Stuck between the need for labor and nationalism, Japan’s immigration policy is taboo

J.Japan’s migration policy, driven by a persistent distrust of foreigners despite a growing labor shortage, can often be summed up as “one step forward, two steps back.”

The reform of entry conditions for asylum seekers came into force on June 10, speeding up procedures and facilitating the expulsion of those whose applications have been rejected. The revision in March of the framework of “technical trainees”, reserved for young foreigners wishing to train in Japanese companies, offers better protection but also withdraws permanent resident status from those who commit a serious offense – assault, theft, entry by break-in or failure to pay taxes.

Organizations denouncing double punishment have met with few responses. The Japanese Minister of Justice, Ryuji Koizumi, was able to emphasize the importance of “crack down on those who break the rules” in order to “create a society where Japanese and foreigners respect each other”.

To say that the subject of immigration remains sensitive in the country, faced with a growing labor shortage since the 1970s, would be an understatement. Glenda Roberts, from Waseda University in Tokyo, even speaks of a “taboo of the “i-word”, as if people hesitate to pronounce it.

On May 24, Prime Minister Fumio Kishid quoted former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a 2018 policy speech. “In order to preserve the country, the government does not intend to adopt a so-called immigration policy by accepting foreigners and their families without imposing limits on their stay.”

A policy of last resort

In the 2020 article “Keeping the Door Closed,” published in the Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies (EJCJS), Chris Burgess of the University of Tsuda (near Tokyo) wrote: “The strong persistence of the ‘non-immigration’ principle can be explained by the narrative of homogeneity.

Earlier that year, according to AP News, the highly nationalist Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, forgetting that the archipelago is home to minorities such as the Ainu and Koreans, declared: “no other country has lasted two thousand years with a single language, a single ethnic group and a single dynasty.

From this idea comes the perception – well-founded or not – of immigration as a destabilizing factor in a country attached to its security and stability. The media regularly report on problems abroad, such as the riots in France in July 2023 or the sexual violence against women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015, after Germany took in 1.1 million refugees.

“Given the severity of the immigration problem in Europe and the United States, the choice Japan must make is clear,” wrote Zakzak Hiroshi Ohara of the Institute for Human Economic Sciences in August 2023. When you invite someone into your home, you need to make sure they follow your house rules. »

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