Tokyo – like President Donald Trump’s prices Add to a feeling of uncertainty in Japan, more voters here adopt an idea inspired by their longtime ally in the United States: “Japanese first”.
The nationalist slogan helped the right -wing populist party that Sanseito Large gains in the Japan legislative elections Sunday, when he capitalized on economic discomfort and concerns about immigration and overchard.
The leader of the Sohei Kamiya party, who since 2022 had held the only siege of Sanseito in the upper chamber of the Japanese parliament, will now be joined by 14 other in the 248 -seater room. It is far from the origin of the party as a marginal anti-vaccination group on YouTube during the COVVI-19 pandemic.
Although Japan has long had a complex relationship with foreigners and its cultural identity, experts say that the rise of Sanseeito is another indication of world change towards embodied law and partially fueled by Trump, with populist characters gain ground In Europe, Great Britain, Latin America and elsewhere.
Kamiya “qualifies a mini-top” and “is one of those that Trump put the wind in his sails,” said Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies and history at the Japanese campus of Temple University.
Speaking during a rally on Saturday at the Tokyo Shiba Park, Kamiya said that his calls for larger restrictions on foreign workers and the investment were NOT of xenophobia But by “the functioning of globalization”. He criticized the support of traditional parties to stimulate immigration in order to face the shortage of labor confronted aging and narrowing of the population.
“Japan is still the fourth economy in the world. We have 120 million people. Why do we have to count on foreign capital? ” Kamiya told an enthusiastic crowd.
The election results were disastrous for the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru IshibaWho faces calls to resign now that his conservative liberal democratic party – which has deemed almost uninterrupted since the end of the Second World War – lost its majority in the two chambers of Parliament.
The Japanese chief was also under pressure to conclude a trade agreement with the Trump administration, which said on Tuesday that the two parties had accepted an American price of 15% on Japanese products.
Wednesday, Ishiba denied information that he planned to resign by the end of August.
The message of the chain of electoral losses of his party is that “people are unhappy,” said Kingston.
“Many people believe that the status quo is biased against their interests and this benefits the elderly on young people, and young people feel grooved in a way that they had to carry the heavy burden of the growing growing population on the back,” he said.
Kamiya, 47, an energetic speaker in the know-how of social media, also contrasts with leaders such as Ishiba and the constitutional democrats Yoshihiko Noda, both 68 years old, who “look like yesterday’s men” and the faces of the establishment, said Kingston.
With voters concerned with the stagnation of wages, climb price And dark job prospects, “changes in changes have obtained many protest votes from people who feel deprived of their rights,” he said.
The Sanseito platform has resonated with voters such as Yuta Kato.
“The number of [foreign immigrants] who does not obey the rules increases. People do not express it, but I think they think it, “said the 38 -year -old hairdresser in Reuters in Tokyo.” In addition, the burden of citizens, including taxes, becomes more and more, life becomes more difficult. “
The main reason why Sanseito did well in the elections, he said is that they speak in the name of us. “”
Kamiya’s party was not the only managed to benefit from the dissatisfaction of voters, the central-right Democratic Party for the people increasing its number of seats in the upper chamber from five to 16 years old.
Sanseito, whose name means “participating in politics”, is from 2020 in the middle of the COVVI-19 pandemic, attracting conservatives with YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories on vaccines and pushing the mandates of the mask. His YouTube channel now has nearly 480,000 subscribers.
The party also warned against a “silent invasion” of foreigners in Japan, where the number of foreign residents increased by more than 10% last year for a record of almost 3.8 million, according to the Immigration Services Agency. However, it remains much lower in proportion to the population than in the United States or Europe.
Critics say that such rhetoric has fueled hatred speech and Growing hostility towards foreigners In Japan, quoting an investigation last month by the Japanese broadcaster NHK and others in which nearly two -thirds of the respondents agreed that foreigners had received a “preferential treatment”.
During the Sanseito rally on Saturday, demonstrators organized signs indicating “no hatred” and “racists go home”.
Kamiya denies that his party is hostile to foreigners in Japan.
“We have no intention of discrimination against foreigners, and we have no intention of incitement to the division,” he said on Monday. “We simply aim to firmly rebuild the lives of Japanese who are currently in difficulty.”
Despite its electoral advances, Sanseito does not have enough members in the upper room to have a lot of impact on itself and has only three seats in the most powerful low house. The challenge, Kingston said, is whether Kamiya can “make this anger, discomfort and bring his program nationally”.