At the end of 2025, the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo is always full. Blame it on Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei. The two star pandas must return to China, their owner, at the end of January and will not be replaced. For the first time since 1972 and the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between the two neighbors, there will no longer be a panda in the archipelago. Heartbreaking for many Japanese and further proof of the deterioration, since November, of relations between Tokyo and Beijing. China called on its nationals to refrain from traveling to Japan, canceled several Japanese cultural events and incidents took place between the two armies.
The rise in tensions closely follows the coming to power of Sanae Takaichi on October 21. Since then, the first woman to head a Japanese government has imposed her mark, nationalist and uninhibited. His meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of October on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea was “fresh”, according to diplomatic sources. The two leaders certainly agreed to establish a “mutually beneficial strategic relationship”. But Takaichi tickled Xi on the burning issue of his country’s military activities in the East China Sea, particularly around the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islets. On November 7, his declarations in Parliament on the “existential threat to Japan” that an attack on Taiwan would represent, ignited the powder. His comments suggested a possible Japanese intervention.
Taiwan, a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945 but today on good terms with Tokyo, is an extremely sensitive subject for China, which considers the island to be a rebel territory belonging to it. “No one should be under any illusions that they can cross the red line on the Taiwan issue without paying the price,” thundered The People’s Dailyofficial Chinese organ, after Takaichi’s statements.
At the end of December, despite calls from Beijing to reconsider her comments, the Prime Minister stuck to her positions. The one whose model is the British “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher (in power from 1979 to 1990) is not in the habit of making concessions.
Rebel spirit and far-right politics
Born in 1961 in Nara, in western Japan, Sanae Takaichi is the daughter of a Toyota salesman and a policewoman. His parents instilled in him the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890, a text considered to be a foundation of pre-war Japanese militarist ideology. With a degree in business management, she attended the very liberal Matsushita Institute, a school inspired by the ENA.
A rebellious spirit, Sanae Takaichi embraces her taste for motorcycles – she rode a Kawasaki Z400GP until she entered parliament in 1993 – heavy metal, discovered at age 9 thanks to a neighbor who worked at a record company, and drums. She delights inAces High of Iron Maiden and Painkiller by Judas Priest, whose lyrics she appreciates. “A savior comes from heaven to give hope to the world. I love that”, she told the very right-wing daily newspaper in November Sankei, who swoons: “Even in the darkness, she seems to believe that Japan, like heavy metal, can be reborn, strong, proud and invincible.”
A conviction that she has embodied since entering politics after a few years as a presenter on a private channel. In 1996, she joined the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) and its very right-wing Seiwakai faction where she met future Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a rising figure of a new generation of politicians. They have not experienced war, reject any form of repentance for the crimes of the imperial army, and are beginning a “shift to the right against a backdrop of economic decline conducive to the rise of nationalism,” explains Koichi Nakano, political scientist at Sophia University.
Takaichi is in his element. Didn’t she, in 1994, praise the work of a PLD elected official, entitled “Hitler’s electoral strategy, a bible for winning modern elections“. She is a member of the Nippon Kaigi, the “Japan Conference”, a far-right political organization created to promote pacifist constitutional reform, the remilitarization of Japan and historical revisionism. She becomes a regular at the Yasukuni shrine, where, in addition to those killed in combat, Japanese war criminals are honored. Nestled in the heart of Tokyo, the site remains a symbol of Japanese militarism for both Korea and China.
The elected representative from Nara won a ministerial post in the first Abe government in 2006, a portfolio which included gender equality even if she remained cloistered within the shackles of traditional family values. Abe appreciates this woodswoman who only sleeps two to four hours a night and hardly enjoys long evenings drinking with the other elected officials. As a new minister during Abe’s second term, between 2012 and 2020, she appears as a possible successor.
The assassination in 2022 of the former head of government opens the way for him to establish himself as a showcase for the powerful nationalist fringe of the PLD, which brings together around a hundred parliamentarians. His stupidity pays off. In October, she succeeded the overly indecisive Shigeru Ichiba at the head of the world’s fourth largest economy.
The end of strategic ambiguity
By speaking on Taiwan, Sanae Takaichi breaks with the strategic ambiguity maintained until now by Japan. Even before taking office, she visited Taiwan in April, where she called for cooperation on “defense challenges.” “His remarks are part of a broader initiative aimed at […] move Japan from the status of a ‘normal country capable of waging war’ to that of a full-fledged security power, underlines Park So-young, columnist for the South Korean daily JoongAng. “Beijing views Takaichi’s comments not as mere diplomatic rhetoric, but as a sign of a change in Japan’s political direction.”
Hence the virulence of Chinese reactions after its declaration of November 7: “We must cut off the dirty neck that interferes in our affairs”, dares the Chinese consul general in Osaka, in a message published on X, subsequently deleted. His comments even irritate Washington. “Don’t get involved in the Taiwanese question,” Donald Trump, concerned about his relations with Xi Jinping, reportedly informed him at the end of November, according to the Japanese press.
Nothing to shake Takaichi. On December 18, one of his advisors even spoke of the need for Japan to “equip itself with a nuclear arsenal.” Explosive subject which caused Beijing to react but also Washington, which felt obliged to recall the solidity of the bilateral security alliance and to underline Japan’s attachment to the fight against proliferation.
But Takaichi wrote in 2024 that banning the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan “is unrealistic, if we expect the United States to offer us extended deterrence”, in reference to the United States’ commitment to defending the archipelago. In November, she evaded a question on the three principles according to which Japan must not possess, manufacture or host nuclear weapons on its soil and announced a review of defense strategy. With the Japanese “Iron Lady”, diplomacy is played to the rhythm of heavy metal, which does not displease the Japanese: her popularity rating hovered at 75% at the end of December.
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