After 25 years, trillions of dollars in monetary stimulus, and more governments than you can count, Japan is out of deflation, right?

Perhaps not, as Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki recently told surprised lawmakers in Tokyo. The governor of the Bank of Japan, Kazuo Ueda, was also surprised when he told lawmakers that the nightmare of falling prices in Japan was finally over.

This disagreement between Japan’s two economic leaders hasn’t degenerated into a furious argument. At least not yet. But it tells a bigger story about where Asia’s second-largest economy will be in 2024, a quarter century after the start of the zero-interest rate era.

Suffice it to say that Japan does not want to be where it wants to be. And certainly not where Ueda wants the economy to be while his team carries out the unenviable task of normalising an interest rate policy that is as far from normal as possible.

Apparently, Ueda had different plans than Suzuki on July 31. That day, Ueda’s team raised the benchmark interest rate to 0.25%, the highest level since 2008. The markets did not react positively. A soaring yen wiped up to $6.4 trillion from global stock markets.

On August 23, Ueda told lawmakers that the BOJ’s looming tightening cycle was in full swing. More rate hikes could be expected as wage pressures drove up Japan’s inflation rate, Ueda said. To which Suzuki replied: “Not so fast.”

This discrepancy also seems respectful, even cordial, at the moment. But it suggests that Tokyo’s political empire is preparing to strike back as the BOJ moves toward further rate hikes.

Since we are in Japan, some tension between the BOJ and the Ministry of Finance is to be expected. A certain degree of tension between the BOJ and lawmakers in Tokyo is quite natural.

It is also worth noting that the Japanese central bank is not “independent” like the Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank. On paper, yes. In practice, however, not so much. What truly autonomous central bank keeps interest rates at or near zero for a fairly permanent period?

It is important to remember that the BoJ backed down on its last attempt to normalize interest rates in 2006 and 2007. Back then, policymakers reached rates as low as 0.5% and even ended the quantitative easing that the BoJ had started in 2001.

But in 2008, interest rates fell back to zero and QE was once again the country’s monetary law. A major reason for this was the political backlash that the BOJ’s tightening measures provoked.

Could we see a similar turn of events this time? Only time will tell. But at least Suzuki’s warning that deflation may not be over suggests that Ueda now feels less able to raise borrowing costs further.

It is not as if Japan’s economy is booming, and even the optimism at the beginning of the year that union members would receive the biggest pay rise in 33 years is not leading to the broad wage increases that economists had expected.

Remember, this has been the missing link since 1999, when Japan became the first G7 country to cut interest rates to zero. Even now, amid tight labor markets and a shrinking population, average wages are rising modestly at best. And less than inflation.

Part of the problem is that one could make a solid case for why Ueda is right in his view that there is room for further rate hikes, but not when nervous MPs are keen to summon him to Parliament to give him a dressing down.

One could make a similarly compelling argument for why Suzuki’s caution is justified. Suzuki goes as far as to say: “We believe that we have reached a point where the deflationary situation is no longer present, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the country could slide back into deflation.”

To complicate matters further, a rapidly aging population like Japan’s is inherently deflationary. That’s because people in their 70s don’t spend as much money on new homes, cars, appliances, education, travel and entertainment as people in their 20s and 30s.

Moreover, there is no playbook for Ueda’s team to consult. No major economy has ever worn giant monetary training wheels for so long. There are no case studies on how consumer behavior might react when the free money goes away.

In that sense, Suzuki may actually be right when he says that deflationary forces are not as dead as the BOJ believes. It could mean that rumors that Ueda is shaking up global markets with his bold tightening measures – and risking trillions of dollars in additional losses – are greatly exaggerated.