Do we like Taro Aso?
Our score: 2 out of 10. Years of public put-downs of women, Nazi-era and climate gaffes and a thin record of real good, with nothing anti-LGBTQ+ of his own found.
Taro Aso is one of the old power brokers of Japanese politics. He is vice president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, leads its only remaining faction after the others disbanded over a slush fund scandal, and played a key role in Sanae Takaichi winning the leadership in October 2025. He is the bloke who helps decide who gets the job, not just a backbencher with opinions.
He is also famous at home for putting his foot in it. In 2013, as deputy prime minister, he made remarks about the Nazi era that were interpreted as praise for Hitler's rise to power. He retracted them but told reporters he had “no intention of resigning”. The same year he told a social security panel the cost of elderly care wouldn't be solved “unless you let them hurry up and die”, then withdrew the comment and called it inappropriate.
On women, the record is a pattern rather than a one-off. In January 2024 he praised Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in a speech, but said “I wouldn't call her beautiful, but she speaks confidently”. He also called her an “old lady” and wrongly suggested no woman had been foreign minister before. The Japanese Communist Party's secretary general called the remarks “extremely outrageous and shameful statements”. No response from Aso was reported in the piece we read.
The harm check, then. On the planet, in 2021 he told a campaign crowd there was “something good” about global warming because it made rice tastier. Then Prime Minister Kishida apologised on TV, and a crop scientist said the claim wasn't accurate. On Taiwan he is a hawk: he backed Takaichi in December 2025 and called a Taiwan contingency an existential crisis. Whether you cheer or wince at that depends on your view of the China standoff. We found nothing anti-LGBTQ+ in his own words, but the women and climate record is enough.
There's a darker family chapter too. In 2009 the Telegraph reported he acknowledged for the first time that his family's company used prisoners of war as slave labourers in the Second World War. British veterans then pressed for compensation and a proper apology. The excerpt we read doesn't report that he gave one.
On the good side, the record we could verify is thin. Colleagues see him as a hard-nosed fiscal conservative, and his alliance with Takaichi is not guaranteed to last. Reports said her call for a snap election without asking him, and her pledge to scrap the food consumption tax, could strain it. We couldn't verify charity work or standing up for others at a cost to himself, so we won't invent any. Nothing new has come up since the February election beyond that.