Former ambassador Yamagami Shingo is again shaping Australian political debate. His nationalist commentary, partisan interventions and revisionist views deserve scrutiny before his attacks are treated as the voice of Japan.

Yamagami Shingo, once Japanese Ambassador to Australia and now energetic right-wing vlogger, must be laughing up his sleeve. That’s the sleeve where, as he reveals in a recent podcast, he wears a cufflink decorated with the Japanese military flag. Yamagami describes this as a wonderful symbol, to be worn with pride. His enthusiasm for the rising-sun-flag-with-rays reflects his denial of historical events such as the Nanjing Massacre and his repeated denunciations of the postwar Tokyo Trials. The former diplomat wants the Japanese government to convince the rest of the world that the story of a massacre in Nanjing was just wartime propaganda invented to ‘demonise’ Japan, and that the war crimes trials were nothing more than victor’s revenge.

Since leaving Canberra unexpectedly early in 2023, Yamagami has used his credentials as an ‘Australia expert’ to boost his career as influencer, reflected in a new series of ten-minute Youtube vodcasts.  The videos, recorded against the stirring musical background of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, reveal an almost obsessive fascination with Australia, combining lyrical reflections on the beauties of life in Canberra with recurrent attacks on selected Australian targets.

Yamagami’s bête noir is Kevin Rudd. In a recent episode, he ridicules Rudd’s for suggesting that Australia and Japan, as middle powers, should cooperate to maintain peace and security in an unstable global order. “Don’t lump Australia and Japan together,” commands Yamagami. Canada, Australia, Korea, Turkey and places like that, they are middle powers: Japan, on the contrary, is “a proper great power”. His scathing appraisal of Rudd emphatically identifies Anthony Albanese as Rudd’s former deputy prime minister and (implicitly) as his lap dog.

This behaviour is, to put it mildly, un-diplomatic. But Yamagami’s recent op-ed attack, on Albo’s tongue-in-cheek comment about a gift of melons from Japanese prime minister Takaichi Sanae, has squarely hit its target. Commissioned by The Australian newspaper, his article’s message has been eagerly amplified by Australian politicians and other media outlets who are either unaware of, or very happy to overlook, the ex-ambassador’s wider views of Australia and the world.

Yamagami’s verbal missile is being presented to the public as the voice of the Japanese nation. The sensibilities of Japan’s people, we are told, have been profoundly offended. One wonders, in that case, how Koreans and Chinese feel about ex-ambassador Yamagami’s public comment (in yet another podcast) that “they look like us, so we think we can understand them, but that’s where we get it wrong”. Japanese, he suggests, should give up trying to comprehend Koreans and Chinese, because they have an entirely alien worldview – illustrated by the fact that the people of both these enigmatic neighbouring nations are bewildered by the Japanese use of modest flushing sounds to cover the embarrassing noises made by toilet users.

Yamagami’s outrage at Albanese’s ‘sexist’ melon remarks sits cheek-by-jowl with the ex-diplomat’s mockery of the idea that a woman might be allowed to succeed to Japan’s imperial throne. Although Japan has, in the past, had no less than eight female emperors, Yamagami enthusiastically endorses a recent law which debars the very popular Princess Aiko – the only child of the current Japanese emperor – from ever ascending to the throne. The notion of a woman emperor, scoffs Yamagami, is driven by trendy ideas about “LGBT, gender equity, equality, diversity and multicultural coexistence”, all which threaten to “overthrow Japanese traditions and history” and are an insult to the ancestors.

Even during his posting in Canberra, Yamagami was noted for forms of behaviour unusual in diplomatic circles. The Financial Review reported at the time that “Mr Yamagami’s strident style and outspoken comments have been raising eyebrows for months in Japan, where political leaders and the country’s diplomats are usually notoriously reserved in their public commentary.”

As ambassador, Yamagami made no effort to conceal his partiality for one side of Australian politics. In 2023, for example, he went on air side-by-side with Tony Abbott in a Sky News interview where Abbott praised Yamagami for his blunt anti-Chinese statements, describing him as “one of the really outstanding diplomats.” Yamagami, known in Japanese diplomatic circles as ‘the wolf warrior’, departed Canberra soon after, but his return to Tokyo has only enhanced his passion for meddling in Australian partisan politics.

We can debate whether Albanese’s now-notorious melon comments – “she brought two, as you do” and “she brought two, and they are beautiful” – are offensive. But the debate should be conducted in the knowledge that Yamagami Shingo does not speak for the people of Japan. Japanese citizens have far more important things to worry about than Albo’s melon jokes: things like Prime Minister Takaichi’s desire to remove the peace clause from the Japanese constitution; things like the desire of Yamagami and his fellow right-wingers for Japanese naval forces (regardless of the peace clause) to be sent to serve in the war-torn Middle East.

Australians, too, have more important questions to consider, like: why would so many of our opposition politicians and powerful media outlets flock to dance to Yamagami Shingo’s tune?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.