BoyElroy
02-02-2006, 01:54 PM
The Japan Times
January 24, 2006, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Can Japan absorb foreign influx?
BODY:
When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
It concluded that five basic things are necessary: lingua franca skills; income; mobility; home ownership; political representation; intermarriage.
This article will discuss how well Japan does on this scale, and offer suggestions on how it can do better. But first, let's reconfirm that something needs to be done.
Resistance is futile
Immigration will be a factor in Japan's future because it is unstoppable. Not only is cheap foreign labor now an intrinsic part of the Japanese economy, but also Japan by itself is about the same size as all other Asian economies combined. The economic pull for immigrants is irresistible.
It is already becoming visible. The growth of the Brazilian Community from negligible into the third largest ethnic group has been well observed. The news is that record numbers of "newcomer" foreigners are making themselves unremovable - by taking out Permanent Residency (PR).
According to the Ministry of Justice, "General Permanent Residents" ("ippan eijuusha") swelled from 145,336 in 2000 to 312,964 in 2004.
Meanwhile, the number of "Special Permanent Residents" (the ethnic Korean and Chinese "Zainichi") actually shrank (due to death or naturalization) from 512,269 to 465,619. Thus the PR Newcomers may outnumber the Oldcomers in just a few years.
Now, add the huge numbers of multiethnic Japanese, due to record levels of international marriages, international children, and naturalized citizens. We don't know exactly how many because they don't appear in statistics for registered foreigners (of course not - they're citizens), and Japan's Census Bureau does not survey for ethnicity.
Face it: it is now simply impossible for "foreigners" and their influence to disappear.
Fortunately, Japan finally seems ready to face it. Emerging is a grudging acceptance of the inevitability of immigration.
About time too. As far back as 2000, a Cabinet report (as well as the U.N.) famously advised Japan to import around 600,000 foreigners per annum. This would maintain Japan's tax base, aging due to record-high longevities and record-low birthrates. This trial balloon was soon deflated, however, by government-sponsored campaigns against foreigners, focusing on hooliganism, terrorism, and crime.
Nevertheless, the watershed moment arrived last December with the news that Japan's population is officially in decline.
Japan's Ministry of Health announced that deaths in 2005 unprecedentedly outnumbered births by 10,000.
From 2006 the population is projected to dwindle, falling to 100.7 million by 2050. Which means that the foreign resident influx, about 50,000 people annually, is buoying the stats in the black.
There was an audible intake of wind within policymaking circles. Even frequent foreigner basher Tokyo Governor Ishihara, in a Dec. 22, 2005 news conference, stated that Japan needs a firm immigration policy, and offered suggestions (such as granting PR to foreign graduates of Japanese colleges) to get educated people to stay.
So can Japan deal with a future of immigration? There are reasons to believe so.
[full article here]
http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=496
January 24, 2006, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Can Japan absorb foreign influx?
BODY:
When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
It concluded that five basic things are necessary: lingua franca skills; income; mobility; home ownership; political representation; intermarriage.
This article will discuss how well Japan does on this scale, and offer suggestions on how it can do better. But first, let's reconfirm that something needs to be done.
Resistance is futile
Immigration will be a factor in Japan's future because it is unstoppable. Not only is cheap foreign labor now an intrinsic part of the Japanese economy, but also Japan by itself is about the same size as all other Asian economies combined. The economic pull for immigrants is irresistible.
It is already becoming visible. The growth of the Brazilian Community from negligible into the third largest ethnic group has been well observed. The news is that record numbers of "newcomer" foreigners are making themselves unremovable - by taking out Permanent Residency (PR).
According to the Ministry of Justice, "General Permanent Residents" ("ippan eijuusha") swelled from 145,336 in 2000 to 312,964 in 2004.
Meanwhile, the number of "Special Permanent Residents" (the ethnic Korean and Chinese "Zainichi") actually shrank (due to death or naturalization) from 512,269 to 465,619. Thus the PR Newcomers may outnumber the Oldcomers in just a few years.
Now, add the huge numbers of multiethnic Japanese, due to record levels of international marriages, international children, and naturalized citizens. We don't know exactly how many because they don't appear in statistics for registered foreigners (of course not - they're citizens), and Japan's Census Bureau does not survey for ethnicity.
Face it: it is now simply impossible for "foreigners" and their influence to disappear.
Fortunately, Japan finally seems ready to face it. Emerging is a grudging acceptance of the inevitability of immigration.
About time too. As far back as 2000, a Cabinet report (as well as the U.N.) famously advised Japan to import around 600,000 foreigners per annum. This would maintain Japan's tax base, aging due to record-high longevities and record-low birthrates. This trial balloon was soon deflated, however, by government-sponsored campaigns against foreigners, focusing on hooliganism, terrorism, and crime.
Nevertheless, the watershed moment arrived last December with the news that Japan's population is officially in decline.
Japan's Ministry of Health announced that deaths in 2005 unprecedentedly outnumbered births by 10,000.
From 2006 the population is projected to dwindle, falling to 100.7 million by 2050. Which means that the foreign resident influx, about 50,000 people annually, is buoying the stats in the black.
There was an audible intake of wind within policymaking circles. Even frequent foreigner basher Tokyo Governor Ishihara, in a Dec. 22, 2005 news conference, stated that Japan needs a firm immigration policy, and offered suggestions (such as granting PR to foreign graduates of Japanese colleges) to get educated people to stay.
So can Japan deal with a future of immigration? There are reasons to believe so.
[full article here]
http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=496