How one election in Japan could upend bond markets and global finance

Compared with the turmoil threatened by US President Donald Trump’s actions in everything from geopolitics to trade, the outcome of Japan’s parliamentary lower house election, set for February 8, may seem like small beer. Yet it could presage a great upheaval in global finance. The election outcome is widely expected to strengthen the political power base of the fiscally expansionist Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, and increase borrowing when government debt almost everywhere is already...