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Recent Trends in Political Extremism in Japan: a Decline in Physical Violence and a Rise in “Extremism by Other Means”

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Abstract

This article observes that the cycle of violent political extremism that began in Japan’s postwar period did not last long beyond the mid-1990s. In view of the situation, this article intends to (1) give an overview of the issue, (2) discuss why the frequency and degree of political violence declined, and (3) investigate current trends in Japanese political extremism, as it still appears to exist if we define extremism as more than physically violent behaviors. This article argues that violent extremism as a tactic may have found it difficult to outlive the period of the “developmental state” of Japan, while the era of “civil society” in Japan that followed perhaps rendered ideologically motivated violence irrelevant. This article also argues that, today, acts that can be counted as extremism have morphed into occasions where activists have grievously offended the feelings of the targeted population, thereby gaining notoriety and publicity.

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Notes

  1. This category of political violence is usually treated separately from the type of violence that accompanies heated protests and demonstrations. Nishikido [23] has conducted a quantitative study of violence in protests and demonstrations and their cycle in post-war Japan; the study measured the frequency of violent confrontations from 1945 to 1994 by utilizing the Asahi Shimbun database. According to Nishikido, incidences of violence peaked around 1968 and have largely subsided since 1978.

  2. One extremist tactic is to mail a target a parcel containing a threatening letter and a bullet.

  3. Demise of the developmental state in Japan would mean that, by this time, Japanese economy had achieved developed status. However, detailed analysis of economic factors—especially their direct impact on Japanese extremism—is left for future research due to the matter’s complexity. Observers of terrorism worldwide have been debating whether act of terrorism and economic status of the terrorist could be closely related.

  4. After murdering 12 of its own members in secret camps, the United Red Army wound up in a nine-day police siege involving hundreds of policemen, which was widely televised in Japan.

  5. Anecdotal evidence abounds that the New Left, as well as uyoku activists, are generally aging. As for the New Left, for example, see an article in the Livedoor News [22].

  6. Interview with Mr. Morita Tadaaki, one of the four attackers in the aforementioned Keidanren incident. At the time of the interview Mr. Morita was running a training program for conventional uyoku youth. July 2 and 3, 2001 at Kofu city, Yamanashi prefecture.

  7. Interview with members of a uyoku group, Bōkyō Shimbunsha (Anti-Communism Press), August 15, 2002 at Tokyo.

  8. This is, of course, not to say that such types of advocacy groups and their protests are irrelevant.

  9. Japanese foreign policy in these matters has fluctuated in past decades, regardless of constant uyoku protests, but discussing this issue in detail is beyond the scope of this article.

  10. For this institution, for example, see Time [41].

  11. A similar definitional problem may arise when one attempts to make a comparison between cases of extremism in other industrialized societies. For example, far-left violence in west European countries seems to have declined over time just as they did in Japan. However, since the turn of the century west Europe has faced fresh waves of violent extremism perpetrated by non-far-left actors. The nature and motivation of their acts have not necessarily been clear: they could be religious, cultural, or political. Moreover, while members of Aum Shinrikyō belonged to the mainstream ethnicity (Japanese), in the case of recent west Europe whether extremists could be regarded as home-grown or foreign has been debated.

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  1. United International College, Zhuhai, China

    Daiki Shibuichi

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Shibuichi, D. Recent Trends in Political Extremism in Japan: a Decline in Physical Violence and a Rise in “Extremism by Other Means”. East Asia 36, 23–36 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-019-09306-w

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