Ethnic issues in Japan

A Comment by U.N. Special Reporter on Racism and Xenophobia
In 2005, a United Nations special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia expressed concerns about "deep and profound" racism in Japan and insufficient government recognition of the problem.

Doudou Diène (Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights), concluded after an investigation and nine-day tour of Japan that racial discrimination and xenophobia in Japan primarily affects three groups: national minorities, descendants of former Japanese colonies and foreigners from other Asian countries. In spite of the widespread belief that Japan is ethnically homogeneous, it is probably more accurate to describe it as a multiethnic society.

Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese national newspaper, while expressing a support for combating discrimination, expressed doubt on the impartiality of the report, pointing out that Doudou Diène never visited Japan before and his short tour was arranged by a Japanese NGO, IMADR (International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination).

The chairman of the organisation is Professor Kinhide Mushakoji (武者小路公秀), who is a board member (and the ex director of the board) of the International Institute of the Juche Idea (主体思想国際研究所), an organisation whose stated purpose is to propagate the official ideology of North Korea.

Demographic
Only about 1.6% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign nationals. According to 2008 data from the Japanese government, the principal groups are as follows.

The above statistic does not include about 30,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan and illegal immigrants. Moreover, the statistics do not reflect minority groups who are Japanese citizens such as the Ainu (an aboriginal people primarily living in Hokkaido), the Ryukyuans (who may or may not be considered ethnically Yamato people), and ethnic Koreans who have adopted Japanese citizenship.

Japanese ethnic minorities
The nine largest minority groups residing in Japan are the North and South Koreans, Chinese or Taiwanese, Brazilian people (many Brazilians in Japan have some Japanese ancestors), Filipino people, the Ainu, the Ryukyuan. There are also a number of smaller ethnic communities in Japan with a much shorter history.

Korean people
Zainichi (resident in Japan) Koreans are permanent residents of Japan, but hold North or South Korean citizenship. Most Zainichi came to Japan during the colonial period.

A large proportion of this immigration is said to be the result of Korean landowners and workers losing their land and livelihood to Japanese land and production confiscation initiatives and migrating to Japan for work. According to the calculation of R. J. Rummel, a total of 5.4 million Koreans were also conscripted into forced labor, and shipped throughout the Japanese Empire. Of these, 210,000 to 870,000 Koreans died during forced labor in places such as Manchuria and Sakhalin.

Many Korean refugees also came to the country during the Jeju massacre in the First Republic of South Korea. Though most migrants returned to Korea, GHQ estimates in 1946 indicated that 650,000 Koreans remained in Japan.

After World War II, the Korean community in Japan was split between allegiance to South Korea (Mindan) and North Korea (Chongryon). South Koreans in Japan are called Zainichi Kankokujin (在日韓国人, 재일한국인), while North Koreans are called Zainichi Chosenjin (在日朝鮮人, 재일조선인).

Zainichi who identify themselves with Chongryon are also an important money source of North Korea. One estimate suggests that the total annual transfers from Japan to North Korea may exceed $200 million.

Japanese law does not allow dual citizenship, and until the 1980s required adoption of a Japanese name for citizenship. Partially for this reason, many Zainichi did not obtain Japanese citizenship as they saw the process to be humiliating.

Although more Zainichi are becoming Japanese citizens, issues of identity remain complicated. Even those who do not choose to become Japanese citizens often use Japanese names to avoid discrimination and live their lives as if they were Japanese. This is in contrast with the Chinese living in Japan, who generally use their Chinese names and openly form Chinatown communities.

The Diène report identifies Zainichi Koreans as those who have been most discriminated against in Japan, for example in employment, housing and marriage.

An increase in tensions between Japan and North Korea in the late 1990s led to a surge of attacks against Chongryon, the pro-North residents organisation, including a pattern of assaults against Korean schoolgirls in Japan. For a long time, Chongryon enjoyed unofficial immunity from searches and investigations, although it has long been suspected of a variety of criminal acts on behalf of North Korea, such as illegal transfer of funds to North Korea and espionage.

The Japanese authorities have recently started to crack down on Chongryon with investigations and arrests. These moves are often criticized by Chongryon as acts of political suppression.

When Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara referred to Chinese and Koreans as 三国人 sangokujin in context of foreigners being a potential source of unrest in the aftermath of an earthquake, the foreign community complained.

Historically, the word has often been used pejoratively and Ishihara's statement brought images of the massacre of Koreans by civilians and police alike after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake to mind. Therefore, the use of the term in context of potential rioting by foreigners is considered by many as provocative, if not explicitly racist.

Chinese and Taiwanese people
Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese are the second largest minority in Japan after Koreans. Mainland Chinese in particular have been targets of anti-immigrant sentiment along with government, police and media portrayal of them as being likely to commit crime.

Indeed, an investigator from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) said, racism against Koreans and Chinese is deeply rooted in Japan because of history and culture.

Ainu
The Ainu are an indigenous group mainly living in Hokkaidō. The Tokugawa Shogunate tried to develop Hokkaido to counter Russia's growing influence in the Far East, but mostly left the place for the native Ainu. Then the Meiji government started development programs, increasingly aimed at assimilating the Ainu, outlawing Ainu language and restricting them to farming on government-provided plots.

Many of the Ainu were also used in slave-like conditions by the Japanese fishing industry. As the Japanese government encouraged immigration of ethnic Japanese to populate Hokkaido, the Ainu became increasingly marginalised in their own land.

At present, fewer than 20,000 Ainu are considered racially distinct. Most, if not all, of the Ainu in Japan are of mixed ancestry. 80-90% of Ainu now either ignore or don't know of their Ainu identity. Many customs and traditions of the Ainu have been lost, abandoned or annihilated by way of assimilation, and the Ainu language is no longer in common use.

Only in the decades after World War II have the Ainu started to become aware of international aboriginal rights movements. Thus, as of late, some schools in Hokkaido have been established to preserve and revive the Ainu culture.

Ryukyuan people
The Ryukyuan people lived in an independent kingdom until it came under the control of Japan's Satsuma Domain in 1609. The kingdom, however, retained a degree of autonomy until 1879 when the islands were officially annexed by Japan as Okinawa prefecture.

The Okinawan language, the most widely spoken Ryukyuan language, is related to Japanese from Japonic Languages. There are still some children learning Ryukyuan languages natively, but this is rare even on mainland Okinawa. The language still is used in traditional cultural activities, such as folk music, or folk dance.

Culturally, Okinawa is also close to southern China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia reflecting its long history of trade with these regions. However, because of the standard use of Japanese in schools, television, and all print media in Okinawa, these cultural differences are often glossed over in Japanese society. Consequently, many Japanese consider Okinawans to be Japanese, sometimes ignoring their distinct cultural and historical heritage in insensitive ways.

Some Okinawans intensely resent what they perceive to be second-class treatment from the Japanese government, especially in regard to friction with the United States military presence in Okinawa.

Burakumin
The Buraku people are a stigmatized group who have faced bigotry and persecution in Japan for centuries. They have been characterized as "the invisible race", because while they are still considered socially inferior by much of Japanese society, they are not typically held to be racially different.

Presently, there is a steep income difference between "buraku" and "non buraku" people ranging at about one million yen, or $10,000 income per year less than the Japanese mainstream. Lately however, there has been some awareness of the mistreatment of the Buraku and some measures have been taken to provide these people with better education and housing situations.

The history of the prejudice of these people comes from ancient times when the Burakumin were labeled "unclean" because of their occupations as leather cleaners, butchers, or executioners. There are approximately 2-3 million burakumin in the country.

Today, many influential Japanese figures such as politicians, actors, artists, and businessmen, are compelled to conceal their true Buraku heritage for fear of losing their positions because of such heavy prejudice. The Burakumin are commonly compared to the untouchable caste present in the Indian caste system because of the similar lower class positioning in society as well as the discrimination from the greater population.

Other groups
Other notable minorities in Japan include Brazilians and Filipinos.

"Western" foreigners in Japan, particularly those from Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, are often called 外国人 Gaikokujin or 外人 Gaijin. The first large influx of such foreigners occurred in the 1980s, when the Japanese government adopted a policy to give scholarships to large numbers of foreign students to study at Japanese universities.

In addition, as the Japanese economy grew quickly in the 1980s, a sizable number of Westerners began coming to Japan. Many found jobs as English conversation teachers, but others were employed in various professional fields such as finance and business. Although some have become permanent residents or even naturalized citizens, they are generally perceived as short-term visitors and treated as outside of Japanese society.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Keidanren business lobbying organization advocated a policy of allowing South Americans of Japanese ancestry (mainly Brazilians and Peruvians) to work in Japan, as Japan's industries faced a major labor shortage. Although this policy has been decelerated in recent years, many of these individuals continue to live in Japan, some in ethnic enclaves near their workplaces.

Many people from Southeast Asia (particularly Vietnam and the Philippines) and Southwest Asia (particularly Iran) also entered Japan during this time, making foreigners as a group a more visible minority in Japan. Those foreigners are called 来日 Rainichi ("coming to Japan") in contrast to 在日 Zainichi ("in Japan").

The main concerns of the latter groups are often related to their legal status, a public perception of criminal activity, and general discrimination associated with being non-Japanese.

Although there is but a small Jewish community in Japan, and Jews have little historical ties to the country, Japan has been repeatedly accused of anti-semitism.

Black people
During the 1980s, Takara created and sold a doll called ダッコちゃん Dakko-chan, an inflatable dark-colored plastic doll with fat lips and arms that could wrap around human arms or other pole-like objects. After receiving numerous complaints, the sales of the doll were stopped.

Sales of Japanese translations of the book Little Black Sambo (ちびくろサンボ chibikuro sanbo) and dolls were halted by protests by foreign residents and international pressure in 1988. In 2005, however, Little Black Sambo once again went on sale in Japan.

Government policy
Because of the low importance placed on assimilating minorities in Japan, laws regarding ethnic matters receive low priority in the legislative process. Still, in 1997, "Ainu cultural revival" legislation was passed which replaced the previous "Hokkaido Former Aboriginal Protection" legislation that had devastating effects on the Ainu in the past.

Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan states that all people (English version) or citizens (revised Japanese version) are equal under the law, and they cannot be discriminated against politically, economically, or socially on the basis of race, belief, sex, or social or other background.

However, Japan does not have civil rights legislation which enforces or penalizes discriminatory activities committed by citizens, businesses, or non-governmental organizations. The country does not have specific hate crime laws and so racism and hate-motivated offenses such as assault, vandalism, and robbery are prosecuted as regular crimes.

Attempts have been made in the Diet to enact human rights legislation. In 2002, a draft was submitted to the House of Representatives, but did not reach a vote. Had the law passed, it would have set up a Human Rights Commission to investigate, name and shame, or financially penalize discriminatory practices as well as hate speech committed by private citizens or establishments.

Though the anti-discrimination clause raised little objection, the anti-hate speech clause received very hostile reception from Japanese media. In 2005, the ruling coalition government attempted to resubmit a revised version of the draft which somewhat limited the application of hate speech clause, but it still failed to reach a consensus within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Another issue which has been publicly debated but has not received much legislative attention is whether to allow permanent residents to vote in local legislatures. Zainichi organizations affiliated with North Korea are against this initiative, while Zainichi organizations affiliated with South Korea support it.

Finally, there is debate about altering requirements for work permits to foreigners. Currently, the Japanese government does not issue work permits unless it can be demonstrated that the person has certain skills which cannot be provided by locals.

Access to housing and other services
Some apartments, motels, night clubs, and public baths in Japan have put up signs stating that foreigners are not allowed, or that they must be accompanied by a Japanese person to enter. Many Japanese, however, argue that such places are rare, and that the prohibitions are due to perceived social incompatibility—for example, foreigners may not understand proper bathhouse etiquette—and not racism.

Some legal battles have been fought on this issue. Most notably, activist Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen of American descent, has sued the Japanese government several times for not upholding Article 14 of the Constitution.

In housing there is also discrimination based on ethnicity. In a 2006 survey by the Information Center for Foreigners in Japan, 94% of foreign residents reported being refused by at least one real estate agent.

In fact, there were a substantial number of lawsuits in regards to discrimination against foreigners. For example, in 2005, a Korean woman who attempted to rent a room was refused because she was not a Japanese citizen. She filed a discrimination lawsuit, and she won in Japanese court.

“Discrimination toward foreign nationals in their searches for homes continues to be one of the biggest problems”, said the head of the Ethnic Media Press Centre. Organizers of the service said they hope to eradicate the racism that prevents foreigners, particularly Non-Westerners, from renting apartments since there are currently no laws in Japan that ban discrimination.

Higher learning
Although foreign professors teach throughout the Japanese higher education system, Robert J. Geller of University of Tokyo reported, in 1992, that it was extremely rare for them to be given tenure.

Non-Japanese citizens and crimes
Similar to other countries, many foreigners come to Japan to work, sometimes entering the country illegally, and overstaying the terms of their visas. Their employment tends to be concentrated in areas where most Japanese are not able to or no longer wish to work. Consequently, accusations of foreigners stealing jobs are not often heard in Japan.

According to National Police Authority record in 2002, however, 16,212 foreigners were caught committing 34,746 crimes, over half of which turned out to be visa violations (residing/working in Japan without a valid visa). The statistics show that 12,667 cases (36.5%) and 6,487 individuals (40.0%) were Chinese, 5,272 cases (15.72%) and 1,186 individuals (7.3%) were Brazilian, and 2,815 cases (8.1%) and 1,738 individuals (10.7%) were Korean. The total number of crimes committed in the same year by Japanese was 546,934 cases.

Within these statistics, Japanese committed 6,925 violent crimes, of which 2,531 were arson or rape, while foreigners committed 323 violent crimes, but only 42 cases are classified as arson or rape. Foreigners, however, were more likely to commit crimes in groups. About 61.5% of crimes committed by foreigners had one or more accomplice, while only 18.6% of crimes committed by Japanese were in groups.

However, the former head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Emergency Public Safety Task Force, Hiroshi Kubo, published a book disputing foreign crime statistics, suggesting that such statistics were being manipulated by politicians for political gain. He suggested, for example, that including visa violations in crime statistics is misleading. He also said that the crime rate in Tokyo is based on reported rather than actual crimes.