~ by Alan Dupont. Originally published in The Australian on 1st May, 2026.
Sanai Takaichi. Remember that name. Dubbed the “Iron Lady”, Takaichi’s first official visit to Australia as prime minister is the ideal time to explore the new defence, trade, investment and technology opportunities that her premiership portends. This won’t happen unless our political, business and university elites grasp Japan’s future trajectory and get to know the personality, and convictions, of a leader who is likely to be around longer than most of her predecessors.
Japan’s first female prime minister is leading a quiet revolution in her country following her new coalition’s crushing electoral victory in February. Determined to fundamentally change how Japan thinks about itself and its place in the world, Takaichi’s ambitious reform agenda touches on virtually every area of domestic policy – from education, technology and industrial policy to energy, population, citizenship, migration and the ossified political system. She wants to reduce the membership of the House of Representatives by 10 percent, establish “an electoral system for the times” and toughen up citizenship requirements for migrants in response to rising anti-foreign sentiment.
But the most consequential changes are in the national security domain. Takaichi has doubled down on former prime minister and mentor Shinzo Abe’s attempts to break from Japan’s pacifist past. She’s ramping up defence spending and rolling back the constitutional constraints preventing Japan from having defence capabilities that would be considered normal for any other country. Last month Tokyo eased restrictions on arms exports to strengthen its defence industrial base and create new export opportunities for a conga line of countries eager to do business with Japan’s world class manufacturers.
The ramifications of the Takaichi ascendancy have largely escaped notice here. This needs to change. The land of the rising sun matters more to Australia than at any time since World War 2. The eight-decade transition from enemies to trading partners and quasi-allies should have made Japan central to our economic and strategic relations in Asia. Yet our ties with Japan have lacked the profile, weight and policy attention they deserve since the high point of the bilateral relationship in the 1990s, when Japanese tourism boomed, students flocked to our universities and Japanese language studies were on the up.
Knowing where Japan is going requires an understanding of its recent past. Having learned the limits of military power in 1945 amidst the embers of a war-ravaged nation, the Japanese people categorically rejected the use of military force. Pacifism replaced the Bushido warrior code instrumental in leading imperial Japan to ruin. By the end of the 20th century, pacifist sentiment had become so deeply ingrained in the country’s political culture there were real doubts about Japan’s willingness or ability to defend itself.
Japan’s Self-Defense Force was bereft of modern weapons. Suffocating legal constraints bordered on the ludicrous. Japanese officials lamented, only half in jest, that tanks enroute to counter an enemy invasion would never get there in time because they had to observe the speed limit and stop at red traffic lights. The point being that there was no mobilisation legislation that would give the government authority to suspend civil law in the event of a military emergency.
But Japanese history is replete with examples of external shocks altering the course of domestic politics and triggering national insecurities. The unexpected appearance of Commodore Matthew Perry’s American fleet on its shores in 1853 ushered in the Meiji restoration transforming Japan from a feudal state to a first-rate economic and military power.
China’s meteoric rise and North Korea’s emergence as a nuclear weapons state are today’s wake up calls, weakening pacifist sentiment and forcing once dovish politicians to rethink national security policy. Tokyo’s problem is that the demographic, military and economic balance of power has shifted decisively in favour of Beijing. At the turn of the century there was one Japanese for every six Chinese. By 2050 the ratio will be one to twelve based on current projections. China’s economy is more than four times the size of Japan’s. And after the largest peacetime military buildup in history the military capabilities of the Peoples Liberation Army dwarf those of the JSDF. Small wonder that Japan feels threatened and vulnerable.
To make matters worse, the US alliance is starting to resemble what Japanese call doshu imu – lovers sharing the same bed but dreaming different dreams. In the early post war years, Japan outsourced defence to the US. This made eminent sense when America was the dominant Indo-Pacific power and shared democratic Japan’s values and interests. It’s a much riskier proposition when the great disruptor, Donald Trump, openly questions the value of long-standing alliances and prefers dictators and authoritarian leaders to those of genuine democracies.
Doubts about America’s reliability come at a critical time for Japan. Tensions with China over ownership of the disputed Senkaku islands escalated in November when Takaichi made the seemingly unremarkable comment that a blockade of Taiwan – only 110 kilometres from Japan’s westernmost island – would constitute an existential threat to Japan. This went further that any of her predecessors implying that the JSDF could be mobilised in a crisis over Taiwan. Beijing saw red and went into rhetorical overdrive harshly criticising the remarks. In an extraordinary breach of diplomatic protocol, Beijing’s Consul General in Osaka launched a scathing personal attack on Takaichi saying: “We have no choice but to cut off her dirty neck without any hesitation.”
But like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, her self-professed role model, the steely Takaichi is not for turning. Although clarifying her remarks she refused to retract them. Nor has she bent to the coercive pressure that Beijing has since applied. In actions reminiscent of those taken against Australia, China subsequently banned Japanese seafood, discouraged its citizens from visiting Japan and imposed export restrictions on rare earths and “all dual use items to Japanese military end users”.
So who is Sanae Takaichi? How did a woman described as a “conservative feminist” ascend to power in male dominated Japanese society? And how will her leadership change Japan and the country’s relations with Australia?
Her formative years provide some of the answers. Born to a middle-class family in Nara Prefecture, her parents instilled in the young Takaichi a strong sense of national identity emphasising loyalty and filial piety. Her rebellious, non-conformist instincts soon became apparent. Excelling at school she qualified for Japan’s elite universities. Takaichi’s parents refused to pay the fees preferring her to follow the then traditional path of marriage and motherhood. Their determined, independently minded daughter had other ideas. She self-funded her university studies by working part time, commuting six hours a day to attend Kobe university where she graduated in business administration.
Takaichi has three step-children from her marriage to former politician Taku Yamamoto. She has spoken openly of her struggles with infertility and menopause and has been a strong advocate for women’s health services. Her well-known love affair with heavy metal music, Kawasaki motor bikes, fast cars and sport is genuine. She admits to playing Deep Purple’s “Burn” late at night in her parliamentary residence to let off steam and famously engaged visiting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung in a K-pop jam session which went viral, resonating with younger Japanese.
A two-year stint in the US as a Congressional Fellow in the office of Republican Senator Pat Schroeder honed her English proficiency, deepened her understanding of US politics and strengthened her conviction that the US alliance is critical to Japan’s security.
Returning home, Takaichi branched out into the media taking on roles as presenter, co-host and anchor of popular current affairs and life-style programs. A profile by the magazine Japonica characterised her TV image as “an unconventional, trail-blazingly modern public figure, wearing miniskirts and presenting a bubbly, alive, electric personality.” This gave her crucial name recognition, a platform to refine policy ideas, develop cut through political messages and contest competing narratives which she does with rare clarity and panache for a Japanese politician.
Beneath the engaging public persona is a disciplined, pragmatic, media-savvy, conviction politician best described as a conservative moderniser. Former Japanese Ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, has known Takaichi for 40 years. He characterises her “as a down-to-earth, sincere, and aspirational person.” It is not easy in Japan “for a woman like her, who was not born into a politician’s family nor joined a prestigious government ministry, to be elected to the House of Representatives.”
Now a veteran lawmaker, Takaichi has learned how to astutely navigate the opaque and male-dominated world of Japanese politics. After serving more than 30 years in the Diet, Takaichi’s break-through moment came with the loss of the Liberal Democratic Party’s majority in the House of Representatives last year. Realising the need for a new kind of leader, party power brokers turned to their iron lady. In a “cometh the hour cometh the woman” moment, she didn’t let them down. Putting her career on the line by seeking public endorsement of her premiership at a snap election in February, she won a 316 seat “super majority” in the 465 member House of Representatives, the largest victory in the LDP’s 71-year history.
“Sanae mania” has yet to subside, with Takaichi continuing to enjoy stellar popularity for a Japanese leader. Her public approval consistently hovers above 60 percent.
But she’s not without her critics. Takaichi’s promise to “work, work, work, work and work” raised eyebrows in a country notorious for karoshi – death from overworking. In their search for a better work-life balance, many young Japanese are scornful of overworked employees regarding them as shachiku, or company slaves. She has also drawn criticism for associating with far-right politicians, asserting that Japan’s war crimes are “exaggerated” and for her regular visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The Shinto shrine commemorates over two million Japanese soldiers and civilians “who died for the nation” including 14 Class A war criminals.
Much of this criticism is politically motivated. A noted China hawk, it’s no surprise that Beijing has run an aggressive information campaign to caricature Takaichi as a dangerous ultranationalist intent on returning Japan to its militaristic past. She is nothing of the sort. Japan’s prime minister would fit comfortably within Australia’s centre right tradition.
Irrespective of her political leanings, Takaichi’s high voltage premiership provides a generational opportunity to realise the full potential of a bilateral relationship which has underachieved.
There have been three watershed moments in post-war Australia-Japan relations. The 1957 Commerce Agreement opened up trade. General Peter Gration’s 1989 visit to Japan as Chief of the Defence Force led to the establishment of defence ties. And after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident caused Japan to temporarily shut down its nuclear power plants there was a surge in demand for our LNG and thermal coal, culminating in Australia become Japan’s most important energy supplier. This energy partnership is mutually beneficial as Penny Wong’s recent energy diplomacy reminds us. Japan supplies nearly 7 percent of our diesel.
Takaichi’s election promises a fourth – the opportunity to bind the two countries more closely by collaborating on Japan’s new priority areas of defence industry, strategic intelligence, dual purpose technology, supply chain resilience and cyber security.
Defence spending was politically constrained to one percent of Gross Domestic Product under Japan’s “peace constitution.” But in a decisive break from the past, successive governments doubled the defence budget and committed to $440 billion of new spending from 2023 to 2028. That makes Japan the second largest allied defence market globally with a defence budget exceeded only by the US and China. Further increases are likely as Japan comes under pressure from the Trump administration to lift core defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP.
The little known, but strategically important, 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act “fundamentally changes how Japan thinks about technology, supply chains and national security” says strategic advisory firm Nexus Pacific. Tokyo is building a deep-tech ecosystem with direct defence applications in a uniquely Japanese way, integrating dual use technologies to enhance national power, deter adversaries, build more resilient supply chains and protect critical infrastructure. A notable feature is a classified patent system restricting public disclosure of inventions that could harm national security.
Australian governments and businesses would do well to study the priority technologies that underpin Japan’s new approach because there are obvious areas for co-production and joint investment. The “designated critical technologies” include AI and machine learning; quantum information science; advanced semi-conductors and microprocessors; biotechnology; hypersonics; space technologies; advanced materials; maritime technologies and cybersecurity. These are the sinews of the future economy.
But we won’t get out of the starting gate without a clear and achievable vision for the future relationship and the development of a deeper political constituency for stronger ties. Cultural alignment will be a key challenge. Japan’s consensus-driven and relationship approach to business and politics contrasts with our more direct, outcome-oriented culture. “Sherpas” and informal “councils of the wise” could help build trust and facilitate understanding.
The real significance of the breakthrough Mogami contract to jointly build 11 frigates for the Australian navy is the precedent and template it provides for shared industrial production. The Mogamis could be transformative if they are delivered on time and on budget.
But it takes two to tango. Anthony Albanese needs to dust off his dancing shoes when the effervescent Sanae Takaichi arrives if he wants to be a priority fixture on her very full dance card.
Alan Dupont is chief executive office of geopolitical risk consultancy the Cognoscenti Group and a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute.