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Uyoku dantai

Ultranationalist far-right groups in Japan

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Philosophies and activities

Uyoku dantai are well known for their highly visible propaganda vehicles, known as gaisensha (街宣車). These converted vans, trucks and buses are fitted with loudspeakers and prominently marked with the name of the group and propaganda slogans. The vehicles are usually black, khaki or olive drab, and are decorated with the Imperial Seal, the flag of Japan and the Rising Sun Flag. They are primarily used to stage protests outside organizations such as the Chinese, Korean or Russian embassies, Chongryon facilities and media organizations, where propaganda (both taped and live) is broadcast through their loudspeakers. They can sometimes be seen driving around cities or parked in busy shopping areas, broadcasting propaganda, military music or Kimigayo, the national anthem. The Greater Japan Patriotic Party, supportive of the US–Japan–South Korea alliance against China and North Korea and against communism as a whole, displays the US national flag flying side by side with the Japanese flag in the vehicles and US military marches played alongside their Japanese counterparts. Rightwing groups doing public propaganda such as using the vans are known as gaisen uyoku (街宣右翼).

While political beliefs differ among the groups, they are often said to hold in common three philosophies: the advocation of kokutai-Goji (retaining the fundamental character of the nation), hostility towards communism and Marxism, and hostility against the Japan Teachers Union. Traditionally, they view Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), China, and North Korea with hostility over issues such as communism, the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and the Kuril Islands, and the kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korea.

Most, but not all, seek to justify Japan's role in the Second World War to varying degrees, deny the war crimes committed by the military during the pre-1945 Shōwa period and are critical of what they see as a "masochistic" bias in post-war historical education. Thus, they do not recognize the legality of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or other allied tribunals and consider the war-criminals enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者, Shōwa junnansha). They support the censorship of history textbooks, or historical negationism.

Categories of uyoku dantai

Uyoku dantai are broadly classed into currents based on ideological perspective and foundation period. They are divided into traditional (pre-war), street activist (originating in the post-war era), New Right or Minzoku-ha, and Kōdō-suru Hoshu (Action Conservative Movement) groups.

  • Traditional or pre-war groups trace their origins to the pre-war radical Right, and have a traditionalist and nationalist outlook. The representatives of this current today are the Great Eastern School (Daitōjuku 大東塾) and Great Japan Production Party (Dainippon Seisantō 大日本生産党)
  • Activist groups which are mainly known for street activities through noise trucks, sometimes known as Gaisen Uyoku (街宣右翼). Some (but not all) are believed to have Yakuza links. Ideologically they are ultranationalist, monarchist, militarist, anti-Communist and in favour of a pro-Western alliance. Many also support Taiwan and South Korea. The Great Japan Patriotic Party (Dainippon Aikokutō 大日本愛国党) is one of the most prominent representatives of this current.
  • New right (Shin-uyoku 新右翼) or Minzoku-ha (民族派) originated in the student movements of the 1960s and 1970s, many of whom were followers of Yukio Mishima. They rejected the assumptions of existing uyoku groups and adopted an anti-American and broadly anti-Western line, as well as a Turanist line, which supposedly unites the Japanese people with the Koreans, the Uralic-speaking, the Turkic-speaking, the Mongolic-speaking, and the Tungusic-speaking peoples. The most representative groups of this current are Issuikai (一水会) and United Volunteers Front.
  • Action Conservative (Kōdō-suru Hoshu; 行動する保守) groups are more recent in origin and are known for their vocal street activities. These groups tend towards anti-Korean, anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric. Examples of this trend are Zaitokukai (在特会), Ishin Seito Shimpu (維新政党・新風), Japan National Party (日本国民党), Japan First Party (日本第一党) and Shuken kaifuku o mezasu kai (主権回復を目指す会).

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