Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is under fire for missing an online meeting of G7 leaders hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron on October 2, a no-show that has put questions about her credibility at the center of her diplomacy.
The absence caused a stir on its own. Asked about it in the Diet on October 16, Takaichi said the French side had not told her until just before the meeting when it would be held. That left too little time to set up the remote conferencing line at the prime minister's residence, she said.
Reports then established that the line can be configured in about 15 minutes. The French side had also sent the start time several hours in advance, according to those reports. The explanation did not hold.
Skipping a G7 leaders' meeting is not something that happens. That gap gave rise to a theory of heavy drinking. Reports said alcohol was served at a dinner at the residence before the meeting, attended by figures including Taro Aso, vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party. The claim that Takaichi was too drunk to attend then spread online. Its truth is unknown, but no other answer to why she missed the call has emerged.
Takaichi appeared to anticipate the suspicion. During her October 16 Diet answer she noted that the agenda covered the response to diesel prices and similar matters between Europe and the US. She also said the Foreign Ministry had played a part in the decision, laying the ground to shift responsibility to the ministry.
It is hard to imagine the Foreign Ministry telling a prime minister not to attend. If anything, it should be telling her to attend without fail. The agenda was centered on Europe and the US, but it concerned energy, and it bore on the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. The subject matters to Japan too.
G7 agendas cover many subjects. A member that stays away because a topic does not interest it loses the trust of the other members. The same logic could leave some topics impossible to put on the agenda at all, because Europe and the US have little interest in them. The Foreign Ministry would not make such a call.
If a ministry judgment existed at all, the more likely sequence is that Takaichi said she did not want to attend and the ministry reluctantly agreed. It is also possible that when she asked whether it was fine to skip, officials eager to keep her happy replied that of course it was, since diesel had nothing to do with Japan.
The episode follows Takaichi into a crowded diplomatic calendar. A summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, should one be arranged, would now be a distant prospect, with trust in the prime minister badly damaged.