Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month was a devastating indictment of US President Donald Trump’s approach to the world and a winner for the Progressive Party in Canada. But for Australia and other US allies in the Indo-Pacific it is the electoral landslide of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that offers the more important co-ordinates.
Takaichi’s strategic vision will bring great opportunities but also heightened expectations of Canberra.
Rather than looking to de-risk from the US in favour of middle-power multilateralism, Takaichi is laser-focused on restoring a stable balance of power in Asia with Japan as the indispensable linchpin for American forward presence. This is not a temporary twist in Japanese politics but the culmination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s vision and one that will define Japan’s approach to the world for a generation.
Australia is Japan’s most important partner in Asia and Takaichi’s strategic vision will bring great opportunities but also heightened expectations of Canberra. I first met Takaichi in 1989 when we were both young political staffers, though I was working for a Japanese Diet member and she was working for a member of the US congress. I found she had a voracious intellectual appetite and a passion for political strategy, which her aids say leads to late-night requests for information and an intense work ethic.
Her boss, representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, was one of the most progressive Democrats at the time, but after returning to her hometown in Nara Takaichi aligned with an ultra-conservative politician, famous for espousing Japan’s righteousness during World War II.
As she rose through the right wing of Japanese politics she embraced the core issues of her political base, including revision of article nine (the pacifist article) of Japan’s constitution and promising to honour the nation’s war dead at Yasukuni Shrine if elected prime minister. These positions raised alarm bells with moderates in the party and across the region.
But just as commentators misread her mentor Abe, who made similar pledges, they failed to understand that Takaichi would rule as a strategic realist rather than an ideologue.
No one misread her more than China’s Xi Jinping. When Abe returned to power in 2012, Xi launched an offensive to shame and isolate him. Political and business leaders were barred from visiting Japan; Chinese diplomats fanned out from Washington to Canberra warning that Abe was a dangerous militarist; and Chinese ambassadors were ordered to attack Abe in international media, most notably when Beijing’s ambassador in London wrote an opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph equating Abe’s policies to Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.
Still, Abe held his ground and capitalised on Chinese pressure and won a convincing victory in Japan’s upper house election in July 2013. I worked closely with Abe throughout my time in the White House, 2001-05, and happened to have lunch with him in the prime minister’s residence the Monday after that 2013 upper house landslide. Abe reported with a smile that his phone had been ringing off the hook all morning with requests from the Chinese embassy in Tokyo for senior visitors to meet him.
Takaichi knew all this and stood her ground when Beijing tried to pressure her with a sweeping export ban after she stated that an attack on Taiwan would “threaten Japan’s survival.” The public stood by her because an opposition politician with ties to China had asked her specifically about that scenario, knowing she would have to answer yes (and thus use the legal definition of when Japan would support hypothetical US military operations). Beijing responded furiously, but once again the pressure tactics backfired when Takaichi turned it to her advantage in last Sunday’s election.
Takaichi’s political rivals in Japan also misread her. When she took the helm of the Liberal Democratic Party in October the ruling coalition lacked a majority in the Diet and other parties were circling like vultures. The LDP’s longtime coalition partner Komeito (Clean Government Party) defected to align with the left-of-centre Japan Constitutional Party in opposition to Takaichi’s vision. Undeterred, Takaichi dissolved the Diet and went to the polls. She emerged with a comfortable majority in the lower house for the LDP and a two-third supermajority through a new coalition on the right with Kansai-based Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party). Voters – especially young voters – admired her defiance of China, her political decisiveness and her love of heavy-metal drumming and motorcycles. The LDP was not particularly popular but voters saw her bravely fighting for them while the opposition parties were playing political games.
One thing Takaichi did not do was run against Trump. This is not because Trump is popular in Japan. In a recent Japanese public opinion poll only 22% of Japanese said they trusted the US right now, the lowest number on record. But the public is as realist as Takaichi and wants her to get the alliance right. While trust in the US has been shaken, support for the alliance has gone up: from 90% of Japanese in government polls, who said the US alliance was important for Japan’s security when Joe Biden was president, to 92% under Trump.
Takaichi not only believes the US alliance is foundational for Japan but that she and her government have agency to shape that alliance – and for good reason.
When Abe returned to power in 2012 he determined that Japan could restore its influence and security in the region only by assuming greater risk and responsibility. Throughout the post-war era the Japanese government had interpreted article nine of the constitution as meaning Japan could not engage in “collective defence” with the US. That turned out to be the perfect excuse for Japan to stay out of American wars from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf.
By 2012, however, Japan was no longer safely removed from the threats. North Korean missiles and the overwhelming firepower of the People’s Liberation Army meant Japan was in the frontlines and the US was on a weaker footing. Abe convinced the Japanese that the most important thing was not an alibi to stay out of America’s conflicts but the ability to ensure the US prevailed and that Japan always had a seat at the table. In 2015 he passed legislation declaring Japan would be there militarily in a regional crisis whenever the situation represented a “threat to Japan’s national survival.” This was the language that later angered Beijing when Takaichi referenced it in the Diet. Abe called his strategic framework the Free and Open Indo-Pacific and it was compelling (Japan was positioned as indispensable to US strategy) that the first Trump administration and the Biden White House embraced it as their own.
Takaichi will double down on all of these policies towards Australia, with even greater urgency around co-operation on critical minerals, natural gas, AUKUS pillar two technology development and delivery of Japan’s Mogami-class frigate to the Royal Australian Navy.
Abe leaned heavily on Australia and so will Takaichi. When Abe sparred with the opposition over legislation allowing collective defence, he always said this rule would apply to Australia as well as the US. That played well with the press gallery. He championed the Japan-Australia-India-US Quad and focused on contested spaces in the region, such as Southeast Asia and the Pacific, urging the US to do the same. When the Trump and Biden administrations walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Abe worked with Australia to keep the pact alive while trying to draw the US back in.
Takaichi will double down on all of these policies towards Australia, with even greater urgency around co-operation on critical minerals, natural gas, AUKUS pillar two technology development and delivery of Japan’s Mogami-class frigate to the Royal Australian Navy. She will likely outpace Australia’s roughly 2.1% of GDP spending. (Japan’s defence budget is on target to hit its 2% target ahead of schedule in 2027 and the next five-year plan is expected to run even higher.) Takaichi will seek to turn her political landslide into a basis for stabilising relations with Beijing (in parallel with Australia’s efforts), but she will also continue to be more explicit about supporting Taiwan and resisting Chinese hegemonic ambitions in the region than Canberra has been – at least publicly.
Takaichi will commiserate with the Albanese government about the Trump administration’s protectionism and provocations but her focus will be on reinforcing America’s position in Asia, not avoiding Trump.
In US Studies Centre polling, only 7% of Australians would oppose a formal security treaty with Japan and in Lowy Institute polling Japan emerges as the most trusted country for Australians. Japanese views of Australia are equally positive. But the Japan-Australia relationship has not been a full-fledged geopolitical partnership for all that long and Takaichi will look to do more. She is not an incrementalist.
When a British journalist heard last year that Takaichi admired Margaret Thatcher, he questioned whether she might be more like Liz Truss. Last weekend’s election should have answered his question. Still, she will have to navigate hard choices. The public expects her to do something about the cost of living, which is proving difficult for leaders everywhere. If she increases defence spending without increasing taxes she could face a blowback from the bond markets. And if she decides to use her new supermajority to fulfil the right’s desire to launch a referendum on revising article nine she may find herself squandering political capital on a goal the public does not yet support. But for all that, Takaichi stands as the most powerful political woman in Japan since the Empress Regent Gensho in the eighth century – and Australia will soon notice the difference.