But what exactly has, uh, Sanae Takaichi said, especially since becoming a prime minister, about how she wants to change this constitution?

The LDP, which is the party that has, uh, has, has ruled Japan for, uh, really most of the, of the last, uh, of, of the last, um, decades since the Second World War, was founded on the principle that it, that it, that it needed to, uh, revise the Constitution.

And one of the things that, uh, that I was writing in my article was that it's not just, uh, the, the peace clause that, uh, is at stake.

It's, uh, the idea that Japan should take control, uh, of a constitution.

It's a very precious document.

It's the supreme law of the country, and it has never been, uh, revised.

And so it, it's, it's, uh, a little bit about taking control of that, uh, supreme law for yourself, for, for, for the nation of Japan.

And as we've been talking about it, as especially China rapidly increases and expands its military, you do wonder, how is Japan supposed to protect itself, defend itself, if it sticks to its pacifist constitution and would wanna get rid of US bases? What do you think, guys?

W- why do they like the idea of Takaichi staying in office?

The markets like the idea of, of stimulus, or particularly the equity markets, like the idea of, of stimulus.

The...

If you look at the stocks that have really been leading the way up, it's not terribly surprising that, that they should be led by tech, by defense, by companies that are exposed to Japan attempting to wean itself off a reliance on Chinese rare earths.

So there's some sort of material-related companies there, and it-- this is a rally that is quite broad.

The banking system is, you know, likely to benefit if interest rates continue to rise.

The yen has, has weakened because there is, uh, underneath all this, a, a concern that the spending plans could leave Japan a little more fiscally stretched.

What have been some of the highlights of her tenure so far?

Why is that the case? What's changed?

So look, one of the reasons that this is happening now is the demographics, and that takes two forms.

One is that founders of companies, often men and often with, you know, large substantial stakes in listed companies, are reaching the end of their lives.

And they're either estate planning and, and working out how to (laughs) transfer this to, to other members of their families, or, or they're just looking at this and going, "I need to get out." But the other, Japan has a very substantial labor shortage.

The labor market is shrinking and is in long-term decline.

In other words, it's not about laying people off.

Um, in many cases, it's about arresting the exit of the workers that you have got or re-skilling them.

Yeah, so what are you both watching for and expecting going forward?

So just tell us about the last-minute hitch to Takaichi's plans.

So Sanae Takaichi has been attempting several times to become, uh, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and therefore prime minister, and she succeeded in early October in becoming the president of the LDP.

The party has had for 26 years a coalition partner called Komeito.

And rather to everyone's surprise, Komeito pulled out of that coalition.

And without that coalition partner, there was a chance that the opposition parties in parliament could have proposed their own alternative prime minister, and all voted for that person, and just about managed to keep her out of becoming prime minister.

That would have been absolutely extraordinary, and it left the LDP and Takaichi scrambling really to find another viable coalition partner.

What kind of concessions has she had to make to the Japan Innovation Party, Leo?

The Japan Innovation Party had a few demands.

Why would it be a big deal if it prompted other buyouts?

So, corporate Japan at the moment is something that has been of, of rising interest to private equity, because there are so many kind of mismatches between valuation, reality, and the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese market.

And what's happening here is that, in a way, you've got the, the biggest and most famous Japanese company, which is Toyota, saying, "Look, maybe we need to sort of redress the issues that are going on with our corporate structure." And that is of huge interest to investors who've been looking at Japan and saying, "Look, all this place really needs is a big shakeup." And so the symbolism, I suppose, of having, you know, the biggest company, the most famous company in Japan leading from the front with a very significant piece of corporate reorganization is something that other companies may seek to emulate, but certainly investors will be very ex- excited to see that pressure rising on CEOs across corporate Japan.

Now, Leo, where did we see the most investor excitement for this proposal?

The first reaction by investors was to look at this situation with Toyota and go, "Look, if this is happening with an important subsidiary of Toyota, then, look, maybe we look at the other affiliate companies and subsidiaries of Toyota and wonder whether maybe those will end up doing something similar or they'll be involved in something similar." So a lot of share prices of Toyota-related companies were really rising very quickly on Monday, but you also saw in the periphery of this some very significant share price moves in companies where there was sort of similar structures, big Japanese industrial companies like Sumitomo Electric and others, where they've got listed subsidiaries, and the idea now is perhaps that shareholder pressure and other factors have combined to push management into rethinking the way that they set everything up and the way that things are structured.

And the idea now, therefore, is that you would have quite a lot of deals perhaps happening over the coming months and years as Japan sort of reorganizes itself to be a little bit more shareholder-friendly and perhaps a little bit more better governed in, in sort of corporate governance terms.