He also called on South Korea, a country of more than 50 million people, to fight against the “left-leaning elite” and keep itself safe from the “menace” of the Chinese Communist Party. Over the course of his 40-minute speech, Kirk also mentioned the country’s birth rate — the world’s lowest — and said it was up to South Koreans to keep their country from “disappearing.”
“It’s not just morally wrong to not have children,” he said, dismissing widespread concerns about the country’s rising cost of living, education and housing. “If you look at it in historical terms, it’s pathetic.”
After South Korea, Kirk left for Tokyo, where he has also steadily gained popularity. He made similar appeals in Japan, including the need to increase the birth rate, which fell to a record low last year in the nation of more than 120 million.
He was invited to speak at a lecture organized by Japan’s far-right party, Sanseito, whose “Japanese first” credo is inspired by Trump’s MAGA movement. The party made big gains in the July upper house election after warning about a “silent invasion” of immigrants.
Previous rallies by the party, which has grown from a fringe anti-vaccination group to a mainstream political force, have called for greater restrictions on foreign workers and investment. Its leader, Sohei Kamiya, who is sometimes described as a “mini Trump,” has dismissed allegations of xenophobia.
Sitting next to a Sanseito lawmaker, Kirk said he hoped to “invigorate the people of your great nation to keep fighting this globalist menace.”
“We’re in a big fight against globalism,” Kirk said in the video, which was posted by the party ahead of the event.
Kirk said he was “thrilled” to see a “growing political movement” in Japan that was “fighting the same things we believe in,” telling CNN in an interview there that if the country were to receive a large influx of foreigners, “Japan’s not Japan anymore.”
“That’s not xenophobia, it’s common sense,” he said.
Foreign-born residents make up just 3% of the population in Japan, far lower than in the U.S. and many other countries. But their number rose more than 10% last year to a record of almost 3.8 million, according to the Immigration Services Agency.
Kamiya said on X that he was “stunned” and “heartbroken” by Kirk’s death.
“We had promised to meet again at his year-end event and had begun to imagine the work we would take on together,” he said.
“We will honor him in the only way worthy of his example: by treasuring what we received from him, by telling it faithfully, and by carrying it forward — here in Japan and beyond.”