Rethinking a New National Identity in Heisei Japan: Neo-Conservatism and Japanese Cinema

Abstract

World War II has been over for more than half a century, but today Japan is still blamed by many Asian countries, particularly China and South Korea, for its war responsibilities. After World War II, Japan recovered rapidly and emerged as a world economic power, but its influence in international politics did not match up to the strength of its economy. From the 1970s, when Tanaka Kakuei visited China to resume normal diplomatic relations through Fukuda Takeo’s “Fukuda Doctrine,” Japanese leaders have been trying to create the country’s own foreign policy independent of US influence. In the 1980s, Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro brought to light what would be called a Neo-conservative view of Japan. The Neo-conservative agenda includes increasing Japan’s presence in the arena of global politics and reforming a society that had decayed and forgotten its traditional virtues after World War II. Neo-conservatives in Japan started to gain attention in the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and the country stepped into a spiral of depression with the burst of the bubble economy. The turbulent but prosperous days of the Shōwa period ended in 1989; Japanese society next faced the uncertainty that plagued the Heisei era, which would later be called The Lost Decade. From the three-time re-election of the conservative Ishihara Shintarō as the governor of Tokyo to the unparalleled support enjoyed by the antagonistic Koizumi Junichirō during his reign (2001–6), the Japanese public showed a rising level of tolerance to Neo-conservative rhetoric that called for a more assertive Japan.¹