Shinzo Abe’s plan to admit foreign workers prompts ‘Japan First’ backlash
Lower-skilled migrants would be allowed to stay for as long as five years and barred from bringing their families. More highly skilled workers could bring family members and stay longer – potentially gaining permanent residence
A strict immigration policy has helped make Japan one of the world’s oldest and most homogeneous societies. Now, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to invite as many as half a million foreign workers is testing the country’s tolerance for change.
Abe is preparing to introduce legislation to allow migrants to start filling vacancies next year in sectors worst hit by the country’s shrinking population. While the government hasn’t released a target, local media including Kyodo News have reported numbers that would represent a 40 per cent increase over the 1.3 million foreign workers now living in the country.
In a sign of urgency, Abe’s government has announced an April start date for the policy before debate has begun in parliament. The proposal is among the first he’s seeking to tackle after winning a historic third term as head of ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month, paving the way for him to become the country’s longest serving prime minister.
If passed, the legislation would amount to Japan’s most dramatic immigration overhaul since the 1990s, when it let “trainees” from Asian nations in the country. Foreigners made up only about 1.7 per cent of the country’s population as of April, compared with 3.4 per cent in South Korea and about 12 per cent in Germany.
Abe got a reminder of the risks on Sunday as more than 100 noisy protesters marched through Tokyo’s upmarket Ginza shopping district, waving imperial army flags and urging the plan’s withdrawal. Although the group was outnumbered by police and pursued by counterprotesters chanting “racists go home,” they appeared keen to tap into anti-immigrant sentiments that have bubbled up elsewhere in the developed world.
