The news media love to push immigration on Japan, a proud country that wants to retain its heritage.
Japan is in better shape because of its decreasing population.
I wish America had this Japanese problem. We have way too many people in this country, way too many with low IQs.
The article claims there is no Japanese consensus about immigration but there is — the Japanese don’t want non-Japanese immigration.
Comment: “The pressure is on for Japan to destroy itself. But notice the Yen is strengthening after Brexit? The Yen is a safe currency. I wonder why it is, what with all those bears and boars.
Japan will clone Sumo wrestlers before they take any Indonesians or Pakistanis as citizens. They will ask their elderly to commit sepuku so as not to be a burden. They will do what it takes. And everyone knows it.”
All across Japan, aging villages such as Hara-izumi have been quietly hollowing out for years, even as urban areas have continued to grow modestly. But like a creaky wooden roller coaster that slows at the top of the climb before plunging into a terrifying, steep descent, Japan’s population crested around 2010 with 128 million people and has since lost about 900,000 residents, last year’s census confirmed.
Now, the country has begun a white-knuckle ride in which it will shed about one-third of its population — 40 million people — by 2060, experts predict. In 30 years, 39% of Japan’s population will be 65 or older…
Though demographers have long anticipated the transformation Japan is now facing, the country only now seems to be sobering up to the epic metamorphosis at hand.
Police and firefighters are grappling with the safety hazards of a growing number of vacant buildings. Transportation authorities are discussing which roads and bus lines are worth maintaining and cutting those they can no longer justify. Aging small-business owners and farmers are having trouble finding successors to take over their enterprises. Each year, the nation is shuttering 500 schools…
Ippei Torii, president of a nonprofit group called Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, said leaders including Abe have clung to the idea of Japan as a mono-ethnic state, ignoring the presence of minority groups such as the Ainu in the north or the Ryukyu in Okinawa, not to mention Koreans.
Politicians, he added, have propagated the myth that foreigners commit crimes at a higher rate than Japanese and have suggested that more immigrants could make the country vulnerable to terrorism. Labor unions have also put up a fight.
“Look at nurses, they believe their income will be cut if we let in Filipinos and Indonesians,” said Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a sociologist at Toyo University in Tokyo. “They also say that these people can’t speak Japanese well and that could be risky. Yet, at the same time, they complain about severe overwork and say we need to add nurses.”
…“There’s still no consensus in Japanese society about immigration,” said Tang Yin, a Chinese scholar at the Fukuoka Asian Urban Research Center. “But it’s easier for people to accept people who are educated here.”
