logo
MAGA-style 'anti-globalist' politics arrives in Japan

MAGA-style 'anti-globalist' politics arrives in Japan

France 246 days ago
While Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's coalition lost its upper house majority in an election on Sunday, the "Japanese first" Sanseito party, created only five years ago, increased its seats from two to 15.
Sanseito's agenda comes straight from the copybook of right-wing movements such as US President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again", the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Nigel Farage's Reform party in Britain.
This includes "stricter rules and limits" on immigration and foreign capital, opposition to "globalism" and "radical" gender policies, and a rethink on decarbonisation, vaccines and pesticide-free agriculture.
Founded on YouTube, Sanseito will "bring power back to the people", party leader Sohei Kamiya, a 47-year-old former teacher and supermarket manager, wrote in the Japan Times.
Cheap labour
Surveys have put immigration far down the list of voters' concerns, who are much more worried about inflation and the economy.
But for Sanseito, the influx of newcomers into Japan -- where the immigration its economy badly needs is far lower than in other developed countries -- is to blame for a host of ills from crime to rising property prices to dangerous driving.
"It's fine if they visit as tourists, but if you take in more and more foreigners, saying they're cheap labour, then Japanese people's wages won't rise," Kamiya said at a campaign.
But he added: "We are not exclusionary. We have never called to drive out foreigners."
Meanwhile online platforms have been flooded with disinformation, some of which Japanese fact-checking groups and the government have debunked.
Some posts falsely claimed that foreigners leave almost $3 billion of medical bills unpaid a year, or that Chinese residents on welfare doubled in five years.
At a Sanseito election rally in front of Tokyo's Shinagawa station, where orange T-shirted party workers handed out "Stop destroying Japan!" flyers, one voter told AFP she was finally being heard.
"They put into words what I had been thinking about but couldn't put into words for many years," said the 44-year-old IT worker on a precarious short-term contract.
"When foreigners go to university, the Japanese government provides subsidies to them, but when we were going to university, everyone had huge debts."
Moscow meddling?
Russian bot accounts have been responsible for "large-scale information manipulation", according to a much-read blog post by Ichiro Yamamoto from the Japan Institute of Law and Information Systems think-tank.
This has been helped by artificial intelligence enabling better translation of material into Japanese.
More understanding towards Russia -- something which was long anathema for Japanese right-wingers -- is also a theme for Kamiya.
"Russia's military invasion (of Ukraine) was of course bad, but there are forces in the United States that drove Russia into doing that," Kamiya told AFP, denying he is "pro-Russia".
He was forced during his campaign to deny receiving support from Moscow -- which has been accused of backing similar parties in other countries -- after a Sanseito candidate was interviewed by Russian state media.
'Zero illegals'
As in other countries, the rise of Sanseito and its success has prompted the government to announce new immigration policies, and other parties to make promises during the election campaign.
Ishiba's LDP proclaimed the goal of achieving "zero illegal foreign nationals" and said the government will strengthen the management system for immigration and residency status.
Eight NGOs issued a joint statement last week, since backed by over 1,000 groups, raising the alarm on "rapidly spreading xenophobia".
"The argument that 'foreigners are prioritised' is totally unfounded demagoguery," the statement said.
Hidehiro Yamamoto, politics and sociology professor at the University of Tsukuba, said that populism has not caught hold before because the LDP, unlike established parties elsewhere, has remained a "catch-all party".
"The LDP has taken care of lower middle-class residents in cities, farmers in the countryside, and small- and mid-sized companies," Yamamoto said.
And pointing to the rise and decline of other new parties in Japan in the past, he isn't sure Sanseito will last.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Thai-Cambodian border clashes: Trump threatens to withhold trade deals until ceasefire
Thai-Cambodian border clashes: Trump threatens to withhold trade deals until ceasefire

France 24

time3 hours ago

  • France 24

Thai-Cambodian border clashes: Trump threatens to withhold trade deals until ceasefire

02:22 27/07/2025 China calls for shared AI future, offering tech to developing countries Asia / Pacific 27/07/2025 Taiwanese voters reject attempt to recall China-friendly lawmakers Asia / Pacific 27/07/2025 Thailand and Cambodia clash despite ceasefire hopes Asia / Pacific 27/07/2025 Thai-Cambodian border conflit: 200,000 thousand people displaced Asia / Pacific 27/07/2025 Thai-Cambodia border clashes continue despite Trump's ceasefire call Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Voters in Taiwan reject bid to oust China-friendly MPs in closely watched poll Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Civilians flee Thai-Cambodia border zone as death toll rises Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Thailand and Cambodia trade accusations as deadly border clashes enter third day Asia / Pacific

Thai-Cambodian border conflit: 200,000 thousand people displaced
Thai-Cambodian border conflit: 200,000 thousand people displaced

France 24

time10 hours ago

  • France 24

Thai-Cambodian border conflit: 200,000 thousand people displaced

01:45 27/07/2025 Thai-Cambodia border clashes continue despite Trump's ceasefire call Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Voters in Taiwan reject bid to oust China-friendly MPs in closely watched poll Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Thailand and Cambodia trade accusations as deadly border clashes enter third day Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 India: fear of mass disenfranchisement after Bihar state rushes revision of voter rolls Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Taiwan holds largest ever recall vote, potentially ousting China-friendly lawmakers Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Taiwan votes in high-stakes recall election that might oust China-friendly party Asia / Pacific 26/07/2025 Death toll rises on Thai-Cambodian border on third day of fighting Asia / Pacific 25/07/2025 Thailand and Cambodia clash: A border dispute fuelled by nationalism Asia / Pacific

'Welcome to hell': Freed migrants tell of horrors in Salvadoran jail
'Welcome to hell': Freed migrants tell of horrors in Salvadoran jail

France 24

time15 hours ago

  • France 24

'Welcome to hell': Freed migrants tell of horrors in Salvadoran jail

But after a perilous jungle march, US detention, and long months in a Salvadoran jail surviving riots, beatings and fear, he has returned home a wounded and changed man. On entering the sweltering Caribbean port of Maracaibo, the first thing Yamarte did after hugging his mother and six-year-old daughter was to burn the baggy white prison shorts he wore during four months of "hell." "The suffering is over now," said the 29-year-old, enjoying a longed-for moment of catharsis. Yamarte was one of 252 Venezuelans detained in US President Donald Trump's March immigration crackdown, accused without evidence of gang activity, and deported to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. According to four ex-detainees interviewed by AFP, the months were marked by abuse, violence, spoiled food and legal limbo. "You are going to die here!" heavily armed guards taunted them on arrival to the maximum security facility east of the capital San Salvador. "Welcome to hell!" The men had their heads shaved and were issued with prison clothes: a T-shirt, shorts, socks, and white plastic clogs. Yamarte said a small tuft of hair was left at the nape of his neck, which the guards tugged at. The Venezuelans were held separately from the local prison population in "Pavilion 8" -- a building with 32 cells, each measuring about 100 square meters (1,076 square feet). Each cell -- roughly the size of an average two-bedroom apartment -- was designed to hold 80 prisoners. 'Carried out unconscious' Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele built the prison to house the country's most dangerous gang members in deliberately brutal conditions, drawing constant criticism from rights groups. Trump's administration paid Bukele $6 million to keep the Venezuelans behind bars. AFP has unsuccessfully requested a tour of the facility and interviews with CECOT authorities. Another prisoner, 37-year-old Maikel Olivera, recounted there were "beatings 24 hours a day" and sadistic guards who warned, "You are going to rot here, you're going to be in jail for 300 years." "I thought I would never return to Venezuela," he said. For four months, the prisoners had no access to the internet, phone calls, visits from loved ones, or even lawyers. At least one said he was sexually abused. The men said they slept mostly on metal cots, with no mattresses to provide comfort. There were several small, poorly-ventilated cells where prisoners would be locked up for 24 hours at a time for transgressions -- real or imagined. "There were fellow detainees who couldn't endure even two hours and were carried out unconscious," Yamarte recounted. The men never saw sunlight and were allowed one shower a day at 4:00 am. If they showered out of turn, they were beaten. Andy Perozo, 30, told AFP of guards firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the cells. For a week after one of two riots that were brutally suppressed, "they shot me every morning. It was hell for me. Every time I went to the doctor, they beat me," he said. Edwuar Hernandez, 23, also told of being beaten at the infirmary. "They would kick you... kicks everywhere," he said. "Look at the marks; I have marks, I'm all marked." The detainees killed time playing games with dice made from bits of tortilla dough. They counted the passing days with notches on a bar of soap. 'Out of hell' An estimated eight million Venezuelans have fled the political and economic chaos of their homeland to try to find a job in the United States that would allow them to send money home. Yamarte left in September 2023, making the weeks-long journey on foot through the Darien Gap that separates Colombia from Panama. It is unforgiving terrain that has claimed the lives of countless migrants who must brave predatory criminal gangs and wild animals. Yamarte was arrested in Dallas in March and deported three days later, without a court hearing. All 252 detainees were suddenly, and unexpectedly, freed on July 18 in a prisoner exchange deal between Caracas and Washington. Now, many are contemplating legal action. Many of the men believe they were arrested in the United States simply for sporting tattoos wrongly interpreted as proof of association with the feared Tren de Aragua gang. Yamarte has one that reads: "Strong like Mom." "I am clean. I can prove it to anyone," he said indignantly, hurt at being falsely accused of being a criminal. "We went... to seek a better future for our families; we didn't go there to steal or kill." Yamarte, Perozo, and Hernandez are from the same poor neighborhood of Maracaibo, where their loved ones decorated homes with balloons and banners once news broke of their release. Yamarte's mom, 46-year-old Mercedes, had prepared a special lunch of steak, mashed potatoes, and fried green plantain. At her house on Tuesday, the phone rang shortly after Yamarte's arrival. It was his brother Juan, who works in the United States without papers and moves from place to place to evade Trump's migrant dragnet. Juan told AFP he just wants to stay long enough to earn the $1,700 he needs to pay off the house he had bought for his wife and child in Venezuela. "Every day we thought of you, every day," Juan told his brother. "I always had you in my mind, always, always."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store