Consumption Tax Cut is Back at the Forefront

The Extraordinary Session of the Diet Begins

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
October 5, 2026

An extraordinary session of the Diet was convoked on October 5 with closure scheduled for December 12. The top priority for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is a consumption tax cut that would begin in April 2027. However, Takaichi faces the headwind of a scandal inside her administration and reservations about her diplomatic skills.
 
Ordinarily, such a Diet session in the fall is to discuss a supplemental budget for the Japanese economy or for dealing with an unexpected event such as a natural disaster. However, Takaichi has no plans so far to submit a supplemental budget bill. Indeed, she previously declared that she would not propose any supplemental budget and would integrate all the budget items into an annual budget that begins every April. Forgoing a supplemental budget should improve the efficiency of private business activities by improving the predictability of government spending.
 
Hence a consumption tax cut is the focus of this session. The Takaichi Cabinet made an official decision on the tax cut in mid-September: it will seek to reduce the consumption tax rate on food from eight percent to one percent for two years starting next April. The government will also establish a new system to subsidize job-hunting efforts by low-income families, instead of a refundable tax credit.
 
The leading coalition, the LDP and its partner, the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), does not have a majority to pass the bill in the Upper House, forcing the two parties to seek some help from opposition parties. LDP and JIP expect Komeito, which left the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) in September, to vote yes on the consumption tax cut bill.
 
However, the situation among the opposition parties is extremely complicated. The CRA lawmakers who had joined the party from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) have since established a new party, the Democratic Reform Association (DRA). The DRA and Komeito then have organized a parliamentary group in the Lower House. Although the CDPJ and Komeito have not launched a similar project in the Upper House and continue to work separately there, it is up to Komeito whether to take a position closer to the CDPJ or to the LDP on the consumption tax cut proposal.
 
In addition to enacting the consumption tax cut, the LDP/JIP coalition hopes to reduce the number of Diet seats. The JIP has been calling on the LDP to implement their agreement made in October 2025 to reduce the number of seats in the Lower House by ten percent. The two parties failed to pass such a bill in either the extraordinary session of last fall or the special session earlier this year. Several members of the LDP are skeptical of JIP’s hard push for seat reduction.
 
The seat reduction proposal has led to an unusual unification of the opposition parties because all 45 seats to be eliminated are in proportional districts of the Lower House and thus work against small parties. If the LDP and JIP decide to ignore opposition complaints and take advantage of their super majority in the Lower House to pass the seat reduction, Komeito may oppose the consumption tax cut bill in retaliation. A multi-partisan group of lawmakers, including some from the LDP, submitted their opinion to the council for election reform, which argued that the 45-seat reduction would be baseless.
 
Controlling the procedure in the Diet will be crucial for Takaichi, who is reluctant to join the Diet’s discussion of the bills. The newly appointed Chairman of the LDP Council on Diet Affairs, Hideki Murai, supports Takaichi’s hesitancy and may negotiate to reduce her appearances before the Committee on Budget. But if Murai fails, the opposition parties will be further emboldened to oppose the leading coalition.
 
The Committee on the Budget has been a venue for discussing political scandals. Weekly magazines have reported that, before taking the position as Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Kazuo Yana threatened some municipalities in his electoral district with cuts to their road construction budgets. The mayors of those cities supported another candidate in the last election in February. Yana’s possible involvement can be interpreted as blackmailing political opponents.
 
Yana is one of the lawmakers who received kickbacks from a former Abe faction in the LDP. His punishment was exclusion from a leadership position in the LDP for six months. Nevertheless, Takaichi allowed him to return to the leadership group by appointing him as minister in her cabinet reshuffle in September. She must have thought the kickback scandal was over. However, in an Asahi Shimbun poll, 68 percent considered it a problem that Takaichi had begun to appoint lawmakers embroiled in the funding scandal to ministerial positions. Mishandling of the Yana scandal may affect Takaichi’s approval rating.

Takaichi’s limited diplomatic skills have also raised concerns. A member of the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa was arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of a robbery from and the murder of a Japanese woman. The government of Japan has expressed its extreme regret to the U.S. However, Takaichi has not taken the matter up with U.S. President Donald Trump. Takaichi once said (in what she must now recognize as a grave mistake) that Trump was the only person who could bring peace and prosperity to the world. If she remains wedded to this view, she will show her irresolution about protecting Japanese citizens, and her public image will deteriorate.
 
Takaichi still has not improved bilateral relations with China that resulted from her careless speech on the Taiwan contingency in the Diet last November. Some lawmakers are trying to normalize Japan-China relations. This is not within Takaichi’s repertoire. Her missteps in diplomacy will give challengers a window to consolidate their opposition to her reelection as the LDP president in the fall of 2027.

History, the hardest easy problem for Japan to resolve

How China Uses Wartime History Against Japan

By Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America, and APP Member. 

First Published October 7, 2026 on Toyo Keizai Online.

Beyond all the pageantry, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a strategic goal for his Washington visit – to undermine the American relationship with Japan. Xi succeeded, perhaps beyond his expectations.

Japanese policy makers saw this coming. They arranged a brief meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly between Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and Donald Trump ahead of Xi’s arrival.

The meeting was empty of content but seemed reassuring. But the next day, Trump welcomed Xi by fondly recalling “the greatness that we had together fighting in World War Two” without mentioning the postwar alliance with Japan.

Xi followed the next day at the official banquet, making clear who was their common enemy. “Over 80 years ago, the Chinese and American people stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight against Japanese militarist aggressors,” Xi said, deliberately obscuring the fact that wartime China was led by the Nationalists, not their Communist foes. The official statements issued by both governments echoed the language of their status as wartime allies.

“Clearly, Beijing would like to drive a wedge between Trump and Takaichi,” respected scholar Mike Mochizuki told Toyo Keizai, “but Takaichi clings to Donald while Donald does not return the favor by calling her Sanae.”

This Chinese use of the wartime past is part of a broader campaign to increase diplomatic pressure on Japan and the Takaichi administration over the Prime Minister’s remarks on a Taiwan contingency and to push the Chinese characterization of Japan’s defense buildup as a renewal of Japanese wartime “militarism”.

Trump, thrilled by his role as a host to Xi, either ignored the Chinese strategic intent, or simply failed to understand the trap he had stepped into.

“Trump’s failure to grasp that the United States had allied with a different China and fought a different Japan will only invite more Chinese coercion,” commented Mireya Solis, the senior Japan expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.

The Chinese wedge strategy may not be entirely effective. The U.S.-Japan alliance remains anchored in security establishments whose bonds have “deepened enough to prevent a U.S.-Japan estrangement even under Trump,” notes Mochizuki, affiliated with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

But Japanese officials are clearly rattled. The Prime Minister’s office felt compelled to tell the Yomiuri Shimbun that during a short phone call between Takaichi and Trump after the Xi visit, the American president reassured her that he had not sided with the Chinese leader in his criticism of Japan and urged him to hold talks with the Japanese Premier. “I’d be surprised if Trump spoke in detail about Japan with Xi,” a recently retired senior State Department official told this writer.

China’s war on Takaichi

China’s criticism of Japan intensified in response to Takaichi’s victory in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election last October. Even before her remarks on a possible use of Japanese military forces in a Taiwan crisis, the Chinese were warning about the dangers of her administration as a triumph of the ‘new conservatives’ who favor defense buildup and cultivate close ties to pro-independence forces in Taiwan.

Takaichi’s unapologetic views on the war were well known in Beijing. She made a splash in the Diet early in her career, in 1994, challenging then Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi for his bold statements acknowledging the war as an act of aggression. Later Murayama issued his statement on the 50th anniversary of the war apologizing for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression.”

For Takaichi, this was unacceptable. “You can’t just apologize on my behalf without my consent,” she said in the Diet exchange, making it clear that she viewed the war as “legally justifiable.” In a later interview, she pledged to revise the Murayama statement, saying that Japan “fought wars for self-preservation and self-defense.”

When Takaichi met Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Korea in late October, shortly after she took power, the Chinese leader pointedly challenged these views.

“We should widely promote the spirit of the Murayama Statement,” he reportedly told her, “which reflected on the history of aggression and apologized to victimized countries.”

In that sense, Takaichi herself has created the opportunity for China to use the wartime past to try to isolate and pressure Japan.

“Takaichi shares (former Prime Minister) Abe’s revisionist views of history but lacks Abe’s pragmatic and prudent judgement,” says Japan scholar Mochizuki. “So it is not surprising that China has linked Taiwan, Japanese imperialism, and Japan’s defense buildup together to criticize what they see as Japan’s neomilitarism.”

The Chinese use of the wartime past continued with the late September visit of former Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi linked the moment to the anniversary of the Tokyo war crimes trials.

"If Japan does not learn lessons from history and challenges the postwar 'Peace Constitution,' tries to revive its history of aggression and resurrect war criminals, it will not even be able to face the world, let alone move toward the future, and it will have no future," Wang said.

Behind this war talk, the Wang Yi talks with Iwaya are an effort to reach out to forces within Japan that believe Takaichi’s anti-China stance, and her overreliance on the relationship with the unreliable Trump, are a mistake. Iwaya, along with former Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, is among those clearly opposed to the Prime Minister’s policies toward China. Even more intriguing is the recent interview in Shincho by special advisor Imai Takaya calling on Takaichi to change her language on Taiwan and take a strategic view that does “not rely on the US for everything.”

The upcoming APEC summit meeting in China may provide a window to repair relations. But it will require Japan to act, a Japan that is increasingly isolated by China.

China’s use of the wartime past is nothing new

However the current maneuvers play out, it is important to recognize that the Chinese use of the wartime past is hardly new. In a comparative study of the formation of wartime historical memory that we conducted at Stanford University, our research detailed how the Chinese Communist Party shifted in the last few decades to construct a patriotic narrative to replace one that focused on the struggle against their Nationalist enemies.

In this patriotic narrative, the war serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it allows the current Chinese leadership to assume the role of a great power that helped found the United Nations and was part of a global “anti-fascist” struggle. And it emphasizes the struggle of a unified Chinese people against the Japanese invader, claiming to have been victors in that war.

“There is a growing sense in China that its suffering and its contribution to the overall victory in World War II haven’t been sufficiently appreciated,” historian Rana Mitter, the author of several important books on the war and Chinese memory, told The Wire China in a 2020 interview. “World War II has enabled the state to say, look, this is when China was able to stand up for itself and fight back against invasion.”

In recent years, “history is used by China, including war history and the history of the United Nations, to make the case for Chinese global leadership since 1945,” Harvard Kennedy School historian Mitter told a recent seminar in Europe. The message is that in the current turbulence of the world order, China can play the role it played in 1945 in creating that order.

Beyond the claim to global leadership, the Chinese have not hesitated to use the wartime memories to target Japan.

Last September, the Chinese hosted a huge commemoration of the 80th anniversary, featuring a military parade attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Xi chose this moment to again emphasize the war against Japan and the creation of a “national united front against Japanese aggression established at the initiative of the Communist Party of China.”

Paired with the celebration, the Chinese film industry premiered two slickly produced blockbuster films, both of which were aimed not only at the Chinese audience but also distributed globally, including on streaming services like Netflix. “Dead to Rights” was yet another account of the Nanjing Massacre, done relatively artfully. But “731,” an account of the infamous secretive Japanese biological and chemical warfare unit that performed ghastly experiments on Chinese and foreign prisoners, was directly aimed at Japan. The depiction of Japanese as evil barbarians, and the failure of the United States to prosecute these war crimes, was garishly depicted.

This clash surfaced at the United Nations in what seems like an obscure issue – the existence of a clause in the UN charter which refers to “enemy states,” namely Japan and Germany, allowing the Allied powers from World War II to take action against those former Axis powers without prior Security Council approval. It was designed as a temporary safeguard against the resurgence of militarism but is widely recognized as obsolete and without effect. The General Assembly voted twice to remove the clause but it requires an amendment of the Charter that China and Russia can block.

Prime Minister Takaichi called on the UN to remove this clause. After her address to the General Assembly, China’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Sun Lei, defended its existence, pointing to “proof that Japan’s re-militarization has become a real threat to regional and global peace and stability.”

These history wars are decades long, and they shift in response to the needs of foreign policy, in both Beijing and Tokyo. China has played the history card, again, and it remains to be seen how Japan will respond. For Japan, the U.S. under Trump is increasingly an unreliable actor. But however this plays out, the past will never really be forgotten.

Asia Policy Events, Monday October 12, 2026

Today is a national holiday in the United States, Canada, Japan, Cambodia, Fiji, and Samoa.

10/12 - IMF Flagship Book Launch: Shaping the Future of Asia: Opportunities and Challenges examines how the Asia-Pacific region can sustain its remarkable economic success as it confronts profound structural challenges to established patterns of economic development and growth.
10/12 – Sports Day, National Holiday, Japan.
10/12 - Columbus Day, National Holiday, US/Thanksgiving, National Holiday, Canada.
10/12-15 - 65th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-65), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
10/12-18 -  World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, Bangkok, Thailand. 

TRILATERAL US-JAPAN-TAIWAN COOPERATION ON PHYSICAL AI. 10/12, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Japan Chair, Hudson. Speakers: Jeremy Chih-Cheng Chang, CEO, Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology; Ken Fukuda, Director for AI Industry Strategy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan; Emma Rafaelof, Director, Global Policy, Semiconductor Industry Association; Moderator: William Chou, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Japan Chair, Hudson.

THE DOMESTIC-FOREIGN ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE NEXUS. 10/12, 1:00-2:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Cato Institute. Speakers: Hajar Hammado, Senior Policy Advisor, Demand Progress; Sascha Meinrath, Palmer Chair in Telecommunications, Penn State University; Alex Marthews, National Chair, Restore the Fourth; Patrick G. Eddington, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute. 

LANDMINES, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, DETERRENCE, AND STABILITY ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA. 10/12, 3:00-4:00pm, HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Patrick M. Cronin, Asia-Pacific Security Chair, Hudson; Lieutenant General (Ret.) In-bum Chun, Senior Fellow, Association of the United States Army; Mira Rapp-Hooper, Senior Advisor, Geopolitical Risk and Research, The Asia Group; Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow, Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

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Japan's Diplomacy Overshadowed

Takaichi Obscured by the Trump-Xi Summit

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
September 28, 2026

A week ago, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hoped to display Japan as the leader of the Asia-Pacific region – backed by the unshaken support of the United States. She outlined her position during a 30-hour visit between September 21 and 23 to the United Nations in New York. She needs to rebuild her diplomacy, which has not been going very well since her comment on the Taiwan contingency last November. However, her effort was overshadowed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S. and his meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
 
The official purpose of Takaichi’s trip to the U.S. was to give her first speech at the annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). In her address, Takaichi emphasized Japan’s commitment to the rule of law. “Since the end of the Second World War, Japan, as a peace-loving nation, has attached great importance to the rule of law in the settlement of any disputes,” she said. In this case, “rule of law” is a veiled reference to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
 
At home, Takaichi has received considerable backlash to her indecisive response to U.S. sanctions on Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of the ICC. Takaichi needs to reverse the downward trend in the approval rating for her cabinet. By pledging unwavering support for the ICC, Takaichi distanced herself from Trump, who called the ICC “the out of control institution” in his speech to the UNGA.
 
Diplomacy based on democratic values is a crucial element for Takaichi to distinguish Japan from China. She promotes the concept of a “Free and Open” Indo-Pacific (FOIP) that was initiated by her political mentor, former prime minister Shinzo Abe. When Abe proposed this doctrine in 2016, China was extending its power throughout the world under the brand name “One Belt One Road.” The brand covered China’s advance to the South China Sea, which was found unlawful by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, a month before Abe proposed the FOIP. Abe hoped to use the FOIP to counter China’s territorial aims.
 
Former premier Fumio Kishida revised the FOIP in 2023 to apply it to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Kishida reiterated that Ukraine today would be East Asia tomorrow. Takaichi has now updated the FOIP again to explain Japan’s effort to secure an international supply chain, which was impacted by the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and by China’s weaponization of rare earths exports. Thus, the FOIP is a diplomatic tool for Japan to use to counter China’s growing influence in the world.
 
Takaichi also quoted from the FOIP in her meeting with Trump at the U.N. Headquarters just before her UNGP speech on September 22. “I appreciate Donald’s strong commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance,” she said at the meeting. Takaichi tried to remind Trump of the fact that Japan should be the closest partner for the U.S. in Asia, hoping to deter Trump from making any excessive concessions on Taiwan in his meeting with Xi two days later.
 
However, rather than fostering the Japan-U.S. relationship, the meeting highlighted differences between Japan and the U.S. Takaichi told Trump that Japan had been and would in the future support the ICC, knowing that Trump was calling on countries to withdraw from it. Trump expressed concern about the depreciation of the Japanese yen. Takaichi did not refer to any discussion of Taiwan in her press conference after the meeting.
 
To her regret, the meeting between Trump and Xi on September 24 and 25 must not have been what Takaichi had hoped it would be. Xi urged Trump to oppose the independence of Taiwan, and Trump did not say how he had responded. Trump also did not say whether the U.S. would resume exporting weapons to Taiwan. “He understands very much how I feel,” Trump said after the meeting.
 
On regulation of artificial intelligence, on which both countries compete, Trump and Xi agreed to establish a body for bilateral dialogue. Both leaders hoped to minimize the difference between them. Fundamentally, however, both leaders were responding to domestic concerns. Trump must show that he can manage the China relationship to attract voters in the mid-term elections in November. For his part, Xi must show at the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2027 that China is a great power equivalent to the U.S. Trump and Xi confirmed that they will have two meetings later this year, at APEC in China and at the G20 in the U.S..
 
Trump’s and Xi’s exchange of their views of World War II history – not necessarily those of trained historians – must have been a nightmare for Takaichi. In the welcoming ceremony, Trump noted the long-running close relationship between both nations – a contentious one that began only 50 years ago – and called them “allies in World War II,” a war that had ended 30 years earlier.” Xi replied at the state dinner that both nations “stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight against Japanese militarist aggressors.” The White House fact sheet on Xi’s visit also explicitly noted the wartime alliance.
 
Takaichi did not respond directly to their characterizations of history, stressing instead the firmness of the Japan-U.S. alliance even after the history of brutal warfare. In her speech to the UNGA Takaichi’s only historical reference was to call for the rescission of the “enemy states clauses” (Article 107 and parts of Articles 53 and 77) from the UN Charter, which apply to the Axis powers defeated in WWII, including Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Finland, as well as Japan.
 
Takaichi and her rightwing supporters hope that time has obscured Japan’s war history of atrocities and criminality. They believe that the Abe administration’s active revision and questioning of historical facts has caused painful memories to fade. Today, they believe, Japan should be only remembered as the war’s loser – devastated by relentless bombing and two atomic bombs.
 
However, Xi took the opportunity to emphasize that China and the U.S. were allies against an invading Japan, creating a bond “forged in blood and fire.” Trump agreed. Japan’s lingering war history and insufficient apologies resonate with Americans as they do with the Chinese. The past year’s identification of American POW remains from the war found in Tokyo, Taiwan, and the Philippines* and the POW’s hometown burials have revived memories of Japanese viciousness.
 
The negotiations between the two major powers -- over Taiwan’s status, the development of AI, and the interpretation of history – presumably will take place, regardless of Japan’s concerns. Takaichi once described her diplomacy as “flourishing on the world’s center stage,” tracking the aim of former premier Abe. The Trump-Xi meeting, however, and whatever its long-term outcome, revealed that Japan is marginalized by practice and history in the U.S.-China power game.

*Remains of American POWs of Japan who died in Takao (Kaohsiung), Taiwan; Subic Bay, the Philippines; Cabanatuan, the Philippines; and Tokyo, Japan who were buried in mass graves as unknowns after the war in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii have been identified recently by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Hundreds of hometown burials with full military honors have taken place across the U.S. reviving memories of the War.

Asia Policy Events, Monday October 5, 2026

It is Nobel Week. The various Nobel prizes are announced this week, with the Nobel Peace to be awarded on Friday, October 9.

2026 SUMMIT ON ECONOMIC STATECRAFT. 10/5-6, IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies & Texas A&M Bush School. Speakers: TBD; Private sector and US government leaders.

PROGRESS, POWER, AND PEACE AT THE AI FRONTIER. 10/5, 2:00-3:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Stimson Center. Speakers: Branka Panic, Responsible AI Fellow & Founder, AI for Peace; Ola Mohajer, CEO & Founder, Transcend; Giulia Neaher, Research Analyst, Strategic Foresight Hub, Stimson Center; Moderator: Richard Ponzio, Senior Fellow and Director, Global Governance, Justice & Security Program, Stimson Center.

AIIB: TEN YEARS ON. 10/5, 5:30-6:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsors: U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI), NYU School of Law; APEC Study Center, Columbia University. Speaker: Natalie Lichtenstein, Inaugural General Counsel, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); Moderator: Professor José Enrique Alvarez, NYU School of Law.

Takaichi Administration Shuffle

Takaichi Makes Minor Changes to Her Team

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
September 21, 2026

On September 16 and 17, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reshuffled the board members of her party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and her cabinet. As expected, she did not make major changes, nor did she replace core members. Her focus was to strengthen her political base ahead of her bid for reelection in next fall’s LDP presidential election. However, some opposition to her reelection has emerged, which may cause her concern.

The prime minister, or the president of the leading party, often has good reason to reshuffle his or her staff. When the leader finds that the administration is slowing down, particularly in the wake of a major political scandal, a reshuffling may be a measure to regain public support. When the leading party has lawmakers who expect to be ministers, the prime minister may ease that frustration by reshuffling the cabinet to appoint them to unoccupied positions.

Takaichi had no major reason to change her staff now because she has maintained a relatively high approval rating. But the LDP established a rule in 2022 that board members (except the president) may serve only one-year terms. They may be reappointed twice for a total of three consecutive terms. Changes to the LDP board always linked to reshuffling of cabinet ministers. Takaichi appointed LDP board members in October 2025. That is why she needed to make some changes in her team.

The lineup of the Takaichi administration has three categories: close allies, supporters to rely on and potential rivals. Minister of Finance Satsuki Katayama and Minister on Economic Security Kimi Onoda are Takaichi’s close allies because they were two of the 20 nominators for Takaichi in the 2025 LDP presidential election. Takaichi decided to keep them in the same positions, unaffected by the reshuffle.

LDP vice-president Taro Aso is Takaichi’s most important supporter and guardian. Because Aso’s grip on the LDP is essential, Takaichi reappointed Aso as vice president and named Aso’s brother-in-law, Shun-ichi Suzuki, LDP Secretary General. The Chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, Takayuki Kobayashi, also stayed because Aso expects Kobayashi to be a future leader. Kobayashi has been a rival of Takaichi – he ran for the LDP presidency last fall -- but Takaichi supposedly accepted Aso’s recommendation to reappoint Kobayashi to the council chairman’s slot.

Former members of the Abe faction might also be labeled as supporters of Takaichi since they share conservative political principles. Several lawmakers in the former Abe faction were punished when the kickback fund scandal emerged in 2024 and were then purged from positions as ministers or members of the LDP board. Takaichi has now brought them back into the fold.  

Three former Abe faction leaders -- Koichi Hagiuda (deputy SG), Yasutoshi Nishimura (election chief), and Hirokazu Matsuno (organization chief) – retained the positions that Takaichi had given them after she took office. Additionally, she appointed two other lawmakers involved in the scandal, Yoshihiro Seki (education), and Kazuo Yana (agriculture), to the cabinet for the first time after the scandal. Takaichi seems now to have pardoned many leaders of the now-defunct Abe faction.

Two key cabinet members, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Toshimitsu Motegi, and the Minister of Defense, Shinjiro Koizumi, both ran in the LDP presidential election last fall and would be recognized as Takaichi’s rivals. It may sound strange for Takaichi to keep them in her cabinet. But it is not easy for a cabinet minister to run for the party presidency to replace the incumbent prime minister because every minister needs to approve the prime minister’s policies. To take different policy positions, the minister needs to reject signing on cabinet decision, which is likely to cause a dismissal. Thus, Takaichi’s reappointment of Motegi and Kozumi keeps them on the sidelines.

This rationale did not apply across the board. The Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, Yoshimasa Hayashi, was another candidate in last fall’s presidential election, and thus a potential rival of Takaichi. Takaichi replaced Hayashi. Her decision indicates that she recognizes him as a serious obstruction to her reelection.

As the minister in charge of local governments, Hayashi was able to visit cities and towns all around Japan for a year to build good relationships. His travels might have laid the local groundwork for local support in the next LDP presidential election. Hayashi had been a leader in Kochikai, an LDP faction that has been dissolved, which represented LDP liberalism in contrast to more hawkish groups in the party.

Excluding Hayashi from her team is part of Takaichi’s reelection strategy: the exclusion will isolate Hayashi in the LDP, which is otherwise united under her leadership. However, this reshuffling revealed one of her weaknesses. That would be Diet affairs.

Takaichi replaced the LDP Chairman on Diet Affairs, Hiroshi Kajiyama, with Hideki Murai because of her differences with Kajiyama over this year’s budget process. During the discussions over the fiscal year 2026 budget bill in the last session of the Diet, Kajiyama’s handling of Diet procedure frustrated Takaichi since she was forced to answer questions from opposition parties. Murai, the new Chairman, has argued that the prime minister need only appear a few times before the Diet.

Takaichi’s preferences were more telling in the Upper House. The LDP Upper House Secretary General, Jun-ichi Ishii, stepped down against his will. Having strong connections with the opposition parties, Ishii managed negotiations with opposition parties in the last session of the Diet. The LDP was unable to collect a majority vote in the Upper House and failed to pass a budget bill by the end of March. Ishii has expressed his concern with Takaichi’s unrealistically short scheduling for passing bills regardless of opposition parties’ protest. Takaichi did not like to be advised by Ishii.

Moreover, Ishii had established a new group in the Upper House LDP in April, which became the anti-Takaichi group in the party. If this movement in the Upper House LDP attracts lawmakers who have distanced themselves from Takaichi, like Hayashi for example, it will be a formidable challenge to Takaichi in next year’s LDP presidential election. The LDP election is next year. This would be a nightmare for Takaichi, who has not built an unshakable political base within the LDP.

Asia Policy Events, Monday September 28, 2026

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE TRUMP-XI SUMMIT: THE ECONOMIC SECURITY ANGLES. 9/28, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair, Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS; Sujai Shivakumar, Director and Senior Fellow, Renewing American Innovation, CSIS; Philip Luck, Director, Economics Program and Scholl Chair, International Business, CSIS; Kate Koren, Deputy Director, Economics Program and Scholl Chair, International Business, CSIS; Ilaria Mazzocco, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Trustee Chair, Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS; Lauryn Williams, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Strategic Technologies Program, CSIS.

THE SECOND TRUMP-XI SUMMIT: TAKEAWAYS FROM THE US, CHINA, AND RUSSIA. 9/28, 9:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Stimson Center. Speakers: Christopher Preble, Senior Fellow and Director, Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program, Stimson Center; Yun Sun, Senior Fellow and Director, China Program, Stimson Center; Peter Slezkine, Senior Fellow and Director, Russia Program, Stimson Center.

AF BRIG. GEN. TIMOTHY M. HELFRICH. 9/28, 1:00-2:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Speaker: Brig. Gen. Timothy M. Helfrich, Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air Force Materiel Command; Moderator: Heather Penney, Director of Studies and Research, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

PROTECTING UKRAINE'S ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE, FOCUSING ON WINTER, WAR, AND LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES. 9/28, 2:00pm, 188 Russell Senate Office Building. Sponsor: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission). Speakers: Meredith Berger, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Energy, Installations, and Environment); Michael Kofman, senior fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Alex Riabchyn, Chief International and Sustainability Officer, Naftogaz Ukraine. 

BOOK TALK: IS CHINA'S ECONOMY BROKEN? 9/28, 4:00-6:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS. Speakers: author Logan Wright, Senior Associate (Non-resident), Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS, Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What It Means for the World; Dinny McMahon, Head of China Markets Research, Trivium China; Tianlei Huang, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE); Zoe Liu, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); Moderator: Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS. PURCHASE BOOK

CHINA’S LAW ON PROMOTING ETHNIC UNITY AND PROGRESS. 9/28, 4:30-6:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Speakers: Aaron Glasserman, Distinguished Fellow, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University; Tenzin (Tendor) Dorjee, Director of Research & Advocacy, Tibet Action Institute; Rayhan Asat, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Atlantic Council; Moderator: Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.

JAPAN’S RESIDENCY RULES: WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED AND HOW DO THEY COMPARE WITH OTHER PLACES? 9/28, 6:00-9:00pm (JST), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsors: Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies (YCAPS); Japan Expert Insights. Speakers: Yuta Kato, Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialist (Immigration Attorney), IMS Legal Professional Corporation; Maximilien Xavier Rehm, Postdoctoral Assistant, Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto; Ben Tanaka, Founder, RetireJapan; Moderator: John Bradford, Executive Director, YCAPS.

UN General Debate Asian and Significant Speeches

Backgrounders on the race to become the 10th Secretary General of the United Nations General Assembly

• [Re]Group
• Foreign Policy
• Security Council Report

81st UN General Assembly Debate Asian and Other Significant Speeches [subject to change]
Full Videos and Transcripts

9/22-Tuesday
His Excellency Donald TRUMP, President of the United States of America
Son Excellence Emmanuel MACRON, President of the French Republic
His Excellency Khurelsukh UKHNAA, President of Mongolia
His Excellency LEE Jae Myung, President of the Republic of Korea
His Excellency David Ranibok Adeang President of the Republic of Naoero [Nauru]
His Excellency To LAM, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam 
His Excellency Tshering TOBGAY, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan
His Excellency Andy BURNHAM, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Her Excellency TAKAICHI Sanae, Prime Minister of Japan

9/23 – Wednesday

His Excellency Masoud PEZESHKIAN, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
His Excellency José RAMOS-HORTA, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste
 His Excellency Volodymyr ZELENSKYY, President of Ukraine
President

9/24-Thursday
His Excellency Mahmoud ABBAS, President of the State of Palestine
His Excellency Benjamin NETANYAHU, Prime Minister of the State of Israel
His Excellency Anutin CHARNVIRAKUL, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior of the Kingdom of Thailand

His Excellency Ratu Naiqama Tawakecolati Lalabalavu, President of Fiji

His Excellency Tarique RAHMAN, Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
His Excellency Balndra SHAH, Prime Minister of Nepal
His Excellency Anthony ALBANESE, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia

9/25-Friday
His Excellency Muhammad SHEHBAZ SHARIF, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

His Taneti MAAMAU, President of Kiribati

Her Excellency Hilda HEINE, President of the Marshall Islands
His Excellency Mathew Cooper WALE, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands
His Excellency James MARARAPE, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea
His Excellency Feleti TEO, Prime Minister of Tuvalu

Her Excellency Mulipola Anarosa Ale MOLINOO, Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa

9/26-Saturday
His Excellency HAN Zheng, Vice President of the People's Republic of China

His Excellency Aren Palik, Vice President OF Micronesia (Federated States of)
His Excellency Thongsavanh PHOMVIHANE, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Lao People's Democratic Republic
His Excellency PRAK Sokhonn, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Cambodia
His Excellency Sergey LAVROV, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Her Excellency Maria Theresa P. LAZARO, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines
His Royal Highness Prince 'Abdul Mateen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam 
His Excellency Vivian BALAKRISHNAN, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore
His Excellency MOHAMAD Hasan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia
His Excellency SUGIONO, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia
His Excellency Subrahmanyam JAISHANKAR, Minister of External Affairs of India
The Honorable Anita ANAND, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada [Prime Minister Mark Carney attends but will not speak]

9/28-Monday
His Excellency Vijitha HERATH, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism of Sri Lanka
His Excellency KIM Son Gyong, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Korea

Her Excellency Victoria Louise Hallum, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New Zealand

Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, Permanent Presentative to the United Nations, Ambassador of Myanmar 
His Excellency Odo Tevi, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vanuatu

Asia Policy Events, Monday September 21, 2026

Today is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for the Jewish people. Many places in the US are closed. Congress is not in session. The House left last week and will not return until after the mid-terms. The Senate is expected to go on recess on October 2.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE HORMUZ ENERGY CRISIS ON SOUTH ASIA. 9/21, 8:30-9:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Anish De, Global Head for Energy Natural Resources & Chemicals (ENRC), KPMG International; Vibhuti Garg, Director, South Asia, IEEFA; Amit Jain, Senior Energy Specialist, World Bank; Jane Nakano, Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Change Program CSIS.

ENERGY OPPORTUNITY FORUM 2026: BUILDING ABUNDANT ENERGY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH. 9/21, 8:45-10:45am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Energy Opportunity Lab, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Speakers Include: Rania Al-Mashat, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, United Nations; Ashish Khanna, Director General, International Solar Alliance; Luisa Palacios, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy.

NEW STRATEGIC PRIORITIES: HOW CHINA IS RESPONDING TO RUSSIA–NORTH KOREA MILITARY COOPERATION. 9/21, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Asia Society Policy Institute. Speakers: Sungmin Cho, Nonresident Fellow on Chinese Politics, Foreign Policy, and National Security, Asia Society Policy Institute; Emma Chanlett-Avery, Deputy Director, Asia Society Policy Institute; Moderator: Lyle Morris, Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security, Asia Society Policy Institute.

THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS AND THE RISE Of AfD. 9/21, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Quincy. Speakers: Reinhard Krumm, head of the US & Canada office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Washington DC; Thomas Fasbender, German journalist; and Molly O’Neal, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute.

HER POWER 2026: SUSTAINING ACTION FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS. 9/21, 3:30-6:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Foreign Policy. Speakers: H.E. Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Hon. Dr. Velislava Petrova-Chamova, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Bulgaria; Roberta Metsola, President, European Parliament; Hon. Lori Urso (D-RI), Senator; Abigail Erikson, Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls; and more.

BOOK TALK: INSIDE CHINA'S SECRET PRISONS: AN UNDERCOVER EXPOSÉ AND ITS LASTING LEGACY. 9/21, 4:30-6:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsors: Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University; China and the World Program, Columbia University. Speaker: author, Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; Moderator: Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University. PURCHASE BOOK 

Japan’s Opposition Cannot Hold Together

Centrist Reform Alliance head Junya Ogawa 

Japan’s Main Opposition Party Fragments

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
September 7, 2026

Japan’s largest opposition party, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), determined to dissolve and separate itself into two groups: the former Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) and the former Komeito. Although the party had hoped to be an alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Diet, the CRA failed to find common ground between ex-CDPJ and ex-Komeito members on crucial policies, or to invite some members in other parties including the LDP. Fragmentation of the opposition will encourage Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to continue exercising arbitrary power to promote her conservative agenda.
 
Lower House members of the CDPJ and Komeito formed the CRA last January. It was an attempt to counter the LDP in Takaichi’s snap election in February by consolidating the votes of supporters of the CDPJ and Komeito. But the strategy failed because the voters regarded the merger as a maneuver not for confronting Takaichi’s policies but merely for the two parties’ survival. The CRA emerged from the February election with only 49 seats – a 70 percent loss from its pre-election seats of 167.
 
Although the CRA leaders expected the Upper House lawmakers in the CDPJ and Komeito to join immediately after the Lower House election, the Upper House members of the CDPJ hesitated. Members of Komeito, which had left the leading coalition with the LDP in the fall of 2025, were willing to join, but the CDPJ was reluctant because of basic policy differences. The CDPJ has taken liberal stances on security legislation that would include a right of collective self-defense right, construction of nuclear power plants, and building new military base in Okinawa. Komeito has stayed its conservative course on these issues. Neither party expressed much interest in compromise.
 
The CRA set a deadline for the merger at the end of August, to prepare a unified party able to compete in local elections in April 2027. But the local organizations of the CDPJ resisted an integrated campaign with Komeito since it had been an enemy for decades. The leaders of the CRA, CDPJ and Komeito officially agreed to abandon the merger in early September and to separate the party between its ex-CDPJ and ex-Komeito members.
 
The method of separation is unique and complicated. The former Komeito lawmakers will leave the CRA and return to Komeito. The former CDPJ members will join with the current CDPJ members in the Upper House to establish a new party. However, a single former CDPJ lawmaker will remain in the CRA to maintain its party status.
 
The CRA depended heavily on public funding to support its political activities. The party expects to receive 2.34 billion yen in 2026 and in fact has already accepted half the amount, 1.17 billion yen. If the CRA disappears, the rest of 1.17 billion yen will not be delivered. Hence one lawmaker in the CRA, which will be enough to maintain its eligibility to receive the remaining funds later this year. The leader of CRA, Jun-ya Ogawa, explained that the funding will be used to retire CRA’s debts for the election campaign in February.
 
The new party organized by the former CDPJ and CRA members will succeed to the funds assigned to the CRA shell. Komeito will not receive any of the funds. It is remarkable that the government will pay the funds to a single-member party that will not take any effective political activity. The CRA has in the past accused the LDP of mismanagement of its political funds, but the CRA is now vulnerable to criticism of its control of its own funds.
 
Regardless of former party memberships, it is expected that the lawmakers who leave the CRA will form a parliamentary group in the Lower House. However, those lawmakers still differ on some important policies. Whether and for how long the new parliamentary group can take integrated actions in the Diet remains to be seen.
 
The LDP, which does not have a simple majority in the Upper House, expects Komeito to cooperate on such issues as the consumption tax cut. Takaichi pushed her conservative agenda, including a national statutory prohibition on national flag vandalism, in the last session of the Diet. Takaichi and the LDP are likely to approach Komeito for support on defense budget increase or constitutional amendment. In the meantime, the opposition parties are further fragmented from the far right to the far left.
 
Historically, the CRA has had a much smaller presence in the Diet than other earlier opposition parties. In 1960s, during the Cold War era, the largest opposition party, the Japan Socialist Party, occupied 30 percent of the seats in the Lower House. The New Frontier Party, established after of its members left the LDP, won 31 percent of votes in Lower House election in 1996. The Democratic Party of Japan won 26 percent of seats in the election in 2000. By contrast, the CRA had only 10 percent of Lower House seats, and now these seats will be divided. Trouble in the opposition parties thus enhances the power of LDP – without the LDP having to do anything.

The CRA's break up is welcomed by the Takaichi's administration. The unraveling of the opposition, as witnessed in the combined CRA dissolution and the LDP win in the Okinawa gubernatorial election, will solidify Takaichi's rule. If the CRA had found a way to remain unified, it could have presented a meaningful alternative to the LDP and Takaichi's military build-up.

The CRA had received over 10 million votes among the proportional districts in the February election. Although this was only half of those for the LDP, they did represent 18 percent of the overall vote--no small voice in the Diet. The CRA did not consider the power of that political will in their rush to put an end to their union.

Asian Art Events in September

PURCHASE BOOK

Jeju Biennale, SOUTH KOREA, 8/25-11/15, 2026.

Busan Biennale, SOUTH KOREA, 8/29-11/1, 2026.

Gwangju Biennial, SOUTH KOREA, 9/5-11/15, 2026.

BOOK TALK: KINKAKUJI AND KITAYAMA: SPACE, PLACE, MONUMENTS AND MEMORY IN JAPAN 1222-1994. 9/10, 7:00-8:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Modern Japan History Association. Speakers: author, Thomas Conlan, Professor of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University; Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Professor of Art History, Yale University; Moderator: Nick Kapur, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Camden. PURCHASE BOOK

Autumn Asia Week New York, UNITED STATES. 9/10-18, 2026.

Geraldine Javier’s “State of the Nations” Exhibition at Silverlens Gallery, UNITED STATES. 9/10-10/24, 2026

CURATOR'S TALK: STROLLING TOGETHER IN THE WORLD OF CHINESE ART. 9/15, 6:30-8:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: China Institute of America. Speakers: Annette Juliano, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University; Alfreda Murck, Visiting Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University; David Sensabaugh, Head, Department of Asian Art, Yale University. 

BOOK TALK: IN THE SHADOW OF EMPIRE: ART IN OCCUPIED JAPAN. 9/23, 3:30-5:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Department of History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES. Speaker: Alicia Volk, author, Professor, Japanese Art, Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland. PURCHASE BOOK

Art Formosa (Taipei), TAIWAN. 9/25-28, 2026.

Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, UNITED STATES. 9/25, 2026-1/25, 2027.