US President Joe Biden stated on Wednesday that US ally Japan was suffering economic hardship due to xenophobia, along with other countries including China and Russia, according to NBC News.
Speaking at a fundraising event in Washington that marked the start of Asian, American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Biden claimed the US economy was growing in part “because we welcome immigrants.”
Think about it. Why is China stalling so bad economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.
Japan is a long-time US ally in the Asia-Pacific region. Biden is stepping up ties with Tokyo to counter Beijing in the region. Jeffrey Hall, a Japanese studies lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan, stated that “it’s not something diplomatic to say about one of America’s closest allies, especially because America has its own problems with xenophobia that Japanese are seeing on the news all the time.”
“So it just strikes me as something that was unnecessary to say in this context. It will sound like America is once again talking down to the Japanese, and that’s not really an effective way of getting Japan to fix various problems with its society that even Japanese people would agree are problems.”
Like many other Asian countries, Japan is struggling with demographic problems, including an aging and shrinking population. The country of 125 million people is trying to attract more foreign workers but is hampered by restrictive immigration laws that make it difficult to gain permanent residency.
In March, Japan’s cabinet approved a law that would more than double the cap on the number of foreign skilled workers to more than 800,000 and replace the apprenticeship programme with a training system for unskilled foreign workers. It would help ensure medium- and long-term residency, local media reported.
The country would need 6.74 million foreign workers by 2040 to sustain economic growth, the Japan International Co-operation Agency estimated in a 2022 report, up from 2.05 million in the country as of October. About a quarter of foreign workers in Japan came from Vietnam, followed by China with 19% and the Philippines with 11%, the labour ministry reported in January.
Japan’s current policies encourage the public to see immigrants as subordinates and not their neighbors.
However, a nationwide poll this year by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper showed that 62% of respondents were in favour of accepting more foreign workers, up from 44% in 2018. In January, three foreign-born residents filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming police officers violated the constitution by repeatedly stopping and questioning them based solely on their appearance and ethnicity.
In addition to social issues, Japan is also struggling with a weak yen, which is at a 34-year low against the dollar, making the country less attractive as it competes for foreign workers with countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan.
Japan already faces serious labour shortages in agriculture, construction, manufacturing and other sectors, a problem exacerbated by border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials are also trying to address the shortage by encouraging greater female participation in the labour force, as well as later retirement.
