Critics of taxes, media, vaccines, foreigners attack Finance Ministry #JapanFinance

Crowds protesting in front of the Finance Ministry have grown in size in recent months, as has the range of their complaints.

Many blame fiscal austerity and misguided tax policies for the lack of improvement in their lives. Others have griped about COVID-19 vaccines, the mainstream media and foreigners in Japan.

Despite their differing opinions, the demonstrators appear to be increasingly rallying behind one theme: the Finance Ministry must be dismantled.

In February, when a man and woman in suits left the Finance Ministry’s main entrance, some of the protesters yelled, “Tax thieves!”

At 3 p.m. on Feb. 15, several hundred demonstrators had gathered in front of the ministry holding up handmade signs and yelling, “The Finance Ministry is a liar!”

A few days earlier, a post on X (formerly Twitter) said a demonstration calling for the dismantling of the Finance Ministry would be held.

A 45-year-old man from Saitama Prefecture said he was one of the organizers. Although not a member of any political organization, he said he has taken part in other protests in the past.

He and another man he met through social media decided to hold a demonstration against the Finance Ministry.

“The government gives preferential treatment to major companies, so the socially weak bear the burden,” the Saitama man said. “The Finance Ministry is partly responsible.”

The man belongs to the so-called lost generation who were unable to find steady jobs coming out of university because of the difficult economic conditions back then. He only became a regular company employee three years ago.

“I was one step away from being homeless,” he said, adding that he has given up on ever marrying.

Mansaku Ikedo, 41, may be the trigger behind the larger protests.

Describing himself as a political and economic commentator on his X account, Ikedo has appeared in front of the Finance Ministry at least 10 times since September 2023.

“The difficulty that people face in their lives is all due to the fiscal austerity policies led by the Finance Ministry,” Ikedo said.

Several dozen people have gathered whenever he has spoken in front of the ministry.

Since late 2024, the situation has changed, with social media posts calling for the dismantling of the Finance Ministry.

Ikedo said there has been a drastic increase in the number of protesters who are concerned about Diet discussions on raising the minimum level at which income tax is imposed.

Different individuals and organizations have made social media posts calling on people to attend the demonstrations.

One man in his 20s from Kanagawa Prefecture said he came to protest in neighboring Tokyo because of a video on YouTube.

“Despite record tax revenues, rebuilding in the Noto region is going nowhere,” he said. “The flow of money is clearly wrong. Through social media, I learned that the Finance Ministry was behind all this.”

The Noto region in Ishikawa Prefecture is still recovering from the New Year’s Day earthquake last year.

Criticism has also been lodged at mainstream news organizations.

Some protesters have held signs critical of the “corrupt media.”

One woman in her 50s from Tokyo said she no longer trusted the traditional media.

She believes the claims of U.S. President Donald Trump that Japanese media organizations have received money from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Asahi Shimbun has publicly denied receiving any USAID money.

But the woman said: “No one here believes that. The media will not report about the Finance Ministry because of their close ties with it.”

Others who joined the Finance Ministry protests were against COVID-19 vaccines.

And at a demonstration on Feb. 21, a 44-year-old company employee who was heading home from his office in Minato Ward complained about non-Japanese people in Japan.

“I cannot forgive the government for spending taxpayer money on foreigners when it appears my children will not be able to receive pensions. Foreigners should not come to Japan,” he said.

Masaaki Ito, a professor of media studies at Tokyo’s Seikei University, said, “Dissatisfaction toward fiscal policy has appeared in the form of economic protests that were rare in Japan.”

He said two main streams of thought have emerged through the protests.

One is a neoliberalism that mainly argues that one should “receive less money from the government in exchange for a decrease in the amount taken by the government.”

The other school of thought is a form of “welfare xenophobia” that hates to see taxpayer money used on foreigners.

Those facing isolation and economic difficulties can sympathize with the easily understood narrative spread through social media that the Finance Ministry is pulling the strings from behind the scenes, Ito said. This has helped to fuel the protests.

He added that because those people think they discovered the information on their own, their beliefs become even stronger.

“While some of the views may appear wacky, society should look at the background that is making people take such stands as well as the realities that they face,” Ito said.

At the March 3 session of the Lower House Financial Affairs Committee, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said, “We should not ignore the expression of the dissatisfaction and anger felt by the general public.”

(This article was written by Ryota Goto and Shoko Mifune.)