Authored by Timothy Enoni Hasmeru Halawa, 2nd Year International Relations student of UPN Veteran Jakarta.
Abstract
In the post-Kishida era, Japan stands before many changes that happened in the internal and external sphere that give the pressure to adapt its own foreign policy for surviving in the new anarchic culture that has been constituted by the states and the global structures. In this paper, we identify several dominant changes that happened in the post-Kishida era that have to be addressed by Japan’s policy makers. The first one is the changes of Japan’s national politics by the shift that happened after two elections, resulting in the ruling party not reaching the majority chairs that makes it have to consolidate with opposition parties' interests. The second change is the rising new political movement of Sanseito that represents the anti-foreigner sentiments. The third is the change of global political landscape in the second term of President Trump that changed the politics and economics globally by imposing protectionist policies, making the environment convulsive for Japan that continuing the security cooperation on countering the rising China influence in global political economy. After discussing the new environment, we concluded our discussion that the next prime minister has to make another bold move, especially regarding its dependence on the super powers.
Japan is declining, and it needs to adapt its policies to survive
The declining power of Japan in the post-Kishida era is a real thing that has been shown in the severe impact of the life of Japan. The high change that happened in the internal and external sphere of the social life of Japan at one time, severe by the limited resources of human and material capacities to address these changes.
The uncertainty condition after the resignation of the prime minister, the controversial sentiments regarding the foreigners, the burden given by its own alliance in the middle of the rising powers and influences of its neighbouring enemies, all of this change contribute to shift the condition for Japan in the convulsive environment, risking the policy maker to make hasty choices.
In the always changing environment, the state will need to always adapt its current foreign policy according to the new given environment. In the social sphere, at least we can identify three changes that can happen, that is the changing of personnel that related to the making of the state’s foreign policy, the changing of the political system, and lastly the changing of the socioeconomic conditions (Rosenau, 1970). The three of these changes not just give impact if it happens in the internal sphere, but the change that happened abroad in other states too, especially the one that can give direct effect, like the change of the current hegemon.
In the post-Kishida era, Japan stands before many changes that happened in the internal and external sphere that give the pressure to adapt its own foreign policy for surviving in the new anarchic culture that has been constituted by the states and the global structures.
In this paper, we identify several dominant changes that happened in the post-Kishida era that have to be addressed by Japan’s policy makers. The first one is the changes of Japan’s national politics by the shift that happened after two elections, resulting in the ruling party not reaching the majority chairs that makes it have to consolidate with opposition parties’ interests. The second change is the rising new political movement of Sanseito that represents the anti-foreigner sentiments. The third is the change of global political landscape in the second term of President Trump that changed the politics and economics globally by imposing protectionist policies, making the environment convulsive for Japan that continuing the security cooperation on countering the rising China influence in global political economy. After discussing the new environment, we concluded our discussion that the next prime minister has to make another bold move, especially regarding its dependence on the super powers.
The shift of national political landscapes
In the end of 2023, the Japanese got shocked and demanded change after the scandal by the long ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) got exposed. The news spread fast and affected the popularity of the prime minister at the time, Kishida Fumio, implicated in forcing him to resign, followed by other politicians that were also accused of having contributed to the money scandal.
The vacanting chair of prime minister since August 2024 has to wait two months, resulting in Ishiba Shigeru, a politician that serves as one of Abe’s ministers, to take the chair of Japan’s prime minister on the 1st October of 2024. And the change in Japan’s national politics landscape begins here.
There are two momentums that we can identify as the marks of this change. The first is the flash election of the lower house on the 27th October 2024 and the second is the election of the upper house on the 20th July 2025. These two elections marked the moment where the shift happened because the results of it changed the landscape of Japan’s national politics.
Not long after taking the chair of prime minister, the first thing that PM Ishiba did was dissolve the lower house and scheduled the flash election on the 27th October 2024, hindered the opposition parties to post a non-confidence motion that can make instability in the national politics.
The rationale behind this move is the confidence of the ruling party and its coalition in believing that they still have a chance to take majority votes in the houses, one of its powers for imposing policies that accord with the party’s interest. But the prediction failed after the election result showed, rather than only losing several chairs, LDP lost the majority.
The flash election is one of the momentum for other parties to attack LDP using the scandals. We can see this in one of the prominent challengers, Yoshihiko Noda, the ex-prime minister who is currently the leader of the new party called Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP). The power of this opposition is the spirit to change the current regime and say it as “the biggest political reformation.” As the major challenger of LDP, CDP shifted the lower house by taking 148 seats, along with other opposition parties that took more seats than before.
However, the coalition of LDP and Komeito still held the most seats in the house, making them still the ruling party in Japan. The difference is, after losing the majority, the ruling party loses its power to impose the party’s interest, forcing the party’s effort to consolidate its interest with the opposition interests.
This shift is really changing Japan’s political landscape because of the very different interests and ideologies of the parties. Take for example the difference policy between LDP and one of the opposition party called Democratic Party for the People (DPP) in addressing the income tax, where DPP wants to keep the income tax low because its populist approach, differs from LDP see cutting the tax can be problem for national capacity in paying the national debt.
The process of shifting in the political sphere has not yet ended in the lower house election. It still continues to next year’s events, especially there is one more election to be held that the political parties should search for advantage to win many seats and gain as much power in the house of representatives.
The upper house election in the 20th July 2025 marks another momentum in the political shifting for two things, that is the one more loss for LDP that is affecting the party’s internal situation and the rising of the ultra-nationalist party of Sanseito that serve the anti-foreigners sentiment.
After losing one more time in the upper house election, the internal situation in the LDP become heated. One thing we should know is that in the Japanese political culture, once the party leader cannot takes the party win the election, one should resign from that position. Take for example in the former lower house election. When the Komeito lost the electoral seats, the party leader at the time, Keichii Ishii, resigned from its position immediately and the position was signed by Tetsuo Saito, the defence minister of Japan.
This culture became a major problem for the LDP because of its position as the ruling party. This position made the current prime minister, same as when ex-PM Fumio Kishida resigned from the party’s presidency, also should resign from the prime minister chair.
The things when Japan makes a sudden change of its leader is not a new thing that happens. And actually, not a long time ago, after ex-PM Shinzo Abe stepped down, Yoshihige Suga took the position as the new prime minister in 2020 for only one year, making his time of chair become the political transition of Abe’s to Kishida’s regimes.
But the thing that happened in the year of 2025 is the situation that Japan standing before, that is the shifting national political landscape, the rising ultra-nationalist movement, the second term of Trump as the US president that take more assertive move not just to what has long been identified as US’s traditional enemies, like China and North Korea, but also giving more burdens towards its alliances, especially Japan, even in the middle of cooperation on countering the China’s rising power and influence in the region of Indo-Pacific. These problems give big changes for Japan’s internal and external environment. To change the prime minister in the current situation will take risks that will severely damage Japan’s stability.
That’s why, PM Ishiba Shigeru after the conclusion of the upper house electoral result that showed the party lost, did not head long to resign from the chair, saying it will risk national stability, especially mentioning the negotiation process of the US’s tariff.
However, even though PM Ishiba had told the concern of the risk that will come if he resign from the prime minister chair, still the internal of the LDP broke into two bloc: one bloc that support for Ishiba to still continue to be the party’s leader for defending the national stability, and on the other bloc that support for the resignation.
The latter bloc consists of the regional politicians that have the conservative perspective that the failing leader cannot lead the others to victory. Take as example one of the politicians named Masahisa Sato that criticized Ishiba’s decision not to step down from the party’s presidency, grouped in the movement by the LDP politicians to demand for Ishiba’s step down.
On the other side, the former bloc consisting some of the upper politician in the party, like the party secretary-general and Ishiba himself. They try to consolidate the decision to keep Ishiba as the party leader and keep him for chairing the prime minister in the consideration to secure the national stability. This bloc not only got support from the internal party politician, but also from other party members, especially politicians from CDP, the major opposition, that also have the same consideration that the prime minister stepping down will be so risky for the national stability.
The result of this internal dynamic then came in September, after PM Ishiba announced that he will step down automatically, too, from the chair of prime minister, along with several upper party politicians.
This announcement sparks debate on who will be the next prime minister of Japan that will be held in the October 2025. Several candidates had announced their participation in the next LDP’s presidential election, like Sanae Takaichi and Shinjiro Koizumi, both of whom had participated in the last presidential election competing with Ishiba.
The rising anti-foreigner sentiments
As had been mentioned above, the upper house electoral result marks two shifts in Japan’s political landscape, and the second thing is the rise of ultra-nationalist party of Sanseito that served the anti-foreigner sentiments of the Japanese.
To understand Sanseito is to understand the root of the rising anti-foreigner sentiment in the Japanese people. Foreigners are one of the issues that become major debates in Japan’s electoral events like what happened in the upper house election. This issue then became the reasons behind the rising popularity of Sanseito with the “Japan first” idea (Dewangga, 2025; McNeil, 2025). Foreigners become a problem not because they are actually the problem, but rather because they have been framed by politicians as the source of social security problems for Japanese (Okumura, 2022).
The entry of foreigners to Japan has continued for many years. We can identify the dominant interest here, that is the tourism and working. The exploding number of tourists had been happening since 1995 and continued in the rivalry in the tourism sector of the Asia-Pacific’s countries (Smith, 2019). On the other hand, the depopulation of Japan that makes the unproductive population become much bigger than the productive, force Japan to take as many foreigners to fill the needs of workers. Yamaguchi (2020) tracks this problem from the changing of Japan’s norms on marriage and family, making the new environment not really “suitable” for raising children, at least from the Japanese perspective. Two of the dominant interests of foreigners in Japan, even with strict regulations, still give severe problems in social security, like overtourism, vandalism, and criminal activity.
But as we had mentioned, this perception of foreigners is a social construction of the act of speech by Japanese politicians and supported by the local media to gain public support (Okumura, 2022). The rising number of criminality in Japan, rather than the quality of the police and other security actors, is always linked to the rising number of foreigners that come to Japan, implicated on the negative perception towards the foreigner.
Negative perception towards foreigners as a social construction is supported by how the government actually handles this “threat”. In 2000, there is a regional framework named Tabunka Kyousei (多文化共生) that focus on regulating the foreigner by providing language school and community building activity. The increasing scale of foreigners that are not just centered in some place (e.g. Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kyoto) and evenly spread in many regions, makes the framework expand too.
In 2018, PM Abe’s administration form a framework called Comprehensive Measures for Acceptance and Coexistence of Foreign Nationals that address the regulation of foreigners as national problems. The expanded framework regulates the foreigner with the same approach, that is to harmonize the foreigner with the Japanese social environment. But the implementation had to wait until the 15th July 2025, when the task force office or Gaikokujin To No Chitsujo Aru Kyōsei Shakai Suishin-shitsu/外国人との秩序ある共生社会推進室 being officially administrated (Kantei 2025a, 2025b).
The implementation of the task force is nuanced with political motivation, especially because the framework is officially administered after the idea of how to handle foreigners becomes one of the major things in the electoral campaign for many parties (Nagoya TV, 2025). Like we had said, the logic is, the criminal rate in Japan is not mutually linked to the increasing number of foreigners that come, but rather the quality of the securitising actor that cannot handle the criminal activities both by the locals and also by the foreigners. But the public ate the politicians’ effort to construct the “threat” perception, shown by how Sanseito became popular in Japan with the party’s “Japan first” idea.
The phenomena of Sanseito not just a short-time concern for us, but for the long-term, if this ultra-nationalist party can secure their seats time to time, along with other rising parties to oppositing LDP who more support in regulating rather than stop foreigners to come, will effecting how Japan deal its relations with abroad and with its needs of worker in the future.
The declining influence in strategic region
The culture of the system in the Asia-Pacific region is dominantly constituted by the rivalry between two superpowers, the US and China. Starting after the rapidly development of China under Deng Xiaoping’s reform and the Taiwan crisis, US perception towards China had changed and saw it as a revisionist state that challenged the US influence in the region (Koga, 2024; Zarei & Daheshiar, 2025; Luis & Dwiastuti, 2025).
The US threat perception consists of at least two things. First, China assertive military policies in expanding its military capacity and how it handles several maritime disputes. Second, China strategies to spread its influence by economic ties, especially through the belt-and-road initiative and the global south economic bloc, the BRICS. But why does this become a problem for Japan?
The important thing that we have to understand is that the relationship between Japan and the US is the major factor of Japan’s foreign policies. After the constitution of Japan that contains the security premise that denounces Japan’s sovereignty to declare war, that is the 9th article, Japan’s defence in the uncertain anarchy world is by depending on US’s military support. But the development of Japan’s military capacity developed through time, where they can have a self-defence force (SDF) after US interest in securing Japan from the communist spread. After that, Japan had renewed its interpretation of the 9th article in ex-PM Abe’s administration, giving Japan military ability to do missions abroad (Shakamoto & Shunji, 2015). However, Japan still sees the strong ties with the US as its national interest for military defence and economic security (Soeya, 2002).
The thing is, the constituted relation with the US pulls Japan to have the same threat perception with the US and at the same time posing Japan also as the threat of US’s enemies. Or in other words Japan threat perception towards China is a made up perception by the US (Yuki, 2024; Panov, 2024; Shakamoto & Shunji, 2015). And this perception that builds Japan securitising the most of the strategic region in the Asia-Pacific, even expanded it to what now called as Indo-Pacific, in promoting free and open region, countering China’s norms that lack of transparency and justify assertives behaviors, as what Japan describe this threat (MoFA, 2019). The effort to implement these policies can be identified in two ways, that is the military way and socioeconomic way (Koga, 2024).
In the military way, Japan continues its effort to increase its military capacities that had begun since the bold decision of ex-PM Abe’s administration to change the interpretation of self-defence (Panov, 2024). The government also decided to expand its military budget, increasing it from USD 4,8 million to USD 5,5 million in 2024 (Trading Economics, 2024). Along with that, Japan also strengthened the security cooperation in the region, shown by the comeback of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) consisting of Japan, the US, India, and Australia in 2017 and actively engaged in the Malabar maritime exercise.
In the socioeconomic way, Japan collaborated with other economic powers, like OECD, G7, and also Quad, to strengthen influence in the global south. This means funding development programs, free trade agreement, building connectivity, norms building from people-to-people diplomacy, and technology transfer. Take for example how Japan shapes its policies towards southeast asia states. Koga (2024) uses the sentence empowerment strategy to describe how Japan handles China’s rising influence in the region of southeast Asia. This strategy is focused on the socioeconomic development of the southeast asia states through the institution of ASEAN.
Japan established a funding program called Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF) that promotes the capacity building of ASEAN in integrating funding with the ASEAN framework. Along with the changing environment, this program is always adapting its focus, like JAIF 3.0 that committed USD 100 million for the implementation of ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP), along with the Japan interest in promoting free and open Indo-Pacific (Darwati, 2023).
However, Japan’s effort to defend the liberal norms and influences in most of its strategic regions is becoming weaker. In the post-Kishida era, more and more states starting to align with the global south bloc named BRICS, consisting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with other members from South Asia, Middle East, and Southeast Asia, resulting from the adapting China’s belt-and-road initiative to the need of the development states and the burden that US’s imposed to many states and burdened them (Patton & Walker, 2025).
Trump tariff also hindered Japan’s effort to actually defence the US interest in the Indo-Pacific, to promote the liberal norms and influences. The “Make America Great Again” is not to make other states even the allys to be great, but only the US. In that way, on the so-called “liberation day” in April, President Trump announced that the US is imposing tariffs on every state, demanding reciprocal actions. This makes Japan have to secure its own national first.
Japan gets 25% for the reciprocal tariff and an additional 24% tariff for its manufactured goods, demanding to open its market for US goods. Even though Japan’s negotiator to Washington, Akazawa, had secured some deals with Japan, including reducing the tariff to 15%, there are still significant impacts on Japan’s economy, especially in the industries (Izuru, 2025). To minimize the risk of the tariff and the uncertainty of US’s policies and its ambiguity, Japan shapes its policies in a way that does not offend US’s interest.
Take as an example on how Japan diversifies its trade partner through the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that offers zero tariffs on Japanese manufactured goods, like automobiles. This solving the Japan’s dependencies on US’s manufacture market that become one of the major industries that got violated by the tariff (Stone, 2025).
Japan turning point
Japan is declining, and its need to adapt its policies to survive. And that effort began from the new prime minister that will be elected in October. Regardless of the names that had been declared, we conclude that the next prime minister has to make a bold move, especially regarding its reliance on super powers.
It’s the new era for Japan, the shifting has happened and it has become a momentum. Japan needs a big change rather than keeping the status quo, and it had started from the change that the Japanese had done to its national political landscape.
Reference
Darwati, E. (September 7, 2023). KTT Asean-Jepang catat 3 dokumen, komitmen pendanaan US$100 Juta untuk JAIF 3.0. Ekonomi Bisnis. http://ekonomi.bisnis.com/read/20230907/9/1692412/ktt-asean-jepang-catat-3-dokumen-komitmen-pendanaan-us100-juta-untuk-jaif-30
Dewangga, F. B. (2025). The rise of Sanseito in Japan: populism, alternative politics, and the crisis of representation. StudiHI. studihi.com/the-rise-of-sanseito-in-japan-populism-alternative-politics-and-the-crisis-of-representation/
Izuru, K. (August 27, 2025). Is the US-Japan tariff agreement really “good enough”? Nippon. https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a10404/
Kantei. (15 Jul 2025a) 外人との秩序あ共生社会推室発足式.
Kantei. (15 Juli 2025b) 令和7年7月15日(火)午.
Koga, K. (2024). Strategic empowerment: Japan’s evolving policy towards Southeast Asia from 2010s. IQAS 55(1), p. 13–40.
Luis, E. S., & Dwiastuti, I. (2025). Japan’s increasing threat perception of China influence its decision to re-engaged the Quadrilaterra Security Dialogue (Quad) in 2017. Sociae Polites, p.76–89.
MoFA. (2019). Japan diplomatic bluebook 2019. https://www.mofa.go.jp/fp/pp/page22e_000929.html
McNeil, B. (2025). Why do they hate us? Foreigners living in Japan worry about xenophobia. Toyo Keizai. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/890369?display=b
Nagoya TV. (15 Juli 2025).【週中で各覚が激突】 SNSが示す新論点外原人との共生有権者の視点.
Okumura, K. (2022). Perspectives on Host Society Attitudes Toward Immigrants: A Review of Recent Findings from Japan. The Aoyama Journal Of International Politics, Economics And Communication (113).
Panov, A. N. (2024). Foreign policy legacy of prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. Russian Japanology Review 2, p. 5–36.
Patton, S., & Walker, R. (September 23, 2025). Trump tariffs tilt Southeast Asia towards China. East Asia Forum. https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/09/23/trump-tariffs-tilt-southeast-asia-towards-china/
Soeya, Y. (2002). The China factor in the U.S.-Japan alliance: the myth of a China threat. Journal of East Asian Studies 2(2), p. 37–66.
Smith, O. (2019). Japan tourism: how Japan became the world’s fastest growing tourism destination. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/japan-tourism-how-japan-became-the-worlds-fastest-growing-tourism-destination-20190930-h1ihir.html
Stone, N. (July 7, 2025). Diversifying trade to counter U.S. tariffs and capitalize on regional growth. Ainvest. https://www.ainvest.com/news/japan-strategic-pivot-diversifying-trade-counter-tariffs-capitalize-regional-growth-2507/
Trading Economics. (2024). Japan military expenditure. https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/military-expenditure
Yamaguchi, S. (2022, 1 September). Why Japan is the Most Difficult Country to Have Children | The Shrinking Population [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/F6mPyQR-gis?si=jXyha5oiMKcvuwuC
Zarei, Z., Daheshiar, H., * Hajimineh, R. (2025). Analyzing the impact of U.S. strategy in East Asia on Sino-Japanese relations. Interdisciplinary Studies in Society, Law, and Politics 4(2), p. 114–127.
Leave a Reply