According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Russia’s state-run media and its embassy in Japan sharply increased the number of Japan-language social-media posts criticizing Tokyo’s support for Ukraine beginning in January this year. The Japanese government’s analysis suggests that Moscow was waging an information war designed to divide public opinion in Japan and steer sentiment toward reducing aid to Kyiv. Reports indicate that Russia’s state outlets and the embassy’s official X account ramped up activity right after January 20, 2024—the day President Trump signed an executive order temporarily suspending U.S. foreign assistance.
The posts typically framed messages such as “Stop ODA and foreign aid—use the money at home” as if they reflected the authentic voice of ordinary Japanese citizens. Others cited Trump’s remark that “USAID is a hotbed of corruption and a funding source for media manipulation,” drawing parallels between the U.S. agency and Japan’s own development agency, JICA, calling it “the Japanese version of USAID.” Japanese officials have described these campaigns as “a sophisticated form of impression management.”
At the Tokyo International Conference on African Development held in Yokohama this August, JICA announced its Africa Hometown initiative, linking several Japanese municipalities with partner countries in Africa. The project’s stated goal was to foster exchange and technical cooperation—not immigration. Yet soon after the announcement, city halls in participating municipalities were inundated with angry phone calls. On social media, the program was denounced as “a cover for bringing African migrants to Japan.” Despite repeated government explanations that this was a misunderstanding, the protests continued unabated, and on September 25 JICA decided to withdraw the plan altogether.
Roughly ten days later, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the very anti-immigration hysteria that fueled the backlash had, in fact, been amplified by Russian disinformation efforts. Africa today is a region where both China and Russia are rapidly expanding their influence—China through its Belt and Road Initiative, building ports, railways, and power plants; Russia through private military contractors operating under the guise of “security” and “resource development.” In such a landscape, development programs backed by the United States’ USAID or Japan’s JICA are deeply inconvenient for Moscow and Beijing. Hence, as the Yomiuri article implies, Russia has sought to manipulate Japan’s right-wing circles to turn public opinion against international assistance and broader diplomatic engagement.
I find the recent wave of so-called patriotic activism by Japan’s self-described conservatives deeply unsettling. It resembles a kind of cult. Many of them equate themselves with the Japanese state, filter information through confirmation bias, and perceive the world only through the simplistic binary of “right versus left.” They seem convinced they are acting out of patriotism, yet in reality their fervor makes them susceptible to the very foreign disinformation they believe they are resisting.
The essence of capitalism lies in creating demand. In a nation like Japan, where population decline and aging inevitably shrink domestic consumption, expansion into new markets becomes essential. Africa, projected to account for one-quarter of the world’s population by mid-century, represents the most dynamic frontier in both labor and consumer potential. It is perfectly natural for development agencies in capitalist economies to engage actively with Africa.
What is ironic is that the very people who have long extolled capitalism—the conservative establishment—ended up obstructing its natural expansion by denouncing it as a “globalist plot” or a “pretext for mass immigration.” Their outrage, framed as patriotism, has become the most effective tool for sabotaging the future they claim to defend.
.jpg)
.jpg)
