The liberal left across the world are barely celebrating the “milestone” of the “first female prime minister” in a notoriously male-dominated country, Japan, when the person in question turns out to be a real bête noire (in every sense) according to the standards of the liberals.
Takaichi Sanae, born in 1961, won the internal battle within Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, becoming party president and consequently prime minister-in-waiting, set to succeed the outgoing Ishiba Shigeru. It was her third attempt to climb to the top of Japan’s “white whale,” the centrist-moderate party that has dominated Tokyo politics since the postwar period.
Takaichi’s profile is extremely interesting because she represents a true nemesis for the woke-feminist ideology of “she’s good because she’s a woman.” Takaichi takes ultra-conservative positions on all aspects of the liberal agenda, thus spoiling the party for those who celebrated her rise as a “breaking of the glass ceiling” of Japan’s male-dominated political system.
Reading some of the press coverage these days is highly instructive. A good example is Jake Aldestein’s bile-filled piece from the Substack newsletter “Tokyo Paladin,” entitled “The Rise of Japan’s Female Trump: Why Takaichi Sanae is the Worst Thing to Happen to Japanese Democracy Since Abe 2.0.” Aldestein’s article is extremely enjoyable to read and is all about “but she also has flaws”: these range from accusations of revisionist nationalism and hostility to immigration to spreading hoaxes (immigrants kicking deer in Nara, compared to Haitians eating cats. Both of which turned out to be true thanks to viral videos on social media, with all due respect to the debunkers). But above all, there is the frightening regret of seeing “the glass ceiling broken only to discover that it is actually the lid of a coffin.” In short, 2025, at least in Japan, looks set to be an excellent year for bottles of feminist tears.
A bit of history. Women and politics in Japan
Throughout Japanese history, women have always played a marginal role. However, at several crucial moments in national politics, particularly during power vacuums within the imperial dynasty or shogunal families, some women rose to the rank of empress (six in total) and regent, ruling the country with firmness and intelligence while waiting for a male heir to resume the legitimate bloodline.
The Confucian mentality imported from China envisages a political role for women that is subordinate to that of men. In the five fundamental relationships, women are mentioned only in the marital relationship. Those at the top owe benevolence and protection to those at the bottom, who in turn have a duty of obedience and devotion. The five relationships are between sovereign and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother. Only in the last one—between friends—is an equal and perfectly symmetrical relationship expected. Women are therefore assigned a subordinate role. Suffice it to say that the English translation of “empress” for the equivalent Japanese term is incorrect: in Japan, only the term “emperor” (Tenno – 天皇) exists, referring to men. In the eight cases (six empresses, including two double reigns) of reigning empresses, they are referred to as “female emperors” (Josei Tenno – 女性天皇) or simply “Tenno”. Therefore, an empress, being a woman, does not assume an absolute role, but remains devoted to her male counterpart, even if absent, who becomes the family, the successor, the nation. In this sense, women in power in Japan have generally had roles considered very positive by chroniclers.
This mentality has meant that most of the women who have played a leading role in Japanese politics in past centuries have been fanatically devoted to protecting the interests of their family or noble clan, a modus operandi not very different from that of a good number of female rulers in European history.
In any case, unlike the Messalinas of our history, in most cases of female power in Japan, history remembers only outstanding examples of enlightened power. Starting with Suiko (554-628), who ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne as empress, the chronicles recount her great achievements, including that of placing her trust in Prince Umayado as regent. Together, they reformed Japan by introducing Buddhism and the principles of Confucianism. Later, Empress Jito (645-703) distinguished herself as a reformer and poet, contributing some of her compositions to the Japanese national poem, the Man’yoshu.
Empress Genmei (660-721) inaugurated the Nara period, moving the capital to this city. In a unique case in Japanese history, Genmei appointed her daughter Hidaka as her successor, who ascended the throne under the name of Gensho.
Powerful women also appeared in many Japanese noble families and at the top of those who attained the role of shogun, i.e., the power of “military regency” that represented the de facto government of Japan from the 12th century until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, with the emperors relegated to symbolic roles and power firmly in the hands of the bafuku, the ‘government of the tent’ of the shogun. Two key figures cannot be overlooked: Hōjō Masako (1157-1225):
wife of the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo, a central figure in the rise of the Hōjō clan, and Saigo (1552-1589), favorite of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Machiavellian (in the most pure sense of the term) feudal lord who reunified Japan.
Her advice was fundamental to Ieyasu’s rise, so much so that it is said that she was the only one among the wives and concubines of the powerful daimyo to have been chosen for personal reasons and not for cold dynastic alliance. Chroniclers report that Ieyasu sincerely loved Saigo and held her opinions in very high regard. Saigo also gave Ieyasu his successor, Hidetada.
Woman, not feminist
This long historical digression is not just a display of erudition, because it brings us back to the present day. The six Empresses and their eight reigns (two of them reigned for two separate periods, in fact) are still the subject of debate among historians of the Land of the Rising Sun: many consider them to be parentheses and not actual reigns. Mere regencies. This thesis is supported above all by the adoption for the Chrysanthemum Throne of a law similar to that which regulated the succession of the Hohenzollerns to the German throne during the reforms imposed by Emperor Meiji in the second half of the 19th century. The Salic Law, confirmed after the war, still imposes male descent as the only valid criterion for succession to the Japanese imperial throne.
However, the risk that the current rulers of Japan may remain without a male heir has reopened the succession issue, which is as practical as it is driven by the desire for “reform” and even subject to international pressure to abolish a tradition considered “discriminatory.”
Sanae Takaichi, who is set to become Japan’s first female prime minister, is among those who support maintaining the Salic Law. So much for ‘breaking the glass ceiling’. For Takaichi, tradition comes first.
This brings us to the political line advocated by Takaichi. Described as a “an honorary man” or “middle-aged male wearing a female mask” by some of her detractors, Takaichi Sanae is the expression of an almost reactionary conservatism. She has supported maintaining the male right to impose the family surname, opposes so-called same-sex “marriage,” and has supported harsh criminal laws for desecrating the flag. Open to dialogue with Japanese far-right movements, Takaichi is a member of the think tank Nippon Kaiji, a highly influential organization with over 30,000 members, compared to which European conservative parties appear “moderately progressive.” She is also vice president of the Shinto Seiji Renmei, an association that promotes the return of traditional Japanese religion, Shintoism, to the center of the country’s political and educational life.
On this front, Takaichi Sanae was active during the Abe administration—of which she was a member—paying homage, as the only minister in that cabinet, at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, together with Abe Shinzō himself. Yasukuni is a Shinto shrine that serves as a ‘tomb of the unknown soldier’ and memorial for all of Japan’s war dead, without distinction: it venerates the souls of 2,466,000 men and women who died wearing the imperial uniform, including nearly 28,000 aborigines from Taiwan and over 21,000 Koreans. This latter feature has placed it at the center of fierce controversy for decades, both domestically and especially abroad, as those who died for their country also include those who were declared “war criminals” by the victors’ tribunals after the war, 1,068 people in total, 14 of whom were branded as “Class A,” the so-called “crimes against peace.”
Yasukuni also honors the only judge of the Tokyo Tribunal (the so-called “Japanese Nuremberg”) who opposed the Allied conviction of “war criminals,” the Indian Radhabinod Pal. It is a concentration of unapologetic nationalism that ignites public debate every time a politician appears there.
Aware of the controversial potential of these positions, Takaichi nevertheless stated that she will not give up visiting the Yasukuni Shrine after her inauguration as prime minister:
“The Yasukuni Shrine is a central institution in our country for honoring those who died in war. I hope that the world will become a place where we can all show respect for those who gave their lives for their countries. What I must do is help to create that environment.“
she said. Moreover, Takaichi Sanae has often expressed positions that in Europe we would call ”revisionist” about 20th-century Japanese history: according to Takaichi, World War II was a defensive conflict for Japan and the war crimes of which the country is accused have been greatly exaggerated, particularly regarding the exploitation of forced labor on subjects of the colonies and the forced recruitment of girls from occupied countries into war brothels. Takaichi has also expressed strongly revisionist views on the 1937 Nanking Massacre, greatly reducing the estimated number of victims of the sacking of the Chinese city by the Imperial Japanese Army.
On the economic front, Takaichi is following in the footsteps of her late predecessor Abe, who sought to revive Japan from the death throes of the post-2008 crisis with his Abenomics: a mixture of market liberalization and Keynesian and monetary expansionary policies. In this sense, the comparison that many have made between Takaichi and Margaret Thatcher stops at her image as an iron lady rather than her ultra-liberal political line.
Takaichi Sanae, from Iron Maiden to Iron Lady
Takaichi Sanae’s character is therefore what most closely resembles that of the British prime minister. In line with the image of a strong woman portrayed in the pop world of manga and anime, she is as far away from Western feminism as one can imagine.
Suffice it to say that she divorced her husband in 2017 for reasons of political vision and personal aspirations, only to remarry him in 2021. Takaichi currently cares for her husband, who is semi-paralyzed following a stroke.
Takaichi Sanae’s character also emerges from her youth: the daughter of an automotive worker and a policewoman from Nara, she had to give up attending Keio and Waseda universities in Tokyo because her very strict parents were opposed to her living away from home. On the other hand, she was able to cultivate her rebellious passions, such as heavy metal, to the point of playing drums in a band, and motorcycles, like a true biker chick. Meanwhile, she discovered her passion for politics. In short, from Iron Maiden to Iron Lady for Japan.
After graduating in 1987, she went to live and work in the US on a scholarship, working with Democrat Pam Schroeder in the US Congress. On her return, she wrote books about these experiences and became a journalist, commentator, and television presenter. In 1993, she began a political career that led her to sit in the Japanese Diet and become Senior Vice Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry in Koizumi Jun’ichiro’s cabinet. In 2019-20, she served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under Abe Shinzō, along with non-portfolio ministries for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, as Deputy Minister for Science and Technology Policy, Deputy Minister for Innovation, Deputy Minister for Youth and Gender Equality, and Deputy Minister for Food Security. Her government experience was then cut short by pressure to manage the Covid emergency when, in August 2020, officially for health reasons, Abe announced his resignation and the country entered a series of governments much more sympathetic to internationalist desiderata: pandemic policy, ‘new rights’, ‘school reforms’ and, above all, the opening of borders to immigration.
The foreigner issue: Japan for the Japanese
Caught in the pincer of supranational and internal pressures, particularly from businessmen seeking wage dumping after the expansion of salaries under Abe, Japan has in fact loosened its very strict immigration rules.
To understand how alien the possibility of welcoming immigrants is to the Japanese character, one must bear in mind the entirely Japanese concept of Kokutai. Kokutai (国体 “national body”) is an extremely complex and deeply rooted concept, which we cannot summarize here without inevitable approximations and simplifications. In general, it tends to categorically exclude the possibility of becoming Japanese by ius culturae or by pure voluntarism. Membership of the Japanese national body is almost exclusively granted by bloodline. Although set aside as a remnant of pre-war “chauvinistic nationalism,” the concept of Kokutai still permeates the common sentiment of the Japanese people.
Just 20 years ago, former Japanese Prime Minister Asō Tarō could describe his country as a nation of “one race, one civilization, one language, and one culture.” Words that in contemporary Europe would be stigmatized, leading to resignation, if not directly prosecuted as in the present-day UK.
However, Japan’s demographic crisis has prompted the governments in Tokyo to open up to immigration policies, looking first and foremost among 20th-century Japanese emigrants and their descendants, the nikkeijin, as possible candidates. At the turn of the century, the focus was mainly on Peru and Brazil to encourage second- and third-generation Japanese to return to their homeland. This attempt was unsuccessful, so much so that incentives had to be offered to encourage many Japanese-Brazilians whose integration had failed to return to South America.
In the second decade of the 21st century, the policy shifted towards one that was both restrictive and selective, with the granting of numerous temporary work permits for skilled workers, preferably from East Asian countries. However, it was with the fall of the Abe government and the advent of successive cabinets much more inclined to listen to internationalist voices that Japan began to support the need for not only a formal opening of its borders, but above all a social one. Since 2020, there has been an increase in workers from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, and, above all, for the first time in government guidelines (approved on June 16, 2025), there is talk of a “multicultural coexistence society” (tabunka kyōsei shakai), a term that had previously only been used in pilot experiments in certain local contexts.
Needless to say, in Japan this milestone was preceded by subtle and creeping campaigns in favor of a multiracial and mixed-race society, with images that Europe has been accustomed to for decades: advertisements and TV programs emphasizing mixed couples (mostly native women and colored men), a proliferation of social media phenomena involving mainly African influencers seeking to gain acceptance for their lifestyle among the Japanese (with skits in the subway, on the street, or even in tourist and sacred places, then disseminated via social media), and simultaneous reassurances from the government that the country would only open up to “regular” and “productive” immigrants. In the meantime, however, Tokyo has been working on watering down the Japanese lifestyle to encourage ‘welcoming’, with a reform of school curricula in 2022 very similar to those seen in Italy with the ‘Buona scuola’ (Good School) reform, with the new Gakushū shidō yōryō (teaching guidelines) in which, particularly for history and geography, the learning of basic concepts is replaced by ‘critical thinking’, i.e. indoctrination on migration, climate change and ‘rights’.
This situation was behind the collapse in votes for the majority parties in the last Japanese elections, with the rise of the far-right Sanseitō party, which openly denounces the risks of ethnic replacement for Japan, and the consequent resignation of Ishiba.
Takaeshi: a reversal of the trend or a paper tiger?
This test will be the one on which Takaichi Sanae’s nobility will be judged. So far, her public statements on the issue of immigration have been very ‘diplomatic’. Ranked among the anti-immigration radicals, Takaichi has expressed her opposition to illegal immigration and so-called ‘overstayers’, i.e. foreigners who remain in Japan after their residence permits have expired. In reality, these figures are negligible in Japan compared to Italian disastrous standards: less than 75,000 individuals, mostly from Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. At the same time, Takaichi has declared a crackdown on false refugees granted political asylum: in Japan, there are fewer than 13,000 asylum seekers, with negligible rates of acceptance. Recent reforms should loosen the net of reception procedures, in line with the pro-immigration policies of the Ishiba government.
However, these realities are entirely marginal. The real breach is that of workers entering legally, thanks to policies that are increasingly favorable to the importation of more or less skilled labor through official channels. Japan also has its own ‘open door policy’, which in the last decade have doubled the number of foreigners on the archipelago, now exceeding 3% of the population. After the pause imposed by Covid, the annual ‘trend’ of admissions has actually tripled, increasing the number of immigrants in Japan by one million between 2021 and 2024.
The extent to which the new Takaichi cabinet will really break with its predecessors will therefore be seen on this front. For a country in demographic crisis such as Japan, the risk of being overwhelmed by an avalanche of young immigrants is enormous: will Takaichi Sanae be willing to nip the ethnic replacement of the Japanese in the bud, following the example of Orban in Hungary? Or will she be one of the many campaign lions who roar on the podium at rallies and then purr in parliament when it comes to approving open-door policies to please international lobbies and employers’ organizations?
[Note: in this article, we have chosen to use the Japanese practice of placing the surname before the first name]
Photo credits: Dean Calma / IAEA
