Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi missed a G7 leaders' online meeting on the night of October 2, and a month later the dispute over why is still running. Each time the Diet presses her for an explanation, the story shifts, and questions now include whether her testimony was false.
The scrutiny has widened beyond the absence itself to her approach to diplomacy, her sense of ownership of the problem and her crisis management, according to the report.
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi did not attend in her place. Kazuya Endo, the Foreign Ministry official who serves as Japan's G7 sherpa, joined from Washington, where he was on a business trip.
A call set for 1am
France, which holds the G7 presidency, first said the meeting would start at "25 o'clock" — 1am on October 3. President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump are said to have settled on the time between them, which would suit Europe and the US given the time difference.
Inside the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry, the mood turned at once to "we can't ask the prime minister to attend at 25 o'clock." Online international meetings demand preparation, from reading the briefing papers to doing one's makeup, and the prime minister has stressed that she works on little sleep.
A government source close to the prime minister told the magazine that the absence stemmed from a lack of communication between the prime minister and those around her. The same source was asked to raise the meeting with her and let it pass, and time ran out while people avoided the job of persuading her.
The Foreign Ministry proposed that Endo attend in her place, and people close to the prime minister seized on the idea. They reported to her that she did not need to attend, and she agreed, according to this account.
France got in touch on the evening of October 2 to say the start was being moved up to 9:30pm. The decision that the prime minister would not attend did not change.
Burnham, and a dinner
Takaichi posted on X on October 5 that the discussion had focused on responses to diesel prices in Europe and the US, among other things, while diesel prices were a global issue. She added that France had set the meeting at short notice that day, that proxy attendance was allowed, and that UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham had been absent or represented by a proxy, as had European Council President Antonio Costa.
Burnham missed the meeting because of his father's funeral, and Foreign Secretary David Miliband attended in his place. Japan is unlikely to be treated in the same category.
Records of the prime minister's movements show she dined at the official residence from 6:30pm to 7:54pm with Liberal Democratic Party figures including Vice President Taro Aso, Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, Acting Secretary-General Koichi Hagiuda, upper house caucus chief Masaji Matsuyama and Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Hideki Murai. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara and deputy chief cabinet secretaries Masanao Ozaki and Yusuke Nakanishi were also present.
The dinner came ahead of an extraordinary Diet session convened on October 5, and the gathering confirmed party unity. No record of her movements after that exists, which makes it fair to ask why she could not have joined the 9:30pm meeting online from the official residence.