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Japan's risky anti-foreign
rhetoric
By J Sean Curtin
A
week after ending what many observers consider to have
been an unusually xenophobic election campaign, Japan
has just floated a proposal for the creation of an East
Asian Community. Tokyo envisages the ambitious plan,
which will be formally announced in mid-December at an
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering
there, as Asia's version of the European Union.
However, Japan's future vision for the region is
likely to get a fairly frosty reception. Many
neighboring countries are still fuming about the barrage
of anti-foreigner slurs generated by the Lower House
election. These have badly dented Japan's already
tarnished image and are inhibiting Tokyo's influence
over regional developments. Unless some elements in the
country's political establishment can rapidly learn the
art of self-restraint, Japan risks becoming a regional
pariah.
Despite a relatively short two-week
campaign period, a small band of lawmakers managed to
make a high volume of offensive comments. In the
vanguard of controversy was Tokyo Governor Shintaro
Ishihara, a man with a solid track record for uttering
derogatory remarks.
Ishihara kicked off the
election campaign by rehashing an old right-wing
argument for justifying Japan's colonization of the
Korean Peninsula. The governor was quoted as saying,
"The annexation of Korea was made with the agreement of
nations worldwide. The Korean people had to choose
between Russia, Japan or Shina [a derogatory prewar term
for China]." He continued, "They decided to seek help
from the Japanese, who had the same facial color as
their own."
Not surprisingly, this highly
contentious interpretation of history caused an uproar
in Korea and angered Japan's own Korean population.
About 400 South Korean residents in Japan immediately
staged a rally to protest Ishihara's assertion that
their country chose to be annexed in 1910.
Most
alarmingly, the reaction by South Korean's viewed
Ishihara's comments as reflecting a wider feeling common
among ordinary Japanese citizens. It is this kind of
impression that is so damaging to Japan's regional
image. After characterizing Ishihara's comments as a
form of verbal terrorism, a Korea Herald editorial
observed: "What worries South Korea, China and other
Asian countries most is the sentiment of the Japanese
people implicitly backing such extreme-rightist
opinions" made by Ishihara. North Korea appears to have
vented its anger by suddenly referring to the Japanese
as "Japs" during a United Nations General Assembly
session.
A decidedly unrepentant Ishihara
shrugged off the protests, and at an election rally a
few days later, ignited fresh controversy with a remark
about China's fledgling space program. He mockingly
observed, "The Chinese are ignorant, so they're
overjoyed about that spaceship of theirs. That craft was
outdated. If Japan wanted to launch a space capsule, we
could do it in one year." Needless to say, most Chinese
did not enjoy being referred to as "ignorant" or hearing
their first manned space flight rubbished. Ishihara's
words inflamed large swaths of Chinese public opinion
and further increased resentment toward Japan.
While Ishihara's comments were the most
prominent, others followed closely in his footsteps.
Kanagawa Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa informed an
election rally, "Foreigners are all sneaky thieves." He
added, "There is a marked increase in the number of
cases in which some foreigners who enter Japan on
working and other visas remain in the country illegally
to commit heinous crimes." He subsequently toned down
his comments, clarifying that he had not intended to say
"all foreigners", but had merely meant "some
foreigners". Blaming Japan's soaring crime figures on
non-Japanese has become fashionable, even though
government statistics clearly show that the vast
majority of crimes are committed by Japanese nationals.
Rising crime rates and past abductions of
Japanese by North Korea are the two basic ingredients
irresponsible politicians blend to create a potent
xenophobic mix. An election address by Shingo Nishimura,
a Democratic Party of Japan candidate, illustrates the
formula. At one of his rallies Nishimura said, "Crimes
by foreigners in Japan are on the rise. We have to make
Japan safe again, and make it a strong country where our
citizens will not be abducted."
During the
election, both main political parties bitterly competed
with each other to be tough on North Korea. Failure to
be anything but merciless on the abduction issue risked
political oblivion. One of the primary reasons behind
the almost total electoral extinction suffered by the
Social Democratic Party was the perception that it was
soft on North Korea.
On the domestic front,
anti-foreign rhetoric made great election capital, but
regionally the tactic was a complete disaster. In recent
years, many ordinary Japanese have invested a lot of
effort in building up good connections with both China
and Korea. Thoughtless remarks by a handful of
right-wing politicians could easily destroy these
hard-forged bonds and in some cases even put Japanese
citizens at risk.
One incident that occurred
during the election period highlights the dangers of
inflaming Chinese public opinion. A few Japanese
students put on a raunchy skit during a cultural
festival at Northwest China University in Xi'an. In the
performance, the students reportedly wore bras, fake
paper genitals as well as Japanese and Chinese name
tags. Because of heightened anti-Japanese sentiment,
this was considered to be an affront to Chinese pride
and dignity. After the performance, a large crowd
gathered and quickly grew into a demonstration
comprising thousands of people. This then developed into
a three-day, large-scale anti-Japanese protest. Two
Japanese students were beaten by a crowd who broke into
their university dormitory, and all Japanese students
had to be evacuated from the Xi'an campus. While the
Japanese press tried to play down the incident, it
demonstrates how insensitive remarks by figures such as
Governor Ishihara can create explosive tensions abroad.
From a regional perspective, the 2003 Lower
House election has been a public relations disaster for
Japan. Needless anti-foreign rhetoric has harmed the
country's long-term regional interests. If some Japanese
politicians do not begin to realize the consequences of
their actions, then Tokyo will eventually become
completely isolated and its grandiose schemes for an
East Asian Community will come to naught.
J Sean Curtin is a GLOCOM fellow at
the Tokyo-based Japanese Institute of Global
Communications.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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