Ian Buruma explains why Japan has been "immune" to right-wing populism, which has swept both sides of the Atlantic and parts of Asia. Demagogues have risen to power by tapping into popular resentment towards globalisation. Unlike the relentless tide of anti-establishment that has engulfed the US and Europe, he says the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, a scion of one of Japan's famous political dynasties, has not been hit.

The author says the absence of anti-elite sentiment in Japan has much its egalitarianian soiciety to thank for. In the West, the globalised economy, the wealth and income gaps had contributed to social inequality in the past two decades. This enables populists to stoke anger that serves them as a springboard into politics, reaching out to those who have not benefited from globalisation and feel left behind by the political and financial leaders.

Modern Japan is widely hailed as the most equal country among the major economies in the world, and egalitarian ethic runs deep in Japanese corporate culture, with CEOs earning much less than their American counterparts. A 2017 survey of global wealth by Credit Suisse shows that Japan is the poster child in terms of wealth distribution. Average Japanese have a higher saving rate than people elesewhere, as saving is deeply ingrained in the Japanese culture.

The core of disenchanted voters who supported Brexit and Trump's election are relatively uneducated people, middle-age or older, who live in rural areas. In Japan, that is the group that commands the most political power, and the frustrated have an outlet for their demands in the political centre itself. The country has also learned from its popular resentments in the 1930s, when "bankers, businessmen, and politicians who in their view were corrupting the Japanese polity."

The 2008 financial crisis hit the West hard, opening the floodgates of populism. As Japan had never recovered from the prolonged stagnation of the 1990s the country did not experience any major social upheaval. The Japanese government had bought itself political stability by doubling the social security budget. Universal health insurance and health outcomes are among the best in the world, and Japanese children lead the world in literacy and numercy.

While anti-globalists in the West see immigration as the source of their economic grievances, there has not been a strong backlash against globalisation in Japan because it has very strict immigration laws. Besides its economy "remains one of the most protected and least globalised in the developed world." But public debt - some 240% of GDP in 2016 compared to some 50% in 1980 - keeps ballooning to fund social security, and that is unsustainable.

The author says, "Japanese governments have resisted the neoliberalism promoted in the West since the Reagan/Thatcher years: corporate interests, bureaucratic privileges, and pork-barrel politics of various kinds. But preserving pride in employment, at the cost of efficiency, is one of them." Yet Japanese have other concerns: Low birthrates and an aging population have presented recent governments with a policy conundrum - how a shrinking workforce will shoulder the high social welfare costs in the coming decades.

Abe is a right-wing populist. But he does not tap into economic grievances but invoke nationalism, receiving the support of hyper-nationalists. He sympathises with their fringe positions and has unified the country simply by promoting patriotic symbolism, which has alienated China and South Korea. In foreign affairs, he cultivates an air of nationalism, but in fact exercises a form of realist pragmatism. He was Obama's strongest ally in forging this Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which was shelved by Trump on day one in office. Now Abe seeks to revive the TPP without the US, although Japanese farmers are not enthusiastic about it.