Did Japan Shift to the Right During the Heisei Era?

2019/04/22

Take the Northern Territories, for example. This issue has remained at the core of post-war Japanese nationalism. Post-war right-wing leaders, such as Bin Akao of the Greater Japan Patriotic Party, continuously called for the return of the Northern Territories. This was intertwined with a strong distrust of the Soviet Union, a communist state. There was also a perception that communism and the existence of the Emperor were incompatible. Compared to the Soviet Union, the United States was seen as the lesser evil because, despite being a republic itself, it did not deny the Emperor. After the war, the majority of the right wing became pro-American. They hated the Soviet Union, which possessed the potential to threaten the Emperor and destroy the national polity. The Northern Territories were the front line of that Japan-Soviet relationship.

Furthermore, it is, of course, a border issue. Disputes over territory make not only humans but animals in general get serious. Border disputes are the greatest fuel for stoking nationalism.

However, the state of Japanese nationalism at the end of the Heisei era, and the diplomacy that is supposed to be backed by it, has strayed from long-standing post-war common sense. In negotiations with Russia, the successor state to the Soviet Union, the Abe administration's stance on the Northern Territories issue is not necessarily clear. It appears as though they wish to conclude a peace treaty even if it means making significant compromises on the territorial issue. A matter that was primarily discussed as a zero-sum game—an either-or choice of whether the four islands return or not—has seemingly been replaced by a question of whether things move by a single millimeter, a matter of subtle gradations and almost literary rhetoric.

Given the long post-war history, this could be described as a diplomatic stance that overturns the historical status quo. It would not be surprising if it caused a massive uproar in Japanese society, like poking a hornet's nest. Yet, public interest now seems focused solely on whether Prime Minister Abe is competing on equal terms with President Putin. The territorial issue may actually have become a side show. The narrative has shifted to: "Prime Minister Abe is amazing because he has met with President Putin XX times!" The lead role has transformed into that.

Another example is the Daijosai (Great Thanksgiving Festival) issue. The relationship between the Emperor and religion has also remained a major theme of post-war Japanese nationalism. To begin with, modern Japan used the apparatus of the Emperor as a "living god" (arahitogami) to unite the people of this country—who, until the Boshin War and the Satsuma Rebellion, considered civil war a matter of course, much like in the Warring States period—into a single monolith. Since a living god is a god, it is a religious entity. What functioned there was State Shinto and the various Shinto rituals associated with the Imperial Household. The greatest of these rituals is likely the Daijosai, which accompanies the enthronement of a new Emperor.

However, post-war democracy brought about by the defeat in the war denied the divinity of the Emperor, seeking instead a new image of the Emperor that paired the "human Emperor" with the "symbolic Emperor." The Emperor himself aligned with that path. Even so, after the war, the Daijosai survived as a state ritual performed using national funds.

Of course, from the perspective of the right wing, the image of a symbolic Emperor who was merely a human stripped of religious character was unreliable. This ideology is epitomized by the phrase in Yukio Mishima's "The Voices of the Heroic Dead": "Why did the Emperor have to become a human?" Would the Emperor increasingly become human, or return to being a god? As an ideological theme for the post-war right wing, this was far more significant than the Northern Territories. In that sense, the future of the Daijosai has continued to hold the highest level of significance for the right wing.

If that is the case, Prince Akishino's public statement in November 2018—that the Daijosai should be conducted as a private ritual of the Imperial Family without using national funds—should have been an incredible bombshell for the right-wing camp. If one considers that the Imperial Family itself expressed an intention to share the fate of post-war democracy and actively block the path to restoration, it strikes at the very foundation of modern Japanese nationalism, the Emperor, and religion. This, too, could have manifested as a massive uproar in this country, like poking a hornet's nest.

But what is the reality? Not a single thing that could be called a national debate was aroused. Whether the Daijosai is funded privately or by the state—an issue so significant it might make Yukio Mishima commit seppuku again—no longer draws much interest in this country.

Did Japan shift to the right during the Heisei era? According to the traditional meaning, not at all. Post-war Japanese right-wing sentiment was rooted in regret and resentment over the defeat in the war. The Northern Territories were seized in the chaos of defeat, and the Emperor was downgraded from a god to a human. The post-war right wing could not have existed without the bitterness born from that defeat.

However, in the end, that is a matter of generations. A person who was 20 years old in 1945 would be 94 in 2019. It is no exaggeration to say that the post-war right wing declined and perished during the Heisei period.

In its place, Heisei gave birth to a new right wing. Instead of repenting for the defeat, people who feel nostalgia for the robust Japan of the high-growth period and expect our country to maintain a strong presence today became the right wing of Heisei. Their interest is not in the historical circumstances surrounding the Northern Territories or the Emperor as a living god, but rather an admiration for the performance of leaders who claim they will stand up to the world and take back a strong Japan today. It is an expectation for the Olympics and World Expos that allow them to reminisce about and vicariously experience the miraculous prosperity of post-war Japan.

Rather than saying Japan shifted to the right during Heisei, it is more accurate to say that a change in generations occurred, and the concept of the "right wing" was transformed.

The defeat in the war has become a distant memory.