Hi everyone, welcome back to The Insider.
I'm Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Economist's Editor-in-Chief.
Japan's Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, took office only four months ago with a tiny, fragile majority.
And she gambled her premiership to call an election, which she won emphatically on February the 8th.
She's now got a historic mandate to reshape the world's fourth largest economy and indeed Asia's geopolitics.
So will she deliver?
That's what we're going to talk about today.
And I have to say I'm delighted that we're going to be talking about Japan
because it is an extremely important country that we talk about far too little.
And so doing so is as always Ed Carr, my Deputy Editor, very nice to see you again.
And Ed you've had very little sleep I happen to know
because you were working on a leader that we wrote at the very last minute
so thank you for being here after that.
And joining us again is Chris Lockwood, though Chris used to be our Europe Editor
but he is now joining us in his new role as the freshly appointed Asia Editor.
Very nice to see you.
And in some ways you're returning to your old stomping grounds, right?
You've lived in Tokyo, you lived in Hong Kong, you used to be Asia Editor a while ago.
Yes like Douglas MacArthur, I'm back.
I'm not sure you want to push that too far but very nice of you to join us.