Justin McCurry (3:10)

She's 64, which is, you know, fairly young for a Japanese politician. There are plenty of them in their 70s and even early 80s. But she does come from an unconventional background in the sense that she's not an hereditary politician. So she doesn't have a well known father or grandfather who served as Prime Minister or minister in previous governments. That's quite common among Japanese politicians, particularly those who rise through the ranks. You know, her mother was a police officer, her dad worked for a Toyota affiliate. She had a sort of fairly ordinary middle class upbringing in Nara, which is a city in western Japan that she now represents. But she was bright. She went to Kobe University, which is a good university, which is where I think she fell in love with drumming. She got into motorcycling. There are old photos of her sitting on motorcycles. And then she spent time working in the media. She also did an internship at the US Congress. She sort of steadily became a leading light in the conservative right of the party that's governed Japan almost without interruption since the end of the war, the Liberal Democratic Party. And she's a protege of perhaps Japan's most famous post war prime minister, and that's Shinzo Abe, who was of course assassinated three, four years ago.

Helen Pitt (4:36)

Indeed he was. And Takechi won the LDP leadership race in October last year, becoming Prime Minister with initially a very slim majority. And then she took this huge gamble in February by calling a snap election. And she emerged not just victorious, but with more than two thirds of the vote, which gives her huge power to change the country, as we'll come on to discuss. But before we do that, and at the risk of sounding a bit basic, I must admit that she came on my radar via social media, where she seems to be always having a right old time. Can you just tell us what is she like as a person and how she has managed to inspire what looks almost like a bit of a personality cult in Japan.

Justin McCurry (5:15)

When I think about the devotion that she has attracted in her followers and her voters, particularly young Japanese, then perhaps personality cult isn't that far wide of the mark. So she, she posts a lot on X, you know, far more than any of her predecessors. And she sometimes, apart from the fun stuff, she also goes into quite a lot of detail about policy and also answers some of her critics directly through the lens of social media, which is something that her predecessors didn't do. As a personality. For some people, some of her behavior in public is being described as embarrassing.

Helen Pitt (5:58)

Oh really? Like what?

Justin McCurry (6:00)

Well, when she, I mean, I, I quite liked it when she sang Happy Birthday in Italian to Giorgio Meloni. There was a time during her trip in March to Washington and she met Donald Trump and he was showing her around the White House. And then there was the auto pen photo replace the portrait of Joe Biden. And she kind of let out an exaggerated laugh and sort of jumped up and down a bit and people thought that was slightly embarrassing. And on the same trip, she was sitting in the Oval Room with Donald Trump and said to him directly in Japanese, donald using his first name, you're the only leader who can bring peace to the world. And I think a lot of people back here, perhaps even people who might have voted for her, thought that that was just a little too fawning. And you know, obviously given recent events, kind of defies logic in many ways.

Helen Pitt (7:12)

Yeah. And I guess when I suggested that she'd spawned a personality cult, it's cause I've seen some of the merchandise that she's inspired and I can tell you I've never seen anybody in a Keir Starmer T shirt. I've never seen anybody, anybody thinking, oh, I would love to have the handbag that Theresa May carried when she was Prime Minister. Tell us a little bit about the merch.

Justin McCurry (7:33)

Yeah, well, there are shops in the Japanese National Diet building where you like gift shops.

Helen Pitt (7:39)

That's the parliament, isn't it? The National Diet?

Justin McCurry (7:41)

Yeah, that's the Japanese Parliament. And you can buy all sorts of stuff there. But Takaichi themed souvenirs are selling really well. And in fact, Japanese people love buying themed merchandise and souvenirs where they go. And Takechi is certainly taking advantage of that.

Helen Pitt (7:59)

You have plastic folders with the Prime Minister feeding a deer a keychain of the Prime Minister. And these cookies have the US President Donald Trump on them too. Conservative leader.

Justin McCurry (8:11)

Somebody I know, a Japanese voter who isn't a natural LDP voter, told me after she was elected Prime Minister, she said, well, she's a little bit like the chatty, smiley, but quite formidable middle aged woman who lives down the road who you can, you know, you'll stop you in the street and have a chat. And, you know, while she's very easy to get on with, you probably wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her either. And I think a lot of people kind of relate to that, especially after decades of having older male Prime Ministers who feel far less approachable and seem to occupy the Nagatacho bubble. Nagatacho being the sort of Japanese answer to Westminster.

Helen Pitt (8:55)

Right. And I hear that she reveres Margaret Thatcher. And Thatcher, of course, was famous for subsisting on very little sleep. Is Takechi also a bit of a Workaholic, would you say?

Justin McCurry (9:05)

Just after she became prime minister, she promised the people of Japan that she was gonna work, work, work. And I think that's another reason why a lot of people thought, oh, okay, right now here we have somebody who's not interested in her career as much as public service, which makes a refreshing change. But that's beginning to cause her problems because she's definitely lost weight and she's had one or two minor health problems. She attracted a lot of attention, not all of it positive, when she summoned some of her staff to her residence in the early hours of the morning just so that they could prepare her answers for a debate later that day. And people were saying, look, there's working hard is one thing, and working hard for the country is one thing, but expecting your colleagues to do the same is probably unsustainable.

Helen Pitt (9:58)

Yeah. Because isn't there such a thing as sort of concept in Japan of death from overwork?

Justin McCurry (10:02)

Yeah. A karoshi. There's an actual word for it. Yeah.

Helen Pitt (10:05)

Can we just talk about how big or little a role her gender plays in how she does politics? Because I think some people don't actually see her election as a win for gender equality, do they? Why is that?

Justin McCurry (10:19)

Yeah, for a few good reasons. I think anyone who expected Takaichi as Prime Minister to be sort of a champion of some of the issues that have been pushed by progressive Japanese. Japanese feminists over the past few years and decades, they were naive because all they had to do was look at her track record. So there are three, I suppose you could sort of call them culture war battlegrounds in Japan at the moment. One is whether women should be allowed to be become reigning empresses as opposed to the spouse of the reigning emperor. The second is whether married couples should be allowed to keep separate surnames. When you get married in Japan, you have to choose one or the other. You can't keep the name you had before you were married. In the vast majority of cases, well over 90%, I think the woman, the wife will take her husband's name. And the third is whether Japan should legalize same sex marriages. Now, she is opposed to same sex marriage. She's opposed to allowing married couples to keep separate surnames, and she's opposed to having female empresses.

Helen Pitt (11:33)

And it seems like everybody. Well, foreign leaders seem to be queuing up to meet her, to visit her. Keir Starmer's been over there, as you say. She's been to Washington to meet Trump. She's been hanging out with Georgia Maloney. I guess it's not just, I presume, that she's fun to hang out with, but because Japan right now occupies a particularly important geopolitical position. Why do you think that she is in such demand?

Justin McCurry (11:57)

It's partly down to the novelty factor of having a female Japanese prime minister. But as you say, you know, Japan, along with South Korea, their US Military allies, security allies, they're in a particularly unstable part of the world. Of course, there are other parts of the world that are actually at war at the moment, but the predictions have always been that the Asia Pacific will be the next major flashpoint for. For two reasons. One, because of North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, and also, you know, Chinese designs on. On Taiwan. If the Taiwan Strait is, as some people have said, to be the spark that lights World War iii, then Japan is going to very much be in the thick of that.

Helen Pitt (12:49)

And what kind of Japan has she taken the reins of right now, kind of economically? Because I'm assuming when I think of Japan, and this might sting any Japanese listeners, but I think of it as a former economic powerhouse, and that's probably because I'm a 90s kid. When Japan was the place, it was the future. And it feels a bit like South Korea has stolen a march on Japan in recent years as Japan's population has aged. Aged. How is Japan looking right now?

Justin McCurry (13:18)

I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned Japan's aging population, and that is also something that South Korea is battling with as well. So there are all sorts of concerns, especially among younger people, about, about their pensions and then among policymakers, how Japan is going to afford to pay for health care and welfare costs for a ballooning elderly population, population of older people. So I think it's those structural issues that pose the biggest danger to the Japanese economy in the long run.

Helen Pitt (13:54)

And what does the new prime minister want to do about these domestic problems? What is her vision for Japan?

Justin McCurry (13:59)

I think her main focus so far is Japanese security. And in fact, on that same visit to the White House, she said that she wanted to repeat in the Oval Office something that her mentor Shinzo Abe had said several years ago when he was with Trump. And she ended, she said in English, Japan is back. And I think for her, that's less to do with economic power and more to do with military power.

Helen Pitt (14:30)

Yeah. Which we're going to come on to talk to. And when it comes to these demographic challenges that you've outlined, what's her prescription for that? Is she. Does she think that there should be more immigrants let into Japan in order to fill the workforce shortages, when in

Justin McCurry (14:44)

fact, when Abe was Prime minister, he came to the realization that the solution is immigration and relaxing Japan's strict rules on immigration and guest workers, sort of migrant workers. And there is a record number of foreign workers In Japan now, 2.6 million. And that's out of a population of around 125 million, mainly young people from other parts of Asia who work in food service industry, in farming, in fishing, in manufacturing. But she's also under pressure to do something to curb, guess what, immigration, partly because fringe parties to the right of the LDP have become more popular. But at the same time, she knows full well the massive contribution that migrants make to the Japanese economy.

Helen Pitt (15:39)

Let's talk a bit about her approach to foreign policy and defence and security. And I think before we do that, it's probably worth you laying out what I think are her fairly controversial views on Japanese history.

Justin McCurry (15:51)

Yeah, she's a historical revisionist and, you know, she's part of a movement within Japanese conservatism, particularly in recent decades, that wants to end what they call the masochism, Japan's view of its conduct during the war.

Helen Pitt (16:07)

Masochism. Gosh.

Justin McCurry (16:09)

So to put that in context, a big part of that is to offer a different explanation. Some would say whitewash Japan's conduct during and before the Second World War, during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and its invasion of parts of China, and to sort of end this culture of constantly apologizing for actions made by people seven, eight decades ago.

Helen Pitt (16:37)

She recently initiated a plan to amend Japan's pacifist constitution and its kind of no war clause, which was established after the Second World War at the behest of the Americans, I think. And to do that, she will use the 2 3rd majority that she was able to win when she gambled on the snap election in February. Sanae Takaichi has successfully secured a historic supermajority in the February 8th 8th snap election. Talk us through what she wants to do there and how controversial that's proving in Japan.

Justin McCurry (17:09)

It's going to be another year before we know exactly what Takechi wants to do to the pacifist constitution. But it's no secret that she is not an admirer of Article 9 of the Constitution, which is this key clause of the Japanese constitution and what it does, and this is the official wording, it means that Japan renounces war as a sovereign right and prohibits the maintenance of armed forces with war potential. And then it goes on to say that Japan must never threaten or use force to resolve international disputes. So what that means in practical terms is that Japan can only use military force as a purely defensive measure if it comes under attack first. It's actually important to say that legislation has been passed in the past decade that kind of stretches that interpretation so that Japan might be able to come to the aid of an ally, that is the United States. But if you're looking at purely at what the Constitution says, then Japan can only use military force as a defensive response, which is why the Japanese military is actually called the Self Defense Forces.

Helen Pitt (18:27)

Oh, is it?

Justin McCurry (18:28)

Yeah, she could do the least possible, which would be to specifically mention the Self Defense Forces because they're currently not mentioned. So that's one end of the spectrum. At the other end would be to. Yeah, to scrap Article 9 and replace it with something that, that, in her words, would make Japan a more normal, quote unquote, normal country. That is to be able to not be restrained by this purely self defensive posture and to be able to freely join allies in wars overseas. I mean, in the current context, that could mean sending Japanese forces to the Strait of Hormuz to fight along the Americans and the Israelis.

Helen Pitt (19:15)

Well, Trump would like that.

Justin McCurry (19:16)

Trump would love that. And in fact did ask her to do that, and she had to say no because of the constraints placed on her by the Constitution.

Commercial Advertiser (19:25)

Look, I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship and we step up at Japan. We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. We have, we spend a lot of money on Japan. So I hear they get more than 90.

Helen Pitt (19:39)

She was quite sort of reluctant, wasn't she, when she said no. Yeah, but this feels like a huge deal in a country that had two atomic bombs dropped on it.

Justin McCurry (19:47)

It is. And once the debate gathers pace, it's gonna be incredibly controversial. And again, it's one of those issues where it's difficult to say the Japanese public want this or don't want this, because I think if it was just a question of giving legal recognition to the Self Defense Forces, then I think about 6 opinion polls suggested about 60% of Japanese are in favor of that. But if it's wholesale rewriting or scrapping of Article 9 and a total renunciation of Japan's post war pacifism, then it's going to be a lot more complicated. There's an important generational factor in that. A lot of people, they remember the absolute misery of Japan's militarist past and they remember its aftermath.

Commercial Advertiser (20:42)

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Helen Pitt (20:49)

Everything I was seeing turned To White.

Justin McCurry (20:54)

There are still lots of people who survived the atomic bombing of August 1945. And the same goes for Nagasaki. And it's difficult to overstate how much it meant and still means to a certain generation of Japanese to live and look forward in a country that was finally at peace with its neighbors and at peace with itself. And I think that's why it still, you know, touches a nerve with so many people. If for some reason Takaichi had been able to stretch the definition of the constitution and use some of the laws on collective self defense and all the rest of it and send a Japanese minesweeper or something to the Strait of Hormuz and a single Japanese sailor had been killed, her popularity would just plummet within minutes of that news being broken. It's a huge risk.

Helen Pitt (21:50)

Yeah. And how is opposition building to these proposals, the specter of such a huge change?

Justin McCurry (21:58)

Yeah, well, it's building outside parliament. That's the first point to make because most MPs are in favor of some sort of constitutional reform. But what we've seen in the last few weeks is a wave of demonstrations all over Japan, all of the big cities, a lot of the bigger towns, but also here in Tokyo, outside the Diet building. According to One study, I think 6, 60% of all of the protesters have been women. But we've seen these wave of demonstrations, first of all, calling for an immediate end to the Iran war, secondly, demanding that Japan not get involved. And third, and perhaps most important in the long term, that Takahichi abandon any idea of altering Japan's peace constitution.

Helen Pitt (22:59)

How unusual. You know, you're a Vera veteran Tokyo correspondent, been there for decades. How significant do these protests feel?

Justin McCurry (23:07)

The protests do feel like a moment for me. And you know, as you say, I've been here a long time, but it feels like there's something different about these, that the vast majority of the people there are just people who may not have been particularly interested in politics or geopolitics in the past, but now that they see this looming threat, they've decided to come out and show their support.

Helen Pitt (23:38)

Coming up, can Japan remain pacifist in an increasingly dangerous world?

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Helen Pitt (25:41)

And just in looking on from many thousands of miles away, you can see why Takechi feels that Japan might need to be more assertive militarily. Because it is surrounded by nuclear armed adversaries in China and Russia and North Korea and it's in a very vulnerable position.

Justin McCurry (25:57)

Japan is located in a geopolitically complicated area and potentially one that could turn nasty quite quickly. And then of course there's the perennial Taiwan question, whether China thinks that now or sometime in the not too distant future would be the right time for them to make a move on Taiwan, a democratic, self governed island that Beijing regards as a renegade province that will one day be reunited with the Chinese motherland. So Japan is in a precarious position and I don't think many people would argue with the fact that Japan needs to be able to defend itself. And I think that's been given more urgency under Trump's sort of second time in the White House, because although he's always insisted that it's time for Japan to take more responsibility for its own defense and to pay more towards the bilateral security relationship, in the last year or so, I think there is this feeling that if something were to happen in Taiwan and Japan were to be drawn into that in some way, could we rely on the United States to come to our aid?

Helen Pitt (27:09)

And what was Takechi actually said about what she thinks Japan should do if China attacks Taiwan?

Justin McCurry (27:16)

She was in parliament and somebody asked her a question about Taiwan and apparently she had a scripted, answer that would have have probably not even been commented on very much. But she started again, reportedly ad libbing and said, well, if there were to be a conflict in The Taiwan Strait, then Japan would have the right to become militarily involved because having a war involving a superpower like China on our doorstep would pose a threat to Japan's very existence. And of course, that has set off a. A huge row between Japan and China that is now at least a couple of months old and doesn't really show much sign of slowing down.

Commercial Advertiser (28:00)

China's Consul General in Osaka saying that if the Japanese Prime Minister was to stick her head into Taiwan, well, I think I should go and cut it off. It's nasty language like that. We've got the ex Global Times.

Helen Pitt (28:14)

And what has China said that it will do if she does manage to change the constitution?

Justin McCurry (28:21)

They haven't said explicitly what their reaction would be. What the Chinese government quite often does is to talk about Japan's dangerous slide back into militarism and that Japan's leaders should reflect on Japan's wartime atrocities and, you know, resolve never to. To repeat the past. It hasn't really gone beyond that stage at the moment. But what I think would happen is, you know, possibly we could see a Northeast Asia arms race.

Helen Pitt (28:53)

Oh, God.

Justin McCurry (28:54)

That's going to inevitably prompt discussions on spending more on arms in Japan, on defense. In fact, Japan already does. You know, one of the first things Takaichi said was that she would raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by around now. Actually, it's traditionally been around 1%. Last week, Japan's cabinet approved plans to start selling lethal weaponry overseas for the first time since the war. So things are moving in that direction.

Helen Pitt (29:25)

How likely is it, do you think, that she will be able to implement this really radical agenda and accomplish everything that she's set out to do.

Justin McCurry (29:35)

Yeah, as I was saying, it really depends on what form that takes, whether it's just sort of tweaking the wording to include the Self Defense Forces or whether it's wholesale revision. But I think that the Japanese public just don't have the appetite for it at the moment. Unless it's something almost imperceptible that doesn't really change the nature of Japan's defense policy. If it's something more fundamental than that, then I can see Takaichi really falling at the final hurdle.

Helen Pitt (30:08)

How fascinating. Justin, thank you very much. That was Justin McCurry, our Tokyo correspondent. You can read all of his coverage of japan@theguardian.com and that is all for today. This episode was produced by Joe Pinner and Guys Afman and presented by me, Helen Pitt. Sound design was by Ross Burns. The executive producer was Hummer Khalili we'll be back in your feeds this afternoon with the latest. This is the Guardian.

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