Quote:
Originally Posted by Umihito
Similar to what the UK is doing with it's declining population. The UK is bringing in many Polish immigrants to fill gaps by a declining population.
Do you think something similar will happen to Japan in which it'll bring in more immigrants? Where do you think they'll come from if they do?
Or do you think that Japan will tough it out with the population they have?
I personally hope they do not increase immigration, I think Japan is best staying as a homogeneous nation.  |
I think it's helpful to understand that Japan currently does have measures in place to facilitate immigration. And, for qualified foreign workers and foreign students at Japanese colleges and universities, in many cases it is far easier to secure a valid work visa for Japan than it would be for the United States. Moreover, unlike other countries where they use the law to tie foreign workers to their employers/visa sponsors - foreigners in Japan are entitled to the same provisions under the Labor Standards Act as Japanese. In other words, once a foreign worker gets his/her visa, if they can find another willing employer & sponsor, they can switch as any Japanese worker could. Also, the ability to later transition to a more permanent status like
Permanent Residency or even full-blown Naturalization is totally possible.
So, if Japan were to suddenly decide that they wanted to significantly cut down on immigration, they'd have to pull many of the existing visa categories and allowances.
As for the equivalent of "Polish workers", Japan has run some immigration experiments in the past. Their first and foremost concern however was not to repeat the "mistakes" of the British and Europeans who many decades ago allowed for "guest workers" from former African colonies, Turkey to fill blue-collar labor shortages and also from a sense of post-colonial "guilt". What they did not expect initially was that the "guest workers" ended up staying with many assimilating but a significant percentage remaining in relative poverty, unemployment and ultimately feeling disenfranchised culminating in race riots in France, Italy etc. It's this last bit that the Japanese really don't want to recreate.
Ironically, when they created a special visa class for South Americans of Japanese descent around 1990, the Japanese government assumed that being of Japanese-descent these workers would better assimilate into Japanese society. They discovered that for the most part they were wrong. Many did not pick up the language and when the demand for semi-skilled labor in automotive and manufacturing dried up, they lacked the skills to transition to other areas (plus they were seen as disposable by most employers).
Meanwhile, back in the 1980's, another segment of Japanese immigrants was being developed -- totally unintentionally. They were foreign students - mostly from China - sent over to study at Japanese universities at all levels. The original intent was for them to study and return to China but things like Tiananmen Square in 1989 as well as a realization that living in Japan might be better than China resulted in many of them staying here for good. Many now work in professional occupations and some are CEOs of companies including one on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Sometime they use their Chinese names but often they are known by the Japanese-version of their names (eg. Hayashi instead of Lim) so they do not necessarily stand out. There are probably about 650,000 of them right now in Japan. However, there is generally little mention about them in the press except for occasional articles like these:
Chasing the Japanese Dream -- Printout -- TIME For one, they were not the product of any specific government policy -- so nothing for them to "take credit". Also, it seems more popular to slag the stereotype around of them being mostly illegal aliens working in dirty hard labor jobs in Chinatown and committing crimes. Too bad. Check the numbers if you do not believe me.
Immigration in Japan is happening. However the process and results might not be that visible due to the factors previously described.