The Youthful Face of Japanese Nationalism
Kenta Tanimichi
Far East Economic Review
November 2005

MAJORITY OF JAPANESE don't really care that visits to Yasukuni Shrine by their political leaders offend China, or indeed any other foreign country. At least that is what can be gleaned from the results of polls, taken after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Oct. 17 visit to the controversial shrine, which show the majority of respondents supported the visit. Many said their approval stemmed from the belief that the visit "should not be affected by foreign countries." Never mind that China is Japan's largest trading partner, and South Korea it's third largest; never mind that anti-Japanese rallies are raging from Busan to Beijing, and from Shenzhen to Seoul.

In particular, more and more Japanese are simply fed up with China. In October 2004, a record 58% of respondents in a survey said they felt negatively toward China. Perhaps even of greater significance is the pervasiveness of anti-China sentiments among young Japanese. Some 65% of respondents in their 20s do not consider China a friendly nation.

Attitudes toward South Korea are more complex. In 2004, Japan embraced, at least ostensibly, South Korean popular culture, as the so-called kanryu, or "Korea boom" of pop music and soap operas gripped the Land of the Rising Sun. But by early 2005--which had, ironically, been named Japan-Korea Friendship Year--the old sticking points of territorial disputes and contentious text-book issues re­emerged to sabotage ties between the two neighbors.

Relations further deteriorated in March 2005, when South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun brought up the issue of seeking compensation from his country's former colonial ruler. This came as a complete surprise to Japan. Tokyo be­lieved both nations had settled the issue long ago-40 years earlier, to be precise­-but clearly Seoul thought otherwise.

Six months later, bookstores across Japan were busy selling Kenkanryu, or "Detest Korea Boom," a manga comic book by cartoonist Sharin Yamano. In the best-selling book, Mr. Yamano uses fictional Japanese college students as mouthpieces for deliver­ing his perspective on the troubled historical relations between Japan and Korea:

[Japan has] apologized [to Korea] dozens of times. Compensation has been paid too.... Japan and Korea are not friends because Koreans keep beating a dead horse.... While [the Japanese] media orchestrates friendship through kanryu, underneath the surface, more and more Japanese are coming to dis­like Korea. The "Korea Boom" that is not being reported by the media is the "Detest Korea Boom."

While the frustrations of young Japanese toward their Asian neighbors comes partly as a reaction to China and South Korea's strenuous anti-Japan backlash, the root of the issue, however, concerns the structural problems that post-Cold War Japan faces. These feelings of angst of Japanese youth were captured in the 1990s by Yoshinori Kobayashi, a popular but controversial mangaka, or cartoonist, with a penchant for revisionism. For Mr. Ko­bayashi--and many of his young fans­-China represented the greatest threat. In 1999, he told leading Japanese journalist Soichiro Tahara:

In order for Japan to somehow maintain its present wealth, it is a problem if China continues to grow. If by any chance China modernizes, then it is definitely going to be a big problem. [China] fundamentally lacks morals. [The Chinese] are going to spill pollution and they are going to completely destroy our natural environment--everything.

It is not hard to see how such thinking gained currency among Japan's increas­ingly disgruntled youth. Before the 1990s, Japanese college students took life-long employment and comfortable, middle­class lifestyles for granted. But when the bubble economy popped, the young generation found, much to its dismay, that the good old days had come to an abrupt end. Landing a decent job was difficult, and keeping one was even more trying-in the fall of 1997, for example, no fewer than five financial institutions went bankrupt one after another in as many weeks. Meanwhile, China was on the rise. Japanese corporations slashed their work force at home and built new plants overseas, many in China, leading Mr. Kobayashi to ask: "Do we want to be China's slave?"

And then there were domestic enemies with which to contend. Mr. Kobayashi's success as a political advocate rather than a cartoonist began when Aum Shinrikyo, the religious cult behind the sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subway system in March 1995, attempted to assassinate him with poisonous gas. Mr. Kobayashi's fame soared and he went on to attack politicians, school textbooks, scholars, media, journalists and diplomats for telling lies, lacking pride and committing sin. He criticized the media for taking too soft a stance on minority groups such as the burakumin, ethnic Koreans and certain religious groups, by portraying them as victims. Mr. Kobayashi and his angry supporters launched a war on the politically correct, leftists and liberal media, who he believed claimed to stand on behalf of the socially vulnerable but were in fact parasites of society.

While not everyone appreciated Mr. Kobayashi and other revisionists' extreme arguments, in many ways he successfully captured the zeitgeist--the anxiety and frustration of the young generation of Japanese. It is a feeling that persists today, despite improvements in the Japanese economy in recent years.

Readers interested in monitoring the mood of Japan's youth should pay a visit to the bulletin board of "ni-channeru" or Channel 2 (http://www.2ch.net/). This BBS is by far the largest in Japan, with over seven million monthly visits and growing. The site is not for the faint of heart as it is replete with hundreds of blunt comments against the politically correct views that were part of mainstream thinking in post­war Japan. What had been considered sacred like the sengo minshushugi or the "postwar democracy" is branded as jigyaku shikan, the "masochistic view on history." This is in essence a tribunal run by the Internet generation against those deemed to be responsible for the failing society--an ideological rebellion to bring down the ancien regime.

In the 1960s, the baby boomers failed to overthrow the society with Marxism and Molotov cocktails. In the 21st century, their kids rebel against the very society the baby boomers now control. Today's rebels see their parents' generation as hyp­ocritical and opportunist. The baby boomers traded their hippie attire for a suit and a tie, smuggled themselves into corporate Japan, quickly enjoyed the fruits of eco­nomic growth and were intoxicated by the heady bubble of the 1980s. Yet they think they are ethically superior to the previous generations for standing against the Vietnam War, occasionally expressing sympa­thy for the people of Asia, and calling for an unarmed and neutral state as a way to show their attitude of "love and peace."

The sentiments that appear in Channel 2 and other revisionist opinion are actually gaining acceptance from a broader spectrum of the Japanese public. It is widely believed that it is high time the baby boomers parted ways with their cherished treasures--their leftist views and gurus, their sloppy egalitarianism and irresponsible pacifism--and that Japan becomes a "normal country" with a decent sense of patriotism.

As Japan grapples with the challenge of normalization--a process that has taken on greater speed under Mr. Koizumi--it is not surprising that the country will appear increasingly nationalistic to the outside world. Yet what is happening is really only a much needed adjustment, necessary to align Japan to the new realities of the post-Cold War world. It is inevitable that, along the way, Japan will overshoot, or overcompensate for a lack of nationalism of the past 60 years. These incidents will become fewer and fewer over time. The Yasukuni issue is just one example. It will have to be settled sooner or later through some form of compromise with China and other Asian nations.

Another aspect of growing nationalism that will need to be controlled is the tendency for young Japanese people-and indeed their counterparts in China and South Korea-to look to external forces outside their countries to blame for their woes. They should consider that their real enemies are not, in fact, other countries, but outmoded ways of thinking that persist within their own society--namely the outdated Cold War thinking that has ruled the mainstream society for the past 50 years.

In Japan's case, these are the leftists and the self-proclaimed mainstream conservatives. Although their thinking may have played a part in building Japan into a peaceful and prosperous nation, it is time for a change. This change can be a positive one that enables Japan to regain its confidence and become more proactive in regional security roles. With constitutional revision and related changes of policies, Japan can be more active in committing to peacekeeping operations in troubled states as well as assisting other nations to cope with threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. If growing nationalism among the young people of Japan were to lead to such developments, then it should be considered a welcome force for change.


- Mr. Tanimichi is a Tokyo-based journalist writing on political and military issues.