Conspiracy theoryWhy the Pro-Trump QAnon Movement Is Finding Followers in Japan
After emerging among conspiracy theorists in the United States, the far-right QAnon movement is expanding to include a small but dedicated band of adherents in Japan. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.
Undeterred by the mayhem at the Capitol in Washington and the near-universal condemnation of Donald Trump’s failures in the dying days of his presidency, the small but committed Japanese chapter of the far-right QAnon movement is standing by its man.
It is also advancing some absurd, albeit uniquely Japanese theories: The imperial family was replaced by “fakes” during the mid-1800s; Emperor Hirohito was British, an agent for the CIA, and owned the patent for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the closing days of World War II.
The group clearly has an ax to grind with its monarchy, as members are also convinced that the nearly 20,000 people who died in the tsunami triggered by an earthquake off northeast Japan in March 2011 were victims of the “artificial tsunami terrorism” overseen by Hirohito’s son Emperor Akihito, who abdicated in April 2019.
A Past Tainted By Cultish Beliefs
A member of the group who goes by the name Eri claims there are at least 500 QAnon followers across Japan and a further 100 people are part of the QArmy Japan Flynn — an allied group that idolizes Michael Flynn. The former national security advisor to Trump had to step down after just 24 days for lying over his links to Russia before the 2016 presidential election.
As well as being convinced that Trump legitimately won the 2020 election and has been cheated out of a second term as president, QAnon Japan adherents believe that Japanese politics is “dominated by foreigners” who have sold off the nation’s wealth to “global capitalists” through privatization. They also believe that ethnic Koreans are running the government.
Similarly, they believe that “deep state” is implementing a “global human population reduction plan” that has previously relied on war, illness and infertility to control population numbers.
Jun Okumura, an analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, says there are some clear parallels with the emergence of QAnon and another cult that briefly shook Japan.
“I look at these people and while they are present and visible in every society, I see this group as being quite similar to the Aum Shinrikyo cult back in the early 1990s,” he told DW, referring to the violent quasi-religious organization that released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995, killing 12 people.
