Chinese tourists absconding in Japan plays into rising anxiety about influx of illegal immigrants

At least 20 Chinese citizens have slipped away from tour groups that arrived in Japan aboard cruise ships in the 10 months to May, prompting authorities to investigate suggestions that they were assisted in absconding by an underground organisation. It has heightened fears in Japan that the nation faces a crisis of illegal economic immigrants comparable to the one facing Europe.

Japan is experiencing a boom in inbound tourism, with one contributing factor the relaxation of rules on visas for visitors from other parts of Asia.

Revisions to the immigration control act went into effect in January last year and permit cruise ship passengers to enter Japan without visas, under certain conditions, such as limitations on the amount of time they are allowed to remain.

With a newly wealthy middle class in mainland China keen to travel internationally, numbers of Chinese arrivals have soared. In 2015, some 4.99 million Chinese arrived in Japan, the largest single national group and more than double the figure of the previous year.

And while the vast majority continues to arrive by air, cruises are becoming increasingly popular, with Japanese ports from Tokyo to Kobe, Fukuoka and Naha in Okinawa accepting more than 1,000 port calls by Chinese cruise vessels last year.

In May, a man aged 57 from Fujian Province went missing shortly after disembarking from a cruise ship docked in Hakata Port, in northern Kyushu, and has not been seen since, national broadcaster NHK reported.

In October of last year, three Chinese nationals failed to return to their ship docked in Nagasaki City. In a search of their cabin, police subsequently discovered a map of Japan from a web site that the Chinese government blocks.