Catchphrase politics in Japan

The surge of the fringe far-right party Sanseito in Japan’s upper house (House of Representatives) election on 22 July illustrated that Japan has joined the rising global xenophobic sentiment, and how powerful the populist-inclined catchphrase politics has become there.

The election ended with the historic defeat of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has almost exclusively governed Japan since its foundation in 1955.

Still, the most controversial outcome was how Sanseito captured the growing anti-immigration sentiment with its catchy slogan “Nihonjin Fāsuto”, which means “Japanese First” (Fāsuto is a loanword for 'first' in Japan). The party held two seats in the upper house before the election, but won 14 of the contested seats last week.

The rise of catchphrase politics in Japan

The first salient example of this populist catchphrase politics came from the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. One of his political slogans was “structural reform without sanctuaries," which drove the country into the neoliberal agenda.

This culminated in a snap general election in 2005, which Koizumi decided to hold when the administration’s bill to privatise the postal service was voted down in the upper house.

Koizumi, a long-time advocate for the privatisation of the postal service, situated this matter as a symbol of the neoliberal structural reforms, which New Zealand had taken the lead on in the 1980s. This policy evoked strong opposition, even within the Liberal Democratic Party, because it raised concerns regarding service degradation and challenged the strongly held political foundation of the party.

However, Koizumi led the party with the postal service privatisation as the sole subject of the election and labelled those opposed to the reform, including the major players in his own party, as “forces of resistance”.

He succeeded in “theaterising” the process by kicking out those opposed in the LDP. Those who were expelled went into the elections as independent candidates, but the LDP fielded new official candidates to their constituencies – referred to as assassins. The election resulted in a landslide victory for Koizumi.

The next instance was Shinzo Abe, who succeeded Koizumi as prime minister in 2006. He used populist catchphrase politics to push nationalistic ideologies with slogans such as “Beautiful country Japan” and “Take back Japan”.

Another was “Breaking away from the postwar regime”, which implied that the social system of post-war Japan, such as its pacifist constitution, was forced on Japan by the victorious countries.

Abe’s administration amended the legislation for education, adding “patriotic spirit” as an educational goal, and changed the constitutional interpretation to increase the possibilities of engaging in war. These policies gained support from far-right communities and helped him become the longest-reigning prime minister in his second administration in the 2010s.

Xenophobia and ‘Trumpism’

Now, with the “Nihonjin Fāsuto” (Japanese First) slogan, Japanese sloganeering combined with xenophobia. Although the nationalism during the Abe era arguably contributed to this phenomenon, the rise and establishment of the “First” doctrine in Japan originated not in the ruling LDP but in a rather fringe political arena, and came to life as a ground-up phenomenon.

The use of “Fāsuto” in the Japanese political scene can be traced back to the regional party Tomin Fāsuto no Kai (Tokyoites First Party) in 2016. This was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Yuriko Koike, a former member of the LDP and minister of the Koizumi administration. She never admitted it, but this Fāsuto was likely influenced by “America First”, the slogan Donald Trump used in his first presidential campaign.

This “Tomin Fāsuto” (Tokyo First) advocated for prioritising citizens rather than political elites and vested interest groups. This was a stark contrast with the long-ruling LDP in the 2017 Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, and led to the overwhelming victory of Koike’s party in 2017.

But her true colours were displayed when she upgraded the party to a national party and declared she would exclude people who did not align with the core values of the party – the liberals or the leftists. This caused an immense backlash from the public and led her party to a disastrous defeat in the general election that same year.

Immigration restriction

However, after only eight years, the rapid transformation of Japanese society –  with the help of Trump’s agenda – led to “Fāsuto” politics entering the national arena.

Japan has been perceived as a homogeneous country, but this has changed dramatically in recent years because of an ageing and declining population.

The Japanese government invited more immigrant workers to fill the workforce shortages and, with declining economic power, started to rely on inbound tourism.

By the end of 2024, the number of foreign nationals residing in Japan was more than 3.7 million, a record high for three years in a row. The number of foreign visitors hit a record high of 36 million in the same year.

As increasing numbers of gaijin (foreigners) became visible in Japanese society, which led to social anxiety similar to the anti-immigration campaign now raging in the US. This gave the minor conservative parties momentum and also forced the administration to tighten its stance against immigration, for example with “rigorous screening” and planning for “zero illegal immigrants”.

Japan is still very restrictive with immigration. Given it is an island, border-crossing undocumented migrants are very rare. It has also maintained extremely strict procedures for granting refugee status.

According to the Japan Association for Refugees report, in 2023, Japan recognised 303 people as refugees, which was a record for Japan, but the lowest number of refugees recognised in the G7 countries. Japan also had one of the smallest immigrant populations in the OECD, which was only 2.2 percent of the country’s population compared with 10.4 percent of the immigrant proportion of the total OECD population in 2021.

Japan has been using the participants of its Technical Intern Training Programme as de facto low-skilled migrant workers, which has faced international criticism, including from the United Nations Human Rights Committee, concerning forced labour.

The rise of the anti-immigration party Sanseito in the recent election was not based on actual threats but the phantom of catchphrase politics.

A spectre of America First, Nihonjin Fāsuto, is haunting Japan, whether or not it will help Make America Great Again. The English term “great” has also been incorporated into the Japanese lexicon as a loanword – gurēto. I hope this will not become the next spectre in the catchphrase politics in my home country.