Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA resonated with concerned Japanese and South Koreans, facing their own battle against globalism and a trail of social and moral destruction. A growing number of young people in Japan and South Korea have seen how thoroughly cultural Marxism has corrupted the West, especially the U.S., and do not want any part of it. Especially worrying is that the U.S. is a key ally against the Chinese Communist Party. If the U.S. falls, Japan and South Korea will not go unscathed.
Thus, Kirk was invited to speak in South Korea on September 5 and 6, 2025, and then in Japan on September 7, before the start of his North American Comeback Tour, September 10.
Build Up Korea, the largest youth conservative movement in South Korea, hosted Kirk’s two-day visit. With a less-than-replacement birth rate, due in part to radical feminism and weakening social bonds, leftist Korean media and politicians clamor for more immigrants — as they are worldwide — as the only solution to extinction. To this, Kirk countered, “Get married, have more children, return to the Bible.”
South Korea is, in fact, in the grip of radical feminism, which casts men as the primary obstacle to an individualist, hedonistic lifestyle and raising a family as a burden. The current leftists in government also feels the need to harass conservative Christian churches. A fundamental change in thinking will be necessary to rescue the Korean people from themselves. Thus, Kirk encouraged Korean youths to “change politics in your life now,” to bring like-minded friends to the polls, recalling his activism that brought Donald Trump back to the White House.
Indeed, it was Kirk’s and Turning Point USA’s outreach to youths that is the key appeal to South Korean and Japanese conservative groups.
After his visit to South Korea, Kirk remarked on how clean and safe Seoul was, compared to the crime-ridden and multicultural mess that is many American cities.
After Kirk’s murder, Korean celebrities who paid respect to Kirk were chided by Korean leftists. As in the U.S., celebrities who placed career over personal convictions quickly took down their social media posts or apologized, crying that they did not “fully understand the late activist’s political stance.”
Following South Korea, Kirk spoke in Tokyo with the Sanseito, the so-called “Do It Yourself” Party. Sanseito is smeared as “far-right,” “xenophobic,” and so on by leftist media and activists, as they do to people and groups who do no not embrace globalism and rally against DIE and transgender “rights.” In fact, Sanseito, founded in part on Trump’s themes of national strength and “America First,” “emphasizes traditional values, pride in history and the overreach of globalization.”
In contrast to Korean media, Japanese (English-language) media had almost nothing to say while Kirk was in Japan. One of the few conservative Japanese media outlets that mentioned his visit stated that Kirk spoke on “education, civic participation and cooperation among movements critical of globalism.” As in Korea, he stressed the importance of youths getting their voices heard in the political process. He reiterated the critical role young people have in the fight against globalism: “The same things that we have been fighting for here, whether it be lawfare in South Korea or mass migration in Japan — this is a worldwide phenomenon.” While in Tokyo, Kirk illustrated Japanese fears should globalists succeed in destroying Japan’s borders: “If you put 30 million Pakistanis in Japan, Japan’s not Japan anymore.”
Following Kirk’s assassination, nominally conservative Japanese media smugly pointed fingers at America’s gun culture and heated rhetoric as causes. Leftist media shrugged and stated that he had it coming. Japan is not immune to attacks on political figures by morally vacuous, unhinged individuals. Former prime minister, and Trump’s close associate, Shinzo Abe was assassinated in 2022 — with a homemade gun. A pipe bomb was thrown at then–prime minister Fumio Kishida in 2023. (He escaped unharmed.)
Incidentally, these acts could be classed as what FBI director Kash Patel recently called “nihilistic violence” — that is, violence motivated by a deep hatred of society. Given the Japanese elite’s and leftist media’s drive to crush native Japanese culture and impose cultural Marxism in its place, one can expect more “nihilistic violence” in the future.
The struggle against globalism and its handmaiden, mass migration, indeed requires cooperation everywhere. It would do both Japan and South Korea much good to find inspiration from another dynamic American who stands against globalism.
However, much housecleaning is needed within both Japan and South Korea. People who have a backbone like Kirk, who will neither grovel in apology nor back down from cherished core values, are sorely needed as examples and leaders. In this respect, everyone, Japanese, South Koreans and Americans, has room to grow.
Image: Charlie Kirk. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.