TOKYO, March 24, 2022—A group of three elderly people were standing quietly with placards that read ‘No War’ on the sidewalk across the busy street from the Russian Embassy in Tokyo in an early spring weather on March 17, 2020. They were far outnumbered by policemen and police cars. That was it. There were no other people protesting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in front of the embassy during that day’s midmorning as pedestrians hurried to their destinations gawking at or tightly holding their smart phones as if the embassy does not exist or they don’t know what’s happening 8,200 kilometers northwest of Japan.
At the Ukraine Embassy in Tokyo about two kilos from the Russian embassy, bouques of flowers and letters of condolensces were laid at the front door. There were no people in sight and when I pressed the door button,, a young lady opened the door and told me that the embassy staff were too busy to talk, asking that I make an appointment via their e-mail address. As we talked, an old couple showed up to drop donations to the embassy’s mailbox.
The Diet (Japanese parliament) area was even more quiet and as Japan being a sunset country politically, diplomatically and economically, visiting there is recent years always has been psychologically depressing. And it was especially so because there was no trace of Japanese citizens in the front game or back or sides of the building: Only cops and Diet security guards looking visibly bored standing here and there and everywhere and police cars and buses plus who looked like parliamentarians’ secretaries and Diet employees walking briskly to their destinations.
Street demonstrations against Russia and supporting Ukraine were hold in Tokyo’s Shibuya and Shinjuku districts over the past one month. The Shibuya rally drew some 4,000 people, according to Japanese news reports, and the Shinjuku demonstration a few dozens. Less than 2,000 Ukrainians live in Japan.
As a whole, Japan remains forlornly quiet.
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Insight Into the Future