Takaichi’s First Debates in the Diet: Strong Words, Shakey Ground

Takaichi’s First Debates in the Diet: Strong Words, Shakey Ground

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow,  Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
November 10, 2025

Last week, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi participated in a series of debates in the Diet, both in the Plenary Sittings and in budget committee appearances. Although she refrained from asserting an ambitious agenda in the Plenary Sittings, given her minority government in both Houses, Takaichi revealed her intention to take bold steps on issues of security and the economy in the Committee on the Budget. Regardless she does not have a sufficiently firm political base to implement those policies, she is proceeding as if she does.
 
The Diet typically holds Plenary Sittings for debate after a prime minister’s policy speech. In the current extraordinary session, Takaichi delivered her policy speech on October 24. The parties in both chambers submitted written questions to her, and she prepared written responses before her appearance at the sittings between November 4 and 6. On the following day, November 7, unscripted debate started in the Committee on Budget of the Lower House. A similar debate will in the budget committee of the Upper House will begin on November 12.
 
In the Plenary Sittings, the opposition leaders asked Takaichi how she would promote political reform, which would affect every party. (Since the LDP’s current coalition is only with the Japan Innovation Party, all other parties are in opposition.) Specific reform proposals now include reductions in the number of seats in the Diet and the regulation of political donations from companies and organizations.
 
On the former point, Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) agreed, when they established their coalition in October, to cut Lower House seats by 10 percent. They have focused on reductions in the proportional districts. The small opposition parties depend heavily on the proportional districts and oppose the approach of the LDP and JIP. The leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Yoshihiko Noda, argued that the seat reduction should be balanced between single-seat districts and proportional districts.
 
“It is important to have a broad consensus,” Takaichi told Noda. Opposition parties and even some LDP lawmakers have protested the LDP-JIP proposal. Although the LDP and JIP originally agreed to introduce and enact a seat reduction bill in the current Diet session, the strong push back suggests that this timeline may be too aggressive. This result may increase the JIP’s frustration with its coalition with the LDP.
 
On the second point, the regulation of political fundraising, it was the LDP’s failure to deal with this issue that caused its serious defeats in the national elections last fall and spring and led Komeito to leave the leading coalition with the LDP. This history does not disturb Takaichi. She repeated the LDP’s longstanding position – which lacks public support – that the issue of political fundraising is not about the prohibition, but the transparency of these contributions. Indeed, she believes that that the regulation of fundraising may violate business entities’ freedom of political activities. That is, the LDP still wants to maintain a system for siphoning money from business sectors.
 
Unlike the Plenary Sittings, the discussions in the budget committees of both Houses do not include written Q&As and have an improvisational and ad hoc air. Lawmakers can be agitated and aggressive in the budget committee discussions.
 
Exciting may be an understatement for what may have been an offhand (and in any case careless) remarks about a “Taiwan contingency” by Takaichi in the Lower House budget committee meeting. The “Taiwan contingency” is the question whether and how Japan should respond to military hostilities between China and the U.S. over Taiwan. Her remarks, careless though they may have been, have created a diplomatic incident – just weeks into taking office.
 
Katsuya Okada, a veteran CDPJ lawmaker and a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, asked Takaichi about the Taiwan contingency. She said that a contingency in Taiwan could create a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan “if it is a situation with use of warships or use of armed force,” Takaichi said – the first time a Japanese prime minister has so characterized possible events surrounding Taiwan. 
 
One of the problems with Takaichi’s remark is that “survival-threatening situation” is a specific term that appears in 2015 security legislation backed by the Shinzo Abe administration. One of those packaged laws defines a “survival-threatening situation” as “a situation in which an armed attack against a foreign country that has a close relationship with Japan occurs, and, as a result, threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger of fundamentally overturning people’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” The purpose of this definition is to enable Japan to exercise a right of collective self-defense that the constitution might otherwise prohibit.
 
Prime ministers since then have assiduously avoided any discussion of what might constitute a “survival-threatening situation.” Takaichi’s description of a Taiwan contingency as a survival-threatening situation broke with that tradition and implied that Japan would send troops to support United States forces, if attacked by China.
 
This unprecedented statement about a Taiwan contingency immediately struck a nerve in China, although Takaichi tried to walk her comment back. The Chinese consul-general in Osaka, Xue Jian, posted on social media that an “intruding dirty neck must be cut off without a moment’s hesitation.” The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minoru Kihara, responded that Xue’s posting was “extremely inappropriate.”
 
Takaichi’s statement, however, has gone further up the ranks in the Chinese government. “The remarks are seriously inconsistent with the political commitments the Japanese government has made so far, and their nature and impact are extremely egregious,” Chinese foreign policy spokesperson, Lin Jian, said in a press conference.
 
It seems unlikely that Takaichi, with no experience in foreign affairs or defense, wanted to spark a diplomatic incident, but, in her carelessness, she has done so. “I realized the danger of her going it alone without consulting others,” Noda said about Takaichi’s comments. But backed by a high approval rating in the polls, Takaichi looks to be pushing her agenda full speed ahead almost regardless of the consequences.