Ishiba was also active.
Joining the LDP in 1996, Takaichi chose to join the Seiwa-kai, the same faction as Abe, with whom she established a personal friendship and political affinity. The faction was created in 1979 by Takeo Fukuda [1905-1995, prime minister from 1976 to 1978]. Fukuda was an attaché at the Ministry of Finance in London from 1930 to 1933 and then an adviser to the collaborationist Chinese government in Nanjing between 1940 and 1945. Within the LDP, he rose to become the political protégé of Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather and a leading exponent of Japanese nationalism. The Kishi faction largely merged with Fukuda’s, who as prime minister was a signatory to the peace treaty with China in 1978 and the architect of the Fukuda Doctrine of omnilateral diplomacy
, aimed at strengthening relations with Southeast Asia and China through economic means. While the Seiwa-kai is an expression of the nationalist right wing of the LDP, it is also a national-liberal circle, from which emerged the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, Fukuda’s protégé.
Takaichi, who cites Margaret Thatcher as one of her role models, has a 30-year political career and has served as minister several times under Abe and Kishida; she cannot be described as eccentric compared to the liberal-conservative consensus in Tokyo. Kishida has called her the Taliban
because of her nationalist and conservative positions. Previously, however, he had emphasised that she would be the right person to govern Japan in the eventuality of war
. In launching her own executive — which remains in a parliamentary minority, albeit with greater room for manoeuvre than Ishiba’s — Takaichi seems to have read Abe’s playbook, balancing the various factions of the Liberal Democratic Party in order to preserve its unity. The model in this sense seems to be the American team of rivals
formula, or the Japanese version of the Italian Christian Democratic inclusiveness.
Military Keynesianism
In her election platform for the party presidency, Takaichi indicated her willingness to pursue quasi-alliances
with like-minded countries in Asia and with European nations
; specifically, to sign an agreement between the countries of the CPTPP — the Pacific free trade agreement — and the EU, a goal pursued by Abe after Trump’s decision not to join the CPTPP.
On the military front, the new prime minister intends to bring forward the target of reaching 2% of GDP for defence spending by two years, paving the way for possible further increases in the future, as a sovereign decision
. This is a way of countering or delaying American pressure to increase spending. Significantly, in strengthening rearmament measures, Takaichi emphasised the adoption of submarines equipped with vertical missile launchers with propulsion systems of the next generation
, an option that opens the door to nuclear propulsion. In the Japanese debate, launching missile-carrying submarines — even conventional ones but with longer submersion times — signals a shift to a regional military rule
. The government’s economic platform suggests targeted public-private spending measures for sectors ranging from semiconductors to high technology, including artificial intelligence, which are functional to the development of arsenals now defined as conventional strategic
: an intermediate zone between conventional and nuclear deterrence.
According to Walter Russell Mead, the best way for the new prime minister to revive the economy would be to embrace military Keynesianism
, exploiting the impact that defence spending has on growth. Takaichi takes up a theme already present in Abe’s thinking about a constructive relationship with China
, despite security concerns
on the military and economic fronts. On immigration, the government proposes to tighten the rules against any illegal acts
committed by some foreign nationals
but will also draw a clear line against xenophobia
. It seems likely that Tokyo is considering adopting the migration policies adopted by Canada and Australia. Significantly, the JIP has indicated a maximum limit of 10% of the immigrant population as a sustainable target to ensure social homogeneity. This level coincides with that of the major Western powers and is considered necessary to sustain the country’s economy. Takaichi would like to combine these measures with policies to support the birth rate and strengthen female employment.