Uchikura & Co., LLC

Japan’s Growing Unity—and Its Quiet Weak Point

 

Japan is becoming more united under its new prime minister, and pressure from neighboring countries is strengthening that sense of national solidarity. External threats often bring a country together, and Japan is no exception. However, beneath this growing unity lies a sensitive and potentially destabilizing issue: immigration.

 

Japan now has roughly 3.9 million foreign residents and about 2.3 million foreign workers, both record highs. This reflects a dramatic shift away from Japan’s historically cautious approach to immigration, driven by a rapidly aging population and a shrinking domestic workforce. From an economic perspective, the need is obvious. Industries such as healthcare, construction, logistics, and manufacturing simply do not have enough Japanese workers to survive without foreign labor.

 

Yet public sentiment is moving in a different direction. Many Japanese are increasingly uneasy about the speed and scale of this change. This concern is not rooted in race, but in social cohesion. Japanese society relies on shared rules, habits, and expectations that allow millions of people to coexist peacefully in very dense spaces. When large numbers of newcomers arrive without fully adapting to those norms, daily friction increases. Even tourism has become part of the debate when visitors are perceived as ignoring local etiquette or public order.

 

At the center of this tension is Keidanren, Japan’s powerful business federation, which continues to push for more foreign workers to protect corporate profits and economic output. The government is preparing new work-visa systems that could allow hundreds of thousands more workers to enter Japan over the coming years. What looks efficient on paper, however, may carry serious political risk.

 

As voter frustration grows and parties calling for tighter controls gain support, immigration could become the Achilles’ heel of the current administration. It is my opinion.