The dust has settled after Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) 12-day-long presidential election. Sanae Takaichi and Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi led the five-candidate race, which proceeded to a parliamentary vote after neither candidate secured more than 50 percent in the first round of voting. From within the overwhelmingly male Japanese National Diet, Takaichi emerged victorious, becoming the LDP’s first female leader.
With the LDP as Japan’s governing party, Takaichi is poised to become Japan’s 104th prime minister and make history as the first woman to do so.
In the 140 years since the establishment of a Cabinet system during the Meiji Restoration, Takaichi’s election is the first of its kind — the ascension of a woman in the male-dominated Diet is set to change the face of Japanese politics.
Takaichi’s rise was not by luck. In 2021, she made her first bid for the top job with the support of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. After his death, Abe’s faction disintegrated, but Takichi remained faithful to his political program and became the successor to his legacy.
Early in the leadership race, Koizumi’s character and popularity with the media had him in the lead, but personability does not necessarily equal strength. As the debates unfolded, what was perceived as hollow rhetoric led to a decline in his support levels, while Takaichi enjoyed a surge of support from returning conservative voters.
There are five key factors behind Takaichi’s election:
She consolidated the LDP’s conservative camp as Abe’s political successor. After bearing witness to the threat represented by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appearing side by side at China’s recent military parade, conservative sentiment in Japan has been rising. Takaichi represents an answer to this.
The efficacy of her active fiscal and loose monetary policies: as a continuation of “Abenomics,” Takaichi’s policy program lined up with the public’s expectations.
Koizumi was seen as a continuation candidate of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who announced his resignation last month. Ishiba’s government was misaligned with the public, and after three election failures in a year, his policy platform had been rejected by voters.
Koizumi’s campaign team came under fire for soliciting positive posts and comments on social media. A visit to Manila just two days prior to the election further damaged his image.
LDP members retained a clear head in passing judgement. Not taken in by the initial wave of positive media around Koizumi, they instead made a sober decision in an effort to protect the party’s best interests.
True to her commitment to uphold Abe’s legacy, Takaichi is clear on her position of fostering positive relations with the US and Taiwan, and once briefly worked in the US as a congressional fellow. Taiwan and Japan can expect to look forward to strengthening ties, with the political memory of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Takaichi’s friendliness.
During his premiership, Ishiba attempted to play both sides between the US and China in a move that ultimately lost the LDP its substantial base of conservative voters. Koizumi’s candidacy ran the risk of repeating those same mistakes. Takaichi’s victory is not just a milestone for women in Japan, but represents a rebirth for the LDP and a revitalization of the party’s spirit.
With a volatile international backdrop, we can hope that Takaichi can steer the LDP forward toward the common values of freedom and democracy.
Wang Hui-sheng is a founding member of the East Asia Research Institute.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
RSS