Less than two months after her historic victory to become Japan’s first female prime minister, Takaichi Sanae stood before a bank of microphones and opposition lawmakers, looking somber. A diplomatic crisis was already raging.
Ms. Takaichi’s honest but unscripted comments about Tokyo’s possible military support for Taiwan had drawn a ballistic reaction from China, Japan’s top trading partner. Beijing lashed out, restricting vital commerce and the flow of Chinese tourists on which Japan – the world’s fourth-largest economy – depends.
As the showdown with China escalated, Beijing demanded the new prime minister retract her statement, which also drew criticism from her opponents at home. At the time, her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was relatively weak, and nobody knew how she would handle the crisis.
Why We Wrote This
Takaichi Sanae’s unapologetic ambition, political savvy, and work ethic drove her to Japan’s top political post – and are now helping her navigate one of the most challenging first years for a prime minister in the country’s history.
Pressed once more on her Taiwan comments during a Dec. 16 hearing in the Parliament, or Diet, she hunched forward slightly. “I will take this as a point for reflection,” she deflected. But she did not back down.
The China feud marked Ms. Takaichi’s first trial by fire, and a consequential moment for Japan – the main U.S. ally in Asia and a leading technological and financial power. Since weathering that storm, Ms. Takaichi has confronted one crisis after another, from the Iran war and Washington’s distraction from Asia, to domestic issues such as fuel prices and constitutional reform. So far, she has met each challenge with steely resolve, cementing her place in Japan’s top elected post – an unforgiving office that claimed three other prime ministers in the five years before her.
The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP/File
In many ways, Ms. Takaichi represents a refreshing change from her recent predecessors. As a woman, she shattered a formidable glass ceiling in Japan’s patriarchal society to rise to the premiership. Unlike many of the men before her, she comes from a working-class family rather than from an elite political household. And her style contrasts with their more staid profiles. A former rock band drummer, Ms. Takaichi still picks up the sticks – and recently held a jam session with South Korea’s president.
“Japanese politics has only been done by middle- to old-age men,” making Ms. Takaichi doubly popular, says Miura Mari, a law professor at Sophia University and expert in women in Japanese politics.
Ms. Takaichi also stands out as a staunch conservative in the mold of her protégé, the late, long-serving Japanese leader Abe Shinzo, who was assassinated four years ago while campaigning for the LDP. She favors a strong military and seeks to revise Japan’s postwar Constitution to legitimize its armed forces. Socially, she opposes same-sex marriage and a movement to allow Japanese women to keep their maiden surnames after marriage.
She deeply admires British stateswoman Margaret Thatcher, and frequently sports a blue suit and pearls in her image.
“My goal is to become the ‘Iron Lady’” of Japan, she said shortly before her election victory last October. Her first year in office is shaping up to be a test of her mettle.
Takaichi’s roots
Ms. Takaichi grew up in Nara, Japan’s ancient capital, in the 1960s. Her father worked at an automotive firm. Her mother, a police officer, left Ms. Takaichi in the care of another family when working night shifts.
“We had our baths and meals together. We were just like sisters,” recalls Kita Hiroko, the daughter of a couple who sometimes watched Ms. Takaichi.
The girls attended the same kindergarten and primary school. Ms. Takaichi was cheerful, gentle, and a good singer, says Ms. Kita.
“We would stop by the lollipop shops, and [Ms. Takaichi] would start singing using the lollipop as a pretend microphone” and the steps of a nearby shrine as a stage, she recalls.
“People came by and clapped,” she says – early encouragement for public life.
Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
Yet her family’s modest circumstances and traditional views on raising a daughter presented challenges for a young Ms. Takaichi. After high school, she passed entrance exams for prestigious private universities in Tokyo, but her parents refused to pay her tuition if she left home. So she commuted six hours a day to study business at Kobe University, and worked part time to help pay the bills.
Ms. Takaichi longed for greater independence. She played drums in a heavy-metal band, and rode motorcycles. After graduating from Kobe in 1984, she began weighing a career in politics. Ms. Kita remembers getting a call from Ms. Takaichi out of the blue.
“She confided in me, and said, ‘I want to be a politician, and I want to be prime minister. What do you think?’” Ms. Kita says, her face falling serious as she revisits the moment at a busy Nara tea shop decades later.
At the time, only a few countries had women leading their governments. Japan, where women made up less than 4% of Parliament, seemed far from joining their ranks.
Ms. Kita was concerned about the young woman she considered a sister, but gave heartfelt encouragement. “Well, we only live once,” she recalls telling her. “You can challenge anything.”
That same year, Ms. Takaichi entered the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management in Tokyo. In 1987, Matsushita sponsored her to become a U.S. congressional fellow and intern for U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Colorado Democrat who had just made a bid for president. Later, Ms. Takaichi praised Ms. Schroeder’s scrappiness and all it taught her about democratic campaigning. She reportedly kept portraits of Ms. Schroeder and Ms. Thatcher in her office for years.
But back home, Japanese women had made far fewer gains than their U.S. counterparts in electoral politics.
Ms. Takaichi found work as an economics teacher and television host until 1992. Then she made her first run for office, campaigning as an independent for a parliamentary seat representing Nara. She lost the race – but not her determination.
Several months later, Ms. Takaichi met Arai Yukitoshi, a local hairdresser, during dinner with a mutual acquaintance. They went out to karaoke after, and Mr. Arai recalls how she introduced herself to other patrons throughout the night. After several Japanese pop duets, Ms. Takaichi went home early to write a speech for the next morning.
She was campaigning once again – this time for a seat representing Nara in Japan’s powerful lower house.
“She told me she wanted to become prime minister,” says Mr. Arai, who would go on to become Ms. Takaichi’s hairdresser and takes credit for the short-cropped “Sanae cut” she wears today. “I was impressed.”
Lacking a family political pedigree, Ms. Takaichi built a support base in her hometown from the ground up, winning the seat in 1993.
Behind the worn wooden counter of his 170-year-old pickled vegetable shop in Nara, Imanishi Yasuhiro recalls getting to know Ms. Takaichi during regular constituent meetings. “She’s cheerful and has a sense of humor,” he says, wrapping up a package of pickled cucumber and squash.
He’s both surprised and proud to see Ms. Takaichi rise to the premiership. “I never expected a lawmaker from Nara to become prime minister,” he says. “We have no famous people in Nara!”
Under Abe’s wing
On the evening of Sept. 7, 2021, Ms. Takaichi paid a quiet visit to a private home in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. She was seeking advice and support from her mentor, the man who had inspired her beliefs and shaped her political agenda: Mr. Abe.
After briefly joining an opposition party in the 1990s, Ms. Takaichi was recruited as a lawmaker by the LDP, which has ruled Japan for most of its postwar history.
Over the following 30 years, she worked her way up the ladder of ministerial posts and LDP policy groups. At every step, she was backed by Mr. Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. In 2015, he described her as an “increasingly active” and “core” member of his Cabinet.
Ms. Takaichi faithfully embraced Mr. Abe’s brand of conservative nationalism, with its focus on a strong defense, economic security, and immigration restrictions.
On social issues, she is arguably more conservative than her mentor, who made boosting women’s participation in the workforce a centerpiece of his agenda. In contrast, Ms. Takaichi has avoided framing her policies as a means to gender equality. She fiercely defends traditional family values.
Dr. Miura says Ms. Takaichi had to adopt such right-wing positions to win acceptance from her male peers and the electorate.
“To succeed, you can’t be a feminist. You have to be conservative,” she says.
Today, her relationship with feminism is complicated. While Dr. Miura and others have criticized the LDP for using Ms. Takaichi to cleanse its image after a period of revolving-door leadership and party scandals – a move she calls the “Sanae wash” – many still welcomed her election as a sign of progress. Some feminists in Japan, especially older ones, have chosen not to criticize Ms. Takaichi’s social views.
“Women in their 60s … know you have to make so many sacrifices to survive,” she says.
And, in fact, Ms. Takaichi thrived. By 2021, Ms. Takaichi had transformed from a rising star of Nara politics to a veteran conservative lawmaker. Still, even her longtime supporters were shocked by her ambition when she entered the race to lead the LDP, backed by Mr. Abe and his faction.
“We only half believed it,” says Nara Toyota President Kikuchi Osamu, who had first met Ms. Takaichi when she strode into his Nara office and introduced herself in 1992.
Ms. Takaichi lost the 2021 race, and faced narrow defeat again in 2024. But through these bids, “she showed us her tenaciousness, especially at a time when women’s social advancement was not welcomed in Japan,” he reflects.
In her own right
In her now-iconic cobalt suit and pearls, Ms. Takaichi stood among a sea of seated LDP officials – about 90% of them men – bowing rapidly in all directions. It was Oct. 4, 2025, and Ms. Takaichi had just beaten four contenders to win the LDP presidency, setting herself up for the nation’s top job.
“I myself will throw away the very phrase ‘work-life balance,’” she vowed from the podium. “I will work, work, work, and keep on working.”
Within days, Ms. Takaichi became Japan’s prime minister, buoyed by her reputation as a star protégé of Mr. Abe.
Japanese women broadly welcomed her rise.
“It’s a good thing for Japan to finally have a female prime minister. It means Japan has changed a little bit,” says Masuda Masayo, a school nurse, pausing as she photographed weeping cherry trees in Japan’s Fukushima region.
But almost immediately, the crises began – starting with China.
On Nov. 7, Ms. Takaichi was asked in Parliament how Japan would respond if China imposed a maritime blockade of Taiwan, a democratic island that China claims as part of its sovereign territory. Ms. Takaichi replied that could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, meaning it could justify the use of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
Outraged, Beijing officials demanded Ms. Takaichi retract her words, warning of dire consequences and imposing a string of sanctions.
But Beijing’s pressure backfired by instigating broader public support for her leadership. She took a big gamble and seized on the moment, calling a snap parliamentary election in February. That resulted in the LDP winning its biggest parliamentary majority ever.
“So far, she is doing well,” says Kanehara Nobukatsu, a former top Cabinet official and national security aide to Mr. Abe. He describes Ms. Takaichi as “crown princess of the Abe faction.”
But less than three weeks after Ms. Takaichi’s landslide win, the next crisis hit. This time, it came not from a potential adversary, but from Japan’s No. 1 ally: the United States.
Toward a new global posture
“No Trump! No Takaichi!” protesters chanted outside the Diet building in Tokyo.
Japan’s deeply pacifist public took to the streets this spring, as U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Tokyo for not backing the Iran war and demanded that it deploy warships to the Strait of Hormuz – something Japan’s postwar constitution prohibits. Ms. Takaichi then announced a new push to amend that constitution, and effectively loosen the reins on Japan’s military.
“It seems the government is moving towards war,” says Matsumoto Rieko, who runs a kimono rental shop and marched with other Japanese April 19.
The Iran conflict has also jeopardized Ms. Takaichi’s economic agenda as the oil shock threatened to worsen inflation in Japan, which depends on imports for 95% of its crude oil. More broadly, Ms. Takaichi had to confront the withdrawal of U.S. military assets from Asia, raising concerns about Washington’s longer-term security commitments in the region.
Even her supporters began to worry.
“I have big expectations that she can do something for the Japanese people,” says Ito Norishige, a retiree from Kobe, Japan, near Nara. “But I am afraid Trump is a liability for her.”
Nevertheless, Ms. Takaichi has so far tackled the challenges – pushing ahead decisively at home and abroad, and signaling a new leadership role for Japan in Asia.
As the oil shock hit, she quickly approved the release of Japan’s strategic reserves, shielding consumers from rising prices. She then moved to strike stockpiling agreements and strengthen energy supply chains with other Asian countries through her Partnership on Wide Energy and Resources Resilience Asia initiative.
Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
Working-class Japanese welcome Ms. Takaichi’s emphasis on economic security. “She seems to understand ordinary people’s lives,” says Hanami Akiko, racing to serve customers steaming bowls of ramen at her family restaurant in Fukushima. “Her hard-working attitude has empowered us.”
Meanwhile, Ms. Takaichi updated and expanded Mr. Abe’s 2016 Free and Open Indo-Pacific Framework, which formed the basis for the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, and forged a working relationship with Mr. Trump – in part through the deft use of flattery. At the Group of Seven meeting in France in June, Mr. Trump referred to Ms. Takaichi as his “biggest fan.”
Faced with China’s massive military buildup and a growing threat from North Korea, she’s also moved to boost defense and security ties with countries in Asia, Australia, and Europe.
“As Japan’s ‘Iron Lady,’ I am strongly determined to bring about the necessary transformation,” she wrote in a June op-ed in the Financial Times about fostering “agency and resilience” in a turbulent world.
Still, supporters and critics alike voice concern that Ms. Takaichi’s strengths could become drawbacks, especially if her electoral mandate empowers her to shut down opposing voices within her cabinet, creating an echo chamber. And some of Ms. Takaichi’s fiercest supporters – including close allies from her Nara and Abe years – worry she is setting an unsustainable pace.
For his part, Mr. Arai, the hairdresser, wants to see Ms. Takaichi eat healthier food – swapping her favorite octopus dumplings for the Japanese superfood natto, for instance – and get more sleep. He says he texted the prime minister on her birthday in March, and “was a bit concerned” when she responded at 3 a.m.
Mr. Kanehara, the Abe aide, agrees that Ms. Takaichi would benefit from leaning on her Cabinet. “She has good ministers around her,” he says. “She needs to use them.”
