China & Japan on Collision Course With Nationalism Rising

The Obama Administration is accelerating the de-Americanization of the the world, but the trend is inevitable due to the relative decline in U.S. economic power and the complete inability and seeming unwillingness to defend its technological advantage.

We can debate the merits of Obama's isolationist policy, but the outcome is quite predictable: increased conflict. In East Asia, China's two-decade nationalist push has created two generations of extreme anti-Japanese sentiment. Now in Japan, nationalism is rising as well. The only silver lining to this story is that if the nationalists in Japan gain power soon enough, they might end the defense treaty with the United States, possibly preventing a China-Japan conflict from escalating into a world war.

NYTimes: Tea Party Politics in Japan

On its webpage the group [Nippon Kaigi] calls for preserving Japan’s “beautiful traditional national character,” which centers on the imperial household; adopting “a new constitution suited to a new age,” which would presumably allow Japan to maintain a full-fledged military; and instilling patriotism and morality in Japanese schoolchildren by revising our “masochistic” history curriculum and “the rampant spread of gender-free education.” The group also staunchly opposes the notion that a woman could be emperor — even though there have been female emperors in the past — or allowing women to use their maiden names after they get married.

The is an explicit rejection of American Imperialism under Obama, which has pressed on the accelerator when it comes to cultural imperialism. It is why both China and Russia have clamped down on NGOs, but even allies such as Japan, and to some extent Eastern European nations, have had enough of America's cultural agenda under Obama.

Ultimately, however, these positions are only proxies. The real issue is this: the profound sense, shared by Japanese of many other political persuasions, that postwar Japan has never stood on an equal footing with the United States.

For now, the Tea Party of Japan looks like any other nationalist right-wing group. But its strength is growing. And there is no telling when its members might start saying what really is on their mind: “Take Back Japan From America.”

I enjoy the NYTimes for its ability to rival the CCP in propaganda. The Your Party in Japan most closely resembles the Tea Party. America hasn't yet seen its version of Nippon Kaigi, but it will come eventually. The seeds are being sown by the Trump campaign. America's throwback will most likely be to the 1920s: foreign policy subordinated to business interests (not finance), very restricted immigration, non-interventionist foreign policy. America's shift right will be a foil to the right-ward shift in Asia: America away from military confrontation, Asia towards it.

The entire globe is swinging hard to the right. Nationalist parties are only a couple election cycles away from taking power across Europe, aided by the extreme left-wing policies of the current ruling class. Russia and China are already nationalist, wars of religion and identity have erupted across the Middle East. The final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, and the last one will be the decision by a future U.S. president to sit out an important regional conflict, signaling to the world that Pax Americana is over.