With its first female PM, Japan’s ready to march to a different beat

When Sanae Takaichi was a drummer in a heavy metal band, she travelled to gigs carrying multiple sets of drumsticks, as quite a few profiles of her have mentioned. Why? Because she often snapped them with the forcefulness of her drumming.

She may be Japan’s first female prime minister, but don’t expect her to be another bland political character in the mode that the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party has specialised in producing.

“Her two predecessors,” the current leader, Shigeru Ishiba and Fumio Kishida before him, “had the commonality that they were weak – China sycophants and America worshippers,” says conservative Japanese commentator Shingo Yamagami, previously a career diplomat who served as Japan’s ambassador to Canberra until 2023.

“In comparison with these two, she can be tough on China without being emotional about America,” says Yamagami, who, among others, has advised Takaichi on foreign policy.

Takaichi, 64, is an experienced minister in multiple portfolios and a former president of the LDP. She likens herself to Margaret Thatcher as the putative Iron Lady of Japan. But she most closely resembles her centre-right mentor, the late Shinzo Abe, one of Japan’s only truly effective leaders in the past half-century.

Takaichi pledges to follow his lead – a stimulatory economic policy and an assertive foreign policy. Abe was the country’s longest-serving prime minister, in office for a total of nine years. He resigned in 2020 and was assassinated in 2022.

Can Takaichi achieve such bold policy changes? The financial markets think so. The Nikkei share price index jumped by 5 per cent to a record high on Monday in response to her victory in the internal party ballot for the leadership.

Bond prices anticipate that her government will drive Japan deeper into debt to pay for her promises of economic stimulus, more defence spending and greater support for families and mothers, in particular. And Beijing appeared to be taking her very seriously.

She has a history of taking tough stances on China: she has called for reduced Japanese trade dependency on China, for hosting US medium-range missiles on Japan’s territory and even for a debate on whether to host US nuclear weapons in the event of an emergency.

She visited Taiwan this year and affirmed Abe’s view that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japan emergency”.

“So far,” says Yoichi Kato of Waseda University’s Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, “she has done a lot to get on Chinese nerves but practically nothing to engage with China. At the end of the day, she could be more hawkish than Abe.”

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Beijing was notably polite in response to her elevation. Even its vociferous, party-owned, nationalist news outlets were warily restrained.

Takaichi would have to be exceptional to break through the ranks in the country rated No.118 out of 145 in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 global gender gap report. Iceland ranks first, Australia 13th and the US 42nd.

The same index finds that Japan’s political system is a fortress of impenetrability within the citadel of sexism: women have moved only 8.5 per cent of the way towards equality, against a worldwide average of 23 per cent. Takaichi has changed the odds.

She’s unconventionally adventurous. Apart from scuba diving and car enthusing, she took herself to Washington DC in the 1980s to work for US Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder.

Takaichi’s strength of character, her Capitol Hill experience and her sound grasp of English make her “one of the very few Japanese politicians who can talk directly with Donald Trump, eye to eye”, says Yamagami. She’ll have her opportunity very soon. Trump is due in Tokyo in a couple of weeks. “Unlike Ishiba, who kept avoiding Trump.”

Takaichi has said that she would consider renegotiating Japan’s US deal over Trump’s tariffs if she thought any “highly unequal” aspects were to emerge.

But is Japan ready for a female leader? A poll last week by Japan’s Mainichi newspaper showed that, against four male candidates for the leadership of the LDP, Takaichi was ranked first choice.

With 25 per cent public support, she was four points ahead of Shinjiro Koizumi, who was the commentariat’s favourite as the son of a former prime minister as well as a bit of a heartthrob. Support for the other male aspirants was in single digits.

“There’s a great degree of excitement about her,” Yamagami tells me. “It’s high time” for Japan to have a female prime minister. “That’s the attitude on the streets. Unlike many other politicians from the LDP, she’s from an ordinary background, not a second or third-generation politician. She’s very unpretentious, she’s unassuming, she’s down to earth and knows the views of the Japanese public. Some people on the left are not very happy to have Japan represented by a conservative.”

Takaichi personifies a shift to the right in Japanese politics. Economic stagnation and a sense of hopelessness for the future of the fast-ageing society have fed frustration with the LDP, which has been bleeding votes to smaller, populist, right-wing parties. By electing Takaichi, the LDP hopes to win them back.

Japanese experts believe Takaichi will suit Australia’s interests. Kato says she’s promising to uphold Abe’s policy of “a free and open Indo-Pacific” as a pillar of Japan’s diplomacy.

And that she wants to pursue this concept through the 12-nation trade agreement known as the CPTPP, which includes Australia, Japan and Britain but excludes China and the US. And that she will prioritise the Quad group of the US, Japan, India and Australia, another Abe baby.

Yamagami says “the strategic priority she gives Australia is very high”. How does he know? “Because otherwise she wouldn’t talk to me.” Australia will reciprocate the priority. The Albanese government has embraced Japan as its most important ally in Asia.

Takaichi is famous for her work ethic; she doesn’t play golf – most unusual among LDP politicians. “She can talk policy and substance,” Yamagami says. “She has other ways to shine.”

Peter Hartcher is international editor.