The Role of Nationalism and Political Identity in Shaping Japanese People’s Perceptions of Immigrants and Refugees

Abstract

Japan is well-known for its strict immigration and refugee policies. This study examines how Japanese public opinion towards both immigrants and refugees developed in the past, and whether the current trends in public approach towards these phenomena signalise any change in policies. Several studies have already explained the general attitudes of Japanese people towards immigrants and foreigners, while the Japanese attitude towards refugees remains genuinely understudied. In this chapter, public attitudes towards selected groups of nationals, as well as ethnic and religious minorities—and opinions on statements related to immigration and refugee issues—were all analysed. The data used in this chapter have been collected from the Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey, which was co-conducted in 2022 by one of the authors and collected 1219 nationally representative responses. Focusing on the role of the level of nationalist sentiments and political identity, this chapter reveals that nationalism and conservatism have a small impact on how Japanese society perceives refugees and immigrants. In general, the study shows that Japanese society is not welcoming towards foreigners, however, it does demonstrate a high level of awareness regarding the difficulties that Rohingya refugees face and shows support for their resettlement.

Introduction

While anti-immigration sentiments are on the rise in many parts of the world, the case of Japan is specific in several aspects. With the world’s oldest population (European Parliament, 2020), Japanese society will likely face pressing socio-economic problems, if it does not start accepting more foreign nationals. On the other hand, a strong sense of cultural uniqueness makes it difficult both for foreigners to integrate but also for Japanese people to accept them. Furthermore, as a democratic country which ratified the United Nations (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Japan is among the countries with the lowest rates of refugee acceptance.

Japan has been tackling demographic issues related to its ageing society since the end of the twentieth century. Until that time, words such as immigration, migrants, or refugees were hardly present in the government discourse. With the ageing population and declining birth rate, the Japanese government has searched for means to secure economic and social stability, e.g. by involving more women in the job market, enhancing childcare facilities, and broadening the range of working visas. However, domestic issues are not the only reason for accepting immigrants and refugees. Japan has become a vocal promoter of human security and ratified the United Nations (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1981. Despite all the commitments to international norms and rational reasons to open itself up, Japan continues to struggle to adapt its internal policy and bureaucratic processes towards modern immigration and asylum systems. In 2021, only 2.2% of residents are foreign (Statistic Bureau of Japan, 2021), which contributes to demographic issues and labour shortages. The low rate of refugees accepted yearly, together with harsh conditions in detention facilities and strict acceptance rules, has caused the worsening of Japan’s international reputation.

With regard to Japanese perception of foreigners in general, the traditional view of Japan as a homogeneous nation prevailed as a common reason for its unfriendliness towards immigrants (Koizumi, 1992). However, in recent decades, the relevance of the notion of Japanese homogeneity has been questioned (Flowers, 2009; Mukae, 2022). The homogeneity of Japan, at least from the Asian perspective, is regarded by many as a myth, for there are numerous Asian minority groups of ethnic Koreans and Chinese, but also ethnic groups native to Japanese islands, such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan people. On the other hand, the period of isolation during the Tokugawa era, the efforts to assimilate ethnic groups such as the Ainu during the Meiji period, and the limited inflow of immigrants after World War II due to the focus on post-war reconstruction, gave rise to the notion of homogeneity in Japanese society. As Burgess (2010) argues, such discourse has influenced Japanese perceptions of foreigners and the country’s stringent immigration policy.

The adoption of international norms related to human rights protection and refugees was a crucial step for Japan to fit into the global society. Conformity with such norms is, however, based on domestic standards and national identity, which have been traditionally anti-immigration (Flowers, 2009). Public perception is another area where national identity matters. Existing research studies on the Japanese public attitude towards immigrants have focused on the impact of media framing, personal contact with foreigners, and the connection with threat perception (Cheng & Fraser, 2022; Green, 2017; Horiuchi & Ono, 2022). Indeed, mass media and threat framing play a significant role in shaping public opinion, especially in Japan where public safety is highly valued. As such, safety can be considered a constituent part of social harmony, which has historically been a strong element of Japanese national identity.

While considering harmony as an important aspect of Japanese national identity, it is vital to ask to what extent national identity impacts domestic discourse and public perception of foreigners. While national identity can be defined from many perspectives, depending on the field of study, one of the unifying features is the group’s perception of specific aspects that distinguish them from others (Münch, 2002; Smith, 2001). In the past two decades, the discourse of historical revisionism and the endorsement of pride in Japanese society have been on the rise (Yamaguchi, 2017). The nationalist sentiment was remarkably present under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration. It is therefore our ambition to reveal how such nationalist tendencies determine Japanese public opinion towards immigrants and refugees. In our study, we have tested whether Japanese society esteems Japan over other countries and how such feelings impact Japanese views of foreigners. In our study, we have built part of our argument on an experiment to see if there is a correlation between blind nationalism (see below) and views on immigration and refugees.

Given the general presumption that conservative right-wing ideology is prone to anti-immigration tendencies (Brooks et al., 2016; Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2014), we also tested attitudes towards immigrants and refugees against political leanings (conservative v. liberal) and voter/party preferences. While the definition of conservatism and liberalism can be blurry in the Japanese context (McCormack, 2008), we hypothesise that the respondents who identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal also have a sceptical view towards immigration and refugees. Conservatism in Japan is associated with revisionism, changing the pacifist clause of the constitution, and the support of a more robust defence policy. In other words, conservatives actually support a change in Japan’s trajectory, rather than the conservation of the post-war democratic order in Japan (McCormack, 2008). Because the support for restoring some of the pre-war values, which were built on the notion of superiority towards others, especially Asian countries, is intertwined with conservatism and nationalism, we have examined how these two types of political identity correlate with anti-immigration sentiments. As scholars have already pointed out in their studies of Japanese perception of immigrants and refugees, the exceptionally low number of the latter makes it difficult to completely distinguish between the two categories, although the legislative differences are quite crucial. As Horiuchi and Ono (2021) reflect, it cannot be presumed that Japanese citizens recognise the difference between work-related immigrants, refugees, and short-term visitors. Also, the Japanese legal system does not provide special measures for refugees, as international law stipulates (Fujibayashi, 2020). Instead, refugee status is recognised under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which also defines the rights of foreign workers. This can also stir up legislative differences and can confuse assumptions about foreign workers and refugees. Due to the relatively small number of non-Japanese groups in Japan, both foreign workers and refugees might evoke the same feelings.

To reveal the Japanese views towards refugees, we selected the Rohingya as a concrete group (case study). The Japanese so-called special relations with Myanmar and Japan’s particular efforts to economically mitigate the refugee crisis might create a surmise that Japan would be welcoming towards the Rohingya refugees. Nevertheless, only a few hundreds of Rohingya reside in Japan, despite the generally positive attitude toward their resettlement  (see below in the survey results).

This chapter is organised as follows. In the following section, the methodology is explained. After that, the historical perspective of Japanese attitudes towards foreigners is introduced, followed by the theoretical framework, built on national identity, nationalism, and political leaning. The next section presents the data on how Japanese people feel about the current situation related to immigrants and refugees, with a special focus on Rohingya refugees, and how nationalism and political identity impact their views. The last section provides conclusions.

Methodology

This book chapter presents the results of the Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey (Turcsanyi et al., 2022), co-convened by one of the authors. The survey investigated global views of China and other issues, such as people’s stances towards immigration and refugees, through a series of large-scale representative online public opinion surveys in many (selected) parts of the world, including Japan. Participants responded online to approximately 60 questions. Only a subset of the data related to the goals of the current paper, however, is reported in this research.

We analysed survey statements related to nationalism, such as: The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese, and, Generally speaking, Japan is a better country than most other countries. Furthermore, questions about political identity were analysed, including voting/party preference and conservative/liberal leaning, such as: When it comes to politics, do you consider yourself more liberal or conservative? If there were parliamentary elections this weekend, which party would you vote for? These questions and statements have been inspired by other surveys, such as the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP).

For assessing Japanese people’s attitude towards immigrants and refugees (including a case study on the Rohingya), the following statements and questions have been selected and analysed: The presence of migrant workers is beneficial for Japan; It is difficult for foreigners to fit into Japanese society; Chinese migrants face discrimination in Japan; Asian migrants (excluding Chinese) face discrimination in Japan; Japan is open to refugees; The Rohingya people are a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar. Do you support the resettlement of the displaced Rohingya people in your country? Attitudes towards selected groups of people have also been considered. Additionally, all these questions have been disaggregated by socio-demographic data obtained from the survey.

The Japanese sample is national representative (in terms of age, gender, and region) with 1219 respondents. The responses were collected in Japanese from participants registered in national online panels by the survey agency Cint between 11 April and 17 June 2022. The main data about the respondents are shown below in Table 8.1. Most questions use a 7-point answering scale (in the analysis below sometimes recalculated into three categories for easier understanding of the results), while some are so-called thermometer questions, where the answering scale goes from 0 to 100.

Table 8.1 Data about the survey respondents

In our research, we focused on people’s attitudes towards immigrants and refugees in Japan through the lens of political identity, more specifically through voting/party preference, liberal/conservative leanings (see Table 8.1), and nationalism (see Figs. 8.1 and 8.2).

Fig. 8.1

Measuring nationalism in Japan—item 1

Fig. 8.2

Measuring nationalism in Japan—item 2

When asked about liberal or conservative leanings, a large portion of the respondents opted for the option “I don’t know” (24%). More people see themselves as conservative (43%) than liberal (21%) and 12% are neutral.

To measure voter/party preference, we asked which political party people would vote for if parliamentary elections took place the following weekend. About 29% of the respondents said they didn’t know which party they would vote for, 20% would not vote, 27% would vote for the Liberal Democratic Party, 7% for the Nippon Ishin no Kai, 5% for the Constitutional Democratic Party, 4% for the Japanese Communist Party, and the remainder for the other parties (with each 2% or less).

We measured nationalism in Japan with two items (see Figs. 8.1 and 8.2), using the theory developed by Davidov (2009), outlined in the section “What shapes people’s perception of immigrants and refugees – theoretical framework”. The first item was The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese, with which Japanese people slightly more agreed than disagreed (mean 4.1—in which 1 means completely disagree, 4 is in neither agree nor disagree, and 7 is completely agree), but the majority of the people chose the midpoint, signalling that the Japanese do not have very strong opinions on this. To the second item—Generally speaking, Japan is a better country than most other countries—the response was slightly more on the disagree side (mean 3.9), but again, the majority of the respondents chose the midpoint. To avoid confusion on what exactly the midpoint means (Chyung et al., 2017), labels have been provided for all anchors on the scale, with the midpoint marked as “neither agree nor disagree”.

Japanese Society and Accepting Foreigners—Historical Perspective

While the Japanese government endeavours to increase the number of foreign workers, life in Japan for some of them is not effortless, as they face racially motivated discrimination in the workplace, and in relation to housing, shopping, medical services, etc. (Arudou, 2015; Morita, 2015; Shimoji, 2023). More than 60% of foreigners in Japan have experienced police control in 2022 (Take, 2022). According to the survey conducted by the Tokyo Bar Association in early 2022, racial profiling based on appearance was experienced in the past five years mostly by non-Asian nationals. The fear of a rise in criminality has been a common reason for xenophobia and anti-immigration tendencies in Japan. To what extent has Japanese society been welcoming of foreigners? What are Japan’s experiences with accepting refugees and immigrants, and how has the opinion on these issues evolved?

To better anchor current trends in public opinion towards immigrants and refugees, as well as the policy debate and legislative framework, this part of the chapter presents the main obstacles in Japanese immigration and refugee policy through selected cases.

Japan and Refugees

As has already been explained in the introduction of this book, Japan ratified the UN Refugee Convention in 1981 and the related Protocol in 1982. However, Japan has its own legislation that defines the status of immigrants and refugees under the Immigration Control and Refugees’ Recognition Act of 1951. The law follows a strict interpretation of the UN Refugee Convention, meaning that only those in danger of persecution due to religious, national, political, social, and racial reasons can be considered refugees. Simply put, those fleeing war conflicts are not considered refugees according to Japanese legislation. This represents one of the main reasons why Japan accepts so few refugees.

Nevertheless, there have been a few occasions when Japan showed flexibility and permitted exceptions. In this section, we will address the most significant events and shed light on public opinion towards these cases.

The first event that forced Japan to face a refugee crisis was the Second Indochina War of 1955–1975. Thanks to exponential economic growth during the period, Japan was able to financially contribute to the resettlement of refugees from Indochina in third countries (Havens, 1990). When it came to meeting the refugees’ requests for asylum in Japan, the situation was much more complicated due to legislative issues, and because public opinion towards resettlement was divided between exclusionist sentiments and humanitarian tendencies. At the same time, if there was any sympathy among the Japanese towards people who were forced to flee from their homes, it was oriented towards Indochinese, especially those who took the most dangerous way, on the sea (Mizuno, 1990). Partly due to international pressure, Japan decided to extend the scope of aid beyond financial assistance and started accepting people fleeing the battlefield. According to Strausz (2012), another reason was that accepting Indochinese refugees was not seen as a precedent for a potential refugee influx, simply because the Indochinese were not exactly considered refugees from Japan’s legal perspective.

As for public opinion towards the Indochinese refugees, Japanese government-commissioned surveys show that while in 1980 only 22.8% would be in favour of increasing the quota of accepted refugees from Indochina, in 1982 it was almost 50% (Dasgupta, 2021; Strausz, 2012; Takeda, 1998). Interestingly, despite the disapproval of the public in 1980, the government decided to increase the quota for Indochinese refugees that year and again in 1981, 1983, and 1985. Moreover, in 1981 the UN Refugee Convention was ratified. Most of the judiciary and parliamentarians, along with public supporters of the resettlement pointed to the low number of Indochinese refugees accepted in comparison with other states, hence arguing for the importance of international prestige. Humanitarian reasons for the support were given much less emphasis (Strausz, 2012). Furthermore, the governmental surveys mentioned above only asked about the attitude towards Indochinese refugees, who were treated in a distinct way from other asylum seekers. Non-Indochinese refugees and political asylum seekers had to undergo a complicated process of acceptance following a rigid interpretation of the UN Refugee Convention. Only 43 officials from the Ministry of Justice were appointed to the agenda of such refugees, while in the case of Indochinese people, the intergovernmental committee consisted of several ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Labour, etc., who were involved in establishing the processes. Moreover, number of NGOs were engaged in the resettlement itself. (Takeda, 1998). Until 2005, Japan only accepted 330 “convention” refugee applicants (Iwasaki, 2006), while more than 11,000 Indochinese refugees found their new home in Japan as of 2009 (Refugee Assistance Headquarters, 2019).

Another example of flexibility in the Japanese legal framework concerning refugees is the Refugee Resettlement Programme established in 2010 in reaction to the Myanmar refugee crisis. The original idea was to accept 30 refugees each year (150 refugees in total), selected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) based on their potential for smooth integration into social and working life in Japan. According to the criteria established by the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the applicants would have to be members of the Karen ethnic group, members of a small nuclear family, and have high chances of finding a job (Hatcher & Murakami, 2020). Importantly, the UNHCR explicitly prohibits any form of discriminatory criteria.

Despite the expectations that the Refugee Resettlement Programme would represent a breakthrough in Japanese refugee policy, no legal shifts in the acceptance of asylum seekers happened. Nevertheless, according to government statistics, there were more than 37,000 Myanmar refugees living in Japan as of 2021, comprising the largest group of immigrants with humanitarian and refugee status. Approximately 300 of them belonged to the Rohingya minority, which has established a large community in Tatebayashi (Gunma prefecture) (Begum, 2021). Not many voices have been raised during the events related to the Myanmar refugees in Japan. There were protests for a stronger Japanese reaction to the 2021 coup organised by the Myanmar people and students (“Thousands March in Tokyo”, 2021), but there was not any strong public voice to support refugee acceptance.

When the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, millions of people were forced to leave their homes, resulting in a massive influx of migrants in Europe. Japan accepted only a handful of refugees. Instead, Japan opted to provide financial support and emerged as the second-largest contributor to the UNHCR. The late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that Japan had to solve the domestic issues of an ageing population and a labour shortage first by engaging more women in the labour market (McCurry, 2015). In 2017, Japan experienced its highest peak of asylum applications with more than 19,000 applications, while only 20 of the applicants were successful (UNOCHA—Reliefweb, 2018). As for Syrian refugees, only seven were granted refugee status in Japan (Yamagata, 2017). Instead of refugees, the Japanese government decided to take in 150 Syrian university students in 2016 for a period of five years.

Public opinion polls conducted by news agencies did not show any strong support during the Syrian refugee crisis. Only 24% of respondents were favourable to refugees’ resettlement, whereas 58% disapproved according to the Asahi Shinbun 2015 survey (Yamagata, 2017). In the 2017 Mainichi Shimbun survey, the proportion of those supporting the refugee intake was merely 15% (Yamagata, 2017). The results are not surprising if we look at anti-immigration sentiments in Europe and the terrorist attacks which happened in France, Belgium, and other countries. In his media and political analysis, Yamagata (2017) revealed that supporters of refugee acceptance generally used Japan’s international reputation to bolster their arguments, along with the country’s low rate of refugee acceptance in comparison with other developed countries. Similar narratives were present also during the Indochinese refugee crisis.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and millions of people fled the country, a massive wave of solidarity started to spread worldwide. Hundreds of Ukrainians found refuge in Japan, though they are not referred to as refugees, but “evacuees”, since they are expected to return to Ukraine eventually. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian evacuees received unprecedented support in Japan and a legal status which allowed them to stay and work for one year (Immigration Services Agency in Japan, 2022). As such, the government’s reaction to the Ukrainian refugees is comparable to the Indochinese crisis in the 1980s. It reopened the questions around Japanese refugee policy and the country’s double standards with regard to people from Ukraine compared to other nationals, such as people from Myanmar, be they Rohingya or from other groups.

In light of the inconsistencies, the Japanese government resumed the debate over the amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in early 2023, with an additional stipulation that would allow war refugees similar legal rights to “convention” refugees under supplementary protection. The amendment also aims to put an end to prolonged detentions, however, by allowing for the deportation of those who have applied three times or more, even during the process of refugee status acceptance, which might be considered a violation of international law. The amendment has become a subject of criticism by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (2023) and several Japanese NGOs (Han Hinkon Network, 2023).

Japan and Immigrants

As for immigrants, until the amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in 2019, only high-skilled professionals were eligible to work in Japan, with two exceptions. First, since the 1990s, the descendants of Japanese emigrants (Nikkeijin) have been allowed to work and reside in Japan. Second, when the Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP) started in 2004, 75,000 foreign workers were allowed in (Kashiwazaki & Akaha, 2006). The programme allows trainees to have contracts for three to five years and the official discourse states that trainees gain new skills which they then use to improve industry back home. Moreover, the Technical Intern Training Act of 2016 stipulates that “Technical intern training shall not be conducted as a means of adjusting labour demand and supply”. However, many foreigners engaged in the TITP experienced harsh working conditions, exploitation, and harassment, and have clearly been used as a cheap labour force. The number of complaints received by the Organisation for Technical Intern Training doubled in 2020 from the previous year (Nara, 2022). At the time of writing, there has recently been a debate about abolishing TITP and creating a new system of training programmes, which would prevent human rights abuse (Tauchi, 2023).

With the deepening labour shortages, Japan established a new category of unskilled workers in 2019. The original aim was to bring 345,000 blue-collar workers within five years (Takizawa, 2021), but only 1621 foreigners came to Japan under the new visa system in the first ten months (Milly, 2020). Meanwhile, public support for the increase of foreign workers has been growing in the past years. According to a survey by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation in 2018, 55% of respondents viewed the increasing number of foreign workers as a positive development, while 22% disagreed. A year later, the approval rate increased to 74% (Kono, 2019). In their research on Japanese public opinion towards immigration, Davison and Peng (2021) conducted in-depth in-person interviews with 21 participants of higher education and social status. Their findings show that most of the interviewees did not have any particular antipathy towards immigrants if they were only short-term workers. The participants showed significant concerns about long-term or permanent immigrants for fear of losing the Japanese culture (Davison & Peng, 2021).

This section introduced several refugee and immigration issues Japan has been tackling for decades. Both foreign workers and refugees in Japan face a substantial level of prejudice, discrimination, and human rights abuse. Japanese public opinion towards the two categories has been shifting from strictly negative at the beginning of the 1980s to more accepting. Nevertheless, the Japanese official stance has not improved significantly over recent years. On several occasions, the Japanese government has acceded to the liberalisation of refugee and immigration policy but mostly under the combination of domestic and international pressure.

What Shapes People’s Perception of Immigrants and Refugees—Theoretical Framework

Several researchers have dealt with the question of the driving forces behind people’s perceptions of immigrants and refugees. Among the approaches, some researchers have applied contact theory, which hypothesises that contact between the locals and immigrants leads to a positive view towards foreigners (Green & Kayoda, 2017; McLaren, 2003; Oliver & Wong, 2003). Others have researched “threat” as a factor in perceiving refugees (Blinder & Lundgren, 2019; Semyonov et al., 2004). In our study, we build our argument on the role of nationalism and political identity in people’s perceptions of foreigners. While Japanese society has been regarded as highly homogeneous, which emphasises its cultural values, we argue that nationalist sentiments and conservatism have an impact on anti-immigration sentiments in Japan.

National Identity and Nationalism

In the past few decades, Japan has experienced a revival of nationalist sentiments. In the early 2000s, a law acknowledging symbols associated with the imperial era as national symbols was enacted, despite the opposition. In 1999, a teacher committed suicide in protest against the forceful singing of the Kimigayo anthem (Tolbert, 1999). Moreover, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, became almost a synonym for the term nationalism. His ideology was closely associated with the revival of a “beautiful Japan” (“Towards a Beautiful Country: My Vision for Japan” is the title of Abe’s (2007) book), which ought to be much more assertive both politically and militarily. The reinterpretation of the Constitution, allowing the dispatch of self-defence forces, was understood by China and South Korea to be a clear indication of the rise of Japanese nationalism, whereas, for the USA, such progress was much welcomed because it implied a greater self-reliance and less dependence on protection from Washington (Ali, 2015). Besides political nationalism, Japan has experienced increasing anti-Korean and anti-Chinese sentiment with the rise of the ultra-right wing (Martini Grimaldi, 2022).

To better understand the nature of nationalism and national identity in the context of Japan, an introduction to some of the theoretical approaches is necessary. Both nationalism and national identity, which are often intertwined, have many possible meanings. The previous paragraph shows some examples of how national identification leads to particular political decisions or beliefs. As Greenfeld (1992) puts it, nationalism is first and foremost a way of creating identities, and only secondarily a political movement. The concept itself is built on the apprehension of the nation which, in its modern sense, came to be understood in early sixteenth-century England (Doak, 2007). Since then, nationalism has gained various forms depending on the context. Nevertheless, in all contexts, nationalism revolves around a shared sense of community, common history, culture, language, and often a perceived shared destiny among the people within a nation (Smith, 2010).

In our study, we aim to reveal how a certain level of attachment to the nation can shape Japanese public opinion towards immigrants and refugees. It is thus important to first understand the broader context of Japanese national identity. In their studies, many political scientists have distinguished between civic type of national identity, stemming from self-regarding and belonging to one’s nation, and an ethnic type of national identity, which is represented by shared culture, language, history, and ancestry (Brubaker, 1996; Jeong, 2016; Kohn, 1944; Taniguchi, 2021). In that sense, Tanabe (2021) suggests that Japan as a nation can be described as an ethnic type and that Japanese society has strong political and national pride, which is connected to exclusionism and ethnocentrism. The presumption of Japan as an ethnic type of nation is in contradiction to Sasaki’s research (2004), where he revealed that having Japanese citizenship and regarding oneself as Japanese are the most significant parameters of national identity as opposed to those notions of a shared culture, language, history, and ancestry. Furthermore, Jeong (2016) compared the results of a survey conducted in three Western countries (the USA, Norway, and Sweden) and three Asian countries (China, Taiwan, and South Korea) and found that in contrast to the Western countries, neither ethnic nor civic identities were associated with immigration attitudes in the respective Asian countries.

Because of these contradictions, we decided to build our theoretical grounds of nationalism on the approach of political psychology, which understands nationalism as a pride in one’s nation and a feeling of superiority over other states (Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989). To distinguish from the type of nationalism connected to people’s identity, which we introduced above, we address nationalism based on the political psychology approach as blind nationalism.

Some political thinkers, such as Bunzo Hashikawa, linked this notion of blind nationalism with the ethnic type of nationalism (Doak, 2007). In contrast to blind nationalism, constructive patriotism is defined as a feeling of love for the country and attachment to its democratic values, but with the ability to see the country’s drawbacks (Davidov, 2009; Schatz et al., 1999). There is also a difference in how the blind nationalism and constructive patriotism correlate with fear of others. According to Raijman et al. (2008), blind nationalism correlates more with antipathy towards immigrants than constructive patriotism. Based on the above, to find whether nationalist tendencies play any role in the perception of immigration and current Japanese political and societal attitudes towards foreigners, we selected the following questions on nationalism: The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese; and Generally speaking, Japan is a better country than most other countries.

Lind and Ueki’s survey research (2021) found that while patriotism has a continuing presence in Japanese society, the sense of superiority and other nationalist tendencies are rather ambiguous factors (Lind & Ueki, 2021). Around 80% of the respondents in 1995, 2003, and 2013 ISSP surveys agreed that Japan is better than other countries. However, opinion was split in half on the question of whether the world would be a better place if people were more like the Japanese. The results of Lind and Ueki’s research (2021) are similar to the results of our survey, which shows that 26% of the respondents agree with the idea that Japan is better than other countries, 29% disprove this claim, and 45% do not have a firm opinion. Since the survey was conducted in the spring of 2022, it is likely that the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine impacted Japanese nationalist tendencies. One-third of the respondents think that the world would be a better place if more people were like the Japanese, while 18% do not agree with this statement. Over half of the participants did not specify their feelings.

Political Identity

The Japanese political environment is characterised by stability and long-lasting regimes. With short periods of exception, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been ruling Japan since 1955. Shinzo Abe led the country for eight years (2012–2020), making him the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. Again, we find a certain amount of Japanese identity based on harmony. Paradoxically, in a country renowned for its innovation and ability to evolve rapidly, there is a fairly strong conservatism on many issues. Even after Abe and his successor Yoshihide Suga’s resignation, and after strong criticism for failing to manage the pandemic, the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito retained a majority in the lower house election of 2021 (Obe, 2021).

When looking at the LDP’s politics, there is not much space for discussion about accepting refugees. The government has, however, agreed to raise the financial contribution to mitigate the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh and has accepted an unusually high number of “evacuees” from Ukraine. In the past, only Indochinese refugees surpassed the number of Ukrainian refugees. However, it has done little to counter international criticism of its stringent rules for accepting asylum seekers. The LDP attempted to enforce a revision of the Immigration Law introduced in 2021 but decided not to submit it officially in 2022. The draft was a reaction to international criticism of prolonged detentions and it would have stated the number of times one could apply for refugee status, but it was not generally welcomed by the UNHCR and numerous NGOs (more on that in the section “Japanese society and accepting foreigners – historical perspective”). Even with the passing of the bill, the main problem would remain—the strict recognition conditions and the near-impossibility of proving the legitimacy of someone’s refugee status (Ara, 2021).

At the same time, the party was very interested in dealing with the country’s ageing population and its labour shortage. In 2019, the government enacted a new law enabling “Specified Skilled Workers”, promising to accept at least 345,000 foreign workers in the following five years (Takizawa, 2021). Although business organisations welcomed the step, human rights and immigration organisations opposed the legislation due to concerns that the rights of workers would not be protected (Milly, 2020).

In contrast to the conservative LDP, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) with other progressive and left-oriented parties, proposed a bill to the government, which should secure the protection of refugees and prevent them from arbitrary detentions based on decisions of immigration officers (Rikken Minshutō, 2022). The bill was left on the table without any significant debate. In that sense, we expect that voters for the CDP would be more positive in their views of immigrants and refugees in Japan.

When considering the Japanese political parties’ programme on refugees and immigrants, what can we assume from the political leanings and party/voting preferences of Japanese society? First of all, it is important to shed some light on the nature of Japanese political participation. As some studies have showed, left-wing citizens tend to be much more politically engaged than right-oriented people (Finkel & Opp, 1991; Torcal et al., 2016). Given the fact that the conservative right-oriented LDP has repeatedly gained the majority of votes in elections to Japan’s Diet in the last decade, it might explain, why political engagement among Japanese citizens is usually low (Jou & Endo, 2017).

It is not surprising that the issue of refugees does not resonate much in Japan. If the society is rather conservative (conservatism in Japan is understood rather as traditionalism [Quo, 1966; Tanaka, 1989]) and prefers to stick to the proven consensus, then people are more likely to support the LDP, for whom the main issue is to improve the economic and demographic situation. Moreover, in his study, Strausz (2018) reveals that the majority of candidates and Diet members, and also respondents of media-conducted public surveys, did not have any strong opinion on whether Japan should accept more foreign workers during the elections of 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2017. This has already started to change. Mainichi Shimbun’s opinion poll from 2018 showed, that 47% of respondents agree with higher numbers of foreigners, while 32% oppose it. A year later, almost two-thirds of respondents to the Nikkei survey were in favour of the rising number of foreigners (Kono, 2019). What the Japanese people think about accepting refugees remains so far uncovered as there have not been many surveys on the issue, as the next section will show.

This research draws on the above and measures political identity through both voting/party preference and liberal/conservative leaning focusing on how political identity affects public opinion towards immigrants and refugees.

The next section will dive into the specifics of the survey data and will analyse Japanese people's attitudes towards foreigners, both immigrants and refugees, based on the two categories described in this section: nationalism and political identity.

Japanese Perceptions of Immigrants and Refugees—Survey Results

The General Attitude Towards Foreigners

In line with previous studies, the Sinophone Borderlands Indo-Pacific Survey results confirm that Japanese people are not so open towards foreigners in general. When asked how positively or negatively Japanese people perceive certain groups of people (on a scale 0 to 100, with 0 representing cold, negative feelings; 50 representing neutral; and 100 representing warm, positive feelings), the results show that Japanese people are most positive about Taiwanese people (mean 64), followed by Americans (mean 62), and Europeans (mean 60) (see Table 8.2), although the mean values are not very high. On the other hand, the Japanese are least positive towards the Chinese (mean 38), which is not surprising as there have long been animosities due to wars and historic competition between the two countries.

Table 8.2 Japanese people’s attitudes towards various groups of people on a scale 0 to 100 (with 0 representing cold, negative feelings; 50 representing neutral; and 100 representing warm, positive feelings), depicting the mean value (rounded up)

The negative stance towards mainland Chinese is not new among the Japanese. In the 2013 Public Survey on Political Participation of Citizens and Internationalization, Chinese were the least favourable foreign nationals (Zhang, 2018). Anti-Chinese sentiments are common in Japan and usually have direct links to threats that China has come to bring over time. Chinese military spending is the second largest in the world. Japan lost its economic primacy in Asia and the US-China rivalry brings new challenges for the Japanese diplomacy. The disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands add another friction and World War II also remains as an open wound. Needless to say, the dislike is both-sided. In contrast, Japanese relations with Taiwan are built on mutual trust, economic partnership, shared values, a common enemy and a common friend. As the first Japanese colony, Taiwan was forced to implement some of the Japanese cultural norms including language, but for the country’s economic and technological development, the Japanese colonial rule brought much-welcomed innovations. In this sense, Taiwanese representatives have never been critical towards the Japanese colonial past and the Japanese appreciate this form of restraint (Peng-Er, 2004).

This question deliberately contained a mix of various groups—national, ethnic, and religious—to be able to see which resonated the most. The groups that most interested us regarding this research were immigrants, Muslims, Rohingya (refugees in Bangladesh), and Uyghurs (potential refugees from China). Out of these groups, Japanese people are most favourable towards the Uyghurs (mean 53), followed by the Rohingya (mean 52), and immigrants (mean 50). The category of immigrants was chosen because the term labels a group that is usually understood as a whole, regardless of nationality, with a certain connotation that can differ from country to country. In the case of Japan, immigrants are often understood as temporary workers. As Davison and Peng (2021) found out in their study, Japanese people have neutral or slightly positive attitudes towards short-term workers. Least favourable feelings among the Japanese are held towards Muslims (mean 46). Towards the Uyghurs and the Rohingya, Japanese people have a rather positive attitude, towards immigrants in general a neutral one, while Muslims are seen rather negatively (although not as negatively as the Chinese). Interestingly, the first two groups—the Rohingya and the Uyghurs, who are predominantly Muslims—are seen much more favourably than the religious group of Muslims.

Attitude Towards Immigrants and Refugees

To find out Japanese people’s views on foreigners, including immigrants and refugees, we put forward various statements related to: the presence of immigrants in general; Chinese immigrants (as they are among the most numerous groups of foreigners coming to Japan for work); other Asian immigrants (there are predominantly Asian migrant workers in Japan); and refugees in Japan (see Table 8.3). In all these statements, the midpoint is the most prevalent, again pointing to what has been mentioned above—that people in Japan tend to not have strong options on certain issues, views on foreigners being one of them. Nevertheless, more people agree than disagree that the presence of migrant workers is beneficial for Japan. Also, the majority believe that it is difficult for foreigners to fit into Japanese society. More respondents disagree rather than agree that Chinese as well as other Asian migrants face discrimination in Japan. On the question of refugees, Japanese people clearly acknowledge that Japan is not open to refugees (49%).

Table 8.3 Agreement or disagreement with various statements related to immigrants and refugees

According to 30% of the survey respondents, the presence of migrant workers is beneficial for Japan, 22% disagree, and 47% are unsure. When looking at this question through the lens of other variables—voting/party preference, nationalism, and demographics—only voting/party preference had any effect. Voters for the CDP (mean value 4.6 out of a scale 1–7) and the Democratic Party for the People (mean value 4.4 out of a scale 1–7) had the highest agreement rate, which confirms the hypothesis of the study.

Respondents believed it is difficult for foreigners to fit into Japanese society—42% agreed, 18% disagreed, and 39% of the respondents did not have an opinion on this. Those who have been in higher education were slightly more likely to agree than less educated respondents.

In general, the survey participants did not think that Chinese immigrants in Japan face discrimination. Only about 21% of Japanese thought Chinese migrants face discrimination in Japan, 27% disagreed, and 52% were neutral. Women believed more than men that the Chinese face discrimination. More educated people believed this statement slightly less than people with lower education. Also, liberal leaning people tended to perceive the Chinese as being discriminated against slightly more than conservative leaning people. Also, the less nationalistic sentiments someone had (based on the item The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese), the more the person tended to believe that Chinese face discrimination in Japan. From the analysis of attitudes towards various groups of people, we found that the Chinese are viewed as the least popular. Not only Chinese but other Asian nationals, namely Koreans, have reportedly faced some sort of discrimination (Goto, 2021).

Survey participants were divided on whether Asians (excluding the Chinese) are discriminated against or not. 23% thought they are, 25% did not think so, and half of the respondents were neutral. Women agreed slightly more than men that the Asian migrants face discrimination. Respondents leaning towards liberalism tended to be more convinced that Asians are discriminated against in Japan. Moreover, the less nationalist sentiments someone had (based on both items The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese, and, Generally speaking, Japan is a better country than most other countries, the former with a weak correlation and the latter with a very strong correlation), the more the person tended to believe that Asians face discrimination in Japan.

Japanese surveyees agreed that Japan is not open to refugees: 49% agreed, 13% did not believe that to be true, and 38% were neutral on this. When looking at this statement (Japan is open to refugees) through the other variables, what stood out was that women, young people, less educated, and conservative leaning people tended to agree with this more. Since Japan has a very complicated process of accepting refugees and only dozens of the applicants succeed yearly, we can argue that those with conservative leanings are more satisfied with the number of refugees and do not wish for Japan to open more. Moreover, the more nationalist leaning one is (based on the two nationalism items—The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Japanese, and, Generally speaking, Japan is a better country than most other countries), the more he or she agrees that Japan is open to refugees.

Our study demonstrates that, albeit in a limited way, nationalism and political identity affect Japanese nationals’ perception of foreigners and refugees. At least of the two items of nationalism correlated with three out of the statements, namely the Chinese migrants face discrimination in Japan, Asian migrants face discrimination in Japan, and Japan is open to refugees. As for political identity, we found that voting preferences have an impact on people’s belief in the benefits of having migrant workers in Japan. Liberal-minded people are more likely to perceive that Chinese and Asian migrants face discrimination and that Japan is not open to refugees.

Case Study: Opinion on Rohingya Resettlement

We wanted to expound on Japanese people’s attitudes towards a concrete group of refugees and chose the Rohingya as a case study. When asked whether they supported the (hypothetical) resettlement of the Rohingya people to Japan, about 36% of respondents did not support the idea, 16% chose the midpoint option, and the majority of the survey participants, about 48%, supported resettlement (see Fig. 8.3.). Since we were not sure if Japanese people knew who the Rohingya were, we gave an explanation in brackets in the survey (The Rohingya people are a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar). These findings are very meaningful because they show that once a very concrete group is addressed (and their plight described), people tend to be more compassionate (Newman, 2003). Compared to other questions related to immigrants and refugees in our survey, the question on Rohingya resettlement had the least number of neutral responses. Moreover, this directly contradicts the long-held belief that Japanese people are essentially anti-refugees.

Fig. 8.3

Attitude towards a hypothetical resettlement of the Rohingya to Japan

When tested against other variables, we found that none except for voter/party preference had any effect. Although NHK Party voters seemed to be in favour of resettling the Rohingya to Japan, the results are not significant (as in our sample we have only three such voters). Those who said they would not vote (20% of our respondents) oppose the idea of resettlement (see Table 8.4). Voters for the Liberal Democratic Party (27% of our sample) are somewhere in the middle, with a mean value 4.3 (on a 1–7 scale, where 1 means total disagreement and 7 total agreement); Nippon Ishin no Kai voters (7% of our sample) were slightly more in favour of resettling the Rohingya, with a mean value 4.6; CDP voters (5% of our sample) 4.4; and Japanese Communist Party voters (4% of our sample) 4.9. There was no correlation with the nationalism items, meaning that nationalism did not have any influence on people’s choices in this case.

Table 8.4 Attitude towards a hypothetical resettlement of the Rohingya to Japan through the lens of party/voting preference, measured by the mean value (on a 1–7 scale, where 1 means total disagreement and 7 total agreement), ordered from lowest to the highest mean value

Conclusion

This chapter aimed to investigate Japanese public perception towards immigrants and refugees. Since the Japanese government only recently revealed new guidelines for accepting refugees, and new legislation that would acknowledge people fleeing conflicts as “quasi-refugees”, the understanding of the public’s view is of great importance. More specifically, our goal was to explain how nationalism and political identity influence people’s opinions in Japan. Nationalism is understood as a blind attachment towards one’s nation, and people with more nationalist tendencies are argued to be more against immigration. Similarly, we suggested that conservatism would have the same implications.

Our survey results suggest that Japanese people generally have slightly negative attitudes towards foreigners, with the Chinese being the least favoured group. Taiwanese people, Americans, and Europeans were the most positively viewed groups, but overall, mean values were not very high. Among the specific groups of interest to the study, Japanese people were most favourable towards Uyghurs, followed by Rohingya refugees, and immigrants, and less favourable towards Muslims, although the Chinese were viewed most unfavourably. Both Uyghurs and Rohingya are Muslims and potential immigrants, yet they are viewed more positively than the general groups of Muslims and immigrants. This opens another puzzling question of whether people perceive concrete nationals and ethnic groups more positively than the same groups when described by their religion.

The results also showed that Japanese people tend to have a neutral opinion towards the presence of foreigners in Japan. While more people agree than disagree that the presence of migrant workers is beneficial for Japan, Japanese people believe that it is difficult for foreigners to fit into Japanese society. Additionally, Japanese people acknowledge that Japan is not open to refugees.

Both nationalism and political identity have an impact, if limited, on people’s opinions towards refugees and immigrants. As shown in our study, a stronger nationalist sentiment correlates with people thinking that Chinese and other Asian nationals do not experience discrimination in Japan. People with nationalist and conservative tendencies also believe that Japan is open to refugees. We can interpret this to mean that such people are satisfied with the current refugee policy and with the number of refugees Japan accepts.

We have also learned that those referring to themselves as liberals acknowledge that Chinese and other Asian nationals face discrimination in Japan. Voters for the CDP and Democratic Party for the People which are typecast as progressive centrist parties, agreed most with the statement that immigrant workers are beneficial for Japan. Still, most of the respondents identified themselves as conservative, which shows that liberal views on foreigners are not common.

Finally, our research sheds light on people’s perception of the potential resettlement of Rohingya in Japan. While the Japanese government welcomed Ukrainians fleeing the war, Rohingya people are only rarely accepted as refugees. However, public opinion towards their resettlement is rather positive. The study contradicts the belief that Japanese people are a priori anti-refugee and found that none of the variables except for voter/party preference had any effect on people’s attitudes towards the resettlement of refugees.