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Tariffs and Ballot Boxes in Seoul and Tokyo

In the June presidential elections in South Korea, Lee Jae-myung, a centre-left candidate from DPK, won by a large margin, following the tragicomic attempt by Head of State Yoon Suk-yeol to impose martial law and his subsequent ousting. Defeated by Yoon in the 2022 election, Lee won over 17 million votes this time around, compared to 14 million for the candidate of PPP, the centre-right coalition. For The Japan Times, Lee’s victory represents an anti-Yoon referendum, with a section of the conservative electorate siding with the Reform Party, which was created by splinter groups from the PPP and smaller parties, and is led by 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, who has conservative-nationalist and pro-Japanese positions.

The DPK are traditionally more pro-China and in favour of dialogue with Pyongyang and a more autonomous foreign policy stance with regards to the US. During his election campaign, Lee Jae-myung adopted a more centrist platform oriented towards maintaining a balance in relations with Beijing, Tokyo, and Washington, aided by the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s decision to unleash a tariff war in all directions.

Pragmatic nationalism in Seoul

Lee, the first president of working-class origin to arrive at the Blue House, is a polarising figure on the country’s political scene. However, strengthened by his broad mandate and parliamentary majority, he intends to restore internal stability, which has been further shaken by the trade conflict. In negotiations with Washington, Seoul has obtained terms similar to those of Tokyo and the European Union: 15% tariffs and promises of $350 billion in investments in the US economy ($550 and $600 billion for Japan and the EU respectively). Likewise, these investment commitments remain rather vague. For the time being, both Tokyo and Seoul have kept their trade dispute separate from bilateral security relations, even as the US presses both to increase military spending and financial contributions to the maintenance of US troops stationed in their countries. Washington is reportedly considering the possibility of withdrawing some of its military units from the peninsula and redeploying them to Guam. This prospect alarms conservatives, but less so the national progressives in Seoul, who see it as an opportunity to accelerate the transfer of OPCON, the wartime operational command system, which is still under American control, to national armed forces.

For Derek Grossman, a former RAND analyst, Lee and Trump’s worldviews may, paradoxically, align: if the US seeks a conditional and selective commitment in its alliances, the Korean left has traditionally advocated more national autonomy in the bilateral alliance.

Common opposition to the “Trump round”

According to Le Monde, the new president – although critical of Yoon’s strengthening of the triangular relationship between Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo – is forced by the geopolitical situation to seek a measure of balance, and this calls into question the relationship with China. In his speech commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of Japanese colonisation, Lee called Japan an indispensable partner, despite unresolved historical issues, and proposed continuing high-level direct meetings between the two countries.

According to Hankyoreh, a daily newspaper close to the DPK which has never been soft on its Japanese neighbour: The Lee Jae-myung administration [...] owes much of its smooth sailing in the international community to the diplomatic skills of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and to his stance of resistance to Trump’s trade diktats, which characterised his election campaign for the renewal of part of Japan’s House of Councillors in July. In those elections, the ruling coalition in Tokyo, LDP-Komeito, suffered another defeat, deepening Japan’s political crisis. This was unwelcome news for Seoul at a time when the two countries must join forces... to resist Trump’s dictatorship and oppose the Trump round, the unilateral revision of the trade order sought by Washington, which is damaging both.

Tariffs and immigration at the polls

The election result in Japan is interpreted by Hankyoreh as evidence that the liberals are in retreat within the LDP. The newspaper also notices a stagnation of the centre-left opposition and an affirmation of conservative and populist forces, such as the DPP and, especially, Sanseito, which has xenophobic and nationalist positions. Seoul, therefore, should continue to deepen its ties with Tokyo, while paying attention to the possibility of an excessive shift to the right in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Japanese elections were held in the shadow of the trade dispute with Washington. Ishiba’s line of defence of national interests, especially in the automotive sector, found unanimous support from the mainstream press and even from the opposition. The surprise tariff agreement of July 22nd, simultaneous with an industrial cooperation agreement with the EU that included a military component, was deemed sustainable by Japanese industry and a success for the prime minister. However, this line did not pay off at the polls, even though the coalition fell just three seats short of its target. This jeopardises Ishiba’s chances of remaining at the helm of the government.

Uncertain balance in Tokyo

In 2022, the LDP-Komeito coalition lost more than 6 million votes, falling from 24.3 to 18 million. The centre-left increased from 15.7 to 21 million votes and the so-called third forces, which challenge the establishment parties, rose from 9.6 to 14.6 million votes. In particular, Sanseito (Party of Do It Yourself or Political Participation Party), founded in 2020 on anti-vaccination, anti-globalisation, and anti-immigration positions, is gaining ground with the slogan nihonjin fusato (Japan first).

For The Japan Times, the rise of national-populist forces in Tokyo is nothing new, and has been evident in similar proportions since 2012-13. At that time, however, it was in the context of Shinzo Abe’s long premiership, during which the measured nationalism of the LDP tended to reabsorb or weaken such pressures. They manifest themselves in major electoral surges, only to vanish just as quickly, failing to offer a real alternative to the traditional parties and remaining confined below the 10% threshold. This is confirmed by the dynamics of the DPP, the right-wing offshoot of the defunct DPJ (now CDPJ), and the JIP, a populist party from Kansai, Osaka’s region. The DPP doubled its votes in the 2024 elections, but did not make much progress in July. The JIP is down in comparison to 2021 and has confirmed its nature as a regional party. According to Asahi Shimbun's analysis of electoral flows, Sanseito, thanks to the use of social media, has captured part of the youth vote and voters between the ages of 30 and 50 who had previously voted not just for the LDP, but also for the DPP and other forces.

The emperor's populists

According to Céline Pajon, an analyst for the French IFRI in Asia, Sanseito’s positions are typical of the Japanese national-conservative right, previously expressed within the LDP and now manifested outside of it. Sanseito is in favour of rearmament, a constitutional revision clarifying the role of the Emperor as head of State, conservative education reform, and a debate on Japan’s possession of nuclear weapons. Its programme is partly modelled on the themes of the American MAGA movement, although the party cites the Rassemblement National in France and the AfD in Germany as references.

Among the reasons for its success are protests against the high cost of living and – this is the major new factor – concerns about the increase in Asian immigration. In 2024, there were 3.77 million foreign residents in Japan, of whom more than 2.7 million were workers. While some of Sanseito’s positions are, to a large extent, soluble in a national consensus, the Japanese press, including the right-wing newspapers, has stigmatised its xenophobic overtones. For the Sankei Shimbun, often the voice of the most overt conservative nationalism, Asian immigrant workers are vital and a strategic choice for Tokyo. The size of the electorate confirms this: since 2022, it has shrunk by over a million, as has the overall population. During the same period, over a million immigrants have flocked to the archipelago. For the Sankei, there is no space in 21st century Japan for the violent xenophobia of the late Edo period – a reference to the Sonnō jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) movement against foreign penetration of the country during its modernisation process. Sankei continues: even if Sanseito is mimicking a longer global trend punctuated by the election of United States President Donald Trump and his ‘America First’ doctrine, the emperor’s populists should align themselves with the national consensus on the issue of migration. The newspaper accompanies its comments with photos illustrating the productive role of immigrants in Japanese society: from Vietnamese nurses caring for elderly patients in nursing homes to Nepalese workers employed in factories in Osaka.

Asia in search of autonomy

In a recent interview with the Montaigne Institute, a liberal and pro-European think tank in Paris, Raja Mohan, a prominent Indian commentator on international politics, commented that the scale of global change triggered by Trump’s policies lies in the fact that a Japanese person is starting to talk like a French person: in the election campaign, Ishiba constantly evoked strategic autonomy. This is a significant indication of how Asia is drawing conclusions from Washington’s prioritisation of its commercial interests over its alliance relationships. At the same time, the multilateral institutions that emerged in the 1990s are at an impasse and the new world is seeing space opening up for coalitions of medium powers, provided that they are not anti-American: the BRICS countries, including India, must work more closely with the EU, Australia, and Japan.

Shinichi Kitaoka, a diplomat and historian who was an adviser to Yasuhiro Nakasone and Abe for many years, shares a similar view: US leaders evaluate their policies primarily for their influence on US interests and their own popularity, while their usefulness to the rest of the world is secondary or tertiary, believing that they can manage just fine ignoring the interests of related and friendly countries. Trump, Abe told Kitaoka, did not know about the Russo-Japanese War. This was not particularly surprising to Kitaoka, but it shows that the American president does not understand the complexities of international relations in Northeast Asia at all. It is therefore unrealistic to expect him to apply an adequate security policy, given that he lacks a fundamental understanding of the pertinent matters. According to Kitaoka, a possible corrective to Trump’s line could come if the markets begin to clearly show danger signs. In any case, it would take time for Washington to change course. To prevent Beijing from taking advantage of this, Kitaoka concludes, Tokyo and other countries need to strengthen their cooperation to rebuild the system of international coordination.

Translated from the original work by , published in Lotta Comunista, , p. ?.

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