In his famous and controversial thesis on the clash of civilizations, which began by being defended in an article in Foreign Affairs and later created a book, the American academic Samuel P. Huntington identified eight great civilizations, such as the Western, the Islamic or the African. Only one of them, the Japanese, was exclusive to one country, which shows the exceptionality of this Asian nation, heavily influenced in origin by Chinese culture, but which over the centuries has built a strong identity of its own, even if it integrates elements from abroad, from Buddhism born in India to the post-Second World War American cultural influence. Portugal also made its contribution to the History of Japan, when the Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the archipelago, in 1543, followed by a century of strong presence, which ended badly, as the expanding Christianity was seen as a threat to unity by the Tokugawa shoguns, who ruled in the name of the emperor.
Let’s jump to the present. Japan confirms itself as an exceptional country, just look at the global influence of its soft powerfrom manga and anime to sushi, and the prestige of its technology, from cameras to cars and motorcycles. It has been facing economic challenges and a demographic crisis for a long time, but it continues to be one of the world’s largest economies and is part of the group of countries with more than one hundred million inhabitants. And despite the pacifist limits imposed by the post-World War II Constitution, it is also among the ten countries with the most military spending.
Now, economy, demography and defense combine in the country’s reality in 2026 in a very intense way, and largely explain the success of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Head of government since October last year, having won the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, she has now been confirmed at the polls, in early elections that gave her a landslide victory, a dream result even for Shinzo Abe, the assassinated former prime minister who was her political mentor.
With the absolute majority that the PLD now has in the lower house of parliament, and the reinforcement of the other party in the government coalition, Takaichi has a clear mandate, and a certain margin to deal with the three challenges. In demography, results will always be delayed, even if the prime minister reinforces birth incentives; in the economy, government stimuli, in the logic of abenomicsfrom the name of the mentor, will still have to prove their effectiveness; At the military level, despite the close relationship with the country’s economic performance, the situation is clearer, as Takaichi is a supporter of the revision of Article 9 of the Constitution, which has limited Japan to euphemistic self-defense forces. And the international context, due to the accumulation of tensions, favors this ambition.
The resounding victory (316 seats for the PLD out of 465) is the merit of Takaichi, whose image as a strong leader – they even call him the Japanese iron lady – seems to convince the electorate. The good relationship with Donald Trump and the American president, who has already been with her in Japan and will receive her in March at the White House, will also have played in her favor, in a reaffirmation of the alliance that comes from the post-war period, when the former enemies became very close.
Japan, after reopening to the world in the 19th century, modernized in such a way that it surprised the world with victories in two successive wars, against China in 1895 and against Russia in 1905, and was an ally of the British and Americans in the First World War, but a logic of expansion in Asia and the attack on the United States in December 1941 ended in defeat in 1945, after the two American atomic bombs. There followed a period of occupation of the archipelago by the Americans and article 9 of the Constitution is a legacy of that time. A pacifist legacy that Trump now prefers to see outdated, in line with Takaichi, which helps explain the good relationship.
But perhaps even more decisive for the excellent electoral result was the willingness of the Japanese to show firmness towards China, after the very critical Chinese reaction to Takaichi’s statements about a possible conflict in Taiwan could involve a Japanese response. In addition to verbal harshness, there was also economic retaliation from China, which considers Taiwan a rebellious island since it became a refuge in 1949 for Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists when they were defeated by Mao Zedong’s communists in a civil war. Increasing Chinese sensitivity on this issue is the fact that Taiwan, the ancient Formosa named by 16th century Portuguese navigators, was a Japanese colony for 50 years.
The Japanese population did not become warmongering, let’s say, because the memory of war times is still very present and not just in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but when it came to voting, a good part of the electorate would have wanted to show support for Takaichi at a time when China, in constant rise since the end of the 1970s, emerges as the great Asian power, with the second largest economy in the world, and also with the second largest military budget, in both cases only behind the United States.
Takaichi will have to manage this popular support well in the internal changes he will make, and in foreign policy, avoid accumulating tensions with China, while at the same time strengthening the connection with the United States. After receiving it in March, Trump will go to China in April. It is interesting to think about Huntington’s logic here, with the United States and China representing, respectively, Western and Chinese civilizations, seeking to avoid direct clashes in the struggle for supremacy, and Japan, the country-civilization, also a solid democracy in the last 80 years, seeking its place, and above all defending national interests.
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