Introducing Japan’s own Iron Lady

Japan is still in many ways a traditionalist – not to say a sexist – society. But the times they are a changing, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have just chosen Sanae Takaichi as its leader, which means that she will become the country’s first ever female Prime Minister, and it’s most stridently right-wing one.

Takaichi, 64, revels in the nickname the “Iron Lady” and is a hardline patriotic right-winger who is an avowed admirer of the original Iron Lady – Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who Takaichi has cited as her role model. She was elected President of the LDP, the center-right party that has dominated politics since Japan became a democracy after World War Two, which means she is certain to lead a new government as the first ever female PM. The LDP currently rules as senior partner in coalition with the Buddhist Komeito or “Clean Government” party.

A strong supporter of Japan’s close alliance with the USA, which has been the keystone of the Island country’s constitution and foreign policy since Japan’s defeat by America in the war in 1945, Takaichi is nevertheless a staunch nationalist who believes that Japan’s aggression back then was largely justified as “a war of security and national self defense.” She wants teaching in Japan’s schools changed to rid education of what she sees as a bias that burdens Japan with a guilt complex over its war crimes, which she claims were anyways exaggerated. She also wants Japan to take a stronger stance against its Asian rivals and neighbors China and North Korea, supports Taiwan’s independence from China, and is in favor of revising the pacifist parts of its postwar constitution so Japan can have a proper army instead of its existing Self Defense Force.

Born in 1961, Takaichi was first elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Japanese Parliament or Diet in 1993, as an Independent. Three years later she joined the LDP, which has been the leading force in politics for more than half a century. She was a protege of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving Prime Minister, who was assassinated in 2022, serving as his Interior Minister, and backed his policy of “Abeconomics” which was designed to lift Japan’s economy from the stagnation in which it has languished for thirty years by a mix of fiscal stimulation with boosted government spending and structural reforms.

Fiercely ambitious in a society in which women are still often expected to play second fiddle to men, Takaichi repeatedly ran for the LDP leadership and finally succeeded on her third attempt when she narrowly beat the more centrist candidate Shinjiro Koizume, and is therefore sure to become Prime Minister when the Diet votes to fill the post in the middle of this month. In order to win the contest with Koizume and attract moderate votes, Takaichi rowed back on some of her more extreme positions, such as a pledge to visit the Shinto shrine that honors Japan’s war dead if she becomes PM. She described herself as a “moderate conservative“ rather than the ultra right-wing stance which had previously been her usual position. Her election is in line with the recent worldwide trend towards right-wing patriotic populism, and like other hardline right wingers  Takaichi opposes mass foreign immigration into Japan. She is also a social conservative and has criticized same sex marriage.

Takaichi’s personal life has also differed from the modest style which Japanese women are usually expected to adopt. A fan of baseball and homegrown Japanese rock music, in 2004 she wed Tanu Yamamoto, a fellow LDP lawmaker. Though the couple had no children of their own, she adopted the children that Yamamoto has from his previous marriage. The couple divorced in 2017, blaming personal and political differences for the breakdown, but remarried in 2021 when Yamamoto allowed his wife to retain her maiden name. Since he suffered a stroke earlier this year which has left him partially paralyzed, Takaichi has also become her husband’s carer.

Takaichi is a member of Nippon Kaigi, an influential nationalist society, that advocates a more proudly patriotic attitude to Japan’s often controversial history. As Prime Minister, she is expected to adopt a more stridently assertive line with both Japan’s friends and potential enemies, but as her pragmatic tactics showed when she was fighting for the top job, she can be flexible in attaining her goals when the situation demands it.