The Silent Mosaic: Japan’s Phantom Right-Wing Shift

From media outlets across the ocean, or through the glowing rectangular portals in the palms of our hands, this phrase is repeated like an incantation. Politicians hurling aggressive rhetoric, demonstrations hoisting xenophobic slogans, and stacks of what are termed “hate books” piling up in bookstores. At a glance, it might indeed appear inevitable to conclude that this island nation is, quite literally, tilting to the right. However, for one who stands within the interior of this country, silently observing the daily rhythms of life, I cannot help but feel a fatal dissonance—a rupture with the real—regarding this unilateral and declarative discourse. If matters could be decided purely in black and white, nothing would be simpler.

But just as the preceding narrative of the West’s “shift to the right” proved, simplification is a fatal defect that causes one to misread the essence. Why is it that those who failed to gain insight into their own nations and regions, without a shred of reflection, feel entitled to summarily diagnose a distant country as “shifting right”? To invert the question: Is the Japanese populace truly shifting to the right?

What if the Japanese people are not shifting right, but rather, a specific segment is shifting strictly to the right? And what if that segment is, in fact, the political class? To phrase it differently: while the citizenry as a whole remains unmoved, only the politicians gripping the reins of power are running wild, veering sharply rightward. There is a crucial vantage point here. The entire Japanese populace, a scale of one hundred million, is not shifting. The shift is confined to a fraction of politicians and their kin.

However, even this definition of “right-wing” appears, to my eyes, exceptionally immature. For someone like myself, who has deeply contemplated the movements of the right wing that emerged during the Meiji era—the genesis of modern Japan—and who holds a certain reverence for the giants of that time, such as Toyama Mitsuru of the Genyosha or Uchida Ryohei of the Kokuryukai, the current so-called right wing is an entirely distinct entity, sharing only the name. It may sound strange to speak of a “genuine” right wing, but the current definition does not, to me, constitute a right wing at all. It is nothing more than a childish force driven by self-interest and the privatization of the system.

It is true that what is called anti-foreigner sentiment is rising domestically. Yet, rather than calling this a mere fact, it is, based on my visceral experience traveling across the country this past year alone, an inevitable outcome. Japan’s policy on accepting foreigners has been deployed without learning from the failures of Europe, pivoting on just two axes.