Let’s confront the reactionary Takaichi administration

By Kasane Yonemaru

Published in Shiso-Undo News October, 2025

 On October 20, the coalition government of the Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) was formed, and the following day, the TAKAICHI Sanae Cabinet was launched. This marks the birth of an ultra-reactionary, far-right administration packed with ultra-hawkish historical revisionists and xenophobes, including lawmakers involved in slush funds.

Over the past 26 years, the LDP-Komeito coalition government has forcibly implemented numerous anti-people, reactionary policies. Particularly over the last decade, since the 2014 cabinet decision under the second ABE administration to “allow the exercise of collective self-defense” and the subsequent forced passage of the 2015 “Security-related Laws” (War Laws) that embodied this policy, the strengthening of a war state and a security crackdown regime has accelerated rapidly. Simultaneously, while “Abenomics” pursued monetary relaxation, tax breaks for monopoly capital, and tax hikes on the people, corruption ran rampant—from the Moritomo/Kake scandals to the manipulation of public funds and slush-fund politics. The exposure of this political corruption led to the inevitable, albeit belated and modest, retribution: the LDP-Komeito coalition suffered defeat in both House of Representatives and House of Councillors elections, becoming a minority government. However, the government and ruling class are solely focused on scheming how to navigate the crisis they brought upon themselves to their own advantage.

Takaichi’s policy address on October 24 made no mention whatsoever of slush funds or tax cuts. Instead, it was a parade of reactionary policies: accelerating the achievement of the “three security documents” (including increasing military spending to 2% of GDP, or ¥11 trillion (US$73 billion), by fiscal 2026), continuing “Abenomics”, and reducing the number of Diet seats to eliminate minority parties opposed to constitutional revision and military expansion. By reinforcing the “right-wing spring” within the government through the JI Party, it seeks nothing less than restoring centripetal force among conservative and right-wing factions while achieving the revival of Japanese imperialism across all fronts: political, economic, and military.

Against the prevailing trend that pretends Takaichi’s appointment as Japan’s first female prime minister holds some progressive significance, it is impossible to effectively counter this without employing the concept of “class.” Why does Takaichi seek to exclude foreigners? Why does she stubbornly oppose separate surnames for married couples and insist on visiting Yasukuni Shrine? The ideology of her and other far-right forces is fundamentally one of colluding with the United States to serve as an integrating axis for the benefit of Japanese monopolies. Unless we expose the capitalist class consciousness and its aims—the root of this reactionary ideology—we cannot truly hold them accountable.

As long as Takaichi is a woman, her presence will slightly shift the gender ratio in male-dominated “key positions.” However, what matters is for which class’s interests she works—the working class or the capitalist class. It is as clear as day that, by “working like a dog” for the capitalist class, Takaichi will further oppress and impoverish the working people.

Capitalism is the consistent instigator of war

The reactionary Takaichi administration, deepening its honeymoon relationship with the Trump administration, is participating in a containment strategy aimed at dismantling and overthrowing the governments of China, DPRK, and Russia—strategy rooted in America’s return to unipolar domination and colonialist ambitions—and is charging headlong into a war of re-invasion against Asia. It relentlessly pushes for the expansion and combat readiness of the SDF under the pretext of “defense,” while also stoking xenophobia among impoverished people through the exclusion of foreigners. What must we do to halt the ever-deepening crisis of war?

Though separated by over a century, we are both living in an era of imperialist war. The Russian October Socialist Revolution was achieved in the midst of World War I, an imperialist war for the redivision of colonies. Over these past 100-plus years, it has been proven consistently that capitalism is the arsonist of war. The root cause lies in the capitalist system, driven by insatiable profit-seeking, which seeks to maintain global domination enabling its rampant excesses. Thirty-four years have passed since the collapse of the socialist systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Global capitalism, led by the US, Europe, and Japan, freed from those constraints, has been forced into retreat in the face of capitalism’s inherent contradictions and the advance of anti-US struggles. It has masked its decline by expanding the military-industrial complex and prolonging its life through war policies. Now, it is escalating its stirrings, spawning fascist hordes across the world.

 Persistent Japanese colonialism

This reality demonstrates that there is no such thing as “just-right capitalism” or “better capitalism.” The 1980s, often recalled as Japan’s “era of high economic growth” when it was said to be a “nation of 100 million middle-class citizens,” is sometimes cited as such an example. Yet it was precisely during this period that the crisis was unfolding. Global capitalism had already stalled its “growth” by the early 1970s, with profit rates turning downward. Following the crises of 1974 and 1975, the course shifted toward neoliberal policies. In Japan, too, various economic indicators peaked in 1973 and then turned negative across the board (for example, per capita crude steel consumption, considered a barometer of economic growth, and the rate of return on capital for small and medium-sized enterprises and non-manufacturing industries). The total fertility rate fell below the replacement level of 2.1, the threshold for maintaining the total population, starting in 1974, the earliest among “advanced nations.”

However, isn’t the very “prosperity” that Japanese capitalism has enjoyed the very thing that should be questioned? This “economic growth” was built upon the defeat in an aggressive war, the transformation of Okinawa into a “military colony,” the imposition of the contradictions of the Japan-US Security Treaty—including the damages from US military bases—upon the people of Okinawa, and the suffering caused by the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Moreover, following the example of the imperial system state, which continues to shelve responsibility for its history of aggression and colonial rule, the working people themselves have been unable to gain even a recognition of this history of perpetration. Furthermore, Japanese corporations’ expansion into Asia remains so barbaric it can be called economic aggression. Capitalism inherently demands predatory and invasive behavior because it is a system that constantly creates a convenient “outside,” exploiting and plundering labor and resources from there as its foundation.
The continuation of colonialism by the Japanese state and people—justifying invasion and colonial rule—does not merely signify an unreflective continuity from pre-war to post-war. Was it not also a reactionary ideology reproduced after defeat, sustained by the material foundations created by capitalism? Could it be that the difficulty in cultivating class consciousness among the working class and internationalism in this land stems precisely from the fact that, contrary to the pride in “peaceful Japan,” colonialist ideology has actually been perpetuated and entrenched here?

Capitalism detached from the real economy found refuge in bubble economies, repeatedly cycling through bubble collapses and economic contractions as it shifted speculative targets to land, IT, and housing. The ultimate destination of financial capital, where excess capital (money) dominates, is the current war business and an ever-expanding world of wealth disparity. This is a phenomenon common not only to Japan but throughout the capitalist world.

Returning to the question of the ideological and material roots of the current mass movement’s fragility, and building discussion and collaboration step by step, will become the force to regenerate our movement, however circuitous the path may seem.