Japan Is Becoming More Accepting of Immigrants

Japan Is Becoming More Accepting of Immigrants

Japan, 2009

Minoru Matsutani, "Radical Immigration Plan under Discussion," The Japan Times, June 19, 2008, p. 1-3. Copyright © The Japan Times. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.

"'We will accept immigrants, not foreign workers, and let them live in Japan permanently.'"

Minoru Matsutani is a resident of Japan who was educated in the United States. He has written for a variety of publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Bloomberg News, and is a staff writer for The Japan Times, a daily English-language newspaper. The following viewpoint, taken from an article that appeared in the latter publication, discusses a plan that aims to bring ten million immigrants into Japan during the next fifty years, as well as to increase the number of foreign exchange students and refugees. The proposed plan attempts to address an anticipated labor shortage as Japan's population ages and birth rates decline.

As you read, consider the following questions:

%6. According to Matsutani, how would the proposed plan change the way immigrants to Japan are treated?

%6. How would the proposed immigration plan change citizenship laws, in the author's opinion?

%6. What are some fears about increasing the number of immigrants in Japan, noted by Matsutani?

Foreigners will have a much better opportunity to move to, or continue to live in, Japan under a new immigration plan drafted by Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] lawmakers to accept 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.

"The plan means [that some politicians] are seriously thinking about Japan's future," said Debito Arudou, who is originally from the United States but has lived in Japan for 20 years and became a naturalized citizen in 2000. "While it is no surprise by global standards, it is a surprisingly big step forward for Japan."

The group of some 80 lawmakers, led by former LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa, finalized the plan on June 12 [2008] and aims to submit it to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda....

The plan is "the most effective way to counter the labor shortage Japan is doomed to face amid a decreasing number of children," Nakagawa said.

Helping Immigrants Settle In

While establishing an environment to encourage women to continue to work while rearing children is important to counter the expected labor shortage, bringing in foreign workers is the best solution for immediate effect, said the plan's mastermind, Hidenori Sakanaka, director general of the private think tank Japan Immigration Policy Institute.

"We will train immigrants and make sure they get jobs and their families have decent lives," Sakanaka said in explaining the major difference between the new plan and current immigration policy. "We will take care of their lives, as opposed to the current policy, in which we demand only highly skilled foreigners or accept foreigners only for a few years to engage in simple labor."

Japan had 2.08 million foreign residents in 2006, accounting for 1.6 percent of the population of 128 million. Raising the total to 10 million, or close to 10 percent of the population, may sound bold but is actually modest considering that most European countries, not to mention the U.S., have already exceeded this proportion, Sakanaka said.

Fukuda outlined in a policy speech in January [2008] his aim to raise the number of foreign students to 300,000 from the current 130,000, but without specifying a timetable.

However, the immigration plan calls for the goal to be achieved soon and for the government to aim for 1 million foreign students by 2025. It also proposes accepting an annual 1,000 asylum seekers and other people who need protection for humanitarian reasons.

Advancing Human Rights

Akio Nakayama, manager of the Tokyo office of the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration, said the important thing about the new plan pitched by the LDP members is that it would guarantee better human rights for immigrants.

"The plan emphasizes that we will accept immigrants, not foreign workers, and let them live in Japan permanently," Nakayama said.

"The most remarkable point is that immigrants' family members are included," he said. "I have never seen this in similar proposals."

Also, he praised the plan for proposing changes to the resident registration law to allow children born in Japan to foreign parents to have Japanese citizenship. Under the current Nationality Law, one of the parents must be Japanese and the parents must be legally married for their children to have Japanese citizenship.

This provision, however, was recently ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, allowing 10 children born to Filipino mothers and Japanese fathers out of wedlock to gain the right to Japanese nationality.

The plan also includes establishing an entity to be called the Immigration Agency to integrate related duties that are now shared by multiple government bodies.

Among other proposals, the plan calls for extending the maximum duration of student and working visas to five years from the current three, easing the conditions for granting permanent resident status, setting up more Japanese-language and culture centers overseas and outlawing racism.

Establishing Legal Protections

Arudou, a foreigners' rights activist, noted the importance of establishing a legal basis for specifically banning discrimination against non-Japanese.

"Founding a legal basis is important because people do not become open just because the government opens the door," he said.

Also under the plan, the foreign trainee program, which supports Japanese companies and organizations that hire foreigners to work up to three years in Japan, would be abolished. Some trainees who have come to Japan under the program have sued their employers, claiming they have been abused with minimal pay and harsh working conditions.

While the researcher admitted immigrants would be better treated if the new plan were adopted and thus their motivation for committing crimes would decrease, he added: "But what if they lose their jobs? What if the economy worsens? We cannot take better care of unemployed immigrants than Japanese because we should treat them equally."

Goro Ono, author of Bringing Foreign Workers Ruins Japan, does not think bringing in immigrants is necessary.

Ono, an honorary professor at Saitama University, said he does not believe Japan is facing a labor shortage now or in the future.

"If industries where labor is in high demand pay adequate salaries, people will work there," he said.

Ono said nursing is a good example. Japan is actively bringing in Indonesians and other foreigners to cover a dire shortage because nurses here are woefully underpaid, he said, while on the other hand public entities never have trouble finding garbage collectors because they get decent salaries.

Ono also brought up the lack of discussion about the cost of preparing the infrastructure to accept more immigrants.

Sakanaka is ready to face such criticism just as all revolutionaries have in the past. His proposals would shake up Japan from the inside and it would be a historical moment if they all became law, he said.

"The Meiji Restoration was the first stage in opening up the country to foreigners," he said. "Now we are entering the second stage."

Further Readings

Books

%6. David Arase The Challenge of Change: East Asia in the New Millennium. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asia Studies, 2003.

%6. Daniel Barenblatt A Plague upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program. New York: HarperPerennial, 2005.

%6. Thomas Berger, Mike Mochizuki, and Jitsuo Tsuchiyama, eds. Japan in International Politics: The Foreign Policies of an Adaptive State. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007.

%6. Joseph Campbell Sake and Satori: Asian Journals, Japan. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002.

%6. Jennifer Chan, ed. Another Japan Is Possible: New Social Movements and Global Citizenship Education. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008.

%6. Ian Condry Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.

%6. Andrew Darby Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling. New York: Da Capo, 2008.

%6. Roger Davies The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 2002.

%6. Mike Douglass Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

%6. Patrick Drazen Anime Explosion! The What? Why? and Wow! of Japanese Animation. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge, 2003.

%6. Alexis Dudden Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. Irvington, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008.

%6. Bill Emmott Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2008.

%6. Bruce Feiler Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan. New York: HarperPerennial, 2004.

%6. Andrew Gordon A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

%6. Timothy Hornyak Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2006.

%6. Eiko Ikegami Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

%6. Lea Jacobson Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess. New York: St. Martin's, 2008.

%6. Pradyumna Karan Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2005.

%6. John Knight Waiting for Wolves in Japan: An Anthropological Study of People-Wildlife Relations. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.

%6. John Lie Multiethnic Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

%6. Alan MacFarlane Japan Through the Looking Glass. London: Profile Books, 2009.

%6. Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley, eds. Bad Girls of Japan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

%6. Minoru Morita Curing Japan's America Addiction: How Bush and Koizumi Destroyed Japan's Middle Class and What We Need to Do to Fix It. Seattle: Chin Music Press, 2008.

%6. Karen Nakamura Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.

%6. John Nathan Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2004.

%6. Kenneth Pyle Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose. New York: Public Affairs, 2007.

%6. Frank Schwartz and Susan Pharr, eds. The State of Civil Society in Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

%6. Robert Whiting The Samurai Way of Baseball: The Impact of Ichiro and the New Wave from Japan. New York: Grand Central, 2005.

%6. Kate T. Williamson A Year in Japan. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

%6. Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian, eds. Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.

%6. Michael Zielenziger Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation. New York: Vintage, 2007.

Periodicals

%6. Hannah Beech "The Wasted Asset: Japanese Women Are Smart and Entrepreneurial, So Why Is So Little Effort Made to Harness Their Talents?" Time International, August 29, 2005.

%6. Dennis Behreandt "The Japanese Robot Revolution," New American, November 13, 2006.

%6. Christopher Bjork and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi "Education in Japan: Competing Visions for the Future," Phi Delta Kappan, April 2005.

%6. Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi "The Gap Society," Newsweek International, November 12, 2007.

%6. Andy Coghlan "Autism Rises Despite MMR Ban in Japan," New Scientist, March 3, 2005.

%6. Economist "The Downturn: Greying Japan," January 7, 2006.

%6. Blaine Harden "Learn to Be Nice to Your Wife, or Pay the Price," Washington Post, November 26, 2007.

%6. William Hollingworth "'Institutional Racism' Lets Japan Spouses Abduct Kids," Japan Times, October 15, 2008.

%6. Junko Kumamoto-Healey "Women in the Japanese Labour Market, 1947-2003: A Brief Survey," International Labour Review, vol. 144, 2005.

%6. Leo Lewis "Japan Gripped by Suicide Epidemic," Times Online (London), June 19, 2008.

%6. Toru Maegawa "Human Rights Abuses on the Net," Japan Spotlight, January-February, 2008.

%6. Norimitsu Onishi "As Japan Ages, Prisons Adapt to Going Gray," New York Times, November 3, 2007.

%6. Hideko Takayama "Home Care: Watching Out for Mom," Newsweek, December 6, 2004.

Full Text:  COPYRIGHT 2009 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

Source Citation:

Matsutani, Minoru. "Japan Is Becoming More Accepting of Immigrants." The Japan Times (19 June 2008): 1-3. Rpt. in Japan. Ed. Karen Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.

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