japan’s imminent internationalization can japan assimilate its immigrants?

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JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants? Download this paper in Word format at www.debito.org/ JSACassimilation101306.doc By ARUDOU Debito Associate Professor, Hokkaido Information University JSAC Annual Conference 2006 Thompson Rivers University, October 13, 2006

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JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?. By ARUDOU Debito Associate Professor, Hokkaido Information University JSAC Annual Conference 2006 Thompson Rivers University, October 13, 2006. Download this paper in Word format at - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION

Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Download this paper in Word format at

www.debito.org/JSACassimilation101306.doc

By ARUDOU DebitoAssociate Professor, Hokkaido Information University

JSAC Annual Conference 2006Thompson Rivers University, October 13, 2006

Page 2: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Facts to consider

Japan’s economy is still about as big as all other Asian economies combined.

Japan’s economy still has a labor shortage, and without foreign labor many domestic industries cannot function.

Page 3: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Shuukan Diamondo June 5, 2004:

“IMMIGRATION ARCHIPELAGO

JAPAN”

“Without foreigners, the Toyota System of manufacturing won’t

work”

Page 4: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Japan needs foreigners!With the record-low birthrate and

record-high lifetime expectancies, the UN predicts Japanese society will soon have the highest percentage of elderly.

As of 2006, the Health Ministry says Japan’s population has started to decrease, and will fall from 127 to 100 million by 2050.

(The average annual influx of around 50,000 foreigners buoyed Japan in the black in 2005.)

Page 5: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Yes, Japan needs foreigners

Both the UN and a PM Cabinet survey in 2000 indicated that Japan must import 600,000 workers per year to maintain the current standard of living and tax base.

Japan is already importing foreign workers, to alleviate the labor shortage and hollowing out of domestic industry.

Page 6: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

The writing on the wallJapan’s number of registered foreigners has

risen without pause for decades, topping 2 million in 2005.

Japan’s Permanent Residents ( 永住者 ) more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, and may outnumber the shrinking Zainichi ethnic Korean and Chinese generational foreigners within this decade.

Negligible in 1990, Brazilians now number 300,000, the third largest body of foreign residents (behind the Koreans and Chinese).

Page 7: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Will immigrants

want to stay in Japan?

Page 8: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Factors conducive to assimilation

Foreigners can own property.Foreigners can found and run their own

businesses, with reasonable restrictions.

Marriage to a Japanese is relatively easy, with over 40,000 international couples per year marrying in Japan.

Page 9: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Factors not conducive to assimilation

Foreigners cannot get secure (or any) jobs in certain sectors.

Foreigners are routinely denied lifestyle essentials, such as apartments, credit, and health insurance.

Foreigners are being portrayed as a social bane, not a boon, by the government and police forces.

Page 10: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?
Page 11: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

Factors not conducive to assimilation (2)

Foreigners cannot get juuminhyou Residency Certificates or koseki Family Registries. (How many countries can you think of that require citizenship for formal residency?)

Foreigners’ contributions to Japanese society remain largely unrecognized, and promoting a “monoethnic Japan” is still official policy.

Page 12: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

JAPAN STILL HAS NO LAW AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Without legal protections to safeguard their rights, will

foreigners want to stay and raise families?

Page 13: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

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Page 14: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

What Japan must do next

Institute free language education in reading, writing, and spoken Japanese.

Make elementary education compulsory for all children regardless of nationality, and accredit more ethnic schools.

Pass laws and take concrete measures to safeguard the human rights for all residents regardless of nationality.

Page 15: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

What else Japan must do

Enact a clear immigration policy to secure stable jobs and visas.

Eliminate the “Nationality Clause”, and employ people by qualification, not nationality.

Eliminate the “grey zone” of Zainichi status by granting citizenship by birth, granting local suffrage, legalizing dual nationality, and reducing the arbitrariness of naturalization procedures.

Page 16: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

What else Japan must do

Eliminate the separation of “resident” and “citizen” fostered by the “koseki” and “juuminhyou” systems.

Make public statements from the highest levels of government on why foreigners are in Japan, what good works they are doing, and how they are community residents and taxpayers like everyone else.

Page 17: JAPAN’S IMMINENT INTERNATIONALIZATION Can Japan Assimilate its Immigrants?

More on this and other issues:www.debito.org

More details also within these books, on sale at this venue (ISBN 4 7503 9018 6 English version)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ATTENDING THIS PRESENTATION!