Japan’s first female prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, laid out an ambitious conservative agenda after winning her office in a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.
Her nascent administration also signaled a desire to build closer defense ties with the United States.
Much of Takaichi’s agenda lines up with her longstanding political beliefs, as an admirer of global conservative icons like Margaret Thatcher, and a protege of the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. She is also being prodded to make policy concessions by her LDP party’s last-minute alliance with the Japan Innovation Party (commonly known as Ishin, which means “renewal”).
Ishin took over as LDP’s coalition partner on Monday, securing the votes Takaichi needed to become prime minister after the departure of Komeito, LDP’s partner for the past 26 years. Komeito broke away due to concerns about a long-running LDP corruption scandal and Takaichi’s tough stance against immigration.
Komeito is a party with deep Buddhist religious ties, while Ishin is more of a hawkish libertarian industrialist party. Headquartered in bustling Osaka, which the party wants to formally designate as the backup national capital in case a disaster strikes Tokyo, Ishin has many points of philosophical agreement with LDP but few with Komeito.
Ishin strongly agrees with LDP on increasing Japan’s military strength and revising its pacifist constitution, for example, while dovish Komeito was very reluctant to support such policies. The coalition agreement between LDP and Ishin requires Takaichi to call for broader and deeper military spending, including big steps like Japan developing its own nuclear submarines.
Ishin also wants to beef up Japan’s counterintelligence capabilities, establishing a “Foreign Intelligence Agency” modeled on the American CIA, and give the central government more power during times of crisis – prospects that trouble some Japanese who worry about individual privacy and government transparency.
“The LDP’s partnership with Komeito helped ensure a measure of legitimacy and transparency in security policy. As Nippon Ishin is eager to pursue an agenda that is more hawkish than the LDP, policies could be pushed forward on sheer momentum alone,” an unhappy Defense Ministry official told Asahi Shimbun on Tuesday.
Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said on Wednesday that Takaichi looks forward to meeting with President Donald Trump next week and discussing closer defense ties between Japan and the United States.
Motegi said Japan must increase its military strength to deal with new challenges like drone swarms and cyberwarfare, after battlefields like Ukraine demonstrated the lethality of those next-generation technologies.
The foreign minister hinted that Japan might review its current five-year strategy, which envisioned an increase to spending two percent of GDP on defense by the end of 2027. President Trump wants Japan to spend five percent, the recommended level for NATO members, and purchase more equipment from the United States. A review of the 2022-2027 strategy would be necessary if Tokyo wants to raise its spending to meet Trump’s demands.
“Our national defense should be based on our own independent decision. What’s important is not the amount or the GDP ratio but what’s in it,” Motegi contended.
Takaichi laid out some of her other policy priorities at a press conference on Tuesday, including a campaign promise for a government stimulus package to help defray the rising cost of living in Japan.
Takaichi also promised to “swiftly” abolish Japan’s high “provisional” gas tax – a provision that has been in effect since 1974, its original purpose of raising funds for roads and bridges long forgotten – and increase the limit on nontaxable income, to “boost people’s net income and reduce households’ burden.”
The new prime minister said she hopes to “build a deep relationship of trust” with President Trump during his visit, and hopefully resolve trade issues to reduce the tariffs Trump has imposed on Japanese imports to the United States.
Takaichi said her top priority is strengthening the Japanese economy, to which end she resisted calls to hold snap elections for the National Diet. Instead, she promised to reach out to opposition leaders and strengthen her political coalition.
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