What’s behind the rise of Japan’s Sanseito, a far-right party that loves Trump and hates immigration?
- Among its members is pastor Ayako Lawrence, whose husband was born in Japan, to British preachers
- The Sanseito party, set up in March 2020 and big on social media, seems to have already found a firm following among younger voters
Those same observers were particularly taken aback that Sanseito’s policy platforms – extremely conservative, anti-globalist, anti-immigration, in favour of a complete rewrite of the constitution and sharply increased defence spending – found such a firm following with the electorate, especially younger voters.
The party’s policies have drawn parallels with those of the “America First” campaign laid out by Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 US elections.
Sanseito Secretary General Sohei Kamiya – who won the Diet seat – responded to the issue in a media interview this month by saying: “There is no question about it. We do not mean to care only about Japan’s interests. But right now, we must revive Japan ahead of other countries.”
Trump’s campaign rhetoric also echoed with Lawrence, a 52-year-old translator and pastor who lives in Sendai, in northern Japan, and won a very respectable 5.8 per cent of the vote in her first election. It was not enough for victory, but the support she received has spurred her political ambitions, she said.
“I was never attracted to politics at all before, but then ... I began to get interested when I heard Trump speak when he was a candidate,” she told This Week in Asia.
“And then I looked at how what he was saying was reported by CNN and the other mainstream media, and I was shocked. I realised that the media was being used as propaganda to make people reach certain conclusions,” she said.
