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Japan wrestles with its views on ‘outside people’ amid population crisis (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Low birthrate and ageing population pose ‘an urgent risk to society’, but can opening its borders to skilled overseas workers fix the problem?

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (3 children)

First, there is no "wrestling". The policy is clear. Second, the only way to fix declining population is to increase permanent residence, which means either a Permanent Residence Visa or citizenship. But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship. Work visas do not fix the problem. But work visas are popular because immigrants can be treated as slave labor.

In other words, the author of that article has done a small amount of research but is actually being far to generous to a xenophobic and racist government that's enabling the abuse of foreign laborers.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think they are also missing the fact that there are sections of Japan's society that would rather see it shrink (collapse) and retain its Nihon-ness than be diluted by outside influences.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

And that's their right, and not unexpected either.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I think by "wrestling" they mean the general attitude towards foreigners, not the policy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship.

not for children of mixed parents

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yes, it's true that they don't have to choose while they are children. And of course I didn't explain that it doesn't always take 10 years for PR because you could use the point system depending on your situation, and also that the Japanese government doesn't investigate whether people are dual citizens as long as they keep it a secret, but the government could in the future if it really wanted to, so you're still gambling, etc.

In other words, obviously it's a complex legal landscape, and my main goal was to expose the complete failure in focus in the original article and illustrate some of the starting points about the actual issues for those who are not knowledgeable about Japanese immigration law.