TOKYO LETTER:What is perceived as Chinese expansionism in Japan is leading to a rise in right-wing protests, writes DAVID McNEILL
MOST TOKYO neighbourhoods will fortunately never experience Makoto Sakurai and his noisy flag-waving mob.
The city’s normally quiet Moto- Azabu area is home to the Chinese embassy and there are few countries that Sakurai hates more than China. His group’s favourite insult – shouted at the embassy through megaphones – is shina- jin, roughly equivalent to “chink.”
“The Chinese are making fools of us,” says Sakurai, a baby-faced 30-something and the unlikely ringleader of what one academic calls “Japan’s fiercest and most dangerous hate group today”.
Like many nationalists here, he is infuriated by what he sees as Chinese expansionism. “If Japan had any guts, it would stand up to them.”
Two decades ago, Japan was the rising Asian upstart that was barging its way on to the world’s front pages. “We are virtually at the mercy of the Japanese,” the Los Angeles Times famously blared in 1989 after a slew of high-profile takeovers by Japanese companies.
Now it’s faltering Japan’s turn to tremble at the power of foreign capital – Chinese.
Japan’s conservative media have been sounding alarm bells all year. One magazine warned that China is set to “buy up Japan”, noting how Chinese conglomerates are gobbling up real estate, forests and even eyeing uninhabited islands around Japan’s coast.
Last week Japan outlined its defence strategy for the next decade, shifting the focus of its military from the north, close to old cold-war enemy Russia, to the south and China.
The National Defence Programme guideline noted with alarm Beijing’s growing military budget and regional assertiveness.
“These movements, coupled with the lack of transparency on China’s military and security issues ... is a concern for the region and the international community,” it said.
The review follows a spat three months ago when a Chinese fishing boat collided with a Japanese coast guard vessel in waters claimed by Japan, near the Senkaku Islands.
When the coastguard arrested the Chinese captain, Beijing put pressure on Tokyo to release him in part by choking off supplies of rare earth minerals – vital for the electronics industry. Tokyo’s subsequent decision to free the captain without charge was greeted with fury by nationalists stunned by this new show of Chinese aggressiveness.
A rally last weekend in the centre of Tokyo by Sakurai and other Japanese nationalists demanded that prime minister Naoto Kan resist Chinese “imperialism”, an evocative turn of phrase for those with memories of Japan’s brutal wartime history in China.
Toshio Tamogami, a former air force general sacked for defending Japan’s wartime record in Asia, told the rally that Japan could “no longer stay quiet” as China flexes its muscles.
“When will we stand up for ourselves?” he asked.
Japan’s insecurity at its reduced status has been hammered home in a dispute with another neighbour. The decision by Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev last month to visit one of four islands off northern Japan seized by Moscow after the second World War was called “regrettable” by Mr Kan. Sakurai’s followers were more blunt – and bitter.
“Russia and China are both taking advantage of Japan’s weakness,” said one. “China has a dagger pointed at Japan’s heart – what are we going to do about it?”
The disputes could not have come at a worse time. The summer news that China overtook Japan as the world’s number two economy – a position Japan had held for four decades – has sparked painful soul-searching in a country that was once seen as a serious economic rival to America. China last year overtook the US to become Japan’s most important trading partner.
The timing of the maritime spat confirmed some fears that China’s expanding economic clout is increasingly matched by political and military muscle.
In Tokyo’s upscale Matsuzakaya department store, a couple of miles from where Sakurai and his supporters shout racist-tinged invective at the Chinese embassy, a very different picture of Sino- Japanese relations is on show. Like thousands of Japanese businesses struggling with inert domestic demand, this crusty shopping landmark is turning its gaze to an alluring new customer – it recently had to hire Mandarin-speaking staff to deal with the influx of Chinese customers.
“They turn their noses up at Chinese-made goods,” says Le Hui, a new assistant. “They want Japanese and European brands.”
Few are willing to predict the political impact of Japan’s growing despondency as it adapts to the growing Chinese bulk. Whatever happens, though, the flash point has become the Sankakus, where the fault-lines of an old and sometimes tortured relationship are again on painful show.
Sakurai’s group, the Citizens League to Deny Resident Foreigners Special Rights, is far to the right of the mainstream press, advocating among other things expelling long-term Chinese residents in Japan and a beefed- up military, but he believes the political tide is turning his way.
“Japan has been asleep for a long time,” he says. “It’s time we woke up.”