Japan Reverts to the Right

If, like me, you wandered around the suburbs of Kyoto in the last fortnight, you would have seen a number of large posters promoting Parliamentary candidates who promise to “put Japanese people first”. Why would such a promise be necessary in Nippon, a paragon of ethnic protectionism? Who else but the Japanese people could be “put first” in Japan?

Since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated, the land of the rising sun has run the same reckless demographic experiment as we in the West. His successors imported hundreds-of-thousands of foreign workers from China, India, Nepal, Vietnam, and Indonesia. 3.95 million foreign residents currently live in Japan. Net migration reached 153,357 in 2024, with a record 20,000 (3%) of babies born to foreign parents. Many are on temporary work visas, employed in restaurants, corner stores, and construction (I noticed a conspicuous increase of Indian waiters and 7/11 cashiers compared to the same time in 2023). Residents of Kutchan have fought proposals for 1,200 foreign workers to descend upon their small town to staff ski resorts in Niseko. Osaka natives saw 17,006 new foreign residents relocate there in 2023 — comprising 53.5% of the city’s net population increase.

Japan has also seen a record increase in tourism after slackening their COVID-19 travel restrictions. 36.87 million people visited in 2024, predominantly from South Korea, China, Taiwan, the United States, and Hong Kong. But 1.4 million came from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Middle East, and their presence has established Muslim outposts in cities like Kyoto and Osaka. New businesses cater for halal yakiniku and sukiyaki, and shopfronts display “Free Palestine” signs — notably, in English first.

Other signs show a persistent and habitual disrespect of Japanese customs: telling foreigners, in English and Mandarin, how to sit on toilets, and not to use postboxes as trash bins. Given Europe has had indoor plumbing for centuries, we can assume these signs are intended for the Subcontinent. Out of spite or habit, new arrivals are recreating the conditions of their homelands in Japan. This includes an increase in crime: with foreigners overrepresented among offenders by a factor of two, and responsible for 4.7% of all offences. Every crime is a consequence of government policy, with the perpetrator never needing to have been in the country in the first place. It is a choice, and the Japanese can choose differently. While tourism brings in billions of Yen every year, the Japanese may wonder if their home becoming a revolving-door for fascinated strangers is really worth it.

These problems will worsen if former Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba’s deal to import 500,000 Indians by 2030 is upheld. Only 50,000 of said immigrants will be “highly skilled” — which begs the question as to what benefit 450,000 Indian peasants will bring to Japan. As usual, an economic partnership with India proves a poison chalice. This will lead to ethno-nepotistic hiring practices in Japanese companies, and siphoning off billions in remittances back to India. Modi’s government can disperse their troublesome excess male population around the globe, and leverage those diasporas as “living bridges” back to the motherland to their advantage in foreign politics. Add to that the partnership between Japanese cities and African nations being the thin end of the wedge for sub-Saharan migration, and Japan is flirting with the same disastrous demographic, economic, and multicultural fate as the UK and Europe.

Like Europe, expedient economic gains and subsidising falling birth rates have been the excuse. While GDP per capita continues to increase, debt as a share of GDP has reached 248% and the gap between the yen and US dollar continues to widen. Demographic projections give economists cause for pessimism. Japan has the third oldest population in the world, and deaths have outnumbered births since 2007. Their total fertility rate is 1.15, down 0.5 year-on-year. What the average figure hides, however, is that the rate for married women is 1.94, close to replacement (2.1). Japan has the lowest rate of out-of-wedlock births for any OECD country; but marriages are falling, and divorces are rising.

Childlessness is driven by rising celibacy rates among young people. A third of 20-49 year-olds have never had a romantic relationship. Thousands of young men resort to being hikikomori (herbivorous), occupying non-competitive jobs, and favouring the company of video games over girlfriends. Japan’s population is projected to fall from 124 million to 87 million by 2070, if trends continue. Whether through replacement migration or abstinence, the Japanese are becoming an endangered species.

The disappearance of the Japanese is not a tragedy because it makes it harder for the government to fulfil pension spending commitments. Just as George Orwell wrote about England, there is something distinctive and recognizable about Japanese civilization. It is somehow bound up with the carved clay tiles of its temples, towering pagodas, quiet suburbs, well-kept gardens, spice of wasabi, sorrowful string instruments, generous hospitality, politeness, and passive-aggression. What keeps the continuity of Japan from the seventh to twenty-first century is that its people act as custodians of its history, buildings, and the unspoken assumptions that make it a high-trust culture. If the Japanese people vanish, their culture goes with them. If that culture is disfigured or disrespected by ignorant, ungrateful gaijin, then the Japanese have every right to send them packing.

That is why Sanae Takaichi was elected by members of the Diet on Tuesday. A friend and cabinet minister of Abe’s, Takaichi survived a review-bombing campaign by rival Shinjiro Koizumi, and the tiresome accusations of being “far right” by the international press, to become Japan’s first female Prime Minister. Takaichi has promised to increase defence spending, restrict migration, and deport illegal immigrants. She complained how tourists were mistreating the curious deer that roam freely throughout her home city of Nara. “I want to have a calm, mutually considerate relationship with foreigners”, Takaichi said in a speech before the election, but emphasised “Those who come with economic motives and claim to be refugees … will be sent home.” Addressing the Diet on Friday, Takaichi was applauded when she said pro-natalist policies, not mass migration, will be her solution to “Japan’s biggest problem, population decline.”

Finance minister Kimi Onada has also been appointed “minister in charge of a society of well-ordered and harmonious coexistence with foreign nationals” — a post invented by Takaichi’s predecessor, but which now takes on a new meaning. Onoda promised at a press conference on Wednesday to “strictly handle foreign nationals who do not follow the rules”, and remove those whose “crimes and misbehaviour are causing anxiety and a sense of unfairness among Japanese people”. Harmony, it seems, will be brought by deporting those who dare to interrupt it.

Concerns about migration seem still to be relegated to legality in Japanese politics, but the public are no happier with those who disrespect Japanese culture and hold the appropriate documents. Immigrants in Japan complain about rising “anti-foreigner sentiment” and “random moments of racism” on social media, but our English-speaking objections to collective punishment aren’t shared by the rest of the world. As guests in a country, you aren’t entitled to equal consideration as the majority whose ancestors built and tended to it. The only way to restore goodwill between the Japanese hosts and their grateful houseguests is to evict the squatters who exploit their hospitality.

While touring the Kyoto Railway Museum, I was struck by how much history Britain shares with the East Asian island nation. During the Meiji Restoration, British, Dutch, and American engineers were invited to consult on how Japan could build its first railways. The first ran between Shinbashi and Yokohama, and was opened on October 14th, 1872, in the presence of Emperor Meij. The railways revolutionised Japan, including changing its calendar from the traditional tracking of a year by the passing of four seasons, to the format of set days, months, and hours invented by Europe. To this day, Japanese rail remains the best in the world: clean, cheap, and efficient, with the Shinkansen allowing commuters to cross the country in just five hours.

There remains the prospect of positive cultural exchange between friendly nations. Despite my distance from Japan’s traditions, as a Christian Englishman, I want their beautiful country to be more than a revolving door for foreign mercenaries, working in insect hives of concrete high-rises; or a nationwide amusement park for gawking tourists. If Takaichi can make good on her promise to put Japanese people first, then this gaijin is all for it. Perhaps her coalition with Ishin, who have floated denaturalisation policies, will keep her honest. Once they’ve solved their economic and demographic woes, perhaps they can visit and build us a bullet train from London to Glasgow. If HS2 is any yardstick, we can’t be on time and under budget without their help.