The party bringing Trump-style populism to Japan
Rise of Sanseito is ‘shattering’ the belief that Japan is ‘immune’ to populism
A far-right populist party in Japan is courting allies of Donald Trump as it builds on its recent electoral gains.
Sanseito uprooted Japan’s political foundations when it won 14 new seats in the House of Councillors election in July, “shattering the long-standing belief that modern Japan is immune to populism”, said news agency Anadolu.
Now hardline nationalist leader Sanae Takaichi has won the leadership election for Japan’s ruling party the Liberal Democratic Party, paving for a possible pact between the ruling party and Sanseito. But the Maga-inspired party “faces a distinctly Japanese quandary of how to upend the status quo in a society that prizes politeness and consensus”, said Reuters.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Spooking the mainstream
Sanseito was one of the election’s “biggest winners”, and it now has 15 lawmakers in the 248-member house. This is “not a huge number”, but it’s “enough to spook Japan’s mainstream conservatives”, said Project Syndicate. A poll by public broadcaster NHK last month found Sanseito is now the most popular opposition party.
Japan has “long prided itself on social harmony and relative political moderation, avoiding the deep partisan trenches of US politics”, said the East Asia Forum, but the recent election “exposed a truth that can no longer be ignored”: the nation’s “divisions are real, complex and growing, and Sanseito has skilfully turned these fractures into political capital”.
The value of that capital can be seen in Takaichi’s assent to power, “echoing Sanseito’s warnings about foreigners”, said Deutsche Welle. Takaichi kicked off her first official campaign speech with an anecdote about tourists reportedly kicking sacred deer in her hometown of Nara, without providing evidence.
Indeed Takaichi’s relationship with Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya “will be interesting to observe”, said Philip Patrick on UnHerd, and there is “something of the Tory-Reform UK dynamic to the relationship between the two Japanese parties”.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Not going ‘wacky’
Although the wider populist movement in Japan has latched onto “some common themes” with its international counterparts, like vaccine scepticism, nationalism, and opposition to “woke” social justice initiatives, they’re a “little different from far-right parties in other countries and from the older extreme right in Japan”, said Project Syndicate.
In the past, Japan’s far-right “traded mostly in nostalgia”, driving “noisy sound trucks, blaring wartime patriotic songs and bearing young ruffians in quasi-military gear”. They “longed for Japan’s imperialist past”, and pointed the blame at the “United States, Japanese leftists, and Communist China” for “robbing” the nation of its “martial spirit”.
In contrast, the topic that “excites” today’s populists most is the “increasing number of foreigners in Japan – immigrants, workers and tourists”. “Like Trump, Kamiya has stirred controversy with his remarks” on ethnic minorities, said Reuters. An outspoken critic of immigration, on one occasion the Sanseito leader “used a slur against Japan's ethnic Korean population – a comment for which he later apologised”.
But Sanseito “are not Trump worshippers” and won’t push “wacky” policies like those embraced by the US president, Kamiya told the news agency. The Japanese “value harmony and place an importance on getting broad, gradual consensus”, he said, before adding: “I do, too”.
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
-
‘Social media is the new tabloid’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Can the NBA survive FBI’s gambling investigation?Talking Points A casualty of the ‘sports gambling revolution’
-
How are ICE’s recruitment woes complicating Trump’s immigration agenda?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Lowered training standards and ‘athletically allergic’ hopefuls are hindering the White House plan to turn the Department of Homeland Security into a federal police force
-
‘Social media is the new tabloid’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How are ICE’s recruitment woes complicating Trump’s immigration agenda?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Lowered training standards and ‘athletically allergic’ hopefuls are hindering the White House plan to turn the Department of Homeland Security into a federal police force
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
Donald Trump’s week in Asia: can he shift power away from China?Today's Big Question US president’s whirlwind week of diplomacy aims to bolster economic ties and de-escalate trade war with China
-
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rebellion: Maga hardliner turns on TrumpIn the Spotlight The Georgia congresswoman’s independent streak has ‘not gone unnoticed’ by the president
-
‘Congratulations on your house, but maybe try a greyhound instead’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump wants to exert control over federal architectureThe Explainer Beyond his ballroom, Trump has several other architectural plans in mind
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction