{"text":[[{"start":5.64,"text":"At the entrance to the Mahoroba Museum, in the suburban depths of Japan’s historic city of Nara, looms a cardboard cut-out of Sanae Takaichi and a garland of cobalt-blue flowers."}],[{"start":17.12,"text":"Read in one direction, the silver letters on the garland spell S-A-N-A-E-V: the first name of the country’s prime minister, “with an extra V for victory”, explains the museum’s receptionist. Read in the other direction, she says, it sounds like “Venus”."}],[{"start":17.62,"text":"“The goddess,” she adds."}],[{"start":34.68,"text":"There are plenty of people in the nearby towns and villages where Takaichi grew up who think of her in something close to those terms. Millions around the country see the prime minister, who took office last October and won a landslide victory in a snap general election in February, as a long-overdue solution to Japan’s many problems."}],[{"start":52.68,"text":"Yet, since the start of summer, Takaichi’s pedestal has looked shakier and public perception has become harder to parse. Her approval ratings remain above 50 per cent — the stuff of dreams for many political leaders — but are rising in some polls and falling in others. Japan appears to have not quite got the measure of a woman it voted for as an agent of change."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":73.46,"text":"The judgment of financial markets has been less ambiguous. This week a bout of selling of benchmark 10-year Japanese government bonds pushed yields, which move inversely to prices, to their highest level in three decades, at 3 per cent."}],[{"start":87.6,"text":"Much of that, say economists, reflects deeper questions about Takaichi’s huge stimulus spending plans, the potential fiscal strain for heavily indebted Japan and whether, despite her reassurances, the prime minister has put herself on course for a war with the bond market."}],[{"start":102.32,"text":"Her legislative hyperactivity has begun to clash with Japan’s slower-moving instincts, say ruling Liberal Democratic Party officials in the provinces."}],[{"start":110.52,"text":"Takaichi’s heartland nationalism, her commitment to return Japan to a golden era and the desire to secure the country’s long-term prosperity are authentic, say people who have known her over decades. But some question her approach, and what they see as her opacity and hastiness. She was elected as an anti-establishment figure, but is a 30-year incumbent of a party that has ruled Japan for all but a few of the past 70 years. Voters, financial markets and business leaders are still not sure, say analysts, how far they trust that combination."}],[{"start":143.36,"text":"Perhaps inevitably, the most consistent complaints come from the “establishment” that voters believe she stands against. Business leaders grumble that they are being ignored. Domestic media believe she is circumventing them through her use of X and social media. Bureaucrats dislike that she shuns in-person briefings in favour of endless hours of document reading."}],[{"start":165.24,"text":"An imminent cabinet reshuffle poses a high-stakes test of her finesse in handling internecine LDP conflicts. The risks from external shocks are rising, as the Iran war and Russian assertiveness on the Kuril Islands, whose sovereignty it disputes with Japan, have shown."}],[{"start":182.12,"text":"The prime minister’s strongest critics see her as a Donald Trump-style populist, peddling nostalgia and a “make Japan great again” illusion to a base voting on desperation, not dreams."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":193.2,"text":"Whatever the reality, say political analysts, Takaichi is spearheading a new kind of Japanese politics, challenging the narrative that the country cannot escape its perennial problems of ageing demographics, slow growth and aversion to risk."}],[{"start":207.48,"text":"Tomohiko Taniguchi, the head of Nippon Kaigi, a hardline Shintoist group that exercises influence within the LDP, claims her as a member and calls for constitutional changes, casts her as the architect of the nation’s “quiet revolution”."}],[{"start":221.92,"text":"Her personal ideal is the indefatigable Margaret Thatcher, a notoriously light sleeper who trounced patricians and, supporters say, injected dynamism into an intransigent economy through sheer force of will. Takaichi’s claims on social media that she sleeps between zero and three hours a night are taken by many not as a worrying health hazard but as proof of admirable dedication to duty."}],[{"start":244.8,"text":"“When others said ‘Japan is back’ it was just words,” says Mei Chiba, a coffee-shop barista in Takaichi’s constituency. “When she says ‘Japan is back’, we believe her.”"}],[{"start":256.2,"text":"The mask slips"}],[{"start":257.76,"text":"For some months after Takaichi’s successful gamble on February’s election, which handed an unprecedented two-thirds lower house parliamentary majority to the LDP, she commanded Japan with a near-Olympian aura."}],[{"start":270.08,"text":"Her approval ratings were sky-high. Her work ethic and energy levels were encapsulated by the pledge to “throw away my work-life balance” on the first day of her premiership."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":280.28,"text":"A large proportion of Japan’s electorate appeared convinced that, by endorsing a woman of provincial middle-class origins from a family with no political pedigree, it had voted for something thrillingly experimental: a non-establishment figure now with a mandate to rule."}],[{"start":295.6,"text":"Takaichi also seemed able to handle Japan’s status as a G7 power with aplomb. Since November, China has maintained an unusually fierce diplomatic drive against her, but she has stood her ground. “Shuttle diplomacy” summits with the South Korean president have been unexpectedly warm. Even Trump, despite his tendency to make victims of close allies, seemed to be giving Takaichi’s Japan an easier ride."}],[{"start":319.8,"text":"Noriaki Ando, chair of the Nara Association for the Passionate Support of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, believes that Japan finally has the conviction politician of whom it had been starved."}],[{"start":330.16,"text":"“When she won, I texted her to say how great it was that she had become prime minister, but she immediately texted back to say, ‘The real battle starts now,’” Ando says. “There’s a phrase I’ve often heard her use: that the society and world we inhabit now is the future someone in the past fought desperately to protect. That is what she is doing now.”"}],[{"start":350.48,"text":"But as Takaichi closes in on her first full year in power, the Olympian image is starting to crack."}],[{"start":356.32,"text":"One possible key to understanding Takaichi’s emerging vulnerabilities came in the summer as the parliamentary session was ending and the consequences of her first post-election legislative push were sinking in."}],[{"start":369.08,"text":"From late July, her government undertook a $96bn currency intervention in co-ordination with Washington that smacked of crisis. The yen has since lost more than half of the gains it made then. This week US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent publicly urged the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates more aggressively. All this, say analysts, underscores the permanent vulnerabilities that financial markets create for Takaichi’s administration and present a rolling test of whether hers is the right medicine for Japan."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":400.92,"text":"The nation is confronting the reality that the BoJ’s policy interest rate will continue to rise from its highest level in 31 years and that yields on the 10-year Japanese government bond have risen to a level that could potentially trigger global financial ructions."}],[{"start":416.32,"text":"Other limitations on Takaichi’s plans to “aggressively hit the growth switch” have also become more visible."}],[{"start":422.72,"text":"Where she has been most radical in the commitment to fight inflation, by capping petrol prices and pushing a plan to cut consumption tax on food from 8 per cent to 1 per cent, she has drawn as much scepticism for the fiscal risk as support for the potential relief."}],[{"start":437.52,"text":"Still, some are giving her the benefit of the doubt, citing recent instances where Takaichi appears to have softened her initial hostility to BoJ rate increases. “She may”, wrote Nomura’s macro strategist Naka Matsuzawa in a note to global clients, “be developing a better understanding of monetary policy.”"}],[{"start":456.68,"text":"Takaichi’s emphasis on helping Japanese households battle inflation reveals a far less optimistic picture of the “beautiful country” rhetoric on which she has built her populism, says Mieko Nakabayashi, political scientist at Waseda University."}],[{"start":470.68,"text":"“She is offering short-term fixes to a Japan that has unfortunately changed. After years of a weak economy, these policies are for people . . . hoping to get some sort of benefit just to cope with everyday life,” Nakabayashi says."}],[{"start":484.2,"text":"The last weeks of parliament before the summer break, which included a controversial law change to help secure male-only Imperial succession and the criminalisation of desecrating the Japanese flag, were unexpectedly bruising in the opinion polls. Neither seemed to have been carried out in the interests of ordinary people in extraordinarily challenging times."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":502.84,"text":"Jeff Kingston, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Temple University, says that, despite the broad-based support she inspired for the election, Takaichi’s fundamental appeal is to the right wing of the political spectrum and hardliners."}],[{"start":516.36,"text":"“It is dawning on people that she is not reviving hope,” he says. “That was what she ran on in February, but her upbeatery is running out of steam. As with [her predecessor and mentor Shinzo] Abe, her trump card is a weak and divided opposition.”"}],[{"start":532.86,"text":"Her base of women, younger voters and those who defected from small, populist parties is wobbling. Older voters fret that her growth-driven spending plans threaten the foundation of their single biggest concern: the health of Japan’s social security system."}],[{"start":547.94,"text":"There are, to some critics, obvious fragilities in Takaichi’s self-isolated governance style and, to others, outright errors of judgment on tax cuts, dramatically tighter immigration rules and an industrial policy that involves funnelling ¥370tn ($2.3tn) of public and private sector investment into 17 sectors of the economy."}],[{"start":568.48,"text":"“The sense of things being different and dynamic is vanishing,” says Tobias Harris, a political commentator and biographer of Shinzo Abe. “She came to power on sentiment, and that has its limitations. You live by the vibes, you die by the vibes.”"}],[{"start":583.84,"text":"Nevertheless, Takaichi’s capacity to navigate this next phase successfully is considerable. Her approval ratings of more than 50 per cent are far higher at this stage of her premiership than most of her predecessors’ despite their fall from even greater heights."}],[{"start":598.64,"text":"Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Sophia University, thinks the drop-off was to be expected. “She is a person very much of her time, because we are in an attention economy and she has the ability to keep people paying attention to her,” he says, adding that much of her public support is drawn from being of a generation that knew Japan at the height of its 1980s power and pomp, and is now nostalgic and resentful of being looked down upon, especially by China."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":624.8,"text":"The prime minister has spent more than 30 years mastering the notoriously protean, ideologically malleable LDP. Now, through her enormous parliamentary majority and ranks of MPs who owe her their seats, she may have a real chance to solidify it as a clearer, more ideologically defined bloc."}],[{"start":644.5,"text":"But that is only likely to be the case if her party’s members continue to see her as a sure-fire election winner and if financial markets do not undermine her plan for Japan through their own lack of confidence in it."}],[{"start":657.48,"text":"A Toyota Supra"}],[{"start":659.32,"text":"The next few months present Takaichi with several tests. The first requires her to steer a credible course through the paradoxes of her economic agenda."}],[{"start":669.32,"text":"She wants to spend on growth and for the central bank to accommodate that rather than pushing up borrowing costs. This year, her ministries are likely to make unprecedented requests. On Monday, the defence ministry asked for about $56bn for the fiscal year starting in April, a budget that is expected to rise further as Takaichi prepares to unveil a new military build-up later this year."}],[{"start":694.44,"text":"At the same time, she needs to be seen fighting the rising cost of living, even though the BoJ supports a measure of inflation. Everything she does at this point, say traders, will be tested not just by public opinion but by a watchful and nervous bond market. Every previous LDP prime minister has balked at entering a light skirmish on that front, let alone the sort of fight Takaichi’s spending plans imply."}],[{"start":719.32,"text":"Another issue is Japan’s continuing spat with China. The now 10-month deep freeze was triggered when Takaichi, just days into her premiership, said that Japan could theoretically become militarily involved if China were at war with Taiwan. Increasingly extreme editorials in Chinese media accuse Takaichi of planning a neo-imperial remilitarisation of Japan."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":741.7,"text":"This level of frost between Japan and its largest trading partner has been a problem for Japanese businesses. But Takaichi’s refusal to back down has pleased her base."}],[{"start":751.64,"text":"The real cost of Takaichi’s stubbornness and a potentially severe test of her stance, say analysts, could emerge from a planned summit between Trump and Xi Jinping in late September."}],[{"start":762.96,"text":"Takaichi’s current position is underwritten, in effect, by hostility between Beijing and Washington. Should Trump and Xi move closer to some form of grand deal, and US support for Japan be perceived as less of a priority, Takaichi may come under huge domestic pressure to reverse course."}],[{"start":780.72,"text":"She must also navigate the Trump administration’s determination to dismantle the International Criminal Court, The Hague-based organisation to which Japan is the largest contributor and which is headed by a Japanese judge, Tomoko Akane."}],[{"start":794.64,"text":"When Washington imposed direct sanctions on Akane in August, Takaichi’s initial response was to describe the move as “very unfortunate”. That drew heavy criticism, both domestically and from abroad, that Takaichi was being weak. In response, she told reporters that the measure was “incompatible with Japan’s position and we take it extremely seriously”."}],[{"start":815.96,"text":"The situation, say senior officials, is a perfect illustration of the very fine line Takaichi is treading in dealing with Japan’s most important ally."}],[{"start":825.12,"text":"Also on her agenda is a cabinet reshuffle fraught with risk, expected sometime over the next couple of weeks."}],[{"start":831.36,"text":"She must keep onside former prime minister and faction head Taro Aso and ensure that her own loyalists remain positioned to keep pushing her agenda while keeping a lid on those who might challenge her at next September’s LDP presidential election."}],[{"start":845.2,"text":"Much will come down to the prime minister’s ability to get her message across. From the very start of her premiership, Takaichi has broken many of the conventions set by her predecessors, as her aversion to meetings with senior businesspeople and bureaucrats attests."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":859.6,"text":"She has also reduced her meetings with the media to a fraction of those under her predecessors. One senior journalist who knows her well says that she does not trust the press and is not confident of her ability to deal with it in a way that preserves her public image. She does exchange texts with some senior journalists, but, as one prominent commentator notes, most of the prime minister’s messages are demands for less criticism."}],[{"start":882.96,"text":"She is doing all this, argues Tetsuro Kobayashi, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Waseda University, because she has correctly identified an important change in Japan. “Takaichi has discovered that the more anti-establishment she is, the more support she gets,” he says. “But it’s a precarious position. She has to look anti-establishment while having been, in reality, part of an establishment political party for her whole career.”"}],[{"start":908.24,"text":"Kobayashi adds that the gamble may continue to work. “The detail of her tweets don’t matter. Her support comes from the feelings she inspires.” But he cautions: “It’s actually quite shallow.”"}],[{"start":919.8,"text":"In Nara, behind the cobalt blue garland and cardboard Takaichi is the jewel of the Mahoroba Museum: the restored 1991 white Toyota Supra that the prime minister drove on her commute to Tokyo in her early years as an MP. The plaque notes that these long drives were necessary because late-night work often caused the young Takaichi to miss the last train back to the provinces."}],[{"start":942.84,"text":"“When she first became prime minister, we had over 600 people a day visiting this museum to look at the car and take their pictures next to it. Nowadays it’s less busy,” says the receptionist — and points to the museum’s single visitor, who has not even paused at the Supra."}],[{"start":958.24,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1788755364_3447.mp3"}