Purge against Trump supporters has started in Japan

nahadef said:

I don't think it's most Japanese by any sane understanding of the word "most", but I am surprised at the support Trump has among fairly apolitical Japanese. They don't know him, or how he is, or anything about his policies, but he is translated as being tough on China, and that is pretty much the one issue Japanese get neurotic about.

If they only knew how full of talk he is... He is happy to rile up his racist crowds with anti-Chinese talk, but when it comes to dealing with Xi, he's a pussycat who wants what Xi has.

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Who were the organizers?

Such large-scale demonstrations with so many well-crafted banners and flags could not have take place spontaneously. The marches certainly were not the work of an individual or a group of amateurs. The protests had to be the brainchild of a big and affluent organization or a group of such organizations. A Mainichi reporter identified one Japanese organizer as a member of a small religious group in Japan. No matter who the Japanese organizers were, they certainly don't support Trump because they are white supremacists or QAnon activists. I suspect the organizers must be either strongly conservative or right-wing, anti-Chinese activists who are suspicious of the establishment — such as a so-called Japanese "deep state" — and who are not satisfied with the current situation in Japan in general.

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Who were the demonstrators?

While the great majority of demonstrators were Japanese citizens, journalists reported that Chinese, Koreans, Americans and Poles also participated. Are they all Trump lovers? Hardly. Reportedly, some marchers only spoke Chinese and were not fluent in Japanese. In fact, the identities of those demonstrators are still unknown. Regardless of who they were, it's difficult to discern exactly why such a disparate group of people came together over the results of the U.S. election. Some may be expat Americans or Europeans living in Japan who really loved and supported Donald Trump. Others may be anti-Chinese Communist Party citizens of China or anti-Japanese government Koreans. As for the Japanese demonstrators, their motives in joining the demonstrations seem to be much more complicated.

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