Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told the Lower House Financial Affairs Committee on the 6th that skipping last month's online G7 leaders' meeting was a "very major failure" when the description was put to her, then repeated the government's standing line that the decision was made "comprehensively after taking various factors into account."
She went on to cite her record at past G7 meetings, saying Japan approaches them "rather with the spirit of being Asia's representative within the G7." She was answering Toshiaki Okamoto, a senior Komeito lawmaker.
Opposition parties have pursued Takaichi and the Foreign Ministry over the absence from the meeting on the night of the 2nd last month, asking whether it amounted to a last-minute cancellation. Shortly before the meeting she had attended a dinner with senior Liberal Democratic Party figures at which alcohol was served.
Takaichi, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and the ministry have said the meeting's schedule was not fixed until the last moment and its agenda concerned matters internal to Europe and the US, so a deputy foreign minister attended in her place. They have also cited the failure to prepare a large screen for international conferences, and noted the meeting ran about 30 minutes with Takaichi speaking once, for a few minutes.
The meeting was still a chance to meet fellow G7 leaders face to face, even online, and the decision to stay away has drawn widespread criticism.
Okamoto said he had "a strong sense of concern about this judgment," adding that "among the many international conferences, the G7 is in a class of its own for Japan."
“If Europe and the US alone could decide the way the world goes, that would be a problem, so the G7 is a position that senior politicians, bureaucrats and diplomats won by risking their lives. I believe the prime minister holds it dear as well, and successive prime ministers have approached it with that feeling. Japan is the country that needs the G7 most.”Toshiaki Okamoto, Komeito lawmaker
He acknowledged that her absence had been permitted in advance and that the British prime minister was reported to have missed the meeting, but said that case was entirely different because he was attending his father's funeral. He said the topic was diesel in Europe and the US, which may not bear directly on Japan, but that with Japan facing energy depletion it is vital to be aboard global trends.
Okamoto also took issue with the explanation that her brief speaking slot showed she was not essential to the meeting. "It is the reverse," he said. "Precisely because time was short, I believe the prime minister has the strength and the resolve to show the G7 members something that would astonish them, in Japan's national interest." He urged her to approach each international meeting with that resolve.
Takaichi again said the decision had been made comprehensively after weighing various factors. She pointed to her attendance at the G7 online leaders' meeting in March and the Evian summit in June, and said she had spoken by phone with President Emmanuel Macron of France the previous day and met Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany the week before.
“I attend meetings with G7 leaders and hold talks as well, and while valuing the personal relationships I have built, I am resolved to carry out a strong Japanese diplomacy as the free and open international order wavers.”Sanae Takaichi, prime minister
She referred to the APEC leaders' meeting and the G20 summit due between this month and next, and said Japan was able to make "considerably positive and novel proposals" at June's Evian summit.
Okamoto was unmoved. "What the prime minister has just said does not explain at all why she was absent on October 2," he said.