Step 1: Donate to Sameer Project here (sugg. donation $40)

Step 2: Register for “Rival Enemy Laptog” here

Over the past month, the U.S. and Israel have escalated their war on West Asia by attacking Iran without provocation. In hindsight, the U.S.-Israeli genocide of Gaza that erupted in 2023 in response to the world-shattering Al Aqsa Flood was never an isolated act, but merely the front line of a regional and now global war on all those who refuse to surrender their sovereignty to US-led imperialist control.

While East Asia has remained relatively quiet thus far, Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi’s recent visit to the White House sparked unprecedented outrage from the Japanese people. As the U.S.’s war on Iran and the resulting restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz threaten to embroil the whole world in war, how should we make sense of the US’s longtime and arguably most loyal ally and proxy in the region?

This workshop will contextualize the often contradictory messages that those on the western left receive about Japan, showing how its postwar consolidation as a u.s. proxy state retained significant elements of its prewar fascism and ethnonationalism. We will discuss how and why Japan has variously been positioned as an enemy, rival and ally of the u.s. in order to make sense of what is likely to come as the u.s. inches closer to confrontation with its super-rival, the Peoples Republic of China.

Wendy Matsumura is the author of two books on Japanese colonialism, capitalist development, and anti-imperialist resistance in Okinawa. Her latest is Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan’s Empire (Duke UP, 2024). When purchased through Open Books at the link above, all proceeds will be donated to the Sameer Project.