Present-day Perception
According to polls conduced by mainstream media, most Japanese people had perceived the flag of Japan as the national flag even before the passage of the Law Regarding the National Flag and National Anthem in 1999. Despite this, controversies surrounding the use of the flag in school events or media still remain. For example, liberal newspapers such as Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun often feature articles critical of the flag of Japan, reflecting their readerships' political spectrum.
The display of the Hinomaru at homes and businesses is also debated in Japanese society. Because of the association of the Hinomaru with uyoku dantai (right wing) activists, reactionary politics, or hooliganism, some homes and businesses do not fly the flag. To other Japanese, the flag represents the time where democracy was suppressed when Japan was an empire. The Japanese Communist Party is vocally against the flag.
Negative perceptions of the Hinomaru exist in former colonies of Japan as well as within Japan itself, such as in Okinawa. In one notable example of this, on October 26, 1987, an Okinawan supermarket owner burned the Hinomaru before the start of the National Sports Festival of Japan. The flag burner, Shōichi Chibana, burned the Hinomaru not only to show opposition to atrocities committed by the Japanese army and the continued presence of U.S. forces, but also to prevent it from being displayed in public. Other incidents in Okinawa included the flag being torn down during school ceremonies and students refusing to honor the flag as it was being raised to the sounds of Kimigayo. In the People's Republic of China and South Korea, both of which had been occupied by the Empire of Japan, the 1999 formal adoption of the Hinomaru was met with reactions of Japan moving towards the right and also a step towards remilitarization. The passage of the 1999 law also coincided with the debates about the status of Yasukuni, US-Japan military cooperation and the creation of a missile defense. In other nations that Japan occupied, the 1999 law was met with mixed reactions or glossed over. In Singapore, the older generation still harbors ill feelings toward the flag while the younger generation does not hold similar views. The Philippines government not only believed that Japan was not going to revert back to militarism, but the goal of the 1999 law was to formally establish two symbols (the flag and anthem) in law and every state has a right to create national symbols. Japan has no law criminalizing the burning of the Hinomaru, but foreign flags cannot be burned in Japan.
Read more about this topic: Flag Of Japan
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