Japanese Politics Updates – January 11, 2025

Good morning, and welcome to this recap of our Sunday morning weekly broadcast.

This week’s briefing emerges from inside the protected cabin of das boot Gryms in Katsuyama on the Chiba coast. A horrendous winter wind has been pushing the boat around hard for the last 15 hours, enough to make me look unsteady and tipsy. In a funny way, this perfectly matches the mood of Japanese politics right now: inside calm but structurally unstable underneath, with lots of howling outside.

We are week two into the New Year; 11 days before the new Parliament starts, and yet the political machinery is already moving. The Diet MUST pass the annual budget by April 1; the Prime Minister cannot afford further coalition drift that characterized the late Kishida and Ishiba periods.

This Week’s Headlines

• No foreign dignitaries, no overseas optics: PM Takaichi spent the week focused on domestic coalition architecture and pre-Diet positioning.
• Snap election “trial balloon” floats again: A report suggests a February snap election, but the logic still reads as leverage rather than as a serious plan.
• Coalition math remains precarious: LDP + Ishin sits at roughly 50%—not a working majority—while the Upper House remains a separate, harder problem.
• DPFP (Tamaki) is gaining influence fast: After winning concessions on the tax-free salary threshold, the DPFP is now a serious bargaining actor, aggravating Ishin and complicating LDP management.
• Komeito remains the quiet variable: Out of the previous formal coalition, still voting pragmatically, and deeply exposed if an election happens now.
• Security posture hardens: Public support for the Self-Defense Forces is now reportedly 93%, reflecting Taiwan-related anxiety and shifting norms.
• Defense and finance diplomacy accelerates: Defense Minister Koizumi heads to Washington for a week; the Finance Minister also travels separately, dual trips highlighting an intensity of U.S.-Japan coordination.
• Venezuela matters as signal, not supply. Japan does not import meaningful amounts of Venezuelan oil, but is highly exposed to what U.S. actions signal to adversaries.
• Inflation and cost-of-living pressure persist: Rice prices and subsidy burdens remain the lived-economy pressure point.
• Coming-of-Age Day as a “Japan Inc.” metaphor: Legal adulthood is 18, the cultural rite remains 20: an example of law and culture moving at different speeds, similar to labor/capital immobility.

Prime Minister Takaichi’s Week: Quiet on the Surface, Intense Underneath

The Prime Minister hosted no foreign dignitaries during this last first week of work. That absence was itself the message: this week was about structure: shoring up enough political stability to open the Diet on January 23 and drive the budget toward passage by April 1.

One detail emphasized in this week’s narrative is the Prime Minister’s personal political appeal: her image as a caretaker within a society facing deep demographic stress, and her status as Japan’s first female Prime Minister, continues to support unusually strong polling, described as around 70%. The point was less sentimentality than political utility: high approval is leverage in coalition bargaining.

A key development: PM Takaichi reportedly held a dinner inside the official residence with former Prime Minister Suga and former Ishin leader Baba. It reads as coalition management by other means: using experienced political operators, and Ishin-linked figures, to stabilize the “loose alliance” before the Diet opens. In separate news, she took time to pay her respects at the grave site of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe… interesting timing.

Snap Election: Feasible in Theory, Disruptive in Practice

An unnamed individual leaked that the Prime Minister is considering a February snap election. This is astounding news.

If a snap election were truly being planned, the Diet opening would likely have been pulled forward to early January to maximize the honeymoon window. Instead, the Diet opening has been set for January 23, which typically signals an intention to proceed through standard budget deliberations.

The more convincing interpretation offered:

• The snap-election story functions as a trial balloon and a threat mechanism, a way to pull coalition partners closer and force concessions.
• Even if the LDP improved its Lower House position, it would not solve the larger problem: the Upper House math remains unfavorable, and a Lower House election does not fix it.

Bottom line: a snap election is high risk, with questionable payoff, and may be more about disciplining Ishin, DPFP, and Komeito than about actually going to the country.

Coalition Geometry: LDP, Ishin, DPFP, and Komeito in a Four-Way Standoff

Diet management is no longer bilateral (LDP – Ishin): it has morphed into an unstable multi-party geometry:

Ishin

Ishin remains important but frustrated. The LDP made ten promises to secure Ishin support, with two highlighted as emblematic:

• ~10% seat reduction (often discussed around 45 seats, split across district and proportional components)
• Osaka as THE secondary capital (requiring real structural steps, not slogans).

Ishin feels the LDP promised more than it delivered. Yet Ishin is also reluctant to fully join government with cabinet seats because it wants to preserve its identity as a party aiming to go national, not become absorbed as an accessory to LDP governance.

DPFP (Tamaki)

DPFP is now the high-velocity actor. After forcing a significant win on the tax-free salary threshold, Tamaki’s profile rose and DPFP began crowding Ishin’s lane as the “useful partner” to the LDP.

A key observation repeated: Ishin and DPFP do not like each other. Meanwhile, the LDP is trying to be liked by both, creating a management problem.

Komeito

Komeito is the anxious variable. It has formally exited coalition yet continues to vote pragmatically, partly to avoid being blamed for instability. But if an election were held now, Komeito could lose seats without the traditional LDP “seat coordination” arrangements that protected it for decades. Same goes for the LDP, though.

What the LDP Wants

Not affection but operating stability. The goal is a workable majority for:

• the budget
• core bills requiring Upper House passage
• a calmer spring season after April 1

This is the fundamental logic driving the Prime Minister’s behind-the-scenes coalition construction right now, before the Diet starts.

Economy and Yen: The Lived Pressure Persists

The yen closed Friday around ¥157.8/$, still structurally weak, even if it has been hovering in a narrower band recently.

The problem in classic Japan-terms:

• Japan’s import dependence amplifies inflation persistence.
• Food self-sufficiency was described as around 65%, implying a meaningful share of caloric intake is imported.
• Energy dependence remains a chronic vulnerability, made worse by a prolonged nuclear hiatus and the ongoing need for subsidies.

Rice is a the domestic symbol: Japan produces enough rice, yet pricing and distribution remain politically sensitive. A new, sharper Agriculture Minister is noteable. The point was not to litigate personalities but to underline that rice is still both a perennial political problem and a proxy for cost-of-living credibility.

National Security: The Mood Has Shifted

A striking data point is the 93% public support for the Self-Defense Forces, a major marker of social normalization around defense.

The argument was that the Taiwan situation has moved Japanese public thinking:

• Japan still relies on the U.S. military umbrella, but increasingly sees itself as a front-line fulcrum, no longer as a sheltered observer.
• The Prime Minister’s framing that the Taiwan contingency would be an existential threat to Japan, may have accelerated public acceptance of defense expansion.

Defense Minister Koizumi’s Washington trip is evidence that the pace is now structural, not ceremonial. Japan is moving deeper into:

• weapons development cooperation with like-minded partners
• export frameworks and supply-chain security
• “friend-shoring” and redundancy in key inputs

Venezuela: Not an Oil Story for Japan, a Signaling Story

Clearly Japan does not meaningfully import Venezuelan oil.

Nevertheless the Venezuela action is important because it signals:

• what the U.S. is willing to do
• what adversaries infer from U.S. appetite for action
• what that implies for risk calculations in other theaters (especially Taiwan)

Percentages were roughly as follows:

• U.S. imported a significant share when sanctions were lifted (described as 30–40% at times)
• India took a smaller slice (described as 10–15%)
• the remainder largely went to Asia, predominantly China
• Japan: not meaningful in volume terms

For the audience, the takeaway was geopolitical: Japan must read U.S. signaling and simultaneously prepare to carry more regional responsibility.

Coming-of-Age Day: A Cultural Lens on Policy Friction

Coming-of-Age Day (Seijin no Hi) remains culturally anchored to age 20 (drinking, smoking), even though legal adulthood (can execute contracts, drive) was lowered to 18 in 2022.

That mismatch is useful as an analogy for Japan’s structural challenge:

• the rules can change quickly
• the cultural and institutional reality often moves at a slower pace
• the friction between the two is where productivity, labor mobility, and capital allocation get stuck

Q&A Highlights

• DPFP in coalition — what ministry would they demand?
• Snap election messaging — is ambiguity itself strategy?
• National intelligence agency — whose model?
• Anti-espionage law — why doesn’t Japan already have one?
• Technology diffusion and “Japan Inc.” — is caution avoiding harm?
• Shintoism as exportable soft power?

Final Thoughts

This episode was, in substance, a briefing about governance under compressed timelines.

The Diet opens in less than two weeks, but the real clock is the budget: April 1 forces coalition decisions whether parties feel ready or not. That is why the Prime Minister is spending political capital now—not on diplomacy, but on domestic alignment. The snap-election story reads less like a plan than a pressure tool. Regardless, it still matters because it reveals how brittle the governing math remains.

What is changing rapidly, is the security environment. Public opinion has moved. Defense normalization has advanced. Washington coordination is accelerating. And Japan is being pushed into a more forward posture whether it wants it or not. The push comes from allies, from adversaries, and from its own vulnerabilities .

The Oshōgatsu mode culturally lingers, but politically the year has already begun.