TOKYO (AP) — Sanae Takaichi, a star of ultraconservative Japanese politics and a rare woman to rise in its male-dominated hierarchy, has been elected the country’s first female prime minister.

Takaichi, 64, is also the first woman to lead the Liberal Democratic Party that has dominated Japan’s postwar politics almost without interruption.

She admires former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and is a proponent of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative vision for Japan. A China hawk, she is a regular at Yasukuni Shrine, seen by China, the two Koreas and other Asian victims of Japan’s World War II aggression as a place that glorifies the country’s wartime past.

The leader of a country that ranks poorly internationally for gender equality, Takaichi had rarely mentioned the i

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