The global migration problem has not spared Japan, one of the world’s economic leaders. The country’s leadership has to take into account many objective factors when tackling it.
The Demographic Situation Looks Increasingly Grim
However, the responsible leadership of any country cannot wait until depopulation becomes critical and is forced to respond to its negative consequences here and now. Prime Minister Kishida identified this issue in January 2023 during a speech before parliament. Meanwhile, at the level of private business, this problem had already been solved long ago in a format beneficial to business itself, i.e. without much regard for the inevitable social costs.
In particular, this refers to the rapid growth in the influx of migrants from other countries of the Indo-Pacific region – and not always legal ones. At the end of 2025, the total number of such migrants was estimated at 4 million, with Japan’s current total population being less than 125 million people. It is not only private business that is the culprit, though. The country’s leadership itself, by encouraging the influx of migrants, is trying to overcome the negative consequences of the continuous decline in births and the population’s aging over the past 45 years.
Migrants As a Factor in the Growth of Domestic Political Tension
However, the year-on-year increasing influx of people representing other cultures into a country that spent the 250-year Edo period in a state of almost complete isolation from the outside world (during which Japan’s highly specific culture actually took shape) could not help but provoke a negative reaction among the local population. This is despite the fact that the phenomenon of foreigners in Japan is hardly new. It is sufficient to point to the 40 million tourists who visit the country annually and who, from the average person’s perspective, often behave strangely. But that’s okay, we’ll put up with it, especially since they only stay for a short time and, most importantly, serve as a source of various kinds of income!
It is quite another matter when enclaves of foreigners of various statuses and lengths of residence, many of whom are illegal, form on the country’s territory. In this regard, the locals are increasingly engaging in protests of various forms and scales, the pretext for which has, for example, been plans to build mosques or special housing complexes for migrants. There has been a marked increase in hostility toward migrants among young people. In Ibaraki Prefecture, a 10,000 yen reward is being introduced for informants who report illegal immigrants hiding from the authorities.
The situation is complicated by the fact that a political force has appeared on Japan’s political scene that has ridden the anti-migrant wave. The Sanseito party presents a Japanese variation of the MAGA movement in the United States. The snap general elections held this February effectively forced the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to make substantial corrections to its approach to migration. As a result, the LDP and the head of the party (Prime Minister Takaichi) not only maintained but significantly strengthened their positions following the elections.
Government Tightens Approach to Migration
Strictly speaking, clearly defined frameworks and goals for attracting foreign workers and candidates for study at Japanese universities have always existed. By the end of 2025, their positive impact was, for example, reflected in the qualitative composition of migrants recruited for work. From the perspective of the average person, however, these frameworks are insufficiently strict, and the government is forced to respond to such sentiments. But it must do so in a way that does not dismiss the entirely rational part of the migration process, taking into account the already looming demographic crisis.
Be that as it may, the recently adopted and planned rules for regulating migration are generally aimed at making it stricter. This applies particularly to the level of Japanese language proficiency, the timeline for a migrant’s naturalization (if it happens at all), the tightening of reprisals against violators of these rules, including those who are already residents. The fight against illegal migrants, labeled by the Japanese press as “Plan Zero”, is taking on an entirely uncompromising character.
Finally, let us note the main point: Japan is addressing a problem that it fully understands to be extremely complex and dangerous. This process is not being masked as a fight against extremism or a performance on the theme of friendship of peoples involving a one-sided, selectively presented history. And, of course, that any migrant could behave insolently toward the authorities, e.g. the police, is entirely unthinkable in Japan.
Political Parasitism on the Migration Issue as an Element of the New Normal
For now, Japan falls outside the group of Western countries in which “someone”, for some reason, is introducing strange ideas about how certain social problems should be handled. The main tool being used here is positive discrimination, whereby, for example, in Europe, which has been most affected by it, a victim of migrant violence does not even consider seeking help from the police. The same positive discrimination is used to promote the relatively harmless Me Too movement, which has degenerated into complete absurdity in the form of LGBT issues, as well as removing children from dysfunctional families and punishments for inhumane treatment of animals. Incidentally, let us consider the inherent absurdity of that part, which is no less absurd than positive discrimination.
All of these are elements form an actively imposed new normal designed to turn the traditional system of cultural and religious values on its head. Over the last 20-30 centuries, this system took shape across the Mediterranean ecumene and in other regions of the world, which the same “someone” persistently tries to turn into a madhouse. It is a world where the role of man in climate change is discussed in all seriousness and fines are imposed for exceeding greenhouse gas emission quotas, and where the leader of a country who wanted to eradicate a centuries-old drug addiction is prosecuted via the International Criminal Court.
However, there is also resistance to the plans of the behind-the-scenes crooks who are playing on the brink of a new global massacre, pulling the strings of public clowns. This resistance is growing primarily in the homeland of the new normal, i.e. in Europe, as evidenced by the results of local elections in the United Kingdom. Let us wish the same for all other victims of this inhuman ideology.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on Asia-Pacific issues
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