Falling for Beijing’s anti-Japan propaganda is dangerously naive

COMMENTARY / Japan

Falling for Beijing’s anti-Japan propaganda is dangerously naive

How stereotypes and false narratives skew the country’s reputation

Demonstrators march past riot police outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing in September 2012. The global media often misrepresents Japan as nationalistic, driven in part by China-backed narratives and unfair stereotypes. | REUTERS

By Stephen R. Nagy
Contributing writer

Apr 23, 2026

A recent by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation characterizing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as “very hawkish” and a leader who wants to make it “easier to go to war” reflects a larger pattern. Across the global media landscape, Japan is often viewed through a distorted lens of far-right tendencies and hyperaggressiveness.

This mischaracterization is rooted in Japan’s wartime history, but also shaped by blatant ideological bias and propaganda — much of it emanating from Beijing — which overlooks Japan’s deep postwar tradition of democracy, pacifism and commitment to the rules-based international order.

The Takaichi government and Japanese society, of course, face real domestic and historical challenges, from demographic decline to pockets of historical revisionism among some conservative politicians. But dominant international narratives often bypass objective critique in favor of caricature.

This misportrayal operates on three levels: the strategic use of wartime tropes by rival states, ideological bias within Western journalism and what scholar John W. Dower describes as a longstanding tendency to exoticize and dehumanize the Japanese people.

The first — and most overtly hostile — level is strategic. Authoritarian regimes, particularly China and North Korea, systematically promote narratives that frame modern Japan as a resurgent imperial threat. This is not incidental; it is a feature of statecraft. Chinese military doctrine has long emphasized the importance of shaping the information environment. Through Communist Party organs such as the United Front Work Department, Beijing seeks to influence global media narratives, including by amplifying claims that Japan’s defensive policy adjustments amount to militarization. The aim is to weaken the U.S.-Japan alliance and sow distrust among Western publics and the Indo-Pacific.

This type of narrative weaponization is not unique to authoritarian states. During the intense economic competition of the late 1970s and 1980s, the United States engaged in similar behavior. As Japanese auto and semiconductor exports surged, American politicians and media outlets revived World War II-era imagery to cast Japan as a predatory economic rival. The spectacle of lawmakers smashing Toshiba products on the Capitol steps illustrated how quickly historical anxieties can be repurposed to manage contemporary tensions. Strategic misrepresentation, in other words, is a convenient tool across political systems.

The second level stems from ideological bias embedded in parts of Western media and academia. Many foreign correspondents covering Japan are trained in programs that emphasize critical theory frameworks, often prioritizing analyses of power, gender and postcolonialism over strategic and security studies. These perspectives can be valuable, but when they dominate, they risk narrowing the analytical lens.

As a result, coverage can overemphasize Japan’s social rigidities while underplaying its political stability, democratic resilience and contributions to regional security. When Japan takes steps to strengthen its defense posture in response to...