Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's landslide electoral triumph, delivering Japan's Liberal Democratic Party its largest-ever post-war majority with 316 seats, marks a watershed moment in the strategic architecture of the Indo-Pacific. For India, which has painstakingly cultivated Japan as a cornerstone partner in its vision of a free and open regional order, the implications of Tokyo's decisive rightward shift warrant careful scrutiny. While Takaichi's historic ascent as Japan's first female prime minister deserves acknowledgement, the electoral mandate allows her to pursue constitutional revision, bolster offensive military capabilities, and adopt a confrontational posture towards China, and it arrives at a moment when the Indo-Pacific equilibrium is perilously fragile.
Shifting strategic equations
The geopolitical context could scarcely be more consequential for India. The Trump administration's pivot towards hemispheric concerns has signalled a relative deprioritisation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue within Washington's latest National Security Strategy. Against this backdrop, Takaichi's commitment to revising Japan's national defence strategy and her assertion that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could trigger a Japanese military response represent a fundamental departure from Tokyo's traditional strategic restraint.
For India, which has long benefited from Japan as a stabilising presence that tempered regional anxieties while quietly enhancing its defence capabilities, Takaichi's assertive nationalism presents a double-edged proposition. A militarily robust Japan could theoretically compensate for waning American engagement. Yet an overtly confrontational Tokyo risks accelerating the arms race and strategic polarisation that India has sought to navigate with studied ambiguity. China has already responded by reimposing bans on Japanese seafood imports and restricting rare-earth mineral exports.
Economic implications for India
The economic dimension complicates India's calculus further. Takaichi's ¥21.3 trillion stimulus package pledges to revitalise Japan's economy through “crisis-management investment” in semiconductors and advanced manufacturing—welcome after decades of anaemic growth. However, her economic nationalism, which prioritises domestic industrial capability and explicitly opposes reliance on foreign supply chains, sits uneasily with India's expectations of deepened bilateral engagement.
Despite more than a decade of the India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, bilateral trade reached merely $22.85 billion in 2023–24, with India facing a persistent deficit: Japan exported $17.69 billion while India managed only $5.15 billion. Takaichi's preference for tightening immigration policies threatens the previous administration's target of bringing 50,000 skilled Indian workers to Japan—particularly unwelcome given Japan's projected shortfall of 11 million workers by 2040.
More troublingly, her semi-autarkic vision suggests that the era of large-scale Japanese infrastructure financing—which enabled the Delhi Metro and Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail—may give way to selective, transactional investments linked to Japan's immediate strategic interests rather than development diplomacy.
Strategic constraints ahead
Ultimately, while India will publicly welcome a more capable Japan, New Delhi's strategists must privately reckon with the reality that Takaichi's rightward consolidation may narrow rather than expand India's room for manoeuvre in an Indo-Pacific increasingly defined by irreconcilable rivalries, while simultaneously constraining the economic dividends India has come to expect from a partnership that has yet to deliver commensurate trade benefits despite its strategic rhetoric.
