The Iron Lady's Security Strategy:
Binding the United States, Building the Defense Budget
Kolas Yotaka in conversation with Japan security experts Ken Jimbo and Huang Wei-hsiu
By ｜ Kolas Yotaka
Kolas Yotaka is a Taiwanese author and politician. She previously served as spokesperson for both the Executive Yuan and the Office of the President. A former legislator with the Democratic Progressive Party, she now leads policy initiatives focused on supply chains, defense, and energy security.
Kolas Yotaka is a Taiwanese author and politician. She previously served as spokesperson for both the Executive Yuan and the Office of the President. A former legislator with the Democratic Progressive Party, she now leads policy initiatives focused on supply chains, defense, and energy security.
"If the United States comes under attack during a crisis and Japan stands by and does nothing, the Japan-U.S. alliance will collapse." (有事の際、アメリカ軍が攻撃を受けているのに日本が何もしなければ、日米同盟は崩壊する。) Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae reaffirmed her commitment to the Japan-U.S. security alliance on January 26, 2026.
She had been in office for fewer than three months, the honeymoon period barely over, when she made the announcement that stunned Japan's political establishment: she was dissolving parliament and calling a snap general election. In a parliamentary system like Japan's, the prime ministership belongs to the leader of the party that controls the legislature. If the Liberal Democratic Party lost, Takaichi would be handing power to her opponents. It was an enormous gamble.
"A nation that refuses to take risks has no future. Politics that only seeks to preserve what exists offers no hope." (挑戦しない国に未来はない。守るだけの政治に希望は生まれない。) — Takaichi Sanae, January 23, 2026
On February 18, 2026, while Taiwanese families were celebrating the Lunar New Year, Takaichi led the Liberal Democratic Party to a crushing victory. The House of Representatives has 465 seats in total; the LDP alone won 316, a single party crossing the two-thirds supermajority threshold required to amend the constitution. Together with its coalition partner, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), the governing bloc secured 352 seats. One of the keys to this landslide was Takaichi's refusal to back down from her statements linking a Taiwan contingency to Japan's own security. Few had expected that her blunt, uncompromising style ("Iron Lady" is not too strong a term) would captivate Japanese voters to this degree. Among voters aged 18 to 39, her pre-election approval rating stood at 80 percent. The results confirmed it.
In the days before the vote, her campaign rallies drew extraordinary crowds. Across Japan, each event attracted an average of over 5,000 people; at the largest, the number exceeded 10,000. Young supporters called her a powerful speaker. Young people, using a kind of patriotic language rarely heard in Japan, said she was genuinely fighting for the country. Some had only gone to see what the fuss was about and left having decided to vote for the first time. One young mother dressed herself and her child in layer upon layer of thermals, a fleece, a sweater, and a ski jacket to stand in the winter cold and hear Takaichi speak in person. Security lines stretched around the block. People brought binoculars to get a clear look at her face. When the results came in, even her supporters could not quite believe it, not just that she had won, but that she had won by so much.
What is it about Takaichi Sanae that makes people trust her? She is slight, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, not the image one typically associates with commanding authority. The answer lies in a specific political moment.
Shortly after taking office, while responding to lawmakers' questions in the Diet about Japan's security legislation, Takaichi cited Taiwan as an example, unexpectedly, without a prepared text. Because of Japan's geographic proximity to Taiwan, she argued, a Taiwan contingency would constitute what Japan's security laws define as a "survival-threatening situation," thereby permitting Japan to exercise collective self-defense and deploy its forces to protect itself. The Chinese Communist Party took this as a declaration of intent to interfere in what it claims as a domestic matter. The CCP insists Taiwan is part of China, and in its framing any outside involvement in the Taiwan Strait is interference in China's internal affairs.
Beijing's retaliation was swift and wide-ranging. It demanded that Takaichi retract her statement, halted rare earth exports to Japan, banned Chinese tourists from visiting, and blocked imports of Japanese seafood. China's consul general in Japan went so far as to post on X calling for Takaichi to be beheaded. In the weeks before the election, Chinese warships and military aircraft circled Japan's territorial waters and airspace with increasing frequency.
Takaichi did not flinch. She had discarded the old evasion ("we can't do anything until the constitution is amended") and instead invoked the legal concept of a "survival-threatening situation" to cut through years of strategic ambiguity. Some analysts argue this robbed Japan of the flexibility that ambiguity provides. But politically, what Takaichi did in the Diet that day gave a large part of the Japanese public something they had not felt in a long time: a sense of security.
Takaichi's statement on the application of certain legal measures to Taiwan, to me, it's quite natural. —Ken Jimbo
I first met Ken Jimbo in October 2025 at a symposium co-organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Nikkei Asia. He is one of Japan's foremost experts on international politics and security: a professor in the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University, a fellow at several prominent think tanks, and a special adviser to Japan's Minister of Defense from 2018 to 2020. A native Japanese speaker equally fluent in English, Jimbo has become one of the most recognizable voices in Japan's international security discussions in recent years. I had the privilege of exploring with him just why Takaichi conveys such a sense of reassurance.
She's the first Japanese female prime minister and her character is quite positive, forward leaning, communicative, and also gets along with the leaders around the world, including Donald Trump, Lee Jae- Myung from Korea, Meloni from Italy. And that kind of earning of their confidence really supported her popularity at home. And she's also a decisive person who tried to have a role model of a late Prime Minister Abe, which also had seven years and eight months of very strong base of conducting its domestic and foreign policy. And also Margaret Thatcher back in 1980s, who also symbolized the conservative, I think, you know, the leadership in UK in the Reagan era. And that kind of image really resonates with what Japanese people wish to achieve, which is having a strong leader to deal with the ever severe strategic environment that Japan faces.
Did Takaichi deliberately choose to invoke Taiwan's name, or did it slip out? If Beijing were to attack Taiwan, would Japan actually send troops? And what should Taiwan make of the era of a Takaichi government? In addition to my conversation with Ken Jimbo, I was fortunate to speak at length with Huang Wei-hsiu, a Taiwanese research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo. These two experts on Japan and Indo-Pacific security have opened another window onto questions that matter enormously for Taiwan's future.
She had been in office for fewer than three months, the honeymoon period barely over, when she made the announcement that stunned Japan's political establishment: she was dissolving parliament and calling a snap general election. In a parliamentary system like Japan's, the prime ministership belongs to the leader of the party that controls the legislature. If the Liberal Democratic Party lost, Takaichi would be handing power to her opponents. It was an enormous gamble.
"A nation that refuses to take risks has no future. Politics that only seeks to preserve what exists offers no hope." (挑戦しない国に未来はない。守るだけの政治に希望は生まれない。) — Takaichi Sanae, January 23, 2026
On February 18, 2026, while Taiwanese families were celebrating the Lunar New Year, Takaichi led the Liberal Democratic Party to a crushing victory. The House of Representatives has 465 seats in total; the LDP alone won 316, a single party crossing the two-thirds supermajority threshold required to amend the constitution. Together with its coalition partner, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), the governing bloc secured 352 seats. One of the keys to this landslide was Takaichi's refusal to back down from her statements linking a Taiwan contingency to Japan's own security. Few had expected that her blunt, uncompromising style ("Iron Lady" is not too strong a term) would captivate Japanese voters to this degree. Among voters aged 18 to 39, her pre-election approval rating stood at 80 percent. The results confirmed it.
In the days before the vote, her campaign rallies drew extraordinary crowds. Across Japan, each event attracted an average of over 5,000 people; at the largest, the number exceeded 10,000. Young supporters called her a powerful speaker. Young people, using a kind of patriotic language rarely heard in Japan, said she was genuinely fighting for the country. Some had only gone to see what the fuss was about and left having decided to vote for the first time. One young mother dressed herself and her child in layer upon layer of thermals, a fleece, a sweater, and a ski jacket to stand in the winter cold and hear Takaichi speak in person. Security lines stretched around the block. People brought binoculars to get a clear look at her face. When the results came in, even her supporters could not quite believe it, not just that she had won, but that she had won by so much.
What is it about Takaichi Sanae that makes people trust her? She is slight, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, not the image one typically associates with commanding authority. The answer lies in a specific political moment.
Shortly after taking office, while responding to lawmakers' questions in the Diet about Japan's security legislation, Takaichi cited Taiwan as an example, unexpectedly, without a prepared text. Because of Japan's geographic proximity to Taiwan, she argued, a Taiwan contingency would constitute what Japan's security laws define as a "survival-threatening situation," thereby permitting Japan to exercise collective self-defense and deploy its forces to protect itself. The Chinese Communist Party took this as a declaration of intent to interfere in what it claims as a domestic matter. The CCP insists Taiwan is part of China, and in its framing any outside involvement in the Taiwan Strait is interference in China's internal affairs.
Beijing's retaliation was swift and wide-ranging. It demanded that Takaichi retract her statement, halted rare earth exports to Japan, banned Chinese tourists from visiting, and blocked imports of Japanese seafood. China's consul general in Japan went so far as to post on X calling for Takaichi to be beheaded. In the weeks before the election, Chinese warships and military aircraft circled Japan's territorial waters and airspace with increasing frequency.
Takaichi did not flinch. She had discarded the old evasion ("we can't do anything until the constitution is amended") and instead invoked the legal concept of a "survival-threatening situation" to cut through years of strategic ambiguity. Some analysts argue this robbed Japan of the flexibility that ambiguity provides. But politically, what Takaichi did in the Diet that day gave a large part of the Japanese public something they had not felt in a long time: a sense of security.
Takaichi's statement on the application of certain legal measures to Taiwan, to me, it's quite natural. —Ken Jimbo
I first met Ken Jimbo in October 2025 at a symposium co-organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Nikkei Asia. He is one of Japan's foremost experts on international politics and security: a professor in the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University, a fellow at several prominent think tanks, and a special adviser to Japan's Minister of Defense from 2018 to 2020. A native Japanese speaker equally fluent in English, Jimbo has become one of the most recognizable voices in Japan's international security discussions in recent years. I had the privilege of exploring with him just why Takaichi conveys such a sense of reassurance.
She's the first Japanese female prime minister and her character is quite positive, forward leaning, communicative, and also gets along with the leaders around the world, including Donald Trump, Lee Jae- Myung from Korea, Meloni from Italy. And that kind of earning of their confidence really supported her popularity at home. And she's also a decisive person who tried to have a role model of a late Prime Minister Abe, which also had seven years and eight months of very strong base of conducting its domestic and foreign policy. And also Margaret Thatcher back in 1980s, who also symbolized the conservative, I think, you know, the leadership in UK in the Reagan era. And that kind of image really resonates with what Japanese people wish to achieve, which is having a strong leader to deal with the ever severe strategic environment that Japan faces.
Did Takaichi deliberately choose to invoke Taiwan's name, or did it slip out? If Beijing were to attack Taiwan, would Japan actually send troops? And what should Taiwan make of the era of a Takaichi government? In addition to my conversation with Ken Jimbo, I was fortunate to speak at length with Huang Wei-hsiu, a Taiwanese research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo. These two experts on Japan and Indo-Pacific security have opened another window onto questions that matter enormously for Taiwan's future.
成為台灣人間魚詩社文創協會 贊助會員
台灣人間魚詩社文創協會為依法設立、非以營利為目的之社會團體。以推廣現代詩、文學及其它藝術創作，推動文化創意產業發展為宗旨。
本會推動及執行任務以現代詩為主體，詩文創作為核心，透過出版、網路及多媒體影音的形式，讓詩文創作深入現代社會生活，增進大眾對文學及創作的興趣，豐富社會心靈。
贊助用途：
•支持協會運作及詩文創作出版
• 舉辦金像詩獎、多媒體跨界影像
• 文學、文化行動與國際推廣
贊助帳號：第一銀行 (007) 大安分行 168-10-002842 社團法人台灣人間魚詩社文創協會
台灣人間魚詩社文創協會為依法設立、非以營利為目的之社會團體。以推廣現代詩、文學及其它藝術創作，推動文化創意產業發展為宗旨。
本會推動及執行任務以現代詩為主體，詩文創作為核心，透過出版、網路及多媒體影音的形式，讓詩文創作深入現代社會生活，增進大眾對文學及創作的興趣，豐富社會心靈。
贊助用途：
•支持協會運作及詩文創作出版
• 舉辦金像詩獎、多媒體跨界影像
• 文學、文化行動與國際推廣
贊助帳號：第一銀行 (007) 大安分行 168-10-002842 社團法人台灣人間魚詩社文創協會
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姐妹詩社：秋水詩社｜ 竊竊詩語｜新詩路 ｜掌門詩學社
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