Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is drawing East Asia dangerously close to conflict. In just two months in office, she has stripped away decades of carefully maintained strategic ambiguity.
In doing so, she has misread the intent of Japan’s primary ally while alienating the neighbor she needs most. Her early tenure is becoming a case study in how to accelerate regional crisis dynamics while isolating one’s own country.
To grasp the magnitude of Takaichi’s gamble, one must revisit the legal framework that structured Japan’s postwar restraint, from its constitution to the UN charter. Although Article 9 of the Japanese constitution is often framed as a “peace clause,” Japan’s postwar restraint was rooted less in idealism than in cold realism.
The constitution was drafted not to permanently prevent rearmament, but to regulate it under civilian control within a US-led security framework.
The legal myth of postwar pacifism
Article 66 states: “The prime minister and other ministers of state must be civilians,” a distinction formalized through the creation of the Japanese term bunmin, coined specifically for the constitution to denote citizens who were not professional military personnel.
Had permanent disarmament been the intent, such a distinction would have been unnecessary.
Japan’s later accession to the United Nations reinforced this framework. Article 51 of the UN charter explicitly states: “Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.”
The Yoshida doctrine – dependence as a strategic asset
In reality, postwar Japan was constrained not by law but by strategy.
Shigeru Yoshida. Photo: Wikipedia
It was Shigeru Yoshida, the dominant prime minister of the early postwar era, who transformed this legal flexibility into doctrine – consciously choosing restraint, dependence on the US and strategic ambiguity as tools of statecraft rather than constitutional obligation.
He understood that fears of Japanese remilitarization in the US, Europe and Asia would limit Washington’s demands for Japanese rearmament.
To him, that anxiety was not a liability but a strategic asset. It allowed Tokyo to prioritize economic recovery and domestic stability while outsourcing security to Washington.
Yoshida explained this logic with striking candor to the future prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa:
The day [for rearmament] will come naturally when our livelihood recovers. It may sound devious [zurui], but let the Americans handle [our security] until then. It is indeed our Heaven-bestowed good fortune that the constitution bans arms. If the Americans complain, the constitution gives us a perfect justification. The politicians who want to amend it are fools.
Yoshida believed the Cold War would compel the US to remain in Japan regardless of Tokyo’s military contribution, and that American presence alone would deter the Soviet Union.
Betting on the Anglo-Saxons
This mercantile realism shaped Japanese statecraft for decades.
In 1979, Hisahiko Okazaki, a senior Japanese diplomat and conservative strategist, warned against dismissing the Anglo-Saxons, noting that their institutions often appeared weak but repeatedly proved resilient.
His conclusion was blunt: Continued reliance on them would keep Japan safe for at least twenty years.
Misreading the American room
Where Okazaki counseled restraint under Anglo-American cover, Takaichi is testing that cover through open declaratory commitments.
While former prime minister Shinzo Abe gradually eroded the Yoshida doctrine, Takaichi has gone farther by becoming the first sitting prime minister to explicitly state that Japan would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
On board the naval vessel Kurama, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chats with an officer of the Maritime Self Defense Force during a fleet review at Sagami Bay off Kanagawa Prefecture in 2006. Photo: Asia Times files / AFP / Kazuhiro Nogi
In doing so, she has discarded strategic ambiguity and positioned Japan as an overt combatant in a cross-strait war, sharply raising escalation risks.
From deterrence to exposure
Chinese contingency planning reflects this shift. Analysis published by BEMIL, a South Korean defense-focused platform, indicates that Beijing’s Taiwan scenarios include pre-emptive strikes against Japan to immobilize US forward-deployed forces.
These plans envision large-scale missile attacks on Japanese infrastructure, including nuclear power facilities, launched from the mainland and from nuclear-powered submarines.
The objective is not occupation but paralysis.
A conceptual diagram depicting attacks on key Japanese targets using PLA Rocket Force units, strategic bombers and nuclear-powered attack submarines.
In this context, Japan’s declaratory commitment does not strengthen deterrence. It elevates Japan to a primary target. Strategic ambiguity is replaced by strategic exposure.
Misguided bet on America
Takaichi appears to assume that declaratory clarity will guarantee reciprocal US protection. That assumption misreads contemporary American politics.
Donald Trump is guided by domestic political and economic imperatives rather than abstract commitments to alliance solidarity.
American farmers form a core pillar of his political base and China’s role as a major importer of US agricultural exports continues to shape Washington’s calculations, as the US-China soybean dispute illustrates.
When domestic political interests are at stake, alliance commitments become negotiable.
Nixon shock precedent
Japan has seen this logic before. In the late 1960s, Japanese textile exports threatened the US South, a key region for President Nixon’s re-election.
When Tokyo failed to curb these exports, Nixon, seething over a “Jap betrayal,” retaliated with the unilateral “Nixon Shocks” – blindsiding Japan by normalizing US-China relations without consulting Tokyo.
This demonstrated that when domestic politics collide with alliance expectations, Washington prioritizes the former.
The pattern endures. Like Nixon, Trump has shown a readiness to subordinate alliance commitments to domestic agricultural interests.
A transactional alliance
Takaichi failed to learn from the past. Loudly aligning herself with Taiwan, she assumes the US-Japan alliance will respond in kind.
In reality, a transactional “America first” administration may trade Japanese security interests for economic concessions.
The 2025 US National Security Strategy confirms this shift: Washington seeks no longer a dependent protege. It seeks, rather, a paying client conditioned on tangible contributions.
Alienating a critical neighbor
Compounding this miscalculation, Takaichi is alienating South Korea, the one partner Japan cannot afford to lose.
On December 9, she reaffirmed Japan’s claim that Takeshima – called Dokdo by the Koreans, who claim it, and also known as the Liancourt Rocks – is “clearly Japan’s inherent territory in light of historical facts and under international law.”
Seoul’s response was swift, marking the first major diplomatic clash since President Lee Jae Myung took office with a mandate to stabilize relations.
At a moment when coordination is essential, Takaichi chose domestic posturing over strategic restraint.
No realist replacement
Takaichi is dismantling the “fools’ wisdom” of Yoshida without replacing it with a viable realist strategy.
Japan’s postwar restraint was never a pacifist illusion. It was calculated statecraft designed to maximize security while minimizing exposure. By abandoning that inheritance, Takaichi is discarding a proven shield for a gamble on a transactional America and a spurned neighbor.
She offers no replacement doctrine, no regional consensus, and no reliable guarantees from Washington. Ultimately, she is not making Japan safer – she is moving it closer to the front lines of a conflict it cannot control.
Hanjin Lew is a South Korean political commentator specializing in alliance politics and East Asian security affairs.
