The Japanese electorate delivered a verdict last weekend that shattered the conventional wisdom of Nagatacho. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Liberal Democratic Party roared back from the political wilderness, securing 316 seats in the 465-seat Lower House of parliament.

This supermajority is a stunning reversal of fortune. Just two years prior, voters had sent the LDP to the “penalty box,” to borrow a Canadian hockey metaphor, punishing the party for the corruption scandals and feckless leadership that characterized the administrations of former LDP presidents Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba.

Yet while Takaichi’s victory offers an overwhelming mandate for the LDP as the stewards of the nation, it would be a grave error for the prime minister to misread the tea leaves. This was a vote for hard-nosed realism in a dangerous neighborhood, not a license for performative nationalism or domestic culture wars.

Thank you, China. Japanese citizens voted en masse against coercion.

The turnout was driven primarily by a craving for security. Voters rallied behind Takaichi’s willingness to stand up to Chinese economic coercion and the massive disinformation campaigns waged against her by Beijing. As foreign-policy expert Takashi Suzuki has noted in his analysis of China’s United Front Work, Beijing has aggressively sought to co-opt foreign elites and manipulate public opinion to serve its “Great Rejuvenation.” Takaichi’s refusal to buckle under this pressure, specifically her common-sense assertion that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would necessitate a Japanese defense of its interests, resonated with a public that has watched the geopolitical landscape darken.

The turning point for many was likely the Sept. 3 military parade in Beijing. The sight of an aligning authoritarian axis involving China, Russia and North Korea was chilling enough. But the presence of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at the event, applauding a display of military might aimed squarely at the U.S.-Japan alliance, served as a potent symbol of the naive engagement policies of the past. Voters rejected that subservience. They recognized, as Nobukatsu Kanehara, former deputy secretary-general of Japan’s National Security Secretariat, has argued, that Japan is navigating a period of “declining national power” amid geopolitical crises and cannot afford the luxury of division or delusion.

Consequently, the public has prioritized what Takaichi has termed Japan’s “limitless alliance” with the United States. As Dan Blumenthal, Mike Kuiken and Randy Schriver argued recently in Foreign Affairs, Japan “can’t go it alone.” Voters understand that while American hegemony may be in relative decline, the U.S. remains the indispensable guarantor of Japan’s sovereignty. They want a leader who can navigate this turbulence with a robust alliance that includes greater burden-sharing, the integration of command structures and industrial cooperation to co-produce missiles and ships.

However, Takaichi must tread carefully. While she has secured a supermajority, it is unclear if this translates into overwhelming support for radical changes to Article 9 of the Constitution, which renounces war.

As Chuo University’s Nobuhiko Tamaki has argued in “Contemporary Politics,” Japan’s post-Cold War diplomatic tradition has evolved toward actively shaping the Indo-Pacific through a “rules-based order.” Japan seeks to preserve existing international rules (freedom of navigation, free trade) via a balance-of-power approach rather than a purely ideological crusade for democracy promotion. Voters want a stable government that can manage the delicate balance between engagement, resilience and deterrence. They want to avoid war, not provoke it.

This distinction is vital for Japan’s leadership in the Global South. To enhance Japan’s “middle-power street cred,” Takaichi must move beyond democracy-only coalition building. She needs to foster inclusive partnerships based on shared interests including infrastructure, coast guard training and rule of law rather than ideological purity. This approach allows Japan to deepen trust with partners like Singapore, whose Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has recently highlighted the dangers of Chinese disinformation campaigns.

But foreign policy wasn’t Takaichi’s only strong point. Domestically, the election results mirrored the dynamics seen in the United States with the reelection of President Donald Trump. This was an election about the middle class. The priorities were inflation, stagnant wages and the affordability crisis that has made raising a family in Japan increasingly difficult. Voters are exhausted by the “lost decades” narrative and want tangible economic security.

Identity politics were notably absent from the ballot box. Issues such as same-sex marriage or the debate over separate surnames for married couples, while important to activists and the media, were not the drivers of this supermajority. Furthermore, immigration proved to be a false-flag issue. Despite rhetoric conflating illegal migration with over-tourism, Japan has never had an immigration system comparable to Canada or the U.S.; it has a legal migration system designed to funnel labor into specific sectors. The voters were not rejecting foreign workers; they were rejecting the chaotic management of the economy and the erosion of social order.

Takaichi’s domestic agenda must focus on “good jobs,” i.e., positions that pay living wages and offer genuine work-life balance rather than the exploitative “black company” culture that drives demographic collapse. She must activate the latent skills of the underemployed, particularly the millions of women whose talents remain underutilized. This does not mean simply pushing them into the workforce via national “Hello Work” schemes, but restructuring the employment and education systems to make life paths more flexible and financially secure.

The danger for Takaichi is that she interprets her victory as a mandate for the ideological wish list of the LDP’s right wing. Spending precious political capital on symbolic but draining crusades, such as official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, would be a strategic error. Such moves would alienate the very partners in South Korea and Southeast Asia that Japan needs to counter Chinese hegemony. As Tamaki notes, Japan’s vision for a rules-based order relies on diplomatic consensus-building; inflammatory historical revisionism undermines the “balance of power” strategy by fracturing the coalition against Beijing.

Instead, Takaichi should look to the legacy of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, not to mimic him, but to adapt his strategic vision. She must rebuild the credibility Japan lost under the drift of the Yoshihide Suga, Kishida and Ishiba years. This means traveling extensively to the Global South, not just the Group of Seven, and launching initiatives that send Japanese students, business leaders and Self-Defense Force officials across the region. Building these people-to-people ties is the most effective antidote to the “United Front Work” tactics described by Suzuki.

On the heels of her latest victory, Takaichi has a historic opportunity to reshape Japan’s trajectory. She has a supermajority, a supportive public and a clear adversary in a revisionist China. But to succeed, she must prioritize the hard work of economic security and alliance integration over the sugar high of culture wars. She must distinguish between the public’s desire for a strong defense and a desire for constitutional adventurism.

Above all, Takaichi’s big win is a mandate for realism; she must not squander it on nostalgia.

Originally publish with the Japan Times on February 10th, 2026