Japanese Immigration Policy at a Turning Point

Abstract

This article looks into how the Japanese government has recently been changing policies and discourses on immigration. I begin by sketching the historical background of immigration policy. Then, I discuss policies, proposals and reports made in the 2000s, paying close attention to documents produced after 2005. Since then, the Japanese government, confronting the domestic problem of demographic change and the global competition for human resources, has become seriously concerned about the integration of foreign residents and has also come to engage with the question of how to expand the admission of foreign workers. In discussing this change, I am particularly interested in shedding light on how the idea of multiculturalism has been applied to the context of Japan, as this idea presents a challenge to the dominant discourse of mono-ethnicity in postwar Japan. Japanese immigration policy is at a turning point not only in the sense that it has become more inclusive but also in the sense that it has come to present a view of Japan as multicultural. Though there is resistance against the inclusion of foreigners and the idea of multiculturalism, relatively moderate approaches taken by those favoring multiculturalism may be effective in curtailing resistance and bringing about actual changes.