By Fumihiko Takeda

Human beings are strange creatures. At times, they perform acts whose meaning even other human beings cannot readily understand.

Recently, Japanese television broadcast Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi entering a press-conference room and bowing deeply to the Japanese national flag placed behind and slightly to the right of where she was to stand.

When she bowed to the flag, she naturally turned her back toward the cameras and, therefore, toward the citizens watching her on television.

She bowed her head to the flag while turning her back—and, for a moment, a large part of her backside—to the people.

Perhaps it is merely my malicious interpretation, but I could not help feeling that this unintentionally symbolized the attitude of the Takaichi administration toward the Japanese people.

More fundamentally, I do not understand why a prime minister bows to the national flag.

What exactly does the flag mean to Prime Minister Takaichi? Does she make a wish when she bows to it? Is she praying? Is she expressing gratitude to the Japanese state? Or is she presenting herself to the public as a model, implicitly telling citizens that they, too, should visibly demonstrate reverence for the nation?

Does she also bow to the flag when no one is watching? Does she bow to flags she encounters in the street? Does she bow each time she sees a flag at her private residence, at the Prime Minister’s Office, or in the Diet?

Prime Minister Takaichi is, of course, free as an individual to bow to the national flag. My concern is not the isolated act of bowing itself. My concern is that the person occupying the highest position of political power repeatedly displays deep reverence for the flag on television while, under the same government, a law has been enacted to punish those who damage that flag.

Two Years of Imprisonment for Damaging a Flag

On July 24, 2026, Japan promulgated the Act on the Punishment of Damage and Other Acts Concerning the National Flag. It is scheduled to take effect on August 13.

Article 2 provides:

A person who publicly damages, removes, or defaces the national flag in a manner likely to cause people extreme discomfort or disgust shall be punished by imprisonment for up to two years or a fine of up to 200,000 yen.

I do not regard burning, tearing, or defacing a national flag as refined or commendable conduct. I have no objection to telling people, “It would be better not to do such a thing.”

But punishing such conduct with as much as two years of imprisonment is grossly excessive.

Suppose a university student becomes intensely angry at the government and burns a flag as a symbolic act of political protest. Two years of imprisonment could destroy that student’s education and seriously damage the rest of his or her life. Young people who know that such a punishment awaits them will naturally become obedient and silent.

Is that not the law’s real effect?

I am not encouraging anyone to burn the flag. I am asking whether the state should be permitted to suppress political protest through criminal punishment merely because the protest involved damaging an object called the national flag.

Japanese citizens have had good reason to become angry at political power. They have witnessed secret political slush funds received by members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the concealment of relationships between politicians and the Unification Church, and the sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen at a price drastically below its appraised value.

Around the world, people sometimes express their anger at those in power by directing a symbolic act against the flag revered by those rulers. If the government punishes that act, is it not ultimately punishing a form of expression that is deeply offensive to the government itself?

The Danger of Protecting “Public Sentiment” Through Criminal Law

The danger of this law is not limited to protecting the flag as a physical object.

The supplementary provision concerning a review of the law after approximately three years expressly identifies its purpose as ensuring that the law is “necessary and sufficient to protect the sentiments of citizens who value the national flag.”

This is an extremely serious matter. The state is attempting to use criminal punishment to protect one particular kind of public sentiment.

The feelings of people who value the flag are protected. The feelings of those who use the flag to protest against the government are punished. The state selects one sentiment as the correct national sentiment and excludes the opposing sentiment through criminal law.

The wording of Article 2—“in a manner likely to cause people extreme discomfort or disgust”—is also dangerously vague.

What causes extreme discomfort differs from person to person. Ultimately, the police, prosecutors, and courts will decide what is sufficiently offensive.

Article 3 states that, in applying the law, care must be taken not to “unduly infringe” freedom of expression or other constitutional rights. But merely instructing authorities to take care does not guarantee that freedom of expression will actually be protected.

What grave inconvenience has Japan suffered because this law did not previously exist? I see no convincing evidence that the supposed necessity of the law has been weighed against the freedom that may be destroyed by two years of imprisonment.

America Protected Freedom, Not the Flag

Prime Minister Takaichi and the Liberal Democratic Party attach supreme importance to the United States in matters ranging from national security to economic policy. Before enacting this law, did they examine the American position on flag desecration?

Americans generally display far greater public attachment to their flag than Japanese citizens do. The Stars and Stripes can be seen at schools, government buildings, private homes, and sports stadiums throughout the country.

Nevertheless, in Texas v. Johnson in 1989, the United States Supreme Court held that burning the American flag as an act of political protest was expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.

Congress subsequently enacted the Flag Protection Act. In United States v. Eichman in 1990, the Supreme Court struck down that federal law as unconstitutional as well.

The United States did not reach these decisions because Americans held their flag in contempt. Although patriotic attachment to the flag was extraordinarily strong, the Court refused to allow that sentiment to be used as a justification for silencing dissenters through criminal punishment.

The fundamental American principle was that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds that idea offensive or disagreeable.

Loving the flag and compelling citizens to love the flag are not the same thing. They are opposites.

If citizens have the freedom to honor the flag, they must also have the freedom not to salute it. If they have the freedom to display it, they must also have the freedom to use it in political protest.

Patriotism is not proof of obedience to the government.

Making Patriotism Visible

The repeated public display of a political leader bowing to the flag creates another danger: a society in which patriotism is measured through visible conduct.

Those who bow to the flag are deemed patriotic. Those who do not bow are suspected of lacking patriotism. Those who display the flag are considered good citizens, while those who criticize it are regarded as rebellious.

If this way of thinking spreads, the freedom not to bow to the flag will disappear—not necessarily through an explicit law, but through social pressure.

The danger is particularly serious in schools. If teachers and students bow to the flag and one child refuses, that child may be accused of lacking patriotism or even of hating Japan. The child may be subjected to bullying or ostracism.

The new law does not directly punish a person for refusing to bow to the flag. But once the state begins using criminal punishment to protect the feelings of people who value the flag, society may move toward excluding those who do not display the expected reverence.

Rulers are seldom satisfied with verbal obedience. They want citizens to share their values sincerely and completely. Yet even the most powerful ruler cannot directly enter another person’s mind.

The ruler therefore looks for visible evidence of loyalty: bowing, singing, saluting, and displaying the flag.

The national flag can consequently become an instrument by which citizens are tested and classified—a political test of loyalty.

The Deep Bow of Prewar Japan

Before Japan’s defeat in 1945, schools maintained special structures or chambers known as hoanden or hoanko. These housed the official imperial portraits of the Emperor and Empress, known as the Goshin’ei, together with the Imperial Rescript on Education.

Pupils and teachers were required to make the deepest formal bow when passing these sacred repositories.

The imperial portraits were sometimes treated as more valuable than human life. School principals who died attempting to save them from fires were praised as loyal martyrs.

The Peace Preservation Law, enacted in 1925, was amended in 1928 to introduce the death penalty as its maximum punishment. Its reach expanded beyond communists to religious believers, liberals, and people suspected of antiwar thought.

No one in mainland Japan was executed solely for violating the Peace Preservation Law. Nevertheless, many people were arrested, tortured, imprisoned, forced to renounce their beliefs, and in some cases died in custody.

Such a society did not emerge in a single step.

The state first distinguished correct ideas from dangerous ideas, and approved sentiments from disloyal sentiments. It then demanded visible evidence of loyalty. Through the accumulation of such measures, Japan eventually created a society in which dissenters were condemned as hikokumin—unpatriotic traitors—and silenced.

I am not claiming that Prime Minister Takaichi’s bow to the flag is itself equivalent to the repression conducted under the Peace Preservation Law.

I am saying that the public display of flag reverence by the prime minister, combined with a law using criminal punishment to protect “the sentiments of citizens who value the national flag,” suggests that Japan has begun steering once again in a dangerous direction.

Bow to the People Before Bowing to the Flag

As a physical object, the national flag is a piece of white cloth bearing a red circle. It symbolizes Japan only because the Japanese people give it that meaning.

The flag does not create the people. The people create the meaning of the flag.

The flag must therefore never be placed above the people. If the government deprives citizens of their freedom in order to protect the flag, the proper relationship between the people and their national symbol has been completely reversed.

I am not demanding that Prime Minister Takaichi be prohibited from bowing to the flag. If she wishes to bow, she is free to do so.

But I oppose presenting that act as a model of patriotism while simultaneously punishing those who damage the flag.

Patriotism is, by its nature, a profound inner conviction. It cannot be measured by the government, nor can it be proved by the angle of a person’s bow.

If a government wants its citizens to respect the national flag, it does not need criminal punishment. It should instead practice honest and just government so that citizens will naturally come to value their country.

If political leaders truly respect Japan, they should bow to the sovereign people before bowing deeply to a piece of cloth.

A government that bows to the flag while turning its back on the people cannot be called a patriotic government.

Fumihiko Takeda is the founder and Representative of the Lincoln Club, an independent political and policy research organization that he established in Japan on November 19, 1993. The Lincoln Club is his own organization and is not affiliated with, or a branch of, any organization in the United States.

In 1974, he founded the Cooperative Center, an information service company that conducted research and analysis for Japanese government agencies and major newspapers. In 1977, he established the Institute for Ultimate Democracy and has since devoted his career to the study of democracy, constitutional reform, electoral systems, and institutional design.

From 2006 to 2014, he served as a lecturer at the Graduate School of Law, Keio University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on democratic governance and political reform, including works on direct democracy, constitutional issues, and election systems. His policy proposals have been discussed in major Japanese publications and public policy forums.