Miyazaki has sometimes been considered a pacifist, and some of his earlier works indeed warned of the dangers of war and other social ills. However, he has undoubtedly moved to the right.
In an essay he published only a couple of days before The Wind Rises, for example, Miyazaki voices support for the Japanese “Self Defense Forces” missions in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, supposedly because Japanese troops didn’t fire a single shot and suffered no casualties.
The filmmaker rejects his previous admiration for “neutral countries like Switzerland or Sweden,” arguing that armament is necessary “to a degree,” and warns about the “expansion of China.” He questions the international division of work from the standpoint of national self-reliance and blames “overpopulation” for war, claiming Japan should have a population of “around 35 million,” without explaining what should be done with the remaining 90 million or so people!
On the domestic front, Miyazaki accepts austerity measures uncritically: “We have to become poorer inch by inch. It’s the way it is, and it can’t be helped.” So rather than having “hopes for the future,” one must focus on the present: friends, family, work. Lastly, he dismisses prevalent “anxieties” of the younger generation, saying, “So in the past, there were no worries? … If you’re in good health and working, that’s enough. If there’s no work, make your own.”
Miyazaki does not openly glorify imperialism and war, but his promotion of militarist symbols such as the Zero fighter, his equivocal position on World War II and war in general and his appeals for a focus on the purely private, immediate sphere objectively help to disarm his audience in the face of such dangers as the next regional or world war, which would immediately involve his native Japan too.
These political and social positions inevitably lead to a deplorable stance in regard to artistic questions. In the same interview Miyazaki was also asked: “You say you can’t be responsible for anything that happens beyond your figurative boundary, but in reality you are influencing countless people through your films. What do you say about that?” The filmmaker replies: “I make films as a business, not as a cultural endeavor. My films just happened to be successful. If people weren’t interested in what I make, my company would go belly up in no time.” A very limited outlook indeed.