Brazil Like the elites in
Argentina and
Uruguay, the Brazilian elite wanted to
racially whiten the country's population during the 19th and 20th centuries. The country's governments always encouraged European immigration, but non-white immigration was always greeted with considerable opposition. The communities of Japanese immigrants were seen as an obstacle to the whitening of Brazil and they were also seen, among other concerns, as being particularly tendentious because they formed
ghettos and they also practiced
endogamy at a high rate. Oliveira Viana, a Brazilian jurist, historian, and sociologist, described the Japanese immigrants as follows: "They (Japanese) are like sulfur: insoluble." The Brazilian magazine
O Malho in its edition of 5 December 1908, issued a charge of Japanese immigrants with the following legend: "The government of
São Paulo is stubborn. After the failure of the first Japanese immigration, it contracted 3,000 yellow people. It insists on giving Brazil a race diametrically opposite to ours." On 22 October 1923, Representative Fidélis Reis produced a bill on the entry of immigrants, whose fifth article was as follows: "The entry of settlers from the black race into Brazil is prohibited. For Asian [immigrants] there will be allowed each year a number equal to 5% of those residing in the country...." Years before World War II, the government of President
Getúlio Vargas initiated a process of
forced assimilation of people of immigrant origin in Brazil. In 1933, a constitutional amendment was approved by a large majority and established immigration quotas without mentioning race or nationality and prohibited the population concentration of immigrants. According to the text, Brazil could not receive more than 2% of the total number of entrants of each nationality that had been received in the last 50 years. Only the Portuguese were excluded. The measures did not affect the immigration of Europeans such as Italians and Spaniards, who had already entered in large numbers and whose migratory flow was downward. However, immigration quotas, which remained in force until the 1980s, restricted Japanese immigration, as well as Korean and Chinese immigration. When Brazil sided with the
Allies and declared war on Japan in 1942, all communication with Japan was cut off, the entry of new Japanese immigrants was forbidden, and many restrictions affected the Japanese Brazilians. Japanese newspapers and teaching the Japanese language in schools were banned, which left Portuguese as the only option for Japanese descendants. As many Japanese immigrants could not understand Portuguese, it became exceedingly difficult for them to obtain any extra-communal information. In 1939, research of
Estrada de Ferro Noroeste do Brasil in São Paulo showed that 87.7% of Japanese Brazilians read newspapers in the Japanese language, a much higher
literacy rate than the general populace at the time. which is considered the largest in the world outside of Japan. In addition, in 2020, possibly as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic, some incidents of xenophobia and abuse were reported to Japanese-Brazilians in cities such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. According to a 2017 BBC World Service survey, 70% of Brazilians view Japan's influence positively, with 15% expressing a negative view, making Brazil one of the most pro-Japanese countries in South America.
China , China Anti-Japanese sentiment is felt very strongly in China, and distrust, hostility and negative feelings towards Japan and the Japanese people and culture is widespread in China. Anti-Japanese sentiment is a phenomenon that mostly dates back to modern times (since 1868). Like many Western powers during the era of imperialism, Imperial Japan negotiated treaties that often resulted in the annexation of land from China towards the end of the
Qing dynasty. Dissatisfaction with Japanese settlements and the
Twenty-One Demands by the Japanese government led to a
boycott of Japanese products in China. Today, bitterness persists in China over the atrocities of the
Second Sino-Japanese War and Japan's postwar actions, particularly the perceived lack of a straightforward acknowledgment of such atrocities, the Japanese government's employment of known war criminals, and Japanese historic revisionism in textbooks. In elementary school, children are taught about
Japanese war crimes in detail. For example, thousands of children are brought to the
Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing by their elementary schools and are required to view photos of war atrocities, such as exhibits of records of the Japanese military forcing Chinese workers into wartime labor, the
Nanjing Massacre, and the issues of
comfort women. Despite the time that has passed since the war's end, discussions about Japanese conduct during the war can still evoke powerful emotions today, partly because most Japanese are aware of what happened during it, and their society never engaged in the type of introspection which has been common in Germany after
the Holocaust. This elicited many reactions on the Internet, and an open letter demanding a public apology was circulated by a Nanjing massacre survivor. According to a 2017
BBC World Service Poll, only 22% of Chinese people view Japan's influence positively, and 75% express a negative view, making China the most anti-Japanese nation in the world. : "Japanese
guizi are pieces of shit" Anti-Japanese sentiment can also be seen in war films and anime that are produced and broadcast in Mainland China. More than 200 anti-Japanese films were produced in China in 2012 alone. In one particular situation involving a more moderate anti-Japanese war film, the government of China banned the 2000 fictional film,
Devils on the Doorstep, because it depicted a Japanese soldier being friendly with Chinese villagers.
France Japan's public service broadcaster,
NHK, provides a list of overseas safety risks for traveling, and in early 2020, it listed anti-Japanese discrimination as a safety risk on travel to France and some other European countries, possibly because of fears over the
COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. Signs of rising anti-Japanese sentiment in France include an increase in anti-Japanese incidents reported by Japanese nationals, such as being mocked on the street and refused taxi service, and least one Japanese restaurant has been vandalized. A group of Japanese students on a study tour in
Paris received abuse by locals. Another group of Japanese citizens was targeted by acid attacks, which prompted the Japanese embassy as well as the foreign ministry to issue a warning to Japanese nationals in France, urging caution. Due to rising discrimination, a Japanese TV announcer in Paris said it's best not to speak Japanese in public or wear a Japanese costume like a kimono.
Germany According to the
Japanese foreign ministry, anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination has been rising in Germany, especially recently when the
COVID-19 pandemic began affecting the country. In line with those sentiments, there have been a rising number of anti-Japanese incidents such as at least one major football club kicking out all Japanese fans from their stadium over fears of the coronavirus, locals throwing raw eggs at Japanese people's homes and a general increase in the level of harassment toward Japanese residents.
Indonesia In a press release, the embassy of Japan in
Indonesia stated that incidents of discrimination and harassment of Japanese people had increased, and they were possibly partly related to the
COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and it also announced that it had set up a help center in order to assist Japanese residents in dealing with those incidents. In general, there have been reports of widespread anti-Japanese discrimination and harassment in the country, with hotels, stores, restaurants, taxi services and more refusing Japanese customers and many Japanese people were no longer allowed in meetings and conferences. The embassy of Japan has also received at least a dozen reports of harassment toward Japanese people in just a few days. According to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination has been rising in Indonesia.
Japan Korea " sticker on shop in
Mokpo The issue of anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea is complex and multifaceted. Anti-Japanese attitudes in the
Korean Peninsula can be traced as far back as the
Japanese pirate raids and the
Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), but they are largely a product of the
Japanese occupation of Korea which lasted from 1910 to 1945 and the subsequent revisionism of history textbooks which have been used by Japan's educational system since
World War II. Today, issues of
Japanese history textbook controversies, Japanese policy regarding the war, and
geographic disputes between the two countries perpetuate that sentiment, and the issues often incur huge disputes between Japanese and South Korean Internet users. South Korea, together with Mainland China, may be considered as among the most intensely anti-Japanese societies in the world. Among all the countries that participated in BBC World Service Poll in 2007 and 2009, South Korea and the People's Republic of China were the only ones whose majorities rated Japan negatively. Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea has decreased in the 2020s; according to a poll in conducted in late 2025 by the Japanese Public Interest Incorporated Newspaper and the Communications Research Association, 56.4% of South Koreans had a favorable view of Japan, with favorability especially high in those in their 20s and 30s.
Peru Anti-Japanese sentiment in
Peru started during 20th century as part of a general
anti-Asiatic sentiment after
Chinese immigration in Perú, because Japanese and Chinese people were catalogued as a "yellow menace" that deteriorate the race and invaded Peruvian territory. Politicians and intellectuals tried to generate repudiation against Asians through publications such as bulletins and articles in newspapers and pamphlets that ridiculed them, even inciting the Peruvian people to attack Peruvian-Japanese citizens and their businesses. Peruvian worker protests led to the creation of an Anti-Asian Association in 1917 and the abolition of contract migration in 1923. Then, the pre-war times were especially difficult for Japanese immigrants, coming to influence the Peruvian government itself (with the deportations of Japanese to concentration camps in the United States during World War II, specially to the country's only family internment camp in
Crystal City, Texas). Although there had been ongoing tensions between non-Japanese and Japanese Peruvians, the situation was drastically exacerbated by the war. The economic success of Japanese farmers and businessmen in niche but visible sectors, the significant amount of remittances sent back to Japan, the fear that Japanese were taking jobs from the locals and a growing trade imbalance between Japan and Peru were motives to implement legislation in order to curb Japanese immigration into its borders. There were damaged over 600 Japanese residences and businesses in Lima, resulting in dozens of injuries and one Japanese death. Not only was it the “worst rioting in Peruvian history,” but it was also the first to target a racial group (because Peruvians mostly discriminate by social class, but doesn't had a tradition of discrimination by race). The deportation of Japanese Peruvians to the United States also involved expropriation without compensation of their property and other assets in Peru. As noted in a 1943 memorandum, Raymond Ickes of the Central and South American division of the Alien Enemy Control Unit had observed that many ethnic Japanese had been sent to the United States "... merely because the Peruvians wanted their businesses and not because there was any adverse evidence against them." During post-war, decreased anti-Japanese sentiment on Peruvian society, specially after 1960 (when Japan started to develop closer relations with Peru and their Nikkei community). However, there was a light revival of those sentiments after the government of
Alberto Fujimori, a Peruvian-Japanese who was involved in
Corruption in Peru, which generated antipathy against Japan in Peruvian circles. This revival of the sentiment was so intense that were concerned by the Japan government, after
Alberto Fujimori's arrest and trial, the Japanese embassy in Peru and the local media have received frequent telephone calls threatening to harm Japanese-Peruvians, Japanese businesses in Peru, the installations of the embassy and its staff.
Philippines in 1942 was distributed and sparked outrage worldwide. Anti-Japanese sentiment in the Philippines can be traced back to the
Japanese occupation of the country during World War II and its aftermath. An estimated 1 million Filipinos out of a wartime population of 17 million were killed during the war, and many more Filipinos were injured. Nearly every Filipino family was affected by the war on some level. Most notably, in the city of
Mapanique, survivors have recounted the Japanese occupation during which Filipino men were massacred and dozens of women were herded in order to be used as
comfort women. Today, the Philippines has peaceful relations with Japan. In addition, Filipinos are generally not as offended as Chinese or Koreans are by the claim from some quarters that the atrocities are given little, if any, attention in Japanese classrooms. This feeling exists as a result of the huge amount of Japanese aid which was sent to the country during the 1960s and 1970s. The
Davao Region, in
Mindanao, had a large community of Japanese immigrants which acted as a fifth column by welcoming the Japanese invaders during the war. The Japanese were hated by the
Moro Muslims and the Chinese. The Moro
juramentadoss performed suicide attacks against the Japanese, and no Moro juramentado ever attacked the Chinese, who were not considered enemies of the Moro, unlike the Japanese. According to a 2011
BBC World Service Poll, 84% of
Filipinos view Japan's influence positively, with 12% expressing a negative view, making Philippines one of the most pro-Japanese countries in the world.
Taiwan Due to Japan's various oppression and enslavement of Taiwan during World War II and the dispute over the
Senkaku Islands, anti-Japanese sentiment in Taiwan is very common, and most Taiwanese people have a negative impression of Japan. However, according to other surveys, Taiwan's anti-Japanese sentiment is seen as much weaker or relatively favorable compared to
South Korea, which was affected by the same Japanese colonialism. Anti-Japanese sentiment appears weaker in Taiwan than anti-Chinese (especially
anti-PRC) sentiment. Unlike Korea, Taiwan did not form a strong unified national identity before the onset of Japanese rule in 1895. As a result, the colonial experience produced a more ambivalent set of public memories. Japan’s administration introduced modern infrastructure, public health initiatives, and bureaucratic institutions, many of which were maintained after 1945, contributing to a more pragmatic evaluation of the colonial period among segments of the Taiwanese population. After 1949, the Republic of China (ROC) government retreated to Taiwan and promoted a Chinese nationalist ideology focused primarily on anti-communism rather than anti-Japanese resistance. Although postwar generations were educated within this ideological framework, it resonated only partially with Taiwan’s own colonial experience. Scholars note that the ROC’s nation-building narrative did not directly address issues related to postcolonial identity, and the suppression of left-wing intellectuals during the 1950s further limited the emergence of alternative critical discourses on Japanese rule. During the Cold War period, anti-Japanese nationalism propagated by the ROC coexisted with extensive practical reliance on Japan for trade, technology, and investment. Following democratization in the 1990s, Taiwan’s public discourse increasingly emphasized local identity, leading to an expansion of historical narratives that incorporated the Japanese colonial period as one component of a pluralistic Taiwanese past, rather than viewing it solely through the lens of national trauma. Since democratization in the 1990s, public discourse in Taiwan has increasingly emphasized local identity and has incorporated the Japanese colonial period into a pluralistic understanding of Taiwanese history rather than a singular trauma narrative. Public opinion surveys in recent years also suggest generally favorable attitudes toward Japan. A 2024–2025 poll commissioned by the Japan–Taiwan Exchange Association and conducted by the Taiwanese research firm P‐Pearson Data found that 81% of respondents reported feeling “close” or “very close” to Japan, and 76% identified Japan as their most favored country or region. The survey also recorded increases in perceived trust toward Japan and positive evaluations of current Japan–Taiwan relations compared with the association’s previous 2022 poll. The
Kuomintang (KMT) victory in 2008 was followed by a boating accident resulting in Taiwanese deaths, which caused recent tensions. Taiwanese officials began speaking out on the historical territory disputes regarding the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, which resulted in an increase in at least perceived anti-Japanese sentiment.
Thailand Anti-Japanese sentiment was widespread among Thai pro-democracy student protesters in the 1970s. Demonstrators viewed the entry of Japanese companies into the country, invited by the Thai military, as an economic invasion.
Russian Empire and Soviet Union In the
Russian Empire, the Imperial Japanese victory during the
Russo-Japanese War in 1905 halted Russia's ambitions in the East and led to a loss of prestige. During the later
Russian Civil War, Japan was part of the
Allied interventionist forces that helped to occupy
Vladivostok until October 1922 with a
puppet government under
Grigorii Semenov. At the end of World War II during the
Soviet-Japanese War in August 1945, the
Red Army accepted the surrender of nearly 600,000
Japanese POWs after Emperor
Hirohito announced the Japanese surrender on 15 August; 473,000 of them were repatriated, 55,000 of them had died in Soviet captivity, and the fate of the others is unknown. Presumably, many of them were deported to
China or
North Korea and forced to serve as laborers and soldiers. The
Kuril Islands dispute is a source of contemporary anti-Japanese sentiment in Russia.
United Kingdom In the 1902, the
United Kingdom signed a
formal military alliance with Japan. However, the alliance was especially discontinued in 1923, and by the 1930s, bilateral ties became strained when Britain opposed Japan's
military expansion. During World War II, British anti-Japanese propaganda, much like its American counterpart, featured content that grotesquely exaggerated physical features of Japanese people, if not outright depicting them as animals such as spiders. Post-war, much anti-Japanese sentiment in Britain was focused on the treatment of British
POWs (See
The Bridge on the River Kwai).
United States Pre-20th century In the
United States,
anti-Japanese sentiment had its beginnings long before
World War II. As early as the late 19th century,
Asian immigrants were subjected to racial prejudice in the United States. Laws were passed which openly discriminated against Asians and sometimes, they particularly discriminated against Japanese. Many of these laws stated that Asians could not become US citizens and they also stated that Asians could not be granted basic rights such as the right to own land. These laws were greatly detrimental to the newly arrived immigrants because they denied them the right to own land and forced many of them who were farmers to become migrant workers. Some cite the formation of the
Asiatic Exclusion League as the start of the anti-Japanese movement in California.
Early 20th century 's Chinatown c. 1940 Anti-Japanese racism and the belief in the
Yellow Peril in California intensified after the Japanese victory over the
Russian Empire during the
Russo-Japanese War. On 11 October 1906, the San Francisco, California Board of Education passed a regulation in which children of Japanese descent would be required to attend racially-segregated separate schools. Japanese immigrants then made up approximately 1% of the population of California, and many of them had come under the treaty in 1894 which had assured free immigration from Japan. The Japanese
invasion of Manchuria, China, in 1931 and was roundly criticized in the US. In addition, efforts by citizens outraged at Japanese atrocities, such as the
Nanking Massacre, led to calls for American economic intervention to encourage Japan to leave China. The calls played a role in shaping American foreign policy. As more and more unfavorable reports of Japanese actions came to the attention of the American government, embargoes on oil and other supplies were placed on Japan out of concern for the Chinese people and for the American interests in the Pacific. Furthermore, European-Americans became very pro-China and anti-Japan, an example being a grassroots campaign for women to stop buying silk stockings because the material was procured from Japan through its colonies. When the
Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Western public opinion was decidedly pro-China, with eyewitness reports by Western journalists on atrocities committed against Chinese civilians further strengthening anti-Japanese sentiments. African-American sentiments could be quite different than the mainstream and included organizations like the
Pacific Movement of the Eastern World (PMEW), which promised equality and land distribution under Japanese rule. The PMEW had thousands of members hopefully preparing for liberation from
white supremacy with the arrival of the
Japanese Imperial Army.
World War II photograph was taken in March 1942, just prior to the
internment of Japanese Americans. The most profound cause of anti-Japanese sentiment outside of Asia started by the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, which propelled the United States into World War II. The Americans were unified by the attack to fight the
Empire of Japan and its allies: the
German Reich and the
Kingdom of Italy. The surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor without a
declaration of war was commonly regarded as an act of treachery and cowardice. After the attack, many non-governmental "
Jap hunting licenses" were circulated around the country.
Life magazine published an article on how to tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese by describing the shapes of their noses and the statures of their bodies. Additionally, Japanese conduct during the war did little to quell anti-Japanese sentiment. The flames of outrage were fanned by the treatment of American and other
prisoners-of-war (POWs). The Japanese military's outrages included the murder of POWs, the use of POWs as slave laborers by Japanese industries, the
Bataan Death March, the
kamikaze attacks on Allied ships, the atrocities which were committed on
Wake Island, and other atrocities which were committed elsewhere. The US historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in US POW compounds to two key factors: a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were 'animals' or 'subhuman' and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs." The latter reasoning is supported by
Niall Ferguson: "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians [sic] — as
Untermenschen." Weingartner believed that to explain why merely 604 Japanese captives were alive in Allied POW camps by October 1944. Allied soldiers believed that Japanese soldiers were inclined to
feign surrender in order to launch surprise attacks.
Daniel Goldhagen wrote in his book, "So it is no surprise that Americans perpetrated and supported mass slaughters -
Tokyo's firebombing and then nuclear incinerations - in the name of saving American lives, and of giving the Japanese what they richly deserved."
Decision to drop the atomic bombs Weingartner argued that there was a common cause between the mutilation of Japanese war dead and the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to Weingartner, both of these decisions were partially the result of the dehumanization of the enemy: "The widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands." Two days after the Nagasaki bomb, US President
Harry Truman stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true."
Postwar In the 1970s and the 1980s, the waning fortunes of heavy industry in the United States prompted layoffs and hiring slowdowns just as counterpart businesses in Japan were making major inroads into US markets. That was most visible than in the automobile industry whose lethargic
Big Three (
General Motors,
Ford, and
Chrysler) watched as their former customers bought Japanese imports from
Honda,
Subaru,
Mazda, and
Nissan because of the
1973 oil crisis and the
1979 energy crisis. (When Japanese automakers were establishing their inroads into the US and Canada. Isuzu, Mazda, and
Mitsubishi had joint partnerships with a Big Three manufacturer (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) in which its products were sold as
captives). Anti-Japanese sentiment was reflected in opinion polling at the time as well as in media portrayals. Extreme manifestations of anti-Japanese sentiment were occasional public destruction of Japanese cars and in the 1982
murder of Vincent Chin, a
Chinese-American who was beaten to death after he had been mistaken for being Japanese. Anti-Japanese sentiments were intentionally incited by US politicians as part of partisan politics designed to attack the Reagan presidency. Other highly-symbolic deals, including the sale of famous American commercial and cultural symbols such as
Columbia Records,
Columbia Pictures,
7-Eleven, and the
Rockefeller Center building to Japanese firms, further fanned anti-Japanese sentiment.
Popular culture of the period reflected American's growing distrust of Japan. Futuristic period pieces such as
Back to the Future Part II and
RoboCop 3 frequently showed Americans as working precariously under Japanese superiors. The film
Blade Runner showed a futuristic Los Angeles clearly under Japanese domination, with a Japanese majority population and culture, perhaps a reference to the
alternate world presented in the novel
The Man in the High Castle by
Philip K. Dick, the same author on which the film was based in which Japan had won World War II. Criticism was also lobbied in many novels of the day. The author
Michael Crichton wrote
Rising Sun, a
murder mystery (later made into a
feature film) involving Japanese businessmen in the US. Likewise, in
Tom Clancy's book,
Debt of Honor, Clancy implies that Japan's prosperity was caused primarily to unequal trading terms and portrayed Japan's business leaders acting in a power-hungry cabal. As argued by Marie Thorsten, however, Japanophobia was mixed with Japanophilia during Japan's peak moments of economic dominance in the 1980s. The fear of Japan became a rallying point for
techno-nationalism, the imperative to be first in the world in mathematics, science, and other quantifiable measures of national strength necessary to boost technological and economic supremacy. Notorious "Japan-bashing" took place alongside the image of Japan as superhuman, which mimicked in some ways the image of the
Soviet Union after it launched the first
Sputnik satellite in 1957, and both events turned the spotlight on American education. US bureaucrats purposely pushed that analogy. In 1982,
Ernest Boyer, a former US Commissioner of Education, publicly declared, "What we need is another Sputnik" to reboot American education, and he said that "maybe what we should do is get the Japanese to put a Toyota into orbit." Japan was both a threat and a model for human resource development in education and the workforce, which merged with the image of Asian-Americans as the "
model minority." Both the animosity and the superhumanizing peaked in the 1980s, when the term "Japan bashing" became popular, but had largely faded by the late 1990s. Japan's waning economic fortunes in the 1990s, now known as the
Lost Decade, coupled with an upsurge in the US economy as the Internet took off, largely crowded anti-Japanese sentiment out of the popular media. ==Yasukuni Shrine==