Japanese Politics Updates – October 25, 2026

Good morning from my homeport in Hota. It is overcast, and the rain has settled in for the next couple of days. A typhoon near Okinawa is expected to peter out and turn back into a tropical storm, so it should not have much impact here. The air has grown a sharper edge now—less of the endless humidity of the rainy season and more of the clean chill of real autumn—and the seasonal trees and flowers that Tokyo is known for are coming into bloom. This is payday and our 298th episode. Two more and we reach 300.

The Consumption Tax and the Upper House

The Diet is deep into the consumption tax bill. Debates on the food tax—taking the rate on foodstuffs from 8 percent down to 1 percent for two years—opened last Monday and ran through the week. PM Takaichi attended the open plenary, which she had preferred to avoid. She defended the supplemental payment designs for lower-income households and pledged, on behalf of the LDP, that the cut is limited to two years. The Finance Minister was pressed the next day for concrete funding details. Opposition parties complain that the specifics on both the funding and the structure of the supplemental payments are still missing.

The Lower House is expected to pass the Bill, given the LDP’s supermajority there. The Upper House is the harder chamber. The LDP holds 101 seats; Ishin adds 19. That still leaves them short of a majority by at least four. In anticipation, six opposition parties within the Upper House met on Friday. They agreed to demand a special committee with one of them as committee chair. Their aim is to be in a position to insist upon more time and more control over the pace. If they cannot beat the government on numbers, they will try to delay the bill until the session runs out. The government still hopes for a Lower House vote by early November. The real obstacle will therefore be procedural: getting the Bill to a vote at all.

The Seat Cut and the Coalition

The ground under the Takaichi Administration is shifting. The September cabinet reshuffle that was meant to lock in a stable team is already producing second-order problems. Public support has slipped into the low-to-middle 40s. Jiji Press reports 42.4 percent Approval, a new low for this Administration. Roughly 80 percent approved of Kazuo Yana’s resignation as Agriculture Minister. A sizable share, however, judged the Prime Minister’s handling as too slow; overemphasizing their long relationship and her support for him.

Yana lasted about ten days and was replaced by Arata Takebe. Takebe has already faced reports of a possible improper donation and koenkai payments. He has acknowledged receiving a donation and returned it. His boss in the former Nikai faction told him to explain fully: the Prime Minister cannot afford another money scandal so soon after taking office. Economic Revitalization Minister Hosono and Administrative Reform Minister Nakatsuka have also drawn criticism of the PM for incomplete due diligence before her appointments. The support for the tax cut itself remains solid, but concern about the fiscal impact is real.

The Coalition

The coalition with Ishin is showing strain over the one promise that was supposed to be non-negotiable: a 10 percent reduction in Lower House seats. Ishin’s expectation is 45 seats. What is now circulating is closer to 31. Ishin’s assessment after a year puts the LDP success at meeting these commitments at roughly 56 or 57 percent of the 12 items. The seat reduction is the open wound.

The other promises—temporary gasoline tax abolition, free high school tuition and elementary school lunches, movement on social security reform, easing of the five-category restriction on defense equipment transfers, creation of a National Intelligence Bureau and Council, a dedicated Minister for foreigner and immigration policy, enabling legislation for a secondary capital, the Imperial Household Law revision that took effect yesterday, the food tax cut itself, and drafting councils for Article 9 and emergency clauses—have at least moved forward or been concluded; the seat cut has not. If Ishin does not get its 45, the question is “what does it do then?”. Taking its ball and going home is not the most likely outcome, but 45 is not 31, and 31 does not do the work Ishin calculated it would.

The LDP now prioritizes the Upper House arithmetic it needs for the tax cut and is quietly softening or shelving the 45-seat figure. The Democratic Party for the People, vying against Ishin, has helpfully said the seat cut is not a huge issue for them. The long history of junior partner disappointment with LDP promises is being confirmed once again in real time.

Three Items on the Same Map

Three items that look unrelated sit on the same platform. Finland’s Defense Minister meets Defense Minister Koizumi tomorrow. Finland recently amended its law to allow nuclear weapons on its soil. Japan is simultaneously reviewing the three non-nuclear principles and studying nuclear-powered submarines as a component of the three national security documents. Ishin has pushed harder on the submarine question than the LDP. The conversation is not about copying Finland. It is about how far the post-Cold War nuclear taboo can be adjusted without a formal break.

The Revised Imperial Household Law that took effect yesterday permits adoption of male paternal-line descendants from the former branch families. It also allows female members to retain imperial status after marriage. It does not open the throne to women or to maternal-line succession. The law was one of the twelve arrows. Its passage shows the coalition can deliver on items that are symbolically important but do not directly threaten LDP seats or fundraising. The seat reduction bill is the opposite case.

Separately, the Digital Agency reported a data breach itself(!) involving up to roughly 13,000 user profiles collected between 2021 and 2023 that may have been exposed via a contractor’s cloud environment. No secondary misuse, they say. The episode arrives while the government continues to promote digitalization and stands up a new National Intelligence Bureau. It is a concrete reminder of residual vendor and legacy data risk at the exact moment Tokyo is trying to strengthen its intelligence and digital posture.

The Yen and the Bank of Japan

The yen closed Friday at 156.87, a little stronger than last week, and the move was orderly. The Bank of Japan meets Wednesday and Thursday. September core CPI rose 2.1 percent, the first time above the target this year. Governor Ueda has called underlying inflation quite close to 2 percent but remains cautious. Markets expect the Bank of Japan to hold at 1.25 percent and use the outlook report to signal whether it now judges the target reached. A December hike remains the more widely discussed next step. Finance Minister Katayama continues to stress that the tax cut will not be financed by deficit bonds. The emergency gasoline subsidy has held the national average near ¥170 per liter and is under review.

Officials are discussing a phased reduction beginning in early December. PM Takaichi has instructed the Industry Minister to examine both the amount and the possible exit path, noting that the consumption tax cut, once enacted, may reduce the political need for the subsidy. The fund that pays for it is depleted under elevated oil prices. The timing will test household tolerance if crude stays high.

Today in History

Yesterday Kim Jong-un crossed into China via the newly opened Yalu River Bridge. He spent a day in China, met some high-level officials, visited a war memorial, and a gasoline facility. The timing was deliberate. Today is the anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteers crossing the Yalu in 1950, the move that exploded during the Korean War. For Japan the consequences were immediate and long-lasting. The Korean War was a boom. It accelerated industrial recovery under the occupation and helped create the economic miracle. The war also reinforced the case for the Japan-U.S. security treaty and locked Japan into a security architecture that treated the Korean peninsula as an existential buffer. It also froze a particular reading of the China relationship that has never fully disappeared: the Chinese Communist Party as both a revolutionary and a military actor whose proximity required permanent American presence and Japanese restraint.

Today’s debate over the three non-nuclear principles, nuclear-powered submarines, and the precise wording of the national security documents still carries the echo of 1950. The anniversary does not dictate policy, but it supplements one of the deeper reference points against which current choices are still quietly measured.

Q&A Highlights

• Will the Upper House opposition succeed in delaying the food-tax bill past early November?
• What does Ishin do if the seat cut lands at 31 rather than the promised 45?
• How far does the nuclear-powered submarine discussion move before year-end?
• Does the Digital Agency breach change the pace or design of the national intelligence bureau?
• Will the gasoline subsidy exit path be coordinated with the consumption-tax cut?

In Closing

The tax cut is the legislative priority. The seat reduction bargain is the coalition stress test. The arithmetic of the Upper House is the pressure that makes Ishin’s fear of a change in tone concrete. Everything else—the submarines, the Imperial Household Law, the data breach, the yen, the subsidies—sits on this same map. We will continue to follow these changes.

Next briefing is November 1 at 8:20 a.m. JST.

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