Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Wednesday hinted in parliament that she didn’t initially intend to refer to a specific case that Japan could consider a “survival-threatening situation” that would potentially allow it to deploy its military under the right of collective self-defense.
But, facing off with opposition leaders in parliament for the first time since taking office, Takaichi insisted that her position is in line with that of previous administrations and defended her Nov. 7 remarks in which she said a Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan could constitute an existential crisis for Japan.
“Merely repeating the government’s previous position over and over again could, in certain circumstances, have led to the suspension of that session of the budget committee,” she said in reference to a practice sometimes employed by the opposition to halt parliamentary deliberations when the government’s answers are not deemed satisfactory.