Saadet Gökce
October 21, 2025•Update: October 21, 2025
ISTANBUL
Japan's newly elected conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi created a foreigner-specific Cabinet post on Tuesday, according to Kyodo News.
Conservative lawmaker Kimi Onoda has been appointed to the new portfolio to promote an "orderly coexistent society with foreigners.”
The 42-year-old lawmaker, who is supported by the conservatives, was born in the US to an American father and a Japanese mother.
Takaichi has also appointed two women to her Cabinet, with Satsuki Katayama as the country’s first female finance minister.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its new partner, the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), signed a coalition agreement to enhance the control tower function for foreign resident policy and establish a ministerial post to oversee its implementation on Monday.
Takaichi has also given five lawmakers official posts, including the Education Ministry to Yohei Matsumoto, who supported a 2012 Washington Post advertisement asserting the "facts" about the wartime comfort women system, according to researcher Jeffrey J. Hall on the US social media company X.
The ad included claims that "no historical document has ever been found by historians or research organizations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army."
Takaichi is known for her hawkish views on China, Koreas and Japan’s wartime history.
The JIP, also known as Ishin, earlier proposed a government cap on the percentage of foreign residents under 10% of the total population.
The party will not join the Cabinet but will extend outside support to the government on an issue-by-issue basis.
Japanese far-right populist party Sanseito won 15 seats in the House of Councilors election in July, securing the third-largest share of votes.
Its platform, centered on a “Japan First” agenda, advocates stricter immigration controls and portrays immigration as a “silent invasion.”
