首相が替わる国：高市首相とロシアの批評A Country of Changing Prime Ministers: Takaichi and Russia’s Critique

We Japanese are accustomed to earthquakes, but these days it feels as though we have also grown used to seeing our prime ministers replaced one after another. When they change this frequently, both domestic and foreign commentators hardly bother to discuss it, and it is natural for people to feel that nothing will change anyway since another replacement is imminent. Even among those who loudly decry this as a “crisis of political distrust,” the reality is that it is not so much distrust as indifference—people simply no longer care.

The recent handover from Prime Minister Ishiba to Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae exposed once again that Takaichi, as a politician in the lineage of Abe Shinzo, pays no attention to the public. After Abe’s death, the Seiwa-kai (Abe faction), which had maintained a near-dictatorial grip on the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for nearly a decade, collapsed amid corruption scandals and disbanded, seemingly quieting the storm for a time. Yet the remaining Seiwa-kai members could not bear watching their vested interests scatter, and what we are witnessing now looks like a coup executed in collusion with other factions.

The new Prime Minister Takaichi is being celebrated as Japan’s first female prime minister, but she was one of the powerful figures once strongly backed by Abe Shinzo and had lost her way after the collapse of Seiwa-kai. Since joining the LDP, Takaichi had belonged to Seiwa-kai, but she left the faction in 2011. At that time—during the chaotic postwar period of rapid government turnovers before Abe’s second long-term administration—leaving a faction carried an important image of “independence” for any politician, especially as Abe had not yet regained dominance.

Yet when the dust settled, Abe Shinzo launched a long-term administration amid the shock doctrine of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Though Takaichi had left her faction, she rose under Abe’s solid backing, and after more than ten years finally seized the premiership. As her administration was unveiled, even the domestic media, which often acts in concert with the LDP, had quietly dropped the “independent” image of Takaichi, noting instead that her cabinet was filled with faction insiders—essentially functioning as an Aso administration (Aso Taro). Now 85 years old, Abe’s close ally Aso Taro still wields enormous influence within the LDP, and with his faction’s support, Takaichi swept away Ishiba’s remaining influence from the new leadership, revealing that nothing more than a transfer of vested interests had taken place.

Up to this point, everything has followed Japan’s standard political playbook. Yet subtle anomalies are emerging that must not be overlooked—they are likely to surface as major issues for Japan in the future. One example is Koizumi Shinjiro, who contested the prime ministership with Takaichi. This was not merely a struggle for dominance within the LDP, but rather a proxy war between bureaucratic factions. In particular, Koizumi was consistently backed by the Ministry of Finance, and his defeat has raised concerns that the ministry’s influence will decline. The Finance Ministry has recently faced repeated corruption scandals and public accusations of impoverishing citizens, leading some to call for its dissolution. These scandals were most prominently exposed by the economic analyst Morinaga Takuro, who died of cancer this January after persistently condemning the ministry’s corruption and explaining why the Japanese had become so poor. Demonstrations have since been held in front of the ministry demanding its dismantlement, though none of the participants seem to have a clear post-dissolution vision. Nonetheless, this movement reflects a global trend toward bureaucratic reform that has begun to reach Japan.

The political implications are real: open support for the Finance Ministry is now risky. Aso Taro, who once served as Finance Minister and was a key figure in the current leadership election, notably refrained from endorsing Koizumi, a Finance Ministry favorite. This suggests that, as under Abe’s long-term rule, power and influence are again shifting toward the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). Ever since Abe’s time, fierce rivalry between these ministries has persisted within the government, with additional backing from pro-American diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The true power base feeding on these vested interests remains the U.S. Yokota Air Base in Japan.

Most importantly, public opinion polls showed that Ishiba Shigeru’s approval ratings were not poor; in fact, many people opposed his removal. Voices supporting his continuation were stronger than those calling for his replacement, yet faction-driven politicians ignored this sentiment and forcibly staged this election. Once again, it has become clear that no one in power is looking at the public—only at factional dynamics. Despite the symbolic significance of having the first female prime minister, the change is purely cosmetic: the face has changed from male to female, but the substance remains untouched. One must question what there is to praise in this development.

What personally struck me most in this event was not the reaction of Western media, but rather Russia’s intense displeasure at Takaichi’s appointment—and the accuracy with which Russian media identified the core of the issue. Outlets there listed her as a “proponent of constitutional revision,” “member of Nippon Kaigi—the largest conservative organization denying wartime crimes of the former Imperial Japanese Army,” and an “ultra-rightist who has repeatedly visited Yasukuni Shrine.” While these statements are factual, Russia’s criticism is directed not merely at Takaichi as a figurehead, but at the forces behind her—chiefly, the presence of the U.S. military entrenched in Japan, which remains Russia’s real target.

Of course, as with any politician, no one knows whether she truly holds such convictions. Yet Russia’s reaction reveals not only the essence of the current situation but also serves as a lens through which to glimpse postwar Japan—something largely invisible from the Western, particularly American, perspective. It is essential to view Takaichi’s appointment and, shortly thereafter, the arrest in South Korea of Han Hak Ja, the president of the former Unification Church, as interconnected events within a single postwar East Asian historical continuum.

The Unification Church, far more than a new religion, functioned as a mainstay of America’s anti-communist defense front in East Asia during the postwar era, growing under U.S. sponsorship (its “parent” being America itself). However, after the Soviet collapse in 1991, the anti-communist mission lost purpose, leading to a slow decline. The Americanization driven by the victorious United States continued energetically until just before the pandemic, during which the dismantling of Japan and Korea’s postwar regimes began in earnest. The key difference is that South Korea, following its 1997 financial crisis, experienced a forced reset through IMF intervention, enabling it to purge entrenched corruption and pivot toward cultural revitalization as national policy. Japan, lacking such a reset, failed to expose political, bureaucratic, and religious corruption and instead drifted into stagnation. This contrast in institutional transparency may explain why Japan has declined over the past decade while Korea has surged.

Although the corruption linking Abe Shinzo and the Unification Church was exposed and their ties to Seiwa-kai acknowledged, as Russian media suggests, Japan’s deeper issue extends beyond this one organization. The network of postwar new religions that shaped Japan continues to influence society under the banner of a “final battle” against communism. The slogan uniting them all is “anti-communism.” The United States, occupying Japan and still its suzerain power, feared that a communist Japan would eliminate its means of countering the Soviet Union; thus, it devoted immense effort to crushing Japan’s communist movements. This became evident during the student uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s. To suppress these movements (which can be seen as Japan’s communist surge), three forces united under U.S. direction: the U.S. military stationed in Japan, right-wing new religious groups, and the yakuza. This triad sustained Japan’s postwar regime through the high-growth era until the Soviet collapse, defending the archipelago as a frontline anti-communist outpost.

Consequently, Japan, stripped of autonomous military capacity by the Allies and forced to focus on rebuilding its war-torn land, effectively outsourced its defense to the United States while concentrating all resources on economic recovery. This, in truth, was the foundation of Japan’s postwar economic miracle—a marriage of interests between America, seeking to block Soviet expansion, and Japan, seeking prosperity. The problem is that this regime, forged in that distant past, still endures because neither side can relinquish the vested interests sustaining it.

Today, only a few people remain who personally remember World War II, and America’s influence has faded into history. South Korea, experimenting with post-American independence, is finding new footing, while Japan remains addicted to U.S. influence as if to a drug. America, for its part, depends heavily on the tributes—financial and strategic—it receives from its subservient allies Japan and Korea, leaving the situation in East Asia frozen in stasis. The fundamental issue, I believe, lies in how the occupation and withdrawal were structured in postwar East Asia. No path had been drawn for withdrawing while keeping the structure of occupation unseen, and herein lies the root of East Asia’s malaise.

Behind Prime Minister Takaichi stands one organization frequently mentioned by Russian sources: Nippon Kaigi. This is not a secret society but rather the descendant of right-wing youth organizations that served on the front lines of Japan’s postwar anti-communist crusade. The Russian media’s references—to constitutional revisionism, denial of wartime crimes, and repeated Yasukuni visits—trace directly to the early teachings of Seicho-no-Ie, the new religion that produced many core members of Nippon Kaigi. Yet note this carefully: the modern Seicho-no-Ie renounced all political activity in the 1980s, denounced Nippon Kaigi as outdated, and astonishingly shifted from right-wing to left-wing. The relevant subject, therefore, is not today’s Seicho-no-Ie but the fundamentalist faction active during the student protest era.

The founder of Seicho-no-Ie was Taniguchi Masaharu (1893–1985). Importantly, Taniguchi had been a devout follower of Deguchi Onisaburo, leader of the Omoto-kyo movement—whose teachings have often appeared in Shitsurae. After growing disillusioned, Taniguchi left Omoto and founded his own sect, inheriting much of its spiritual DNA. During the period of student activism, Seicho-no-Ie split between fundamentalists seeking a return to Taniguchi’s teachings and reformists adapting to the times; the latter eventually prevailed, leading to the group’s leftward turn in the 1980s. Yet at the height of the 1968–69 Anpo (U.S.-Japan Security Treaty) struggles—the fiercest phase of Japan’s anti-establishment movement—it was the fundamentalist youth wing of Seicho-no-Ie that became the most powerful right-wing force, combining intellect and violence in a ruthless anti-communist campaign.

In Tokyo, the political center, the left was ascendant as Japan approached the 1970 treaty renewal, and the right suffered repeated defeats. Without intervention, the renewal would fail and Japan risked falling under Soviet influence, alarming its U.S. overlords. In America, countercultural movements flourished on the West Coast, but in Japan, the movements were far more ideological than cultural. Postwar communist ideology captivated many young Japanese as an anti-American force. Had the U.S., paralyzed by its own domestic unrest, failed to act, Japan might well have fallen into the Soviet sphere. Those years were decisive in shaping postwar destiny—and their effects linger.

When anti-American and anti-establishment movements surged again in 1968–69, the U.S., recalling the 1959–60 Anpo protests, abandoned restraint and moved to crush the uprisings by any means necessary. In 1960, Washington had resolved the crisis by freeing two figures who should have faced execution as Class A war criminals: Kishi Nobusuke (Abe Shinzo’s grandfather) and the right-wing fixer Kodama Yoshio, turning them into puppets serving U.S. interests. Together they dismantled the protests, mobilizing yakuza networks, notably the Yamaguchi-gumi under its third leader, Taoka Kazuo, which expanded rapidly.

Kishi, serving as prime minister from 1957 to 1960, relied on Kodama’s yakuza-backed paramilitary groups to violently suppress anti-American demonstrators, fusing political corruption with brute force. Yet the 1970 protests differed: Japan’s youth population had surged, and widespread frustration with both nations fueled intense ideological conviction. The same methods could no longer guarantee success. Washington thus turned to a new strategy: mobilizing religious youth groups and the police. The former drew mainly from university students, while the latter consisted largely of young men from poor rural backgrounds who resented privileged student activists. Within the Cold War structure, Japan’s youth were set against one another—students versus students, young workers versus intellectuals—as the effort to block Soviet influence took hold.

The strategy worked. But when did the tide truly shift from a leftist-dominated movement to the rise of organizations like Nippon Kaigi? Surprisingly, that turning point did not occur at the elite universities of Tokyo or Waseda, where protests were fiercest, but rather began at one regional university far from the capital. That, however, is a story for next time.