Name: Is Takaichi Sanae the most powerful woman in the world? | The Economist
Uploaded: 2026-03-21T18:52:42.000Z
Duration: 9 min 1 s
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She seems extremely cool, but tell me more about Japan's Prime Minister.

She's the first Japanese female Prime Minister.

She is not a part of the old party machinery in the sense that she comes from a very ordinary middle class background, whereas many of Japan's former Prime ministers have been the sons, always the sons of former prime ministers or former ministers.

She communicates well on social media, she plays the drums and she was in a.

The drummer in a heavy metal band at university.

And she still picks up the sticks quite often.

She has, like Margaret Thatcher, an iconic handbag which has been selling out across Japan.

She's altogether a rather refreshing figure, though not especially young.

She's 62, which is kind of average for Japanese PMs, but no, a very interesting new figure indeed.

And she's won what is an extraordinarily large majority, biggest majority that her party, the ldp, has had, the biggest majority that any party has had since the end of the Second World War.

Nobody's had a mandate like this, so it's incredibly powerful and unprecedented.

So, Noah, what was it like or what is it like in Tokyo?

Well, there was a lot of uncertainty heading into this election.

It was a much more fluid moment in Japanese politics than we've had for a long time.

And even on election day, nobody really knew how things were going to turn out.

Not least because there was a giant snowstorm that hit Japan on election day and made it very hard to get to polling places, even to Tokyo, which is rarely snowy, was covered in white.

And when the results started to become clear, the scale, the historic scale of this victory, it felt a bit like the small earthquakes that are more common here, a bit like the ground kind of shifting under one's feet.

And it was, I think, a really stunning result, even for people inside the ldp.

Perhaps you can give us a quick primer of what indeed are her big promises.

Yeah, so I think her slogan essentially is that she wants to make Japan stronger and she wants to make Japan prosperous.

Hard to argue with either element of those.

But, you know, the stronger piece is essentially about beefing up Japan's armed forces, building out the security state.

The prosperous piece gets a bit trickier when you get into the details of how she plans to make that happen.

But these are, again, these are long standing goals.

I mean I think it's worth remembering that for all of her mold breaking style, she is a 30 year veteran of the 70 year ruling party in Japan.

She's very much a creature of the establishment.

She's not an outsider trying to tear down the establishment.

She's the one the LDP turned to, to really fend off the challenge from the kind of populist disruptors who were starting to make inroads heading into this election.

Let's start with foreign policy and defense where you know, making Japan strong is the goal.

A big part is defence and a very clear defense buildup.

Henry, how much does she want to increase defense spending?

Well, it's about going to a 2% of GDP target more quickly.

And it's significant because Japan historically has not been a country that spends on defence post Second World War, it's actually in their constitution.

They're not supposed to have an army for aggressive purposes.

Of course they do have an army for defensive purposes.

But they've been firmly within the security umbrella of the US and in this new world with more geopolitical tension and a fraying commitment of America to, to its alliances, Japan needs to build out its military strength significantly.

this is interesting, she'd already reached the 2% thing when she became Prime Minister in October.

She put forward a supplementary budget that lifted defence spending in the current fiscal year, which isn't quite over yet, to the 2%.

Because 2% is not very much at NATO we've long replaced that target with a much higher one.

But before we do that, let's put all of this into some historical context for us.

As Henry said, Japan's contribution constitution prevents it from having an army, although it has.

But how, how, how is this debate going down in Tokyo?

How much is, are people behind her in this push and how, how far do you think it will go?

Yeah, I think there's been a kind of a gradual evolution that's been accelerating.

So as Henry mentioned, Japan after the Second World War really kind of sheltered under the American security umbrella, started to focus more on its own economy and on economic relations with others in Asia.

But that began to change in a big way in the 2010s I think as Japan started to recognize that China was rising and wouldn't be benevolent and at the same time that America is increasingly unreliable.

And I think this is One area where Japan is a kind of a harbinger on, kind of on the front lines of geopolitical trends that have come to shape the world since.

And Abe Shinzo, who, it should be noted, is sort of Takaichi's mentor, her political godfather, as it were, he set out a new course for Japan, a new strategy to deal with these two forces, strengthen Japan's own defenses, try to keep America committed to Asia, and

at the same time kind of do more with other partners across the region.

But the pace of change was always gradual and it started to accelerate more after the war in Ukraine.

The full scale invasion of the war of Ukraine in 2022, I think that really shook people here in Japan, but

it still hasn't been fast enough to match the scale of the challenges that Japan faces.

And what Takaichi is doing is basically saying this roadmap that my mentor Abe put us on is it's the right one, it's the right course, but

we just need to put the pedal to the metal.

You know, we need to, to hop on the, on the motorcycle.

And we need a new target now, I think, you know, but

If you look at the rate at which China is building its navy, expanding its air force, everything, all manner, you know, a sort of gentle Abe like, increase in awareness is really not keeping up with the conflict.

China, China's aggressive rearming and its, you know, more aggressive general position.

And of course, as Noah said, the US let's take them in turn.

Let's start with China, because even in her four months before she got this extraordinarily large majority, she'd already had a fairly testy and consequential interaction with China.

Remind us exactly what happened there, Chris?

Yes, well, she made a comment that caused a lot of concern in China, you know, unjustifiably, I would say.

But she, she simply noted that in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan that Japanese central interests would be affected.

And that suggested to Japan, to China and was sort of considered by the Chinese to, to mean that Japan might intervene.

the position has always been that there would be strategic ambiguity that neither America nor Japan are committed to defend Taiwan.

A Chinese Consul general said, stick out her dirty neck, it should be chopped off.

And it was very kind of hostile and aggressive.

And now Chinese tourists don't come to Japan anymore, which has been very problematic because that was a big part of the tourism industry, which is growing quite fast.

Noah, do you think that is now seen as being a mistake or is she going to double down on that?

What do you expect from her in terms of how she behaves towards Xi Jinping?

Yeah, I think what she said in the Diet initially was a mistake.

She didn't intend to cross that line which Japanese prime ministers haven't crossed in the past.

But she's not going to walk back from it now.

It's become a position that she has, is standing on.

It's essentially saying out loud what everyone already understood.

And it has, I think, won her, you know, some, some support from the public.

There's been a bit of a rally around the flag effect.

It's helped to kind of consolidate her image as a, as a tough leader who's willing to stand up to Japan's, Japan's hostile neighbors.

And that that sense of security is part of what voters want.