I still don’t really get it. Japan has an aging population, they can’t afford to turn down anyone that wants to work for them really. Look at the inroads that China has made in Africa, despite struggling themselves with racism and the like. Japan could do similar, in a purely self serving manner even.
Japan used to make over 90% of its rice domestically, now it’s less than half, and the reason is that the countryside has been systematically depopulated and all the farms are understaffed. They’ve got the homes and infrastructure already built, and important jobs that could be filled, literally a dream scenario for anyone who might be pro immigration - but the LDP is going to keep digging in their heels and doubling down on nationalism, and the occupying American military will keep preventing any leftist sentiment among the population from taking control of the system. Shit sucks.
Japanese culture, painting with very broad strokes, is extremely racist and xenophobic. Look up the way Korean immigrant workers or wrose, half-Korean half Japanese people, are treated to get an idea of some of the modern problems. It doesn’t help that Japan brutalized most other SE Asian nations during the 30s and 40s and refuses to admit it, while Korea and China remain extremely aware of what the Japanese Empire did in their countries.
