Hatoyama wants to make it easier for foreigners to live in Japan
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama made some remarks on Saturday about Japan’s policy towards foreigners who settle and work in Japan:
Japan has some of the world’s strictest controls on immigration, and Hatoyama admitted that he was broaching a “sensitive issue”.
But he said that as well as introducing pro-family policies, Japan should attempt to encourage migrants to live and work there.
“I think Japan should also make itself a country attractive to people so that more and more people, including tourists, hope to visit Japan, hope to live and work in Japan,” he said on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit
“I am not sure if I can call this ‘immigration policy’, but what’s important is to create an environment that is friendly to people all around the world so that they voluntarily live in Japan,” he said.
Just talk, or a sign of serious policy change in the future?
Immigration-related news link that doesn’t deserve its own post: Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, the Japanese mother of “Balloon Boy” has avoided deportation by pleading guilty to a class three misdemeanor.
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I think it’s always good to make things easier for immigrating and whatnot, but again, it seems like Japan is always held to different standards.
Most other nations would be lauded for making immigration controls stricter and making it harder to immigrate. Examples of rampant illegal immigration and whatnot are given as reasons. Also, it’s not racist to link crimes to illegal immigration (or even legal immigrants) in other nations besides Japan.
Yet, when the Japan government is perceived to be unduly harsh on immigration, that is a sign of Japanese xenophobia.
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I’ve been living in Japan for about 20 years. I think the Japanese government has treated be very fairly. They’ve even made many improvements in being able to get things like 3 year multiple reentry permits. Hiring English speaking staff and training them to be polite and courteous. I haven’t had any great trouble at the airports entering or departing.
My own home country of the U.S. recently treats us like cattle going through the airport security checks.
There is always room for improvement but one of the things that I like about Japan is that not just everyone from any country can easily arrive and just start residing here. My native California culture has been destroyed by the influx of millions upon millions of Mexican’s that have taken over the state and have returned it basically back to another state of Mexico. I have nothing against Mexicans or their culture but if I wanted to live in Mexico I’d move to Mexico. There are just too many of them in California.
I hope Hatoyama doesn’t lighted up too much and start letting millions upon millions of foreigners easily arrive and reside in Japan. If this happens it will be the end of Japanese culture and present society as we know it. That would be a great loss. All immigration should only be allowed in an amount that can be assimilated and indoctrinated with present Japanese basic principals and common ideology. Who knows, maybe it’s already too late.
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“My own home country of the U.S. recently treats us like cattle going through the airport security checks.”
If you think it is bad as an American citizen, try entering the country as a foreigner…. Okay, it’s not THAT bad, at least for a white guy like me, but the poor Chinese student next to me was being given a very hard time by the lunatic inspector – politeness was a totally alien concept to him. As far as Japanese immigration goes, the more I hear about other countries, supposedly open and welcoming ones, the better Japan’s system looks. The only thing I really want changed is the requirement to carry the gaijin card every time you set foot out your door.
I don’t think Japan is ever in danger of Mexican-style immigration, even assuming you are not referring to illegal immigration. Not only are there no land borders, but Korea is wealthy, and China is getting better, so the push factors – the imbalance between the two countries – are not as strong. There are other 3rd world countries, but the language barrier is far higher than for the US, and of less benefit to master.
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I agree, but fact remains that Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, second to last (only Hong Kong is lower). However, they are one of the more populated countries in the world. So somewhere in there perhaps they may have to increase immigration to meet the world economic demands.
I am all for immigration everywhere, but country after country that have open borders have experienced nothing but headaches. Crime, balkanization, you name it.
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“Gaijin cards will occur. Buck up or leave. If your [sic] that strongly opposed to them try and make change [sic], unfortunately we a [sic] cant [sic] be like Debito.”
Buck up? Do you even know what that means?
And what exactly do you mean by “Gaijin cards will occur”?
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My native California culture has been destroyed by the influx of millions upon millions of Mexican’s…
Yeah, you sure don’t want those Mexicans in there ruining good anglo saxon cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. If you’re not careful, they’re probably going to take over your dominance in the taco industry at some point…
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It is in no way shape or form easy to move to Japan if you want to. There are very strict rules.
You must either be incredibly wealthy, have a college degree, or marry a Japanese women. Outside of those things, it is impossible for someone who wants to move their to actually do it.
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Who doesn’t have a college degree these days ?
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So you white guys are selfish and want Japan only for yourselves, and hope for stricter immigration laws against anyone who is not from your race. You’re the only people who deserve to travel around the world and you never commit crimes.
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Yeah, that’s about it. After all, Jesus was white – all those European paintings prove it.
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Hopefully he’ll keep the no dual citizenship law.
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As for a person that has dual citizenship and has a child, it would be better if Japan would allow dual citizenship. Why should the child be loyal to a specific country, that just boggles my mind. This law needs to be ratified!
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He absolutely _must_ allow dual citizenship, no doubt about it.
It’s horrendously cruel to make people choose between one nationality and another, and it makes it very difficult for people to plan their family lives effectively as regards taking care of elderly parents, etc.
Plus, the rule deprives Japan of a lot of citizens. Some other nationalities offer more flexibility and mobility – for example, any European citizenship offers you access to the whole of Europe. Pragmatically, it makes more sense to revoke Japanese citizenship, which only gives you access to Japan, rather than that of a European country, which gives you access to such a wide area.
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Very true that there are too many Mexicans in California. I’d hate to see same happening here.
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Quite the opposite to US policy, the Japanese government has allowed free entry to Mexicans into Japan as tourists for decades now, and even so there are very few Mexicans living in Japan either legally or illegally. So no danger there.
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Might be because it’s more expensive to travel to Japan from Mexico than to travel to the USA. Therefore poor people can’t afford to immigrate and people who are rich probably don’t have it so bad in Mexico so there’s less need to try their luck in another country. Also there’s the language barrier. In some parts of the USA you can get around quite well with speaking Spanish instead of English.
I do hope that legal immigration will get a little easier in the future, not just in Japan, but other countries as well. For example, a Japanese friend of mine wants to study and work in Germany, now he’s in trouble because of the visa which will expire soon and so maybe even needs to get back to Japan. That’s quite frustrating.
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Well, if you consider how much money a coyote (people smuggler) charges to help cross the desert into the US, and even with that the risk of still getting caught by the border patrol is somewhat high, a plane ticket to Tokyo is actually cheaper. No questions asked upon entry in Narita. Nowadays there even are nonstop flights from Mexico to Tokyo.
There is a very big community of Spanish-speaking Peruvians in Japan in places like Gunma, so likewise language may not necessarily represent a problem. In the end the reason why Mexicans don’t emigrate to Japan probably just comes down to lack of cultural affinity.
Of course, affluent Mexicans have little interest in getting out of the country, except for shopping or studying abroad. They are way more interested in Europe than in the US anyway.
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i can’t imagine a huge influx of mexiacans into japan, more like chinese…
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@gaijin
“My native California culture has been destroyed …”.
LOL. What tribe are you, Paiute, Tolowa, Washoe?
I think you’ll find the Europeans messed up “California cuture” way before the current influx of Mexicans.
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“My native California culture”
could be the title of the new Kevin Smith movie..
(The first settlers to arrive in California after the Native Americans were Spanish, and later Mexican. Spaniard Hernando de Soto, in 1541, was among the early European explorers to visit the territory, but it was a Frenchman, Henri de Tonti, who in 1686 founded the first permanent white settlement the Arkansas Post. Russia had some small settlements for the purpose of whaling and fur trapping in Northern California, but Russia didn’t attempt to colonize the area except in very isolated areas. Spanish priests were sent to California to covert the Indians to Christianity. Spain hoped to make the California native population into good Spaniards, loyal to Spain. Spain was becoming alarmed that the Russians and English were encroaching on lands claimed by Spain….)
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The culture I was born into and raised in the good old 60’s. And I am part American Indian but it’s from a former Great Lakes area tribe.
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“The culture I was born into and raised in the good old 60’s.”
Well that went long ago, without any help from the Mexicans.
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That will never happen in Japan. I come from LA and I can never imagine a over-flooding of immigrants into Japan. I’m all for LEGAL immigration, but when and if this will come to fruition, only time will tell, but at least it’s a start.
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Too bad our government refuses to do anything about our immigration problems. Maybe it’s time for us to start acting more like the Japanese.
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Immigrants are going to divide the culture and bring crime. If immigration policy is going to be loosened, they need to be strict on who can enter and who can stay.
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Looking at the standards of places like London, New York, Los Angeles, etc – those cities around the world we all know about, those with tremendous amounts of “immigration” and “melting pot” of many peoples –
I would hate to see Japan get destroyed like that, having to end up seeing these foreign people who go to Tokyo and “segregating” themselves into their own sector –
because that is what is going to happen, anyway, due to the “natural” feeling of belonging we as different people need.
There would end up more crime, hate-crimes, etc etc in Japan that Japan would just give up on itself. The Japanese people are like that – they give up.
Which is precisely why, when Hatoyama says all this, he just means “tourists” – sure, come and spend a few, but don’t overstay your welcome.
Sad, but true.
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I would hate to see Japan get destroyed like that, having to end up seeing these foreign people who go to Tokyo and “segregating” themselves into their own sector –
It’s happening already. Have you ever been to Nishi-Azabu?
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You mean all those economically powerful cities where the crime rates have been steadily dropping and over the last few decades?
Yeah. Total Baghdad situations there. We better keep Japan safe from that nightmare.
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@William George
You mean all of those economically less powerful cities where crime rates are several times higher? It`s not Baghdad, but it`s a different level of safety and economic power(New York is close, but otherwise still very high)
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“last FEW decades”?????
You mean the 70’s? How about the Reagan 80’s? OMG whatever decade do you mean? You don’t mean the 90’s, surely?
What crimes rates are you talking about, that have decreased? Homicide? Rape? Robbery? Drug-traffic? Human traffic?
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I’m a Londoner and I love the increasing multi-cultural atmosphere here. New York is pretty cool too.
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I will kiss Hatoyama’s wife right on her UFO loving ass if he can do this.
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“Looking at the standards of places like London, New York, Los Angeles, etc – those cities around the world we all know about, those with tremendous amounts of “immigration” and “melting pot” of many peoples –
I would hate to see Japan get destroyed like that…”
Dude, London is a great city precisely because it is a melting pot. It’s a truly exciting place to live and work. And I wouldn’t look upon London as a destroyed city, architecturally or culturally. It’s a hip place, there’s lots going on, and people from all over the world are interacting with one another. It’s the bomb, yo!
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Architecturally it has taken a right pasting. What the Luftwaffe didn’t finish, modern architects are attacking.
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hmmm. Interesting. But certainly nothing to do with immigration. Unless you have another take?
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I know. But you mentioned its great architecture (for whatever reason), as not having been destroyed. And while much of Westminster is pretty nice still, the Square Mile at least has taken a right pasting.
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It is sad that Saint Paul’s no longer dominates the skyline. The new architecture isn’t so bad though. I used to really hate the Southbank, and especially the Hayward Gallery, but I think that those 60s concrete monstrosities are really starting to grow on me. Kind of retro, groovy.
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London has always been an architectural pavement pizza. That is part of its charm.
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I don’t mind diversity of styles – that is why Prague is great. But the trouble with 99% of modern stuff is that it is little better than monstrous carbuncles.
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“Make it easier and give them the right to vote!”
= “We can import the vote!”
As Hatoyama said, “Japan is not for the Japanese only.”
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The geographic are of California is roughly the same size as all of Japan. At present the population is around 35,000,000 legal residents and probably another 5-20,000,000. illegal immigrants. They are hard to count. Already California feels like an extremely over crowded place. The population is predicted to swell to to over 70,000,000 by the year 2050. Japan at present population of around 120,000 plus a minor problem of illegal immigrants. If the population were to decrease to around a 30,000,000 mark it would still be a densely populated and fairly crowed country.
I think that the Japanese government shouldn’t be so hasty in allowing an influx of immigrants on the hope that they will pay into the Japanese taxation system and help fund the ever burdening aging population. If California is used as a concrete example it will be just the opposite. The immigrants will put a burden on the already fragile social welfare and medical system all the while sending their yen back to their families in their home country.
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You’re not trying to say the illegal population in CA is as much as 20 million, surely? That’s the high-end guesstimate for the entire country (for which a more reasoned figure is 11-12 million, nationwide).
“Already California feels like an extremely over crowded place.”
Compared to the 1960s, perhaps it is. Compared to Japan…?
“If California is used as a concrete example”
Why use it? Japan does not share a land border with a third-world nation, and even the Zainichi Koreans aren’t as big a legal minority as legal Hispanics are in the US (esp since much of the SW was Mexican to start with). A better example would be Britain, especially before it joined the EU.
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I have no idea as to the real number of illegal immigrants in California. I’m sure it must be in the millions and they vanish when census workers try to count them. These days there is not even an attempt to return them to Mexico or other South American borders. They just hang around public areas en masse waiting for work. If I were in their position I’d probably do the same. What a truly selfish and unfair world we live and die in.
Thank goodness Japan doesn’t have the same land border problems as California, and other South Western U.S. states. But if Hatoyama is just going to open up the country and let the masses come on in legally it will be of little difference. So far he’s shown himself to be intelligent and reasonable so let’s just hope his foreigner friendly standpoint is also intelligent and reasonable.
I didn’t use Britain as an example as I’ve never been there and have absolutely no idea as to the situation of legal or illegal immigration there. It’s a small world I live in and I’m trying to keep it that way.
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“It’s a small world I live in and I’m trying to keep it that way.”
I don’t follow that statement – do you mean you try to keep yourself ignorant?
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I mean I’m living the life that 99% of the people in unfair world dream of living but can’t. I tend to focus my studies on the immediate world around me and my personal experiences of the past.
I don’t try to keep myself in ignorance but to some extent I live a life of sweet blissful ignorance and I’m trying to keep it that way means my lifestyle.
Probably learning more about Britain would be a good thing for me but I could say the same of tens of other wealthy countries. Learning more about third world countries and their plights would be great for me but would undoubtedly bring out my guilty conscience and encourage me to to do something other than enjoying my life of relative comfort and ease.
It’s a small selfish world I live in and that world is also trying to keep it that way.
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Well, you are honest at least.
“Probably learning more about Britain would be a good thing for me but I could say the same of tens of other wealthy countries.”
But the the UK is one of the most important ones to learn about. Especially for an English-speaker and citizen of a former English colony.
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did anyone notice the use of the word “migrate” instead of immigration? maybe something lost in translation but the modern usage of the word migrate means that people are moving instead of settling whereas immigration means to settle. same old same old if you ask me. yes, bring your money, work for awhile, pay taxes and move on.
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I think you may be overthinking this. After all, you pass through “Immigration” when you arrive in a foreign country. True, we talk of “migrant workers,” but a lot of them stay as well.
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Please allow dual citizenship for adults! I want mine back.
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need more weaboos in japan
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So long as it doesn’t mean increasing numbers of Americans swamping the country then I see no problem with it.
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When you look around, and notice that the minority are Japanese faces…that’s when you have a problem.
Truth hurts.
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Good for him. Good for him. Good for him. Good for him.
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I hope Hatoyama doesn’t end up being like any other politician. At first, they bring up huge promises of change, only to later forget about them.
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What would happen if every country in the world opened it’s borders. If everyone was truly free to live in any country they wanted. Lets do that and see what happens!
Perhaps Japan would be ok, the food isn’t for everyones liking. Too much fish for some people. And not everyone likes raw fish. And the language is difficult. Perhaps they’ll feel slightly insulted when on a few people move here.
Perhaps I’d go to France or Italy and become a baker. Enjoy good cheese and wine, and beautiful women.
Perhaps the poor in peru and bolivia will move down to argentina. The africans will run up to russia to try vodka. Who knows. I imagine half the Japanese will move to Hawaii…
Or perhaps once the borders are open, people will feel more patriotic to their own birth place and stay put.
What immigration control sets to do is stem what ultimately will be total chaos.
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Actually it would be an interesting experiment to try. Or perhaps not.
“Perhaps I’d go to France or Italy and become a baker. Enjoy good cheese and wine, and beautiful women.”
That’s fine. The French would welcome you. The problem would be if you said something like “Perhaps I’d go to France or Italy and become a radical imam. Arouse anti-Western religious fervour, import sectarian hatred, impose my cultural values, and foment the overthrow of Western civilization”….
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I just love your grasp of racial stereotypes there. It’s just a shame that there isn’t a country that fits your cartoon view of the world.
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