Do we like Yoko Kamikawa?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A decent, careful record with one retracted remark and a contested execution call, but too little on LGBTQ+ issues to score higher.
Kamikawa is a technocrat rather than a firebrand. She studied at the University of Tokyo and Harvard's Kennedy School, worked as a fellow for US Senator Max Baucus, then rose through the Liberal Democratic Party. She has been justice minister three times and in September 2023 became Japan's first female foreign minister in 20 years.
Her biggest stain is a hard call, not a gaffe. As justice minister in 2018 she ordered the hangings of Aum Shinrikyo cult members behind the Tokyo sarin attack, saying the executions followed careful consideration. Amnesty International condemned them and called for a moratorium, so where you land depends on whether you see it as justice for 1995 or as the state killing people.
Then there's the speech. In May 2024, campaigning for an LDP-backed governor candidate in Shizuoka, she was accused of implying that women who don't give birth aren't really women, and an opposition leader called it inappropriate. She retracted it the next morning, saying she accepted the criticism and had meant that women's power should help elect a governor.
She has also copped her share of rubbish. In January 2024 LDP elder Taro Aso said of her that he wouldn't call her beautiful and called her an old lady, remarks critics called sexist and his own office later withdrew. The abuse was aimed at her, not by her, and by the reporting she took it in her stride.
On the harm test, we found no slide into conspiracy theories and no campaigning against trans or LGBTQ+ people, and no run of work with people who push harm. The gap is that we couldn't find a clear statement from her on same-sex marriage, so we can't say she's an ally. That is a thin record, not a bad one.
Nothing new on her lately in the English-language sources we could open. The last big moment was her September 2024 run for LDP leader, the second woman to declare after Sanae Takaichi, in which she said she'd entered politics so nobody is left behind.