Japan's Generational Turn:From "Self-Reliance" to a Blend of Isolationism and "Unique Japan"

The Old Project: Exiting the Postwar

For decades, Japan’s conservative politicians and public intellectuals have rehearsed a familiar ambition: to “exit the postwar.” The phrase has meant many things, but it usually points to three impulses---restore strategic autonomy, renegotiate the memory politics of defeat, and rebuild state capacity---while still operating inside the U.S.-led order. It has been a project of tone as much as policy.

The Prewar Imprint That Lingered

When early postwar leaders such as Nobusuke Kishi and Eisaku Sato held power, they still carried the interwar instinct to stand on one’s own in a rough neighborhood. That sensibility---call it the prewar imprint---shaped choices even under Pax Americana. “Self-reliance” was not a slogan; it was muscle memory.

A Simple Map for Reading Japan

Think of four overlapping approaches:

A. Ethos: discipline, civic virtue, the restoration of “Japanese spirit.”
B. Strategic Autonomy: becoming a responsible pillar of the order (alliances, deterrence, economic security).
C. Status/Memory Normalization: renegotiating the “permanent defendant” posture of a defeated nation.
D. State Capacity: technocratic reforms---laws, budgets, institutions, implementation.

This is not a taxonomy for the ages, but it helps explain why some leaders resonate abroad while others flame out at home.

Ishihara’s Outer-Ring Provocation

When Shintaro Ishihara published The Japan That Can Say No, Washington winced. Ishihara was operating from the outer ring of national power, so he leaned on A and C, ethos and status, where symbolism pays. As Tokyo governor he pivoted to D, pushing domestic administrative reforms. But he never occupied the national command posts where B, real strategic autonomy, gets made. The limitation was structural, not rhetorical.

Abe’s Pivot: From A/C to B/D

Shinzo Abe’s family lineage immersed him in the prewar-inflected tradition more deeply than his peers. Therefore, the first Abe cabinet emphasized A and C. Once he secured a long, stable premiership, he shifted decisively to B and D: building institutions, bridging with the Trump White House, and acting as a guardian of the liberal order. Abe became one of the system’s global champions.

Takaichi’s Calibration, and Ceiling

Sponsored by Abe, Sanae Takaichi ran for the LDP leadership and lost to Fumio Kishida. She broadcasts C heavily, but has shown early and genuine interest in B and D. Her A, the moral-poetic register, is relatively weak; she reads more as managerial pragmatist plus selective populist than as a right-wing ideologue.

Since Abe’s death, however, she has struggled to aggregate broad support. Opening with crowd-pleasers (a speech that starts with Nara’s park deer “bullied” by foreign tourists) while doubling down on C signals little appetite to broaden the tent. She is no princeling, she is a woman in a factional culture with few natural allies, and the Abe playbook---start with C/A and then widen---may not work for her. It is possible she is deliberately moving right to craft a “conservative as victim” narrative. Unless Shinjiro Koizumi makes a major unforced error, he looks comparatively well-placed for the LDP presidency.

Koizumi the Postwar Native

What, then, is Shinjiro Koizumi’s postwar sensibility? His father, Junichiro, was strikingly modern for his generation. To weep over the letters of Chiran’s kamikaze is not a proof of militarist nostalgia; in the Koizumi case it reads as a humane, modern response. Ordinally Britons (non-academic) still cherish Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” without endorsing Victorian militarism; dismissing the dignity of grief in Chiran’s letters makes little sense. This common-sense humanism is itself a product of postwar rights culture. Father and son are temperamentally made for the postwar order.

Shinjiro is acutely aware that Japan’s international standing lags far behind its actual contributions. His much-mocked “make climate change cool and sexy” line was internationalist and intuitive; light on footnotes, heavy on cross-border communication. In short, he keeps one foot in C, but aims early at B, and is prepared to move D to support it.

The Generational Hinge

Here is the hinge of the story. As generational turnover proceeds, the very question of a “self-reliant Japan” recedes. Voters under 50 invest far less emotional energy in historical memory fights or Cold War-style security divides. Pax Americana was internalized long ago, and Abe’s 70th-anniversary statement further normalized a forward-looking outlook.

But younger cohorts are also narrower in focus: daily life, hometown concerns, personal opportunity. Unlike many older voters, they do not sustain a wide-angle gaze on climate change, disasters, free trade, or war. The mix of comfortable lives plus stagnant growth has yielded an inward-looking public.

From Self-Reliance to “Preservationist Inwardness”

With cohort change, the old self-reliance agenda fades and a conservative mood to protect a livable country and community rises. This is not uniquely Japanese; it is an OECD-wide pattern.

Japan’s foreign-resident share is only about 3 percent, yet European-style anti-immigration anxieties appear early. Social media transmits Europe’s turmoil instantly, triggering a preemptive “let’s not repeat that” reflex.

The Policy Risk: Cautious Isolationism

Japan’s political culture prizes balance and harmony. With the U.S. and Europe consumed by domestic strains and the Ukraine war, Tokyo is likelier to prioritize guarding the home front than to trumpet high-flying global leadership. Edo-period isolation delayed technological progress, and also delayed external shocks. That historical memory still exerts a quiet pull.

The Rest of the Field---and the Two Who Could Move the Dial

Internationalist, well-balanced figures like Yoshimasa Hayashi, steady operators like Toshimitsu Motegi, and younger conservatives like Takayuki Kobayashi certainly matter. But the two least bureaucratic front-runners, Koizumi and Takaichi, are the pair most likely to change the tenor of the LDP-Komeito government.

A Sober Coda

Whichever one wins, a growing share of voters doubts that the LDP can deliver transformation. Neither candidate yet holds the political capital to inspire confidence as a leader in a fluid international environment. The outlook is uneasy.

Beyond the Short Run: New Cleavages or Mere Drift?

Who takes the helm next is a short-term question. As autonomy, security, and “ex-defeated status” shrink in salience, Japan needs a new political cleavage to accelerate the competition. Younger voters will shop by menu, moving opportunistically across parties; a party system famed for stability could liquefy.

Japan is not yet practiced in multi-party coalition-craft beyond Komeito, nor in the relentless legislative bargaining common in continental Europe. The immediate task is national agreement on what should structure political competition. Only then can a post-postwar politics emerge---less about absolving the past, more about stewarding a livable, if inward-leaning, Japan within a fragile order.