Japan has overhauled its overseas arms transfer regulations, a move analysts said paves the way for the country to export high-end weapons and defence platforms, including sixth-generation fighter jets. On April 21, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced that her cabinet had amended the Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology and the accompanying implementation guidelines that had constituted Japan’s framework for controlling military hardware and technology...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has started the process of overhauling the country’s major security policies, arguing that Japan must boost its military power in the face of geopolitical threats, including those from China. A Chinese expert said Takaichi’s statements during a gathering of experts tasked with overhauling key policy documents signalled a “fundamental” shift in Tokyo’s strategy, with the country’s security road map likely to become “more aggressive”. Beijing, meanwhile,...
Japan’s first female prime minister is facing a growing backlash from women new to political activism, as alarm spreads over her government’s push to revise the country’s pacifist constitution and expand its role in arms exports. The women are part of a protest wave that has grown from a few thousand people in late February to tens of thousands outside the National Diet in Tokyo, where demonstrators have rallied against constitutional revision, weapons exports and what they see as Japan’s drift...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi complained she was not getting enough sleep, a veteran politician who met her on Thursday said. The remark came as Takaichi’s premiership recently reached the six-month mark. After winning her ruling party’s leadership election in October, putting her on course to become Japan’s first female prime minister, she vowed to “work, work, work, work and work”, a phrase that became a catchphrase in 2025. “I want to get a little more sleep,” the 65-year-old prime...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sent a ritual offering on Tuesday to a shrine honouring the country’s war dead that has long angered neighbouring countries but did not visit in person, media reports and an unidentified source close to the matter said. The Yasukuni shrine in central Tokyo is dedicated to 2.5 million war dead, mostly Japanese, who perished in conflicts since the late 19th century. That number includes senior military and political figures convicted by an international...
Reports of friction inside Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suggest Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s biggest political challenge may now lie not with the opposition, but within her own party. Despite her strong public standing after February’s general election, reports have grown louder that Takaichi is clashing with the LDP’s influential old guard, notably former prime minister Taro Aso. Japanese tabloids, which are often more willing than the mainstream press to air insider...
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi says the government has set up a crisis management team following the strong earthquake.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been putting her own spin on omotenashi, the Japanese concept of hospitality, to build personal rapport with foreign leaders as her diplomatic skills are put to the test about six months into office. Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, who was not widely known for her diplomatic experience before taking office, has been adding an element of entertainment to summit talks and relying on personal gifts to win over her counterparts. Most...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pursuing the first ever revision of her country’s post-World War II pacifist constitution, a step that observers say is likely to be welcomed in Washington and condemned in Beijing. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured a historic two-thirds majority in the National Diet’s lower house in February’s election, passing the threshold needed to pass constitutional amendments without other parties’ support. “An independent constitutional amendment...
Japan’s public has once again signalled strong support for a woman ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader, is pushing in a different direction. A Mainichi newspaper poll published on Wednesday found that 61 per cent of respondents believed the law should be changed to allow a woman to become emperor, against just 9 per cent who said the throne should remain reserved for a man. The emperor is defined in the 1947 constitution as...
Hard rock enthusiast Sanae Takaichi beamed as she met the rockers in her Tokyo office.
Legendary British rock band Deep Purple made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan on Friday as they returned to the country they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer and fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favourite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi...
The Japanese government is arranging summit talks with Iran, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Monday, with tensions mounting in the Middle East as US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz approaches. “We are preparing dialogues at the leadership level at an appropriate time,” Takaichi told a parliamentary committee when asked by an opposition lawmaker about Japan’s diplomatic efforts regarding the US-Israeli war with Iran. “Japan will make every effort...