ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Japan's new anti-Americanism since the late 1990s-a new combination of nationalism, resentment against what Japanese perceive to be an isolationist United States that is ignoring Japan, and fear of American domination. The way in which Japan has expressed its anti-Americanism appears to be more indirect, subdued, and intricate. Anti-American sentiment and discourse appear to have become less legitimate amid the ongoing tensions with North Korea and with South Korea and China. With anti-American conservatives more grounded in the humanities and their pro-American counterparts in policy, the annual policy publication Nihon no ronten 2003 listed their debate as one of the major issues in contemporary Japan. The traditional carriers of pacifist and cosmopolitan agendas, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, have significantly lost their seats in the Diet since the end of the Cold War and the introduction of the small-constituency system in 1996.
