Why a 'mini Trump' is breaking through in Japan

NBC News

3 days ago

TOKYO — As President Donald Trump's tariffs add to a sense of uncertainty in Japan, more voters here are embracing an idea inspired by their longtime ally the United States: 'Japanese first.'
The nationalist slogan helped the right-wing populist party Sanseito make big gains in Japan's parliamentary elections on Sunday, as it capitalized on economic malaise and concerns about immigration and overtourism.
Party leader Sohei Kamiya, who since 2022 had held Sanseito's only seat in the upper house of Japan's parliament, will now be joined by 14 others in the 248-seat chamber. It's a far cry from the party's origin as a fringe anti-vaccination group on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Though Japan has long had a complex relationship with foreigners and its cultural identity, experts say Sanseito's rise is another indication of the global shift to the right embodied and partly fueled by Trump, with populist figures gaining ground in Europe, Britain, Latin America and elsewhere.
Kamiya 'fancies himself a mini-Trump' and 'is one of those who Trump has put wind in his sails,' said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University's Japan campus.
Speaking at a rally on Saturday at Tokyo's Shiba Park, Kamiya said his calls for greater restrictions on foreign workers and investment were driven not by xenophobia but by 'the workings of globalization.' He criticized mainstream parties' support for boosting immigration in an effort to address the labor shortage facing Japan's aging and shrinking population.
'Japan is still the fourth-largest economy in the world. We have 120 million people. Why do we have to rely on foreign capital?' Kamiya told an enthusiastic crowd.
The election results were disastrous for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is facing calls to resign now that his conservative Liberal Democratic Party — which has ruled almost uninterrupted since the end of World War II — has lost its majority in both houses of parliament.
The Japanese leader had also been under pressure to reach a trade deal with the Trump administration, which said Tuesday that the two sides had agreed to a 15% U.S. tariff on Japanese goods.
On Wednesday, Ishiba denied reports that he planned to step down by the end of August.
The message from his party's string of election losses is that 'people are unhappy,' Kingston said.
'A lot of people feel that the status quo is biased against their interests and it advantages the elderly over the young, and the young feel sort of resentful that they're having to carry the heavy burden of the growing aging population on their back,' he said.
Kamiya, 47, an energetic speaker with social media savvy, is also a strong contrast to leaders such as Ishiba and the Constitutional Democrats' Yoshihiko Noda, both 68, who 'look like yesterday's men' and the faces of the establishment, Kingston said.
With voters concerned about stagnating wages, surging prices and bleak employment prospects, 'the change-makers got a lot of protest votes from people who feel disenfranchised,' he said.
Sanseito's platform resonated with voters such as Yuta Kato.
'The number of [foreign immigrants] who don't obey rules is increasing. People don't voice it, but I think they feel that,' the 38-year-old hairdresser told Reuters in Tokyo. 'Also, the burden on citizens including taxes is getting bigger and bigger, so life is getting more difficult.'
The biggest reason Sanseito did well in the election, he said, 'is that they are speaking on behalf of us.'
Kamiya's party was not the only upstart to benefit from voter discontent, with the center-right Democratic Party for the People increasing its number of seats in the upper house from five to 16.
Sanseito, whose name means 'Participate in Politics,' originated in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, attracting conservatives with YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines and pushing back against mask mandates. Its YouTube channel now has almost 480,000 subscribers.
The party has also warned about a 'silent invasion' of foreigners in Japan, where the number of foreign residents rose more than 10% last year to a record of almost 3.8 million, according to the Immigration Services Agency. It remains far lower as a proportion of the population than in the U.S. or Europe, however.
Critics say such rhetoric has fueled hate speech and growing hostility toward foreigners in Japan, citing a survey last month by Japanese broadcaster NHK and others in which almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that foreigners received 'preferential treatment.'
At the Sanseito rally on Saturday, protesters held up signs that said 'No Hate' and 'Racists Go Home.'
Kamiya denies that his party is hostile to foreigners in Japan.
'We have no intention of discriminating against foreigners, nor do we have any intention of inciting division,' he said Monday. 'We're just aiming to firmly rebuild the lives of Japanese people who are currently in trouble.'
Despite its electoral advances, Sanseito doesn't have enough members in the upper house to make much impact on its own and has only three seats in the more powerful lower house. The challenge, Kingston said, is whether Kamiya can 'take this anger, the malaise, and bring his show nationwide.'