Sanae Takaichi (高市 早苗, Takaichi Sanae; born 7 March 1961) is a Japanese politician who has been Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since October 2025. She is the first woman to hold either of these positions in Japanese history. A member of the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and since 2005, she also held ministerial posts during the premierships of Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida.
Born and raised in Tenri, Nara Prefecture, Takaichi graduated from Kobe University and worked as an author, legislative aide, and broadcaster before beginning her political career. Elected as an independent to the House of Representatives in the 1993 general election, she joined the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1996. A protégé of Prime Minister Abe, she held various positions during Abe's premiership, most notably as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. She was a candidate in the 2021 LDP leadership election, but was eliminated before the runoff, achieving third place. From 2022 to 2024, during Kishida's premiership, she served as the Minister of State for Economic Security.
Takaichi made her second run for the party leadership in the 2024 leadership election, where she came in first in the first round but narrowly lost in a runoff to her predecessor Shigeru Ishiba. She ran for the third time in the 2025 leadership election and placed first in both rounds of voting, defeating Shinjirō Koizumi, and becoming the party's first female president. Following the end of the LDP–Komeito coalition, Takaichi secured a coalition agreement with the Japan Innovation Party, and was elected prime minister by the National Diet on 21 October. Early in her premiership, Takaichi faced a diplomatic crisis with China after a statement she made regarding Japan's involvement regarding a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan and subsequent threatening remarks by a Chinese diplomat. Takaichi's administration has consistently polled high in approval ratings. In 2026, she called a snap general election, which resulted in a historic landslide victory for the LDP, securing a two-thirds supermajority and the largest number of seats ever won in postwar Japanese electoral history.
Takaichi's views have been variously described as conservative or ultraconservative. Her domestic policy includes support for proactive government spending and continuing Abenomics. She has taken conservative positions on social issues, such as opposing same-sex marriage, recognition of separate surnames for spouses, and female succession to the Japanese throne. Takaichi supports revising Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan – which renounces the use of military force – has a pro-Taiwanese foreign policy, and supports strengthening the US–Japan alliance. A member of the far-right Nippon Kaigi, she has been described as holding revisionist views of Japan's conduct during the Second World War, and criticised the Murayama and Kono Statements which apologised for Japanese war crimes. She made regular visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine prior to her premiership. Since her election as prime minister, Takaichi has been described as one of the most powerful women in the world and she states her goal is to become Japan's "Iron Lady".
Early life
Sanae Takaichi was born on 7 March 1961 in Yamatokōriyama, Nara Prefecture, to a dual-income middle-class family. Her father, Daikyū Takaichi, worked for an automotive firm affiliated with Toyota. Her mother, Kazuko Takaichi (1932–2018), served in the Nara Prefectural Police. Takaichi graduated from Nara Prefectural Unebi High School. Despite qualifying to matriculate at Keio and Waseda universities in Tokyo, she did not attend as her parents refused to cover tuition fees if she left home or chose a private university, because she was a woman.
Instead, Takaichi commuted six hours from her family home to attend Kobe University, paying her way with part-time work. During her university years, she joined a band, in which she played the drums, and was once a member of a heavy metal band. In 1984, she graduated from Kobe with a bachelor's degree in business administration, then enrolled in the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management.
In 1987, Takaichi moved to the United States to work as a Matsushita Institute Congressional Fellow for Democratic congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who had made a strong impression on Takaichi while campaigning for president. In 1989, upon her return to Japan, she worked as a legislative analyst with knowledge of American politics, and wrote books based on her experience. In March 1989, she became a presenter for TV Asahi, co-hosting the station's Kodawari TV Pre-Stage program with Renhō. In November 1990, Takaichi was employed as a presenter for Fuji Television, later serving as anchor of the morning information program Asa Da! Dō Naru.
Political career
Political beginnings
Takaichi first attempted to run for the Nara Prefecture Electoral District of the House of Councillors during the 1992 House of Councillors elections. She eventually ran as an independent candidate and competed with Mitsuo Hattori for the post, after Mitsuo's father, Yasuji Hattori, decided not to run for the post. Of the 313 eligible voters, Takaichi lost to Hattori as Hattori received a total of 162 votes while Takaichi received a total of 137 votes and 1 invalid vote. Hattori was later proclaimed as the winner of the election.
Early legislative career (1993–2006)
Takaichi was first elected to the Japanese parliament's lower house, the House of Representatives, in the 1993 Japanese general election as an independent. In 1994, she joined the minor "Liberals" party led by Koji Kakizawa, which soon merged into the New Frontier Party.
In 1996, Takaichi ran as a sanctioned candidate from the New Frontier Party and was re-elected to the House of Representatives, despite the New Frontier Party losing nationally. On 5 November, she responded to recruitment from the Secretary-General of the LDP Koichi Kato and joined the LDP. Her act of switching parties, two months after winning the election with anti-LDP votes, resulted in heavy criticism from New Frontier Party members.
In the LDP, Takaichi belonged to the Mori Faction, formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai, and she served as a Parliamentary Vice Minister for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry under the Keizō Obuchi cabinet. She also served as chairman of the Education and Science Committee. In the 2000 House of Representatives election she was placed in first position on the LDP's proportional representation list and easily won her third term. In 2002, she was appointed as the Senior Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under Junichiro Koizumi.
In the 2003 Japanese general election, she was defeated in the Nara 1st district by Democratic Party lawmaker Sumio Mabuchi. She moved to the nearby city of Ikoma and won a seat representing the Nara 2nd district in the 2005 Japanese general election. In 2004, while she was out of the Diet, she took an economics faculty position at Kinki University.
Abe governments (2006–2007, 2012–2020)
Takaichi served as Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, Minister of State for Innovation, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Gender Equality, and Minister of State for Food Safety in the Japanese Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. In August 2007, she was the only Abe cabinet member to join former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in visiting Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of World War II.
After the LDP's victory in the 2012 Japanese general election, Takaichi was appointed to head the party's Policy Research Council (自由民主党政務調査会長). In January 2013, she recommended that Abe issue an "Abe Statement" to replace the Murayama Statement that apologized for "tremendous damage and suffering" brought by Japan's "colonial rule and aggression". In 2015, the day before the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Japan, Abe gave the official Cabinet statement, declaring that previous apologies including Murayama's will "remain unshakeable" but arguing against current or future apologies. The statement was criticized by state media in China and North Korea, and Yonhap News Agency in South Korea.
In September 2014, Takaichi was selected as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications to replace Yoshitaka Shindō. After she was named as a cabinet minister, a photograph was published of her in 2011 together with Kazunari Yamada, the leader of the National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party – a small neo-Nazi party in Japan. Yamada was also pictured with LDP policy chief Tomomi Inada. Yamada stated that the pictures were taken when he visited Inada and Takaichi's offices "for talks", according to his blog. Takaichi denied any link with Yamada and said she would not have accepted the picture had she known Yamada's background. Takaichi was also shown promoting a controversial book praising Adolf Hitler's electoral talents in 1994.
In 2014, Takaichi was among the three members of the cabinet to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, became the first sitting cabinet member to attend the shrine's autumn festival in 2016, and was one of four cabinet ministers who visited Yasukuni on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in August 2020. In the December 2014 general election, she won an overwhelming 96,000-vote majority in her district, defeating the runner-up by 58,000 votes.
In February 2016, Takaichi commented that the government could suspend the operations of broadcasters that aired politically biased content. The U.S. State Department later described this as "[giving] rise to concerns about increasing government pressure against critical and independent media." An electoral redistricting in 2017, which Takaichi oversaw as internal affairs minister, eliminated one of Nara Prefecture's districts and resulted in Takaichi again potentially facing off with her former rival Sumio Mabuchi. Takaichi was replaced by Seiko Noda in August 2017, but returned to the Internal Affairs and Communications post in September 2019, replacing Masatoshi Ishida. Among other initiatives, she put pressure on NHK to cut its licence fee and reform its governance, and oversaw the distribution of cash handouts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
First leadership bid and Kishida Government (2021–2024)
In August 2021, Takaichi expressed her willingness to challenge Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga for the presidency of the LDP in the scheduled election on 29 September. On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not seek re-election; Takaichi officially announced her bid on 8 September with the support of former prime minister Abe. Takaichi was eliminated in the first round of voting, and Fumio Kishida was elected. Kishida reappointed her chairman of the LDP policy research council.
From August 2022, Takaichi served as Minister of State for Economic Security in Kishida's government. She was in charge of preparing a bill to implement a security clearance system for classified information relating to economic security. The lack of such a system had prevented Japan from joining the Five Eyes. The bill was made law by the Diet in May 2024.
On 2 March 2023, Hiroyuki Konishi, a House of Councillors member from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said that he obtained a government document indicating that the former Abe government may have intended to interfere with the freedom of broadcasting by putting pressure on broadcasters that were critical of the LDP. Takaichi was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications at the time the document was said to have been created. When pressed during a committee session the following day, Takaichi said that the document was "fabricated" and vowed to resign from parliament if the document were proven genuine.
Several days later, on 7 March 2023, the Internal Affairs ministry confirmed that the document was created by ministerial officials, and opposition Diet members called on Takaichi to resign. Following the announcement, Takaichi held to her position that the remarks attributed to her within the document were fabricated, adding that Konishi should bear the burden of proving the document's authenticity.
In August 2023, Takaichi expressed concern that plans to sell the government's stake in Nippon Telegraph and Telephone could make Japan's telecommunications infrastructure vulnerable to China.
Later leadership bids (2024 and 2025)
In August 2024, former prime minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would not seek re-election to his post as President of the LDP. On 9 September, Takaichi announced her second bid to become LDP leader. Among the nine contenders, Takaichi emerged as a frontrunner alongside Shigeru Ishiba and Shinjirō Koizumi. She came first in the first round of voting with 181 votes, but was defeated by Ishiba in the runoff election with 215 votes to Takaichi's 194 votes.
Ishiba offered Takaichi the post of chairman of the LDP General Council; she declined the offer. In November, she became head of the LDP's newly organised policy research commission on public safety and measures against terrorism and cybercrime.
Following Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's announcement of his resignation in September 2025, Takaichi announced her candidacy for LDP president in the resulting leadership election on 18 September 2025. In early polling, Takaichi and agricultural minister Shinjirō Koizumi were identified as the frontrunners. Ultimately, Takaichi won both rounds, defeating Koizumi with 185 votes to 156 votes in the runoff and becoming the first woman to hold the post of LDP president.
LDP presidency
Upon her election as party president, it was already speculated that a Takaichi government would accommodate an interest rate increase by the Bank of Japan early in her possible tenure as prime minister. After her election, the Nikkei 225 share index surged past the 47,000 level for the first time, and the value of the yen fell. The Nikkei rose over 4% to hit a record high and the index closed 4.75% higher at the end of the trading day, while the yen fell 1.8% against the dollar.
On 10 October, Komeito party leader Tetsuo Saito announced that his party would break with the LDP and leave the governing coalition, citing disagreements with Takaichi's leadership and the LDP's handling of the slush fund scandal. This development signified the collapse of the 26-year-old LDP–Komeito coalition. As a result, the parliamentary election to choose Japan's next prime minister was pushed back from 15 to 20 October. On 15 October, Takaichi asked Hirofumi Yoshimura, the leader of the Japan Innovation Party, to enter into a coalition with the LDP.
On 17 October, the National Diet voted to set 21 October as the session confirmation date. On 19 October, the LDP and the Japan Innovation Party agreed to form a coalition. The leaders of both parties signed a coalition agreement the following day, clearing Takaichi's path to the premiership. At the 21 October meeting of the National Diet, both houses nominated Takaichi to succeed Shigeru Ishiba as prime minister. Takaichi avoided a runoff in the lower house, garnering 237 votes against Constitutional Democratic Party leader Yoshihiko Noda's 149. She was officially appointed prime minister by Emperor Naruhito in a ceremony at the Tokyo Imperial Palace later that day. She became both the first woman and the first person from Nara Prefecture to hold the post.
Premiership (2025–present)
After becoming prime minister on 21 October, Takaichi formed her first cabinet. While she had said that she wanted her cabinet to include as many women as those in the Nordic countries, only two women actually joined the cabinet: Satsuki Katayama as Japan's first female finance minister, and Kimi Onoda as economic security minister. In her inaugural press conference, Takaichi said that she "prioritised equality of opportunity" above all else, and had selected ministers based on their qualifications, not gender.
The cabinet was viewed as favoring party unity, with Takaichi's rivals receiving key positions: Toshimitsu Motegi as foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi as internal affairs minister and Shinjiro Koizumi as defense minister. Ishiba's confidant Ryosei Akazawa was promoted to minister of economy, trade and industry, showing a degree of continuity. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, however, is ideologically aligned with Takaichi, a break from recent prime ministers.
During the first press conference of her premiership on 21 October 2025, Takaichi outlined her priorities such as tackling rising inflation and said that she would work to implement suspension of the provisional gasoline tax rate. According to local reports, Takaichi planned a ¥13.9 trillion ($92.19 billion) economic stimulus package as part of her first economic initiative policies aimed at "responsible proactive fiscal policy", with three main pillars: measures to counter inflation, investment in growth industries, and national security. Other proposals included the expansion of local government grants for small and medium-sized businesses and additional investments in technology such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.
On 24 October 2025, during her first policy speech at the National Diet, Takaichi repeated her priorities in tackling inflation, fiscal spending, the creation of an economic growth panel, and her previous proposal on scrapping the provisional tax on gasoline. Takaichi stated that she would bring forward Japan's plans to raise annual military spending to 2% of GDP, announcing a new target of March 2026, rather than the previous target of 2027. Takaichi mentioned the need to continue Japan's alliance with the United States, while enhancing Japan's diplomacy to the international community.
Takaichi renewed her two predecessors' efforts to make Japan a leading asset management center and for their plan of setting up an agency for disaster prevention. Takaichi emphasized the need for immigrant labor, saying that foreign workers were still needed to supplement Japan's declining population. She highlighted the need to balance labor market needs and the increasing immigrant population, noting that Japan's acceptance of migrants was premised on their compliance with Japan's rules and laws, and vowed to strengthen regulations to enforce compliance.
2026 general election and second cabinet
On 23 January 2026, Takaichi dissolved the House of Representatives, allowing a general election to be held on 8 February. The election resulted in a historic landslide victory for the LDP, with the party winning an outright two-thirds supermajority and regaining its majority status in the chamber. The LDP's total of at least 316 seats is the most ever won by a party in the Diet's Lower House in Japanese electoral history.
Analysts credited the party's victory to Takaichi's high personal popularity at the time of the election. She was especially popular among young voters, with one poll finding that 84 percent of respondents in their 20s and 78 percent of those in their 30s backed the prime minister and her cabinet (compared with 67 percent of voters overall).
Public opinion
In opinion polls conducted during late October–early November 2025, Takaichi's government received the approval of between 65% and 83% of respondents, among the highest such ratings of any government in twenty years.
Foreign policy
Takaichi made her diplomatic debut at the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she made efforts to strengthen cooperation on the maritime, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity sectors. She also held bilateral meetings with Philippine president Bongbong Marcos, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese. During the ASEAN meeting, Takaichi also attended the ASEAN+3 Summit, the ASEAN–Japan Summit, the 20th East Asia Summit, and the Second ASEAN Global Dialogue. Takaichi skipped the remaining events of the summit, flying back to Tokyo to meet with US president Donald Trump the next day.
Takaichi met with Trump on 28 October 2025 at the Akasaka Palace. The two leaders signed agreements on trade, minerals, nuclear technology and rare earths. Takaichi also expressed her intent to strengthen the US–Japan alliance. After their meeting, Takaichi gave Trump a putter formerly owned by former prime minister Shinzo Abe, a golf ball signed by Japanese professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama, and a gold-leaf golf ball. During their visit at the US Yokosuka Naval Base, aboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73), Takaichi vowed to bring the US–Japan alliance into a "golden age", amid a "severe security environment". According to Trump's press secretary, she also told Trump privately she would recommend him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping made an unusual move by not sending a congratulatory telegram on the day Takaichi assumed the post of prime minister, but a Japan-China summit meeting between Xi and Takaichi was held on 31 October. There, the two sides agreed to promote a "mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests." However, since Prime Minister Takaichi held talks with Taiwan's former Vice Premier Lin Hsin-i on 1 November, China lodged a protest with Japan, and Japan counter-argued, leading to the deterioration of the relationship.
During deliberations in the House of Representatives' budget committee on 7 November, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute an "existential crisis situation" for Japan, allowing the country to take military action in self-defence. In response to the comments, the Chinese consul-general in Osaka, Xue Jian, wrote on X on that "we have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has lunged at us without a moment's hesitation. Are you ready?" Although the post was later deleted after protest by the Japanese government, it led to a diplomatic row between Japan and China. In addition to cross-party calls in Japan for his expulsion, Xue's comment triggered criticism from the Taiwanese government and the US ambassador to Japan, while Chinese officials condemned Takaichi's remarks. Japan and China issued mutual travel advisories and summoned the other country's ambassador. China subsequently dispatched China Coast Guard vessels and military drones to patrol through the Senkaku Islands. In May and June 2025, the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) deployed its aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, for simultaneous operations in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
Political views
Takaichi has been described as holding hard-line conservative and Japanese nationalist views, citing former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model and deeply influential on her personal political beliefs. Like Thatcher, she is called the "Iron Lady". Takaichi is a member of Nippon Kaigi, a far-right ultraconservative organisation that argues for a reinterpretation of Japanese history along ultranationalist lines.
Taro Kono, another LDP minister and member of the House of Representatives, has said that Takaichi is on the far right of the political spectrum within the LDP. Takaichi has been described as "far-right" by Deutsche Welle and the South China Morning Post, and various sources including Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, Politico, Foreign Policy and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) have described her as "ultraconservative". She has also been described as an "ultranationalist" by The Conversation and Democracy Now!, and as having an "ultranationalist agenda" by Ming Gao of Lund University.
Globalism
At the House of Councillors Budget Committee meeting on 13 November 2025, in response to a question that criticized "policy promotion driven by excessive globalism," Takaichi stated that "globalization has contributed to the development of the world economy."
Immigration
Like her fellow candidates in the 2025 LDP leadership election, Takaichi has been described as taking a "hard-line stance" on immigration. The New York Times stated that during her leadership campaign "she seized on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment". Specifically she has been described as wanting "tighter restrictions on immigration" and employed "anti-immigration rhetoric" during her campaign.
During the campaign she called for a "crackdown" on illegal migration and emphasized that "foreigners must strictly obey" Japanese law, stating that those who overstay their visa or abscond from justice should be treated as harshly as Japanese citizens. She proposed that policies be reconsidered from the ground up, with the aim of establishing an "orderly coexistence" between Japanese citizens and immigrants based on "mutual consideration" in communities. In her campaign manifesto she also proposed establishing an agency to tackle issues such as visa overstays, overtourism, and land purchases by foreign nationals, particularly near defense facilities and strategic assets. On refugees, she explicitly stated: "For those who come [to Japan] with financial motives and claim that they are refugees, I'll have you go home."