- 14 Mar 2002
- 21,110
- 19,019
Despite severe depopulation and chronic labour shortages, the Takaichi administration, through Kimi Onoda, the US-born daughter of an American father and Japanese mother, and now Minister in charge of "a Society of Well-Ordered and Harmonious Coexistence with Foreign Nationals", contemplates its next move against immigration and foreign nationals:
The Japanese government formally opened a contentious debate on 7 August over whether to cap the country's foreign population, as a high-level working group met for the first time to consider the direction of future immigration policy. The panel, chaired by University of Tokyo professor Hiroshi Ohashi, will analyse projections for Japan's foreign population and examine the possible effects on the economy, social security system and local communities. Based on its findings, the government plans to draw up a basic policy by the end of the current fiscal year.
Several approaches are on the table. These include setting a limit on the proportion of foreign nationals in the overall population, as well as numerical caps for particular residence statuses. The review follows a coalition agreement reached last autumn between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party). Ishin had initially pushed for a firm "overall cap" on the number of foreign nationals. That wording did not survive the negotiations. The final agreement instead referred to the more ambiguous idea of "quantitative management", apparently reflecting unease within the LDP. One Ishin executive said the change had been made to avoid "a major backlash" inside the ruling party.
A 2023 projection by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimated the foreign population in Japan could reach 10%, a level often associated with social friction in Western nations, by 2070.
Apparently, Onoda sees herself as the "Minister in Charge of Order", and less in charge of "Harmonious Coexistence with Foreign Nationals".
The Japanese government formally opened a contentious debate on 7 August over whether to cap the country's foreign population, as a high-level working group met for the first time to consider the direction of future immigration policy. The panel, chaired by University of Tokyo professor Hiroshi Ohashi, will analyse projections for Japan's foreign population and examine the possible effects on the economy, social security system and local communities. Based on its findings, the government plans to draw up a basic policy by the end of the current fiscal year.
Several approaches are on the table. These include setting a limit on the proportion of foreign nationals in the overall population, as well as numerical caps for particular residence statuses. The review follows a coalition agreement reached last autumn between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party). Ishin had initially pushed for a firm "overall cap" on the number of foreign nationals. That wording did not survive the negotiations. The final agreement instead referred to the more ambiguous idea of "quantitative management", apparently reflecting unease within the LDP. One Ishin executive said the change had been made to avoid "a major backlash" inside the ruling party.
A 2023 projection by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimated the foreign population in Japan could reach 10%, a level often associated with social friction in Western nations, by 2070.
Apparently, Onoda sees herself as the "Minister in Charge of Order", and less in charge of "Harmonious Coexistence with Foreign Nationals".