Tokyo’s Leadership Vacuum

Over the past decade, as much of the world has become more chaotic and succumbed to nationalism, protectionism, and illiberalism, Japan has been a force for maintaining the stability of the international order. Tokyo has shored up its rules-based economic partnerships; intensified security cooperation with like-minded countries, such as Australia, India, and the Philippines; and “de-risked” from China while maintaining its commitment to global trade. Japan has been able to play this stabilizing role because it has enjoyed internal social and political cohesion and benefited from strong leadership, most notably during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s second term, which lasted from 2012 to 2020.

Japan’s political center, however, seems to be weakening. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan for nearly seven uninterrupted decades, suffered bruising losses in the most recent elections for both chambers of the national legislature—the Lower House last fall and the Upper House this summer—as did its coalition partner, Komeito. For the first time, Japan’s ruling coalition is clinging to minority positions in both chambers. And a populist far-right party, Sanseito, won 14 seats in the Upper House elections—up from one in 2022—on an anti-foreigner platform.

The retreat of the political establishment and surging support for an antiglobalist party are symptoms of an even more pressing domestic problem in Japan: the failure of mainstream parties to generate strong leaders. Power is fragmented because the LDP is internally divided, its coalition partner is losing ground, and the opposition is too disjointed to mount an effective challenge. This lack of leadership is making it harder for Japan to respond to the tectonic geopolitical realignments it faces, none more pressing than the United States’ extractive approach to the global economy and its alliances.

TROUBLE ADJUSTING

Japan’s ruling parties are in a crisis because they’ve failed to adapt to long-term structural changes in the country. The LDP has struggled with declining populations in its key constituencies and the proliferation of independent voters. The party has also had a hard time eliminating corruption. The LDP, for example, suffered a major setback in 2023, when it was revealed that some of its factions—informal groups of parliamentarians under the wing of a senior party figure—failed to report revenue from fundraisers, instead kicking back the money to largely unmonitored slush funds. The LDP adopted some internal transparency and accountability measures to address public outrage, but these did not restore faith in the party. Crucially, the slush fund scandal led the LDP to dismantle its factional system, long considered the root of undue influence of money on politics but which for decades had structured intraparty competition over funds and appointments. Ultimately, the party failed to cleanse its image and gave up its primary means of sorting internal conflicts and maintaining party cohesion. Thus, the party lost public trust and found itself more divided.

Komeito, the LDP’s coalition partner and the political arm of Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist religious organization, has also declined. Komeito hasn’t been able to win as many votes as it used to because Soka Gakkai’s membership has stagnated, its charismatic leader died, and as the scholar Levi McLaughlin points out, its younger cohorts have become less interested in political campaigning. In this summer’s Upper House election, Komeito won 5.2 million votes, almost one million fewer than it did in 2022.

The confluence of new political pressures in post-pandemic Japan, namely inflation, a surge in immigration, and the rise of new forms of media, has shaken politics. After decades of deflation, the cost of living has steeply increased, becoming the number one issue for most voters, whose real wages are being eaten away by a depreciating yen and a 3.7 percent inflation rate. Inflation has also brought out zero-sum thinking. Consumers and producers now view their interests as more directly in conflict. The government’s initiative to lower rice prices to court support from urban voters on the eve of the 2025 Upper House election, for example, caused farmers to feel betrayed. As a result, the LDP lost heavily in rice-producing regions.

The party especially suffered because of its stance on the consumption tax. Whereas opposition parties favored cutting or abolishing it, the ruling coalition of the LDP and Komeito—concerned that such a move would spook financial markets—instead offered one-time cash payments of roughly $140 per person to defray the cost of living. To many Japanese people, such a meager handout in the face of higher prices for most everyday goods suggested that the LDP was out of touch.

ADD ME ON SOCIALS

Moreover, established parties are struggling to compete with upstart ones that can take advantage of social media. According to an exit poll by Jiji Press, a news agency, 47 percent of respondents used social media to guide their vote in the 2025 election. Internet-savvy parties, such as the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito, outperformed the rest online.

Sanseito was born on YouTube in 2020 with a message trafficking in vaccine conspiracies. The party has gone on to develop an alternative information ecosystem that can yield committed volunteers and a crop of potential candidates, according to the political scientists Robert Fahey and Romeo Marcantuoni. Sanseito’s leader, Sohei Kamiya, sees U.S. President Donald Trump as a role model and advocates putting “Japanese first.” Sanseito, and the smaller Conservative Party, blame foreigners for what ails the nation: wage suppression (from an influx of foreign workers), rampant tourism, rising land prices (as rich foreigners snatch properties), crime, and loss of a national identity.

Sanseito has capitalized on the growing pains stemming from a surge in Japan’s foreign population. Of the 3.7 million foreign residents in Japan today, roughly one million moved to the country in the past three years. In 2021, when the country imposed strict border controls during the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan received just 250,000 visitors, compared with nearly 37 million in 2024. Sanseito has also taken advantage of the political vacuum left by the tragic assassination of Abe in 2022 to attract young conservative voters. And its message has resonated with the so-called ice-age generation, a cohort of people in their 40s and 50s who joined the workforce after the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s and feel left behind economically.

Many upstart parties have challenged LDP rule only to peter out soon after.

But as the party has risen to national prominence, it has also made costly mistakes. On the eve of the Upper House election, a Sanseito candidate gave an interview to Russian state media, putting the spotlight on Kamiya’s sympathy for Moscow. Kamiya doubled down by saying the United States drove Russia to invade Ukraine, causing a media firestorm that prompted some Japanese politicians to urge an investigation into potential election interference by Russia.

The trends epitomized by this summer’s Upper House election—disaffected voters rallying around antiglobalism, far-right parties clawing their way up the political system, and social media changing campaign dynamics and raising the specter of misinformation—could become normal in Japan, as they have in many Western countries. But it is just as likely that the current moment represents the peak of Sanseito’s influence. After all, over the decades many upstart parties have challenged LDP rule only to peter out soon after. And the sudden surge in Sanseito’s popularity suggests that its support came more from protest votes than permanent realignment among voters. Moreover, much of what the party advocates for, including rejecting gender equality, paring down individual freedoms in the constitution, reverting to the prewar educational system, and adhering to outright historical revisionism, has not gone mainstream.

A HOUSE DIVIDED

The biggest challenge to governance in Japan is not far-right populism but power dispersion and the gridlock that comes with it. The LDP, still the largest party in both the Upper and Lower Houses of the legislature, is deeply divided. The chances are low that the party can find a strong, unifying leader who can rescue the LDP brand. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, of the LDP, has defied calls to step down after his coalition received a shellacking in three consecutive elections under his watch. The rift over whether Ishiba should stay or go has prevented the party from agreeing on a strategy to rebuild itself.

Because the ruling coalition now lacks a majority in both chambers, it is vulnerable to a vote of no confidence and has to rely on other parties to pass legislation. Meanwhile, opposition parties remain too fragmented to form an alternative coalition and, therefore, cannot name a new prime minister. Without a clear power center in the Japanese legislature, it will be harder to reform taxes and social security, overhaul political funding rules, and relieve the pain of inflation and U.S. tariffs. In the near future, no party or coalition seems able to produce a strong leader.

Without strong leadership, Japan is ill equipped to meet the singular domestic and international challenges of the current moment. Key among these is Tokyo’s need to redefine its relationship with the United States as Trump upends the global trading system, urges allies to take on a greater role in their own defense, and contemplates changes to the footprint of U.S. troops in Asia.

In July, for example, the United States and Japan signed a trade deal that placed 15 percent tariffs on Japanese goods, which is lower than the rate Japan was already paying on car exports and lower than the rate Trump had threatened to use. It also expanded market access for U.S. rice and committed Japan to purchasing liquefied natural gas and agricultural products from the United States.

The proposed trade deal includes numerous areas in which the two sides seem to differ in interpretation, which will likely lead to more political friction and shows that Japan’s government must still scramble to tariff-proof its economy. As part of the deal, Japan agreed to invest $550 billion into the United States for projects related to economic security. According to the White House, Japan will transfer the money into investment funds that will be allocated by Trump, with the United States retaining 90 percent of the profits. Tokyo, however, has said that the vast majority of the money would come from loans and loan guarantees, and that the nine-to-one profit ratio holds for only a sliver of the total amount. Neither does the promised relief on auto tariffs appear guaranteed: the White House fact sheet on the deal makes no mention of a lower 15 percent tariff for cars. With weak leadership, Japan will struggle to navigate the uncertainty emanating from Washington.

TOKYO ADRIFT

Tokyo’s leadership crisis is of great consequence not only to Japan but also to the world. Macroeconomic management might become less sound as the LDP is forced to compromise with a greater number of parties on taxes and budgets. An inward-looking Japan would fail to attract global talent and fix labor shortages, dimming economic prospects. And without a strong political center, Japan will be less able to resist Chinese domination of Asia or sustain international cooperation on free economic exchange.

Japan’s contributions to a stable international order are more valuable than ever as the United States becomes increasingly protectionist and mercurial. To fix Japan’s leadership vacuum, mainstream parties must restore voters’ trust through meaningful political reform, articulate a compelling strategy to address the shift from a deflationary to an inflationary economy, bridge generational divides in the electorate, and avoid pandering to the far-right as it peddles the dubious benefits of a closed Japan. Only by getting its own house in order can Japan sustain its essential role as a global force for stability.