by Zhang Yanxin
The time period “Ultraman-style inspection” has lately change into a buzzword among the many Japanese public, a sarcastic reference to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s go to to the Kumamoto earthquake catastrophe zone, the place she spent a mere three minutes with evacuees — about so long as Ultraman, a Japanese sci-fi hero, can combat on Earth.
According to Japanese media studies and on-line feedback, most evacuation shelters have been unbearably scorching within the wake of the catastrophe. Takaichi opted for Hikawa Junior High School, the best-equipped shelter with air con, the place she solely paid a perfunctory go to to a number of hand-picked evacuee representatives. Yet her workplace launched a slick and cinematic promotional video, full with background music. Japanese netizens had been outraged, asking whether or not she felt no disgrace.
Others mocked a photograph launched by the Ministry of Defense to publicize aid efforts, during which Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi stands prominently within the foreground in a swimsuit, captured from a low angle. They accused him of in search of to capitalize on the earthquake catastrophe for publicity and questioned whether or not victims’ lives meant something to him in any respect.
These indignant and grieving reactions spotlight a stark contradiction in Japan’s present political and social panorama.
On one facet, considerations about folks’s livelihoods are mounting. As of June this 12 months, Japan’s shopper value index has risen year-on-year for 58 consecutive months, making persistently excessive costs the brand new regular. Nominal wage progress for bizarre staff has lengthy lagged behind rising costs, with actual wages posting damaging progress for consecutive years.
Approximately 55 % of households say they’re struggling to make ends meet, and over 90 % count on costs to proceed rising. Imported inflationary stress has mounted considerably, with the 2026 inflation forecast revised up from 1.9 % to 2.2 %.
Japan’s nationwide debt stays a Sword of Damocles hanging over its long-term fiscal well being, surpassing 1,343 trillion yen (8.46 trillion U.S. {dollars}), equal to 240 % of its GDP, the best ratio amongst all superior economies.
On the opposite facet, the Takaichi administration has been relentlessly advancing its remilitarization agenda by means of a sweeping army buildup. Japan’s protection finances has grown for 14 consecutive years, exceeding 9 trillion yen in fiscal 12 months 2026, and the federal government is weighing an aggressive proposal to boost protection spending to three to three.5 % of GDP.
The Japanese authorities has revised the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology to permit exports of deadly weapons and ramped up procurement of offensive armaments, together with long-range missiles, hypersonic weapons and F-35 fighter jets. The newest version of the Defense White Paper has hyped exterior safety threats, framing the enlargement of the protection trade as a driver of financial progress. Some cupboard members have additionally repeatedly made remarks testing the boundaries of debate over nuclear armament.
Not surprisingly, Japanese netizens have lamented repeatedly that prioritizing army enlargement over folks’s wellbeing has lengthy been the defining function of the Takaichi administration.
Political grandstanding and empty pledges can not alleviate folks’s hardships. Japanese netizens have sharply criticized the apply of turning catastrophe aid, a touchstone of a authorities’s skill, right into a stage for politicians to hunt media consideration. Some politicians are likely to prioritize their public picture in entrance of the cameras, utilizing livelihood points to realize political capital.
In response to the Takaichi cupboard’s proposal to slash the meals consumption tax from 8 % to 1 % subsequent April, netizens and economists have bluntly identified that any good points from the tax reduce will vanish immediately if costs proceed to surge. The tax reduce will additional deplete pension and healthcare funds, on the expense of individuals’s long-term pursuits for electoral achieve. It will create an annual fiscal shortfall of trillions of yen, but the federal government has but to unveil any different funding plan.
Netizens have additionally criticized a lately handed invoice to ascertain a sub-capital. Ostensibly meant as a contingency plan in case of a catastrophe in Tokyo, the initiative has been dismissed by critics as a waste of public funds serving the political ambitions of the Japan Innovation Party.
Young folks and peace teams throughout Japan have repeatedly warned that amid a deepening demographic disaster of low beginning charges and inhabitants growing older, with yawning gaps in pension and healthcare provisions, taxpayers’ cash ought to be channeled initially into enhancing folks’s lives, somewhat than funneled endlessly into army procurement.
Why can army enlargement be permitted with uncommon haste and rolled out at breakneck velocity, whereas assist for folks’s livelihoods is all too typically hamstrung by “insufficient funding?”
The administration is fixated on diverting public consideration from home governance failures by stoking exterior safety anxiousness and manufacturing a “crisis narrative” to construct public assist for alleviating army constraints. It has repeatedly shirked its duty on urgent points akin to bringing down costs and safeguarding livelihoods, whereas speeding to develop capabilities to strike enemy bases. “What exactly does this country put first?” many have requested.
History gives ample classes exhibiting that diverting extreme nationwide assets to army buildup whereas ignoring falling dwelling requirements will solely engender twin perils: deepened social rifts at house and heightened regional tensions overseas. A rising variety of far-sighted Japanese observers have come to appreciate that exaggerating safety threats and counting on army enlargement supply no actual resolution for the nation.
Editor’s be aware: Zhang Yanxin is a global affairs observer.
The views expressed on this article are these of the writer and don’t essentially mirror these of Xinhua News Agency.