As of today (April 5th, 2020), Japan’s COVID-19 cases continue to rise. The situation is especially acute in Tokyo, where the number of new cases per day is well over 100. As fears rise, people are looking for someone to blame. Sadly, Japan’s youth and its immigrant population have both proven easy targets for right-wing politicians and the country’s mass media.
Koike’s Strange Crackdown on the Young
For a while, it seemed that Japan had somehow dodged a bullet that had struck the rest of the world in the heart. Cases of COVID-19 rose at a fairly slow rate throughout February and March. Many expressed grave concern that Japan wasn’t testing as aggressively as other countries. But it appeared that a number of measures might have worked in Japan’s favor, including:
- Abe’s early school closure recommendation;
- Japan’s existing mask culture;
- An uptick in remote work;
- Contact tracing; and
- Increased hygiene, to such an extent that even infections from the regular flu were subsiding.
Sadly, by last week, that assumption appeared to be crumbling. Infections began increasing, first in Hyogo and Osaka Prefectures, and then in Tokyo. The deteriorating situation has led multiple experts in Japan, such as infectious disease specialist Iwata Kentaro, to call upon Japan’s central government to issue a national emergency declaration.
As of April 3rd, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was still resisting such calls, saying the conditions still didn’t warrant it. That’s left politicians like Tokyo’s Governor, Koike Yuriko, claiming they’re legally hamstrung. Without a national declaration, Koike has maintained, she has no legal authority to issue the same kind of “shelter in place” recommendations that have become a standard operating procedure in other countries.
Instead, Koike called for 外出自粛 (gaishutsu jishuku), or “self-restraint” in leaving one’s home. Her request called on people to avoid “unnecessary, non-emergency” ( 不要不急; fuyou fukyuu) outings during the day. But she also specifically called on young and middle-aged people to avoid participating in the city’s lively nightlife. That includes bars, night clubs, karaoke parlors, and, in particular, live music venues.
The announcement raised a few eyebrows in Japan. The main issue is that the announcement leaves plenty of room for companies to insist their workers are “essential” and still must come to work. While more workers in Japan are working from home during the crisis than is usual for the country, it’s still not a majority. That means that major potential vectors of infection, especially Japan’s packed subway trains, will remain as crowded – and as potentially deadly – as ever.
Much subsequent coverage of Koike’s announcement on news programs led to a sense that the responsibility for preventing COVID-19 infections lay primarily with the young. Some politicians were even more explicit: Diet Representative Mihara Junko took to her Twitter account and talked about how “lots of young people” were going outside last weekend.
Katsube Genki, writing for Asahi Shinbun’s Web Ronza site, says that television discussion programs have been one of the main culprits in whipping up public sentiment against the young. While the term “Chinese virus” was trending in the United States, Japanese TV commentators were talking about 若者コロナ (wakamono korona), or “the coronavirus of the young”.
But it’s adults, argues Katsube, who really deserve the blame here:
不要不急の外出で、「密閉」した空間に「密集」し、「密接」に会話をするのは避けるべきです。しかし、若者に限らず「外出を自粛したくてもできない」人も多いのです。
欧米諸国は続々と生活費支援のために「給付」や「補償」を決断しているにもかかわらず、日本政府は2020年4月1日現在でまだ何も決めていません。特に補償については首相自ら否定しています。ですから、テレワークが可能な職種の社員や、体力のある大企業勤務の社員を除いて、明日の生活費を稼ぐために外に出て働き続けなければならない人も多いのです。
We’re supposed to avoid unnecessary, non-emergency outings, and also avoid stuffy environments, crowding, and closeness while talking. But there are many people (not just the young) who can’t avoid going out even if they want to.
Various countries in the Americas and Europe have decided to give payments and assistance to support their citizens. But as of April 1st, the Japanese government hasn’t decided on anything. So outside of the types of employees who can work remotely and the employees of businesses large enough to endure, many people have to go outside to earn the money they’ll need to live tomorrow.
Sadly, the adults don’t seem to be listening. As I was finishing this article on April 5th, word came out that the Abe government was “preparing” to make an emergency declaration. However, as of now, according to NTV News24, the government still intends to allow people to commute to work as though nothing is happening.
An Erroneous Graph Blames Immigrants for Japan’s Infection Rate
The initial eruption of the COVID-19 crisis brought with it a wave of racism in the United States. As US President Donald Trump donned COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus”, Asian-Americans increasingly reported being the target of racist hate speech. In one of the worst examples, a man in Texas attempted to murder an Asian-American family of three.
Unfortunately, Japan’s been no stranger to such racist sentiment. Initially, the sentiment was, as in America, directed largely against Chinese visitors and permanent residents. However, in recent weeks, right-wing politicians and agitators in Japan have used the crisis as an excuse to stoke hate against Japan’s immigrants in general.
In one of the most egregious examples, Twitter users have been sharing a graph (because, as we all know, people will believe anything that looks statistics-y) that purports to prove that 1 in 3 of Japan’s COVID-19 infected were non-Japanese.
This graph was debunked by Kota Hatachi, a reporter for Buzzfeed Japan. As Hatachi notes, the graph is reportedly based on data from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW). However, while the MHLW did announce how many confirmed cases there were among Japanese citizens, it never published any numbers about the number of foreign residents who were infected. Hatachi even called the head of the agency’s Tuberculosis and Infectious Disease Division, who flat out said, “There’s no truth in even half that number.”
This particular rumor was allowed to breed, not because the data supported it, but because the data was incomplete. Whoever created this graph assumed that all of the “cases of unknown nationality” were foreign residents. This, says Hatachi’s source at the MHLW, isn’t necessarily true:
国籍については必須ではなく、感染者が増えている自治体では記載がない場合もある。そうした場合は「日本国籍のもの」に計上されないのだという。
Nationality isn’t required data, and some local governments aren’t recording it as the number of infected increased. Given this, we can’t tally the total number of Japanese nationals infected.
Immigrants: Let Them Eat Castella
Just because there’s no official lockdown in Japan doesn’t mean that the country’s not suffering economically. Many parents couldn’t work when Japan’s schools were shuttered because they didn’t have access to child care. Many major chains – including Starbucks and Uniqlo – are shuttering on weekends. And, of course, nearly all large-scale events – such as sports and concerts – have been indefinitely postponed.
The government has already passed an economic passage that was specifically targeted at assisting working parents. Now, as the crisis drags on, it’s preparing a second, broader package that would give ￥300,000 (appr. USD $2,770) to every household as a one-time boost.
There’s still some question about how this will be carried out and who will be eligible. In a piece of good news, Japan’s Minister of Economic Recovery, Nishimura Yasutoshi, said that the current package will cover workers in Japan’s sex industry. The previous aid package explicitly excluded anyone working in the industry.
However, some politicians don’t think economic support should extend to all people living in Japan. One of them is Liberal Democratic Party Diet Representative Sugito Mio (杉田水脈). Yes, that Sugita Mio – the same one who set off a national firestorm when she labeled LGBT people in Japan “unproductive.” Sugita has built a career on being a far-right reactionary in Japan. Her other Greatest Hits include doxxing leftist organizations with veiled threats on Twitter and jeering a politician in the Diet who argued that married couples in Japan should be allowed to have separate surnames.
Sugita’s back in the headlines again – this time, for musing aloud about whether Japan should withhold financial support for non-Japanese permanent residents.
Sugita’s latest outburst of inhumane callousness and cruelty (original tweet here) falls on the heels of a Sankei News report that the government is considering following past examples and distributing assistance to long term residents. No assistance would be granted to people in the country illegally or on short-term stays. Sugita responded by arguing that “[t]he country is responsible for caring for its own citizens. The responsibility for caring for foreigners lies with their birth countries.”
The comment drew a huge backlash from long-term immigrants to Japan. Some have lived – and paid taxes in – the country for a decade or more. Some run businesses that employ both residents and immigrants and help fuel the economy. One long-time permanent resident, writing in Japanese, replied to Sugita with, “Hurry up then and gimme back my past 20 years in taxes.”
The comment was also met with scorn from Japanese citizens. Movie critic Machiyama Tomohiro fired back with a tweet that noted that most other nations giving assistance are also providing it to tax-paying permanent residents.
No matter where you live in the world, odds are some extremist faction is attempting to use the current worldwide crisis to their advantage. While it’s sad to see the same thing happening in Japan, it’s also heartening to see so many people pushing back.
