Takaichi Named “World’s Most Powerful Woman” by The Economist

London, Feb. 15 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was featured as “the world’s most powerful woman” in an article that ran in the latest issue of the British magazine The Economist, after she led her ruling Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory in a snap election. Following the success in the Feb. 8 election for the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, Takaichi, also LDP president, now “has a historic chance to transform her country,” the article said. “She must not squander it.” The LDP has never won “as decisively as it did” in the Lower House election, despite the party’s long-standing dominance of Japanese politics. “To live up to the expectations that her electoral gamble and huge victory have created, Takaichi needs to think bigger and broader,” said the article, with an illustration of the prime minister smiling and raising her right hand against the backdrop of Mount Fuji. “She must be a leader for all of Japan, not only for her right-wing loyalists.” The article analyzed that Takaichi is “well placed to accelerate the transformation of Japan’s defenses” and that “she has the right ideas when it comes to unshackling the defense industry.” “The prime minister’s willingness to break taboos, including talking about nuclear weapons, is healthy,” the article said, given that she has hinted at the possibility of reviewing Japan’s three non-nuclear principles. Meanwhile, the magazine also said that the prime minister “could misinterpret broad support as a license to pursue her narrow ideological aims.” Describing Takaichi as “an ardent nationalist,” the article said Japan-China relations may deteriorate if she visits war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The shrine is regarded as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism by neighboring countries such as China and South Korea as it enshrines Class-A World War II criminals along with the war dead. The magazine also warned that a visit to the shrine by the prime minister would “wreck Japan’s fragile rapprochement with South Korea, essential to countering China’s rise.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]