Japanese National Identity Narratives and Refugee

Policy

Christopher James Hall

School of Social Sciences Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

University of New South Wales

This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of POLS5113

15 November 2013

Table of contents

Abstract.......................................................................................................................................3

Map of Japan…..........................................................................................................................4

Introduction...............................................................................................................................5

Chapter 1. Japanese Identity Creation and Development....................................................8

Section 1. Pre-Japanese National Identity and the Heterogeneous nature of the

Japanese Archipelago: the Edo Period............................................................................9

Section 2. Japanese National Identity Creation: The Meiji Period...............................11

Section 3. Post WWII development..............................................................................13

Conclusion....................................................................................................................16

Chapter 2. Contemporary Japanese Identity.......................................................................17

Section 1. Japanese society and identity: the Narrative of Homogeneity.....................18

Section 2. Internal Threats to Japanese National Identity and the Japanese State's

Responses......................................................................................................................20

Conclusion....................................................................................................................26

Chapter 3. International Refugee Regime: Japan's response.............................................27

Section 1. Refugees as immigrants: threat to Homogeneity.........................................27

Section 2. UN Third-Country Resettlement Program: Engagement with the refugee

regime and securing homogeneity.................................................................................33

Conclusion....................................................................................................................35

Conclusion...............................................................................................................................36

Glossary...................................................................................................................................38

Bibliography............................................................................................................................40

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Abstract

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of

refugees in the world reached 15.4 million by the end of 2012. Since the creation of the

Refugee Convention, third-country resettlement has been undertaken by developed states as

one strategy to address refugee issues. Japan, as one of the most developed countries in the

world, has a large economic and infrastructural capacity to accept refugee resettlement.

Despite economic capacity and an economic imperative to increase the population or at least

halt population decline, Japan has played a relatively limited role in refugee resettlement. By

engaging with a variety of primary and secondary sources this thesis will analyse Japan's

attitudes to the resettlement of refugees in the context of the development of Japanese

national identity. It will be demonstrated in this thesis that there is a dominant narrative,

evident in political discourse and contemporary policy, that forms the basis of Japanese

national identity and that the defining feature of this dominant narrative is Japan’s perceived

homogeneity. This thesis will argue that the Japanese national identity, dominated by the

narrative of homogeneity, plays an important role in Japan's refugee policy as well as its

overall attitude towards ethnic, cultural and linguistic minorities within Japanese society. It

will also be shown that there exist a number of ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups within

Japanese society that, by their very existence, contradict the narrative of homogeneity. These

groups form the basis of competing internal counter-narratives, such as those of a

multicultural or multi-ethnic Japan, and therefore pose a threat to the dominant narrative of

Japanese identity.

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Map of Japan

Illustration 1 - Source: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/asia/japan/

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Introduction

Increasing numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers has led to an international humanitarian

crisis that is considered to be an issue that the entire international community has a

responsibility to address (Refugee Convention 1951: Preamble; Betts 2008:163). According to

the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), numbers reached 15.4 million

at the end of 2012 (UNHCR 2013a: 3). Over eighty percent of refugees were located in

developing countries which have struggled with the economic, social and infrastructural

burden that has resulted from the influx of such vast numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers

(UNHCR 2013a: 2). Traditionally, developed countries with economic and infrastructural

capacity have played a role in sharing this burden by resettling large numbers of refugees

within their borders; these countries include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United

States and several European countries (UNHCR 2013c: 82). In addition to these 'traditional'

countries of refugee resettlement, the first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen

less developed, emerging states, such as Brazil, Uruguay and Chile, establish refugee

resettlement programs (UNHCR 2013c: 82). States also contribute to the refugee regime

through voluntary financial contributions; the largest donor has consistently been the United

States.

Japan is another country that has a large capacity to accept refugee resettlement and economic

indicators reflect this capacity. Japan is one of the most developed countries in the world in

regards to infrastructure and with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $5.9 trillion,

Japan boasts the third largest economy in the world (World Bank 2013: np). In addition,

Japan's GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP) is significant at $4.86 trillion, ranking the

state fourth in the world (World Bank 2013: np). Japan also has an economic incentive to

increase the population through immigration. The Japanese government statistics show that

the Japanese population is aging significantly and is in decline (Statistics Bureau 2013: 11,

15). According to the Japanese government, this decline “is becoming serious” as “unless per

capita labour productivity is drastically increased, a decline in population will greatly reduce

the labour force therefore negatively impacting the economy” (Ministry of Justice 2010: 22).

Despite economic capacity and an economic imperative to increase the population or at least

halt population decline, Japan has played a comparatively small role in resettling refugees.

This thesis will analyse Japan's attitudes to the resettlement of refugees in the context of the

development of Japanese national identity. Narrative and discourse are central to the

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construction of a state's national identity (Steele 2008: 58, 64; Delehanty & Steele 2009: 523).

The national identity of a state, shaped by a dominant narrative, has a significant impact on

the actions of the state. The state develops and maintains predictable routines that work to

reaffirm its sense of self identity (Steele 2008: 52). The stability and security of the state's

sense of self identity, its ontological security, can be threatened when the dominant narrative

of identity is challenged by internal counter-narratives within the state itself or external forces

that challenge the dominant identity narrative (Steele 2008: 64; Delehanty & Steele 2009:

525).

The success of a narrative is often influenced by political and social elites who produce

discourse on national identity and have a large degree of power to frame and shape the form

of national identity along the lines of their preference (Kinnvall 2004: 745). The discourse

and narrative produced often claims universality and historical truth, however the veracity of

contemporary or historical realities are of secondary importance to the narrative and

discourse. Once a dominant narrative has gained acceptance as providing the basis of national

identity, the state, via powerful elites and the institutions they establish, works to reinforce the

national identity and protect it from counter-narratives, both internal and external. As

individual elites and their preferences change, so too can the identity of a state as

reinterpretations of contemporary and historical realities, or counter-narratives, are able to

make their way to a dominant position of acceptance in a group (Delehanty & Steele 2009:

536). This can be seen by noticing that the dominant narrative of Japanese national identity

during the Meiji period was different in nature to the post-war narrative and subsequent

national identity in Japan.

It will be demonstrated that there is a dominant narrative, evident in political discourse and

contemporary policy, that forms the basis of Japanese national identity. The defining feature

of this dominant narrative is that of homogeneity. It will also be demonstrated in this thesis

that there exist a number of ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups within Japanese society that,

by their very existence, contradict the narrative of homogeneity as these groups form the basis

of competing internal counter-narratives and therefore pose a threat to the dominant narrative.

The responses to one such threat to Japanese national identity, that of a counter narrative of an

ethnically inclusive Japanese identity, have been striking. It will be argued in this thesis that

the Japanese national identity, dominated by the narrative of homogeneity, plays an important

role in Japan's refugee policy as well as its overall attitude towards ethnic, cultural and

linguistic minorities within Japanese society. Japan's approach towards refugees and asylum-

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seekers has been influenced greatly by Japan's national identity and its dominant narrative of

homogeneity. As refugees and asylum-seekers are ethnically, linguistically and culturally

diverse, their large-scale and official resettlement in Japan poses a threat to the narrative of a

homogeneous Japanese society.

This thesis will proceed as follows. Chapter one will analyse the creation and development of

Japanese national identity. Section one highlights the heterogeneous nature of the Japanese

archipelago during the Edo period (1603-1868). Section two discusses the creation of the

Japanese national identity that emerged in the Meiji period (1868-1911). The final section of

chapter one analyses the developments of Japanese national identity in the post-World War

Two period. Chapter two will then analyse contemporary Japanese national identity. The first

section highlights the dominant position of homogeneity. Section two follows by investigating

internal threats to the Japanese national identity and the Japanese state's responses to such

threats. Chapter three discusses Japan's responses to the international refugee regime. Section

one analyses the idea that refugees can be considered, like immigrants in general, as threats to

homogeneity. Finally, section two analyses Japan's refugee resettlement program that has been

established in a manner that poses little threat to homogeneity as, while it signals Japan's

willingness to engage with the international refugee regime, its maximum resettlement quota

of 30 individuals per year is extremely small and will have a negligible demographic impact

on Japan's population of over 127 million.

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Chapter 1. Japanese Identity Creation and Development

This chapter will contrast the contemporary narrative on Japanese national identity, one that

claims national homogeneity, with a historical account of the Japanese state. The degree to

which factors such as the international debate, norm evolution and conceptions of national

identity influence the refugee policies of individual states varies. In the case of Japan, the

international norms surrounding refugee issues have had less influence on Japanese refugee

policy than the self-identity of the Japanese state. In order to understand the attitude of the

Japanese towards refugee resettlement, the nature and influence of Japanese national identity

must be understood. Japan is generally assumed to be a homogeneous nation. However,

current and historical analysis of language, culture and political entities, such as states and

domains, show that what is now the modern state of Japan does not have a homogeneous

society and that, in fact, the archipelago has a very heterogeneous history. This chapter will

investigate the nature of identity in the Japanese archipelago from the early 17th century

onwards. Section one problematises a key component of Japanese national identity, namely

the idea that there exists a historically consistent, homogeneous Japanese society. This will be

done by highlighting the heterogeneous nature of politics, language and culture of the

Japanese archipelago during the Edo period (1603-1868). Section two will discuss the

formation of the modern Japanese state, the Meiji regime (1868-1912), and the concomitant

creation of a consolidated Japanese national identity which was, by necessity, relatively

inclusive in nature. Section three investigates the remaking of Japanese national identity in

the post-World War Two period. Unlike the Meiji period, after World War Two Japanese

national identity became much more exclusionary in nature.

By conducting a historical survey of identity throughout the Japanese archipelago it will

become evident that the discourse that lays the foundation for Japanese national today is far

from an empirical fact. As this chapter will show, the destruction of state institutions brought

about by Japan's defeat in war in 1945 and the subsequent change in the nature of national

identity narrative promoted by political and social elites enabled the Japanese state to change

its self-identity from being ethnically inclusive to ethno-nationalistic and exclusive. This form

of national identity requires membership of the ethnic group as a necessary precondition that

is essential to enjoying citizenship of the state and inclusion in the Japanese nation.

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Section 1. The Heterogeneous Nature of the Japanese Archipelago: the Edo Period

The notion of Japanese homogeneity is often seen as the reason for Japan's reluctance to

encourage immigration. However, the idea of Japanese homogeneity is far from being a

historical fact and is best described as a “post-modernisation phenomenon” (Narzary 2004:

319). The Edo period (1603-1868) provides a good example of Japan's heterogeneous past.

The Tokugawa regime, with around 250 political units, often called states (kokka 国家) or

domains (han 藩), on the three islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku characterised the

politics and society of Edo era Japan (Ravina 1995: 999). The political structure of the

Tokugawa regime was a confederation of feudal domains and, while each state or domain

held overt autonomy or independence to varying degrees, the pre-eminent and most powerful

domain was known as the Tokugawa Shogunate (Ravina 1995: 1000-1001; 1003).

The Tokugawa Shogunate claimed a monopoly on foreign affairs and, as the “supreme

warlord house”, it claimed a monopoly of force in dealings between states (Ravina 1995:

1001-1003). Despite the political and military pre-eminence of the Tokugawa Shogunate, it

directly controlled only around 15% of the three main islands that made up the Tokugawa

regime. The 250 or so other domains, which varied in size and influence, held, with few

exceptions, economic monopolies and near monopolies on coercive power over their

territories (Ravina 1995: 1000). As can be seen by observing of the heterogeneous nature of

the Tokugawa regime, there was no homogeneous Japanese national identity during the Edo

period but a multitude of domain and state based identities. People under the Tokugawa

regime considered themselves to be members of their kokka or han rather than citizens of a

yet uncreated Japanese nation (Narzary 2004: 312).

The heterogeneous nature of the history of what is now modern Japan is even more striking

when areas and populations outside the political structure of the Tokugawa regime are

considered. During the Tokugawa period the Ainu, in the second largest island of modern

Japan, Hokkaido, and the people of the kingdom of Ryukyu, in modern day Okinawa, were

considered, and considered themselves, to be ethnically distinct from the peoples living on

Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku under the Tokugawa regime (Narzary 2004: 314-316). The

Japanese word Ainu was used as the name of the peoples living in Ezo (later Hokkaido) as

well as a general word for barbarian (Narzary 2004: 314). Between the 15th and 18th centuries

the Ainu fought several major battles with various armies from Honshu and the Ainu were

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increasingly dominated by domains of Honshu. The Tokugawa Shogunate itself eventually

assumed complete control of the island in 1807 so that the Tokugawan northern frontier could

be protected from Russian advances (Tezuka 1998: 350; Yonezawa 2005: 118).

Until its annexation by the Meiji government in 1879, the Kingdom of Ryukyu was

acknowledged to be a part of the “Chinese world order” which placed it outside the legitimate

authority of the Tokugawa regime and meant that the Ryukyu kingdom had various tributary

obligations placed on it by the Chinese Imperial Court (Narzary 2004: 314-315). However, in

1609 the powerful Shimazu clan from Kyushu sent a military force to the Kingdom of

Ryukyu and forced it into submission (Narzary 2004: 314-315). The King of Ryukyu was

effectively made a Shimazu puppet and from that point on had to balance the competing

demands of China and Shimazu as it officially remained within the Chinese political structure

(Narzary 2004: 316). Ogasawara, a small group of Japanese islands located approximately

1000km South of Tokyo, is another example of the ethnic diversity of pre-modern Japan. The

original inhabitants of this small island group settled there from a variety of locations

including the United States, Europe and several Pacific islands (Chapman 2011: 190). In 1862

the Tokugawan magistrate of foreign affairs visited the islands and declared them to be part of

Tokugawan territory (Chapman 2011: 194). With the creation of the Meiji state the islands'

inhabitants, like elsewhere in the Japanese archipelago, unproblematically became Japanese

citizens (Chapman 2011: 194). The cultural, ethnic and political heterogeneity of the Edo

period was also matched by linguistic diversity. During this period and well into the early

Meiji period a large number of languages of Honshu were not mutually intelligible (Shimoda

2010: 715).

An analysis of the historically heterogeneous nature of the Japanese archipelago goes far in

showing the subsequently constructed nature of Japanese national identity. The lack of a

homogeneous Japanese national identity during the Edo period stands in contrast to the

Japanese identities of both the Meiji period and that of today. The fall of the Tokugawa

regime signalled the end of the Edo era and the Meiji regime that followed set the Japanese

archipelago on a course of modern state formation and conscious national identity

construction.

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Section 2. Creating Japanese National Identity: The Meiji Period

The origins of the modern Japanese nation and national identity are found in the

establishment of the Meiji regime which replaced the Tokugawa regime and ended the Edo

period in 1868. That which was to become the Meiji regime started as a domain that rebelled

against and, through political alliance making and several battles, defeated the Tokugawa

Shogunate (Oguma 2000: 239). The instigators of the rebellion launched their campaign

because they strongly opposed the increasing engagement of the Tokugawa regime with the

United States and European powers such as Britain and France. However, once gaining

victory the Meiji regime engaged in significant industrialisation and modernisation with the

aid of advisors from foreign powers as well as advisors who had returned after being sent to

study in the US or Europe. The Meiji regime dismantled the Shogunate political structure,

which had been in place for 265 years, and embarked on a course of nation building which

consciously used the US, France and Britain as models. The ultimate motivation for nation

building along these lines was to create a strong state that could prevent Japan from being

colonised and overturn unequal treaties between Japan, the United States and European states

which “allowed the Western powers to hold extraterritorial consulate jurisdiction in Japan”

and “restricted the Japanese government's power to set tariff rates” (Ikegami 1995: 196).

Eventually the Meiji government sought to be considered an equal with European states and

the US. It was at this time that the idea of a Japanese nation (kokumin) “entered the popular

vocabulary for the first time in Japanese history” (Ikegami 1995: 185).

In order to build a state the new Meiji government had to secure a number of objectives.

Secured territorial boundaries and a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within those

boundaries were immediate priorities. These priorities, which are essential for a modern state,

also signalled a clear break from the position of the Tokugawa government which neither had

secured and defined boundaries nor a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within its

territory. In order to establish and maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within

its territory and protect against external threats, the Meiji government required a modern

standing army. During the Edo period there was great linguistic diversity and no lingua

franca was spoken throughout the Japanese archipelago (Shimoda 2010: 718). It was not

uncommon for people in certain positions to be bilingual or poly-lingual where the local

domain speech was known as well as those of neighbouring domains. If a person's job or

status did not require communicating with people from other domains knowledge of a single

language was more likely; knowledge of languages from distant domains was rare (Shimoda

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2010: 719). The linguistic diversity during the Meiji period was seen as a threat to national

unity. A common language was considered essential and the Meiji government, with support

from leading academics, established policy to create and promote a national language based

on the Tokyo dialect which eventually became standard Japanese (Maher and Yoshiro 1995:

3). Unlike during the Tokugawa period, scholars, politicians and other public figures often

stressed the critical importance of the national language over any local languages or dialects.

In a speech in 1893 the Education Minister, and constitutional architect, Inoue Kowashi

linked the national language to the fate of the country, suggesting that “the Japanese people

must revere their distinct national language” (Inoue 1893: 434). Scholars such as Aoda Setsu,

who wrote a book titled On Rectifying the Dialects, and linguist Ueda Kazutoshi played a

major role in creating and promoting standard Japanese (Shimoda 2010: 721). Throughout the

1890s, Ueda developed and implemented a plan, which was also generally adopted by his

colleagues, which took “educated middle-class Tokyo speech” and “artificially refine[d]” it.

By 1900 this national language was made a compulsory subject on the national school

curriculum (Ueda 1895: 23; 56; Shimoda 2012 723-724).

The narrative that came to dominate the emerging Japanese national identity during the Meiji

period was arguably inclusive in nature. European and American academics, particularly

archaeologists and anthropologists, who travelled to Japan in the years after the Meiji

Restoration, developed a theory that, in the language of the time, the Japanese 'nation' was a

“mixed nation”, that 'Japanese people' were “coloured” and “mongrel” (Oguma 2002: 12).

This concept of a “mongrel” Japanese nation was, to an extent, appropriated and integrated

into the nation building process of Meiji Japan whereby the 'Japanese nation' was cast as

having “superior adaptability” and strong powers of assimilation (Oguma 2002: 12). These

'national characteristics' allowed apparent justification for the Japanese state's forceful

territorial expansion and inclusion into the Japanese nation of ethnically diverse peoples in

newly acquired territories. The incorporation of new peoples and territories began with the

conquest of Hokkaido when in 1869 Meiji forces defeated the combined force of the Ezo

Republic and the remaining Tokugawa loyalists. Then, in 1879 the Meiji government forced

out the Ryukyu royal family and established the prefecture of Okinawa on the basis that the

island chain 'had always been Japanese' (Yonetani 2000: 15). Later in 1895 Taiwan passed

from Chinese to Japanese control as war reparations after the Sino-Japanese war. Southern

Sakhalin was ceded by the Russian empire to Japan in 1905 and the Korean peninsula was

annexed in 1910 in order to secure Japanese territorial integrity (Hudson 2006: 414). People

throughout the empire were citizens and there was a large degree of freedom of movement.

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Large numbers of people moved from the Japanese islands to all parts of the empire and a

large number of people from the colonies moved closer to the imperial centre, the Japanese

main islands.

The emerging, and increasingly accepted, discourse of a singular Japanese nation during the

Meiji years did not put a halt to ethnic differences. In fact, the political elites at the time chose

to establish and encourage a narrative of a singular yet multi-ethnic Japanese nation. Through

its annexation of the Ryukyu Islands and Hokkaido and its acquisition of Taiwan, Japan

became a colonial state. The Japanese state was acutely aware of the two forms of colonialism

practised by the British Empire and France and it was also aware that those two colonial

powers and the US would react strongly if Japan appeared to pose a legitimate threat to their

respective territories. It was in this context that Japanese elites debated the nature of the

Japanese identity they would create and the overall nature of the emerging Japanese empire.

English advisors suggested that Japan adopt the British model of colonialism and designate

people from colonial territories as subjects rather than citizens and restrict educating colonial

subjects so as to not raise their 'expectations' (Kirkwood nd: 24). However, the Japanese state,

unlike the British Empire at the time, lacked the required military strength to impose this type

of colonialism where citizenship rights are denied to large colonial populations. The French

system of colonialism also designated colonised peoples as subjects however if, in the view of

French elites, colonial subjects raised themselves to a level of full civilisation, by learning

French and converting to Christianity, they could obtain full citizenship (Meredith 2005: 58;

Satoshi 2005: 269; Pitts 2005: 306). Japanese officials found this colonial chauvinism to be

impractical in the Japanese case as the differences of culture, religion and economic

development between the colonised and coloniser were seen to be too small. Granting legally

equal citizenship to all people within the empire, admittedly with some 'internal' distinctions

between 'inner' and 'outer' territories, and encouraging a pan-Asian, multi-ethnic Japanese

national identity was decided to be the best way forward in securing the loyalty of everyone

throughout Japanese territory (Satoshi 2005: 271).

Section 3. Post Second World War Identity Development

The end of World War Two saw drastic changes to the Japanese state. Japan was a clear loser

in the war – it lost much of its former territory and the entire country was occupied by Allied

forces. Japan was denied its sovereignty under the occupying force and key territories were

permanently lost and became independent states, such as the Korean peninsula, or integrated

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into the territory of another state, such as the Southern Kuril Islands and the Southern half of

Sakhalin Island, which passed to the USSR (as per the Japan Peace Treaty). Despite these

permanent losses, in the long term, Japan was able to hold on to its earlier territorial

acquisitions of Hokkaido and Okinawa and other small island groups such as Ogasawara.

The utter and complete defeat in 1945, the accompanying territorial losses and the

dismantling of the imperial state and its associated institutions was a degrading and

humiliating experience for many Japanese elites (Shin 2007: 78). In the immediate post war

years, many radical intellectuals were released from prison and, at the same time conservative

political elites were allowed to return to key positions in the Japanese government as the US

sought to create in Japan a key, subordinate ally in the emerging Cold War period (Shin 2007:

78-79). Rather than come into conflict in regards to the future nature of Japan, conservative

elites and leftist radical intellectuals found common ground with the desire to make a clear

and distinctive break with Japan's imperial past (Oguma 2002: 308, 311-312). The multi-

ethnic nationality of imperial Japan was rejected along with ideas of imperial expansion and

militarism. Ethnic unity was established as the basis for rebuilding Japan in a peaceful manner

as, it was argued, the pan-Asian, multi-ethnic national identity was a key factor that led Japan

into excessive, expansionist imperialism (Shin 2007: 80). The strength of the ethnic

nationalism narrative was bolstered by support from the “otherwise irreconcilable camps of

conservatives and Marxists” (Doak 1997: 301-302). Ethnic nationalism was encouraged by

both sides of the ideological divide as it was thought to serve as an important instrument

through which to achieve their respective goals. For the conservatives the goal was to build a

platform for “postwar Japanese unity and solidarity” while for the leftist radicals the goal was

to “emancipate Japan from the shadow of US imperialism and prevent Japan from returning

to a militaristic empire again” (Shin 2007: 81). The multi-ethnic colonial empire had evolved

into a militarist state which ended in a destructive war that was ultimately lost with great

human cost. A clear break with the past was desired and the narrative of a mono-ethnic,

homogeneous Japanese national identity was overwhelmingly accepted and firmly established

(Oguma 2002: 312). Narratives that countered such a view were almost absent and the single

greatest possible source of a narrative that would counter this ethno-national homogeneous

Japanese identity, ethnic Korean Japanese citizens, were quickly isolated and the counter-

narrative neutralised.

At the end of the war ethnic Koreans living in the main islands of Japan found themselves in a

difficult situation. While many ethnic Koreans in Japan considered themselves to be liberated

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peoples deserving of protection the US military and the Japanese authorities viewed them as a

serious problem. Japan, having lost control of the Korean peninsula, feared that rising anti-

Japanese sentiment would spread to ethnic Koreans in Japan so on 1 September 1945 the

Japanese government initiated a return policy for Koreans (Komai 2001: 14). Around 1.5

million people chose to return to Korea and it is likely that they were largely made up of

people who were forced to migrate during the last years of World War Two in order to support

Japanese industrial output (Morris-Suzuki 2006: 305). However, around 600,000 ethnic

Koreans chose to stay in Japan and it is highly likely that the reasons for doing so were that

they had little or no substantial connection to the Korean peninsula and their families had long

been settled on the main Japanese islands (Morris-Suzuki 2006: 305; Komai 2001: 14). With

the strengthening narrative of a mono-ethnic Japanese national identity, Japanese government

policy towards ethnic Koreans in in the immediate post war period was confused and lacking

in clarity (Shin 2007: 59). In 1946, during government debates Koreans in Japan were

reaffirmed as Japanese citizens at least until the coming into force of the Japan Peace Treaty

(Shin 2007: 60). Yet in 1947 the Japanese government passed the Alien Registration

Ordinance that designated resident Koreans as “alien” yet their citizenship was left intact

(Shin 2007: 63). In 1952, shortly before the Japan Peace Treaty took effect, the Japanese

government unilaterally revoked the citizenship of ethnic Koreans that continued to reside in

the remaining Japanese territories (Komai 2001: 14; Morris-Suzuki 2006: 306).

The US authorities occupying Japan also found ethnic Koreans in Japan to be problematic and

they were classified as both “liberated people” due to their ethnicity and “enemy people”

because of their Japanese citizenship status (Shin 2007: 61). Initially the American authorities

single most pressing concern was that the presence of ethnic Koreans in Japan would hinder

reconstruction as their increasing assertiveness of their rights would lead to reactionary and

discriminatory ethnic violence such as the 1923 massacre of 233 ethnic Koreans and Chinese

in the Kanto region (Shin 2007: 1). As Japanese colonial officials and demobilised soldiers

returned to the main Japanese islands and ethno-nationalism gained momentum, ethnic

violence seemed increasingly likely. Ethnic conflict between Koreans and Japanese in Japan

was also a concern for US authorities as they sought to encourage a close cooperation

between the reforming Japanese state and the newly emerging Korean state. In 1951,

Reischauer, a Japan expert with the US Army Intelligence Service, claimed that “Koreans in

postwar Japan have created many annoying complications for the American occupation

forces” and that ethnic Koreans in Japan “as an unassimilable minority will continue to cause

bitterness between certain elements among the Japanese and Korean people” (Reischauer

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1951: np).

As the Cold War developed American and Japanese authorities both came to view the ethnic

Korean population as a source of subversion. The Japanese government saw Koreans as a

hindrance to the ethnic unity of the reconstructing state and the US increasingly viewed ethnic

Koreans in Japan as a source of communist insurgents (Shin 2007: 66). In 1947, the US

supported the Japanese government's closure of all of the 500 or so Korean ethnic schools as

there was an increasing fear that the schools were being used to spread communist ideologies

(Shin 2007: 66). The US also played an important role in supporting Japan's ethnically

exclusive immigration legislation which was directed at ethnic Koreans attempting to enter or

re-enter Japan and which allowed the easy deportation of possible subversive 'aliens', again

legislation directed at ethnic Koreans in Japan (Shin 2007: 67). It was in this environment that

the ethnically exclusive, homogeneous narrative of Japanese national identity emerged and

became entrenched.

Conclusion

The end of the Second World War brought enormous change to the Japanese state. In the

years that followed, the multi-ethnic, pan-Asian Japanese national identity narrative that

emerged during the Meiji period was in complete disrepute. Through the promotion by

political and social elites, a new narrative emerged for the Japanese national identity. This

narrative held at its core the idea that the Japanese nation is homogeneous. In the following

chapter contemporary Japanese identity and the prominent place of homogeneity within

Japanese national identity will be explored. The chapter will also discuss in detail threats to

homogeneity, such as the existence of ethnic minorities within Japanese society as well as

immigration and the ethnic and cultural diversity it brings.

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Chapter 2. Contemporary Japanese National Identity

This chapter discusses contemporary Japanese national identity, arguing that the dominant

narrative that makes up Japanese identity places a critical importance on homogeneity and

that the state has responded to threats to this narrative in important ways such as officially

ignoring ethnically diverse sections of the Japanese population. Throughout the second half of

the twentieth century binary identities of Japanese and Foreigner were solidified in Japanese

discourse. As the label 'Korean' (kankokujin 韓国人) in Japan increasingly brought with it

connotations of colonial inferiority or communist sympathies, ethnic Koreans in Japan

adopted the more neutral label of 'Foreigner' (gaikokujin 外国人) as a basis for advocating for

their rights in the post-war Japanese society (Kashiwazaki 2013: 35). This helped distance

themselves from any colonial or communist associations and gave them a better platform to

advocate for universal basic human rights. This, combined with ideas of a mono-ethnic

Japanese nation, established the beginning of a dominant discourse of binary ethnic identities

in Japan with Japanese on one side and Foreigner on the other (Kashiwazaki 2013: 35). This

dichotomy finds its origins in post-World War Two Japanese ethno-nationalism and ethnic

Korean human rights advocacy continues to the present day. The nature of this identity

dichotomy in contemporary Japanese discourse is that it downplays or ignores ethnic and

national identities other than the Japanese identity (Kashiwazaki 2013: 43). The national or

cultural origin of a foreigner is often ignored and the term foreigner has developed into, in

Japanese discourse, the antonym to Japanese rather than simply a person in Japan who is a

citizen from another country.

Although an extremely literal translation of gaikokujin (外国人) results in outside (外)

country (国) person (人), it is generally translated into English as 'foreigner', however this

simplistic translation is problematic when analysing the population of Japan. In English the

term 'foreigner' normally refers to a person “from another country”. As many officially

designated foreigners in Japan are in fact from Japan and of Japan, the use, in English, of the

term foreigner may actually serve to reinforce the binary nature of identity discourse in Japan.

Issues with the term gaikokujin and its problematic application to various members of

Japanese society are evident in some public discourse. Some sections of Japanese society,

such as the large nation-wide NGO, Ijuren, define foreign resident (gaikokujin jumin) as a

person with ethnic ties to foreign countries, including people with Japanese nationality (Ijuren

2006: 6). Some attempts have also been made to find alternative terms such as 'children with

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overseas ties (gaikokuni tsunagara kodomo)', immigrant (imin) and ethnic minority

(minzokuteki), however such terms have had little acceptance in the public sphere

(Kashiwazaki 2013: 41). It is unlikely that these terms will be accepted while the narrative of

homogeneity is dominant as the terms imply that members of Japanese society may be

ethnically diverse, thus challenging the idea of a homogeneous Japanese nation. To overcome

the problematic nature of the term gaikokujin, for the remainder of this thesis the English term

“Japanese non-citizen” will be used instead of the simplistic translation – foreigner. For the

purpose of this thesis “Japanese non-citizen” will refer to permanent non-citizen members of

Japanese society that have one of a number of permanent residency statuses.

This chapter will proceed in two sections. Section one provides an overview of contemporary

society in Japan with a focus on human diversity and the dominant narrative of homogeneity.

Section two analyses contemporary Japanese identity and highlights several dimensions of

particular threats or challenges to contemporary Japanese identity and investigates the

Japanese state's responses to such threats.

Section 1. Japanese Society and Identity: the Narrative of Homogeneity

According to the Japanese Bureau of Statistics, the total population in Japan in 2012 was

127.52 million (Statistics Bureau 2013: 10). Japan has a rapidly aging population and as of

2012, 24.1% of the population was over 65 years of age (Statistics Bureau 2013: 15).

Immigration statistics are conspicuously absent from Japan's official government statistics

and population growth or decline is described as being “driven by natural increase, while

social increase played only a minor part” (Statistics Bureau 2013: 17). While it's not made

explicit, “social increase” implies either immigration in general or the naturalisation of

immigrants. The lack of acknowledgement of immigrants settling in Japan in official statistics

is just one piece of evidence supporting the idea that the Japanese state significantly values

homogeneity as a core component of the state's identity and that the simple admission of

ethnic diversity within Japanese society threatens the homogeneity narrative and is therefore

threatening to Japan's ontological security.

The high value that is placed on homogeneity by the Japanese state is frequently made

explicit in political statements and discourse. In 2010, soon after attaining the position of

Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister, Nariaki Nakayama stated publicly that

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Japan is a homogeneous country and that Japanese people “do not like foreigners” (Fukada

2008: np). In 2007, the Japanese Education Minister commented that Japan is an “extremely

homogeneous country” and when he was criticised for the statement the then, and current,

Prime Minister placed his support behind the Education Minister and stated that he didn't see

“any specific problem” with the comment (Japan Times 2007: np). In 1986, the Japanese

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone described Japanese society as consisting of one

“homogeneous race” (Japan Times 2007: np; Siddle 2002: 405). In response to protests from

Ainu representatives Prime Minister Nakasone defended his view and declared that there

were no “racial minorities” in Japan (Siddle 2003: 449).

The dominant discourse of Japanese national identity is therefore that of a “homogenised

national identity” (Chapman 2006: 90). The acceptance of this homogeneous narrative is

widespread among Japanese society as well as the international community. The acceptance

of the homogeneity narrative of the Japanese state in the intentional community is made

explicit in United Nations statements and reports such as a UNHCR report in 2000 where the

Japanese state is said to have sustained its “ethnic and cultural homogeneity” (UNHCR 2000:

182). The acceptance of the homogeneous nature of the Japanese state is also evident in

academic literature. In discussing Japan and its record in dealing with refugees, Dean and

Nagashima (2007: 486) make the assumption that Japan “is not a country that has a history of

diversity” and that the Japanese state lacks “a modern experience of multiculturalism”. To

assume that Japan lacks a history of diversity is to accept the current narrative of Japanese

national identity and ignore the significant contemporary and historical diversity of the

Japanese archipelago as was shown in chapter one. Dean and Nagashima's second assumption

in this case is also problematic. If Japan lacks a 'modern' experience of multiculturalism, it is

argued in this chapter that, rather than being a natural state of affairs, it is due to specific

efforts by the Japanese state to consolidate the narrative of homogeneity and avoid

compromising this dominant narrative.

As was discussed in chapter one, the origin of a homogeneous Japanese national identity can

be traced to the post World War Two years. The narrative of a mono-ethnic, homogeneous

Japanese nation was consolidated in the 1950s and 1960s and further strengthened in later

decades. This is evident in the development by scholars of the theory of what it means to be

Japanese, called “Nihonjiron”, as well as numerous parliamentary debates and official

statements by Japanese officials. In 1967 a debate by the Japanese government raised

concerns over joining the Refugee Convention and Protocol as it would result in huge

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numbers of asylum-seekers flowing into Japan (Honma 1990: 146-47). It was feared by the

government that Japan's 'doors' would 'open' if Japan joined the Refugee Convention and

Protocol and that the result would be “unacceptable levels of immigration which would in

turn have an adverse effect on Japanese society.” (Dean and Nagashima 2007:486). This idea

of compromising the homogeneous Japanese nationality was a primary concern during such

debates. All sides of politics assumed as fact the idea that Japan was a “mono-ethnic” country

(HOR, 1978b: np). The idea that Japan contained only a single ethnicity was also firmly

entrenched in the Japanese bureaucracy by this stage. The Director of the Immigration Bureau

of the Ministry of Justice, Kagei Umao, made this point explicitly in his argument against the

resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in 1975, when he said “we Japanese people, for historical

and geographical reasons, have been an ethnic group that has always been homogeneous”

(HOR, 1975: np). Evidence of the strength of the narrative of a mono-ethnic, homogeneous

Japanese identity is also evident in recent government policies and publications. The Basic

Plan for Immigration Control by the Ministry of Justice, published every five years, is one

example. The 4th edition, published in 2010, further strengthened the idea that Japanese

people are a part of a “harmonious” society that is distinct from, and increasingly required to

“coexist” side by side with Japanese non-citizens, rather than accept Japanese non-citizens as

a part of the Japanese nation (Ministry of Justice 2010: 2).

As has been shown in this section, the narrative of homogeneity has, and continues, to play a

primary role in the national identity of the Japanese state and the worldview of Japanese

political elites. Homogeneity is a key component to the narrative of Japanese identity and

counter-narratives that challenge this threaten its ontological security. One such counter-

narrative that challenges the homogeneity narrative is a multi-ethnic or multicultural counter-

narrative to Japanese identity. While there are proponents of a multicultural Japan, the

dominant Japanese national identity faces ontological security threats from discourse that falls

short of the conscious promotion of counter narratives to Japanese national identity. The

following section will discuss several possible sources of threats to the narrative of

homogeneity in Japanese national identity and the state's response to these threats.

Section 2. Internal Threats to Japanese National Identity and the Japanese State's

Responses

In contrast to the notion of a homogeneous Japanese society, there exists, in contemporary

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Japan, a significant amount of human diversity. This social diversity includes caste based

Japanese citizens such as the Eta or Burakumin as well as ethnic groups such as Okinawans,

Ainu and former foreign nationals who have become naturalised Japanese citizens. There are

also over 2.1 million Japanese non-citizens, primarily of Chinese, Korean or South American

backgrounds, with some kind of Japanese residency status (Aiden 2011: 213). The existence

of large, and increasing, numbers of ethnically diverse migrant groups in Japanese society,

combined with self-proclaimed indigenous populations, has threatened the established,

contemporary version of the Japanese national identity. In other words the ontological

security of the Japanese state is threatened by the existence of groups in Japan that do not fit

within the bounds of the dominant national identity narrative of homogeneity. An important

threat comes in the form of a possible counter-narrative to the dominant homogeneous, ethno-

national articulation of Japanese national identity. This counter-narrative is one that constructs

the Japanese national identity as one that is ethnically inclusive or even multicultural.

Proponents of such narratives are becoming increasingly common in Japan and they include

ethnic-based organisations such as the Ainu Association of Hokkaido (Ainu Associations of

Hokkaido 2013: np). Individual proponents include naturalised Japanese citizen activists such

as the American born writer for the Japan Times, Arudou Debito, as well as Japanese

academics such as the former chairman of the Multicultural Promotion Council in Tokyo,

Yamawaki Keizo (Debito 2013: np; Keizo 2013: np). There exist three general categories of

threats to the homogeneity narrative of Japanese national identity: ethnic minority Japanese

citizens, Japanese non-citizens and immigrants. Each category, by their very nature,

contradicts and challenges the narrative of homogeneity in Japan.

Firstly, homogeneity is protected by the state officially ignoring ethnic diversity among

Japanese citizens. Ethnic, cultural or linguistic differences are still a feature of the

contemporary Japanese ethnic majority and over the past five decades there have been

“dialect preservation movements, nostalgic 'hometown' revivals” and “local speech” revival

efforts (Shimoda 2010: 731). The most widely known distinct speech variation within the

Japanese ethnic majority is known as Osaka-ben, or Osaka dialect. Acknowledged speech and

cultural variations within the Japanese ethnic majority are seemingly unproblematic and exist

concurrently with the narrative of Japanese identity. Each year thousands of people from a

large range of backgrounds naturalise and become Japanese citizens despite the inherent

difficulties in doing so (see below) – between 1990 and 2009 more than 270,000 people

became naturalised Japanese citizens (Kashiwazaki 2013: 35; Ito 2011: np). In addition to the

growing number of naturalised Japanese citizens and their descendants, substantial indigenous

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ethnic groups, Ainu and Okinawans, make up the majority of this section of Japanese society

that threatens, by their very existence, the ontological security of the Japanese state. Despite

some significant, but limited, legal gains of the recognition of Ainu cultural distinctiveness,

the Japanese state deals with these groups by ignoring them in official documents, policies

and reports this is evident in a number of areas. In 1997 the Japanese state passed the Ainu

Cultural Promotion Act (ACP) and many Ainu advocates applauded it as an “epoch-making

event” where multiculturalism is accepted and encouraged in Japan (Siddle 2002: 406).

However, in the years since its passing it has far from resulted in the emergence of a

multicultural or multi-ethnic Japanese identity and the narrative of homogeneity has remained

dominant.

In the Act, Ainu culture is defined narrowly to encompass traditional language, music, dance

and crafts that have been “inherited” from a past society of Ainu and therefore a modern,

sophisticated Ainu identity has little scope within the law (ACP 1997: Article 2). Under this

definition of Ainu it is argued that there are very few “real Ainu” in Japan. This line of

argument has been evident in a number of examples of government discourse regarding the

Ainu. In 1997, during a governmental committee meeting it was claimed that the “cultural

traditions” that the Japanese government considers to be central to Ainu identity are in

“crisis” (Sanguun Jimukyoku 1997: 7). Government attitudes towards the Ainu as an ethnic

minority were made explicit in 2001 when a prominent politician from the dominant Liberal

Democratic Party, Suzuki Muneo, told those gathered at a Foreign Press Club meeting in

Tokyo that Japan is a unitary state with one language and one nation and that the “Ainu are

now completely assimilated” (Hokkaido Shinbun 2001: np). Also in 2001, the Economy and

Industry minister, Hiranuma Takeo declared, in Saporo, the capital of Hokkaido, that Japan

was a “homogeneous nation” (Hokkaido Shinbun 2001: np). In addition, ethnic demographic

statistics are conspicuously absent in the Japanese government's official statistics such as the

2013 Statistical Handbook of Japan published by the Statistics Bureau of the Japanese

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This, together with a clear lack of any

acknowledgement of immigration or naturalisation, is consistent with the dominant narrative

of a homogeneous Japanese identity.

Secondly, Japanese non-citizens are conceptually isolated from Japanese identity so that the

claim to homogeneity can remain. Unlike many of the Korean residents who lost their

citizenship after the war, and their descendants, there has been a growing number of Japanese

non-citizens who have limited, if any, Japanese language skills. The 1980s saw Japan's

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economy in need of low skilled labour. The Japanese government was, and remains, reluctant

to allow immigrants, especially immigrants that were perceived to be racially different to the

Japanese race. A policy was developed that allowed people from South America, especially

Brazil and Peru, with provable Japanese ancestry, dating back a maximum or three

generations, to move to Japan with special, open-ended, work visas (Castro-Vazquez 2009:

59). Many of these people have settled in Japan and there are increasing numbers of people

born in Japan with a first, often only, language of Spanish or Portuguese. These people are

often labelled Nikkeijin ( 日系人 of Japanese descent) as well as simply gaikokujin. Being a

person of Japanese descent does not equate to acceptance into the Japanese national identity

nor does it, in practice, expedite the acquisition of Japanese citizenship. For the past three

decades these groups have worked and settled in and around major industrial cities where a

majority of Nikkeijin work in the manufacturing sector on short term contracts (Otsuka 2008:

199). These ethnic groups are a major source of highly flexible casual labour and have

contributed significantly to the economy of Japan (Castro-Vazquez 2009: 60).

However, as these groups are linguistically, culturally and ethnically centred around South

American culture they are situated outside the boundaries of current Japanese national

identity. As such they lack recognition and support from the central government which has led

to the increasing marginalisation of Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities in Japan

(Castro-Vazquez 2009: 61). Despite education for children being free in Japan around 50% of

children of Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities in Japan do not finish high school

(Otsuka 2008: 201). This is largely due to linguistic and economic issues and lack of

government support (Otsuka 2008: 201). Several local Japanese governments, at the city and

prefecture level, have been forced to come to terms with the reality of a large percentage of

people living in their jurisdictions with limited Japanese language ability and have started

implementing policies that support “local foreigners” and provide access to basic services.

However, the local policies are put in place to solve local population issues and individuals

who benefit from such policies lose benefits if they move to a different city where there is not

a large number of “local foreigners”.

Since the early 2000s, official government discourse emphasised tabunka kyosei (多文化共

生) or “Multicultural Co-Existence” (Kashiwazaki 2013: 41). This discourse from Japanese

governments has emphasised that Japanese people (Nihonjin 日本人) and Japanese non-

citizens should be able to live side-by-side in a peaceful and law-abiding way. Some

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academics have signalled that the Multicultural Co-Existence discourse has been positive and

Foreigners in Japan should start to feel more welcome and accepted in their own homes now

that they are increasingly referred to as “foreign resident” (gaikokujin jumin 外国人住民) or

“resident foreigner” (zainichi 在日) rather that the apparently more distant “Foreigner”

(gaikokujin) (Aiden 2011: 220). A concious effort has been made to frame discourse in terms

of Multicultural Co-Existence rather than tabunka ( 多文化multicultural) or tabunka shugi

(多文化共生, multiculturalism) which imply that there is cultural or ethnic diversity among

Japanese citizens (Kashiwazaki 2013: 39). By accepting “Japanese non-citizens” in Japanese

society in the way that is currently being done, the diverse range of nationalities and

ethnicities of Japanese non-citizen are able to be conceptually grouped together, controlled

and isolated from the Japanese national identity. In this way the homogeneity narrative of the

Japanese national identity is protected and the internal counter-narrative of a multi-ethnic or

multicultural Japanese identity is suppressed. By formally framing such ethnically diverse

members of Japanese society as gaikokujin, rather than conceptually integrating them into a

multicultural conception of Japanese identity, the claim of the homogeneity of 'Japanese

people' is seen to be reinforced.

The decision of the Japanese state to implement a policy that formally separates the binary

identities of 'Japanese non-citizen' from 'Japanese' means that the claim of homogeneity can

remain for Japanese identity. While Japanese non-citizen and foreign nationals are able to

naturalise and become Japanese citizens the procedure is complex, ambiguous and intrusive;

detailed statistics of naturalisation are sparse (Lee 2005: 40). The Nationality Act (1950)

states that the sole requirement for naturalisation is “obtaining the permission of the Minister

of Justice” (Nationality Act 1950: Article 4.2) In practice the decision to accept an

application for naturalisation ultimately falls with bureaucrats within the Ministry of Justice

(Lee 2005: 40). For an individual to undergo naturalisation, the Ministry of Justice requires

the completion of a significant number of documents in Japanese, including a form where

family members of the applicant are required to declare their personal views on the person's

application to naturalise and whether they themselves would also be willing to naturalise or

otherwise support the applicant (Lee 2005: 46-47). The applicant is also required to canvas

the opinions of his/her neighbours and inform them of his/her intention to naturalise and

ensure the neighbours are aware of his/her original nationality (Lee 2005: 47). In addition, a

high level of Japanese language ability is required to become a naturalised citizen and the

English language version of the Ministry of Justice site has no information regarding

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naturalisation and the site is not available in Portuguese or Spanish, two key minority

languages (Ministry of Justice 2013a: np). Applicants are also required to hand-write a letter

in Japanese explaining why they need to become a Japanese citizen (Matsuzaki General

Counsel Office 2013: np). The requirement for an applicant to handwrite a document in

Japanese is a task that even Japanese speakers, educated in the Japanese education system,

would find difficult (Suzuki 2013: np). This is problematic for the large numbers of resident

non-citizens in Japan who have limited Japanese language ability, limited financial resources,

little government language support and limited access to social services.

The third threat that may contribute to a multi-ethnic counter-narrative is immigration. The

Japanese government's conceptualisation of immigration is narrowly restricted to being

concerned with the physical movements by citizens and non-citizens across Japanese borders.

As such Japan has a no-immigration policy despite the significant economic benefits that an

immigration policy would bring. The economic and social benefits of an immigration policy

have been identified by the Japanese government and in academic literature. The Basic Plan

for Immigration Control (BPIC), 2010, highlights Japan's declining population and the

negative impacts population decline will bring such as loss of productivity and tax revenue,

decline in economic growth, increasing medical and nursing care costs (Ministry of Justice

2010: 22). The report states that there is a need to “utilize the potential workforce of young

people, women and elderly people in order to increase productivity (Ministry of Justice 2010:

22). However, the population decline will still impact the Japanese economy and the BPIC

report suggests that the Japanese government may, in the future, accept foreign nationals as

naturalising immigrants, despite the cultural and linguistic diversity they would bring, in

order to arrest population decline (Ministry of Justice 2010: 22). As homogeneity dominates

the Japanese national identity accepting large numbers of foreign nationals as immigrants is

problematic for the Japanese government and the BPIC report states that “there is the need to

have a wide-ranging debate on the future ideal image of Japan” (Ministry of Justice 2010:

22). Immigration and refugee resettlement are conspicuously not discussed in official

Japanese government statistics despite the large numbers of people becoming naturalised

citizens each year (Statistics Bureau 2013: np). Japan's refugee policy is also a direct

reflection to its attitude towards immigration in general. By officially and conspicuously

allowing large numbers of refugees to permanently settle in Japan it is feared that the

immigration “floodgates” will open and “cause disruption to its much prized social cohesion”

(Dean and Nagashima 2007: 494). As a result Japan has, in contrast to its significant financial

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contribution to the UNHCR, “maintained a minuscule [refugee] application rate and

recognition rate despite the flow of refugees in the region” (Dean and Nagashima 2007: 494).

Conclusion

This chapter has analysed contemporary Japanese identity and identified homogeneity as the

dominant narrative. Several existential threats to the homogeneity narrative exist in the form

of ethnically diverse members of Japanese society. The Japanese state has responded to such

identity threats in a number of ways that include ignoring the existence of diversity within

Japanese society and maintaining a narrow conception of immigration. Official immigration,

and by extension large-scale refugee resettlement, will lead to cultural and ethnic diversity

that would compromise the homogeneity narrative. As such, refugee resettlement has been

kept to a minimum in Japan and few asylum-seekers that arrive in Japan are granted

Convention refugee status. The following chapter expands on the Japanese state's response to

threats to the narrative of homogeneity in the context of refugee resettlement and investigates

the Japanese state's response to the international refugee regime.

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Chapter 3. International Refugee Regime: Japan's Response

Japan, unlike other developed states, has not resettled significant numbers of refugees under

the Refugee Convention and Protocol. This chapter analyses responses to the international

regime by the Japanese state and argues that Japan's responses have been guided by

contemporary Japanese national identity and its dominant narrative of homogeneity. Section 1

discusses refugees as immigrants in the Japanese context and therefore, if settled in Japan, a

threat to the narrative that Japan is a homogeneous society. Section 2 investigates the

Japanese state's resettlement of over 10,000 Vietnamese refugees and argues that the

protection of homogeneity was the primary consideration of Japanese decision makers and

that the Vietnamese resettlement was interpreted by Japanese officials as a special case and

not a precedent for future refugee resettlement or large-scale immigration. Finally, section

three analyses the Japanese state's engagement with the international refugee regime and the

establishment of a UN third-country resettlement program in Japan. It is argued in this section

that while the Japanese state has established a refugee resettlement program it's design and

outcomes to date pose a negligible threat to the narrative of Japanese homogeneity.

Section 1. Refugees as Immigrants: a Threat to Homogeneity

The origin of the contemporary international refugee regime can be found in the aftermath of

the Second World War and the destruction it caused. In 1951, the newly formed United

Nations created the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as an attempt to deal with

the millions of people who fled or somehow found themselves outside their country of origin

without a high chance of repatriation due to fear of persecution based on race, religion,

nationality, or being a member of a particular political or social group (Convention Relating

to the Status of Refugees, article 1:2). As the original convention was designed to deal with

the aftermath of the Second World War, a protocol to the the Refugee Convention as created

in 1967 to expand the refugee regime and to include situations other than those directly

related to the Second World War (Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1:2). Japan

could not sign the original convention in 1951 as it was under occupation and without

sovereignty (1951 Japan Peace Treaty). When Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952, with the

coming into force of the 1951 Japan Peace Treaty, there was little interest in signing the

convention for Japan as it was focused on reconstruction and generally did not consider itself

to be a country refugees would flee to (Strausz 2012: 249). As a result, Japan did not become

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a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol

(hereafter referred to together as the Refugee Convention and Protocol) until 1981 and 1982

respectively (UNHCR 2013b: 1).

In addition to the Refugee Convention and Protocol the UNHCR was established in 1951 and

one of its primary functions is to “ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum

and find refuge in another state with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or

resettle in a third country” (UNHCR 2013e: np). Since its founding the UNHCR has played a

major role in refugee resettlement and a number of permanent or ongoing third-country

resettlement programs are in place (UNHCR 2011b: 4). The numbers of states participating in

third-country refugee resettlement programs has grown from ten in the 1980s to twenty-six

countries in 2012 (UNHCR 2011b: 65; UNHCR 2013d: 1). The basic process of third-country

resettlement programs involves a refugee fleeing their own country, the first country, and

move into another country, the second country and often a neighbouring country. Ultimately

the refugee will be assisted by the UNHCR and resettled permanently in a third-country. The

reasoning behind such an approach is based on burden sharing in the international

community. In order to share this burden it is argued that developed states have a

responsibility to act as good global citizens and share some of this immense burden through

financial contributions and, importantly, by accepting the resettlement of refugees. Japan's

role in this burden sharing has primarily been to provide large financial contributions to the

UNHCR while avoiding any significant resettlement of refugees under the Refugee

Convention and Protocol. Since the 1970s, Japanese refugee policy and the experience of

resettled refugees have consistently fit within Japan's overall response to immigration which

is directly impacted by the dominant narrative of a homogeneous Japanese nation. The

creation, development and institutional reinforcement of an exclusionary national identity

directly influences refugee policy. Japan's engagement with the international refugee regime

are attempts to weaken criticism from the international community while at the same time

preventing large scale immigration.

Starting in the mid-1970s, when Vietnamese refugees started to arrive in Japan, a number of

governmental discussions and debates took place in Japan regarding refugee resettlement.

Throughout the debates three key arguments were raised against allowing Vietnamese asylum

seeker resettlement in Japan (Strausz 2012: 256). The first argument was that Japan was too

small and resource poor and its population was too large (HOC, 1977: np). The second

argument was that in the case that Vietnamese asylum seekers were allowed to be resettled in

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Japan the result would be, in the words of a Ministry of Justice bureaucrat, “a flood of

refugees from other countries” (Matsumoto, 1977: np). The third argument against

resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in Japan was that Japan was a homogeneous nation and it

would therefore be difficult for any migrants to integrate, compromising Japan's homogeneity

(HOR, 1978a: np).

In July 1979 at the International Conference on Refugees and Displaced Persons in Southeast

Asia, a member of the Japanese delegation was quoted as arguing against Japan accepting

refugees due to “the fact that we have little land and high population density, other cultures

cannot get used to living in our monoethnic society” (Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 1979b: 4;

UNGA 1979: np). As Strausz states, arguments like this “suggests that Japan’s tradition of

monoethnicity is fundamentally incompatible with large-scale refugee admissions” (Strausz

2012: 257). A result of the conference was the permanent resettlement of over 85,000

Vietnamese refugees in Asia; Japan's initial quota, reflecting the concerns of the Japanese

delegation, was set at the very low figure of 500 individuals (Asahi Shinbun, 1979: 1).

When the first Vietnamese refugees began to arrive in 1975 Japan had no legal structures or

policies in place to deal with refugees (Arakaki 2008: 17). Under the 1951 Immigration

Control Law, Vietnamese refugees that were taken to Japan in a foreign flagged ship were

given landing permission on the condition that the national government of the shipowner

would take ultimate responsibility for the refugees (Dean and Nagashima 2007: 488). For

Vietnamese refugees rescued and taken to Japan by Japanese ships a thirty day landing

permission was given with residency not an option, as such refugees rescued by Japanese

flagged ships were placed in a precarious situation where they were required to leave Japan

by their own means or breach their landing permission after 30 days (Arakaki 2008: 17). As

Vietnamese refugees arrived in increasing numbers the Japanese government issued thirty day

landing permissions only on the condition that the UNHCR guaranteed the living expenses of

the asylum-seekers and guaranteed that they would be resettled in another country (UNGA

1980: 42). Throughout the second half of the 1970s, states neighbouring Vietnam were

struggling to cope with the huge numbers of Vietnamese refugees entering their territory.

These countries, including Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, were significantly less

developed, both in terms of their economies and infrastructure, than Japan (Dean and

Nagashima 2007: 488). Despite the Japanese Prime Minister announcing in April 1978 that

Japan would start allowing refugee resettlement, Japan's limited efforts in this regard started

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to attract criticism from the international community as Japan's “burden-sharing deficit”

became increasingly evident by its limited acceptance of refugee resettlement – Japan had

resettled only 1,798 by 1981 (United Nations 1981: 1033).

In practice the Japanese state sought to avoid resettlement of Vietnamese refugees and avoid

the seriousness of the problem. This can be seen in a formal request from the Japanese

government to the Vietnamese ambassador asking that the Vietnamese government control the

huge numbers of people fleeing Vietnam so that the “influx of refugees” into Japan can be

limited (Nihon Keizai Shinbun 1979a: np). During this period, Japan contributed, and

continues to contribute, significant financial resources to the UNHCR. However, this

“chequebook assistance” failed to stop criticism from the international community as Japan's

“burden-sharing deficit” in regards to the resettlement of refugees was clear and the

motivation behind the large financial contributions by Japan were seen to be in place of

refugee resettlement (Dean and Nagashima 2007: 489). By maintaining its status as a major

UNHCR donor and resisting refugee resettlement on its soil Japan is “burden-shifting rather

than burden-sharing” and the socio-economic and cultural burdens are placed on other, less

developed, states in the Asia Pacific region (Dean and Nagashima 2007: 504).

In 1981 Japan joined the Refugee Convention and Protocol and ratified the treaty by

amending the 1951 Immigration Control Act which was renamed the Immigration Control

and Refugee Recognition Act (ICRRA). Dean and Nagashima (2007: 482) claim that the

combination and blurring of immigration law and refugee law into one law is unhelpful

because it conflates immigration law and humanitarian law, which should be treated as two

distinct areas of law. The singular law for refugee recognition and immigration control falls

under the Immigration Bureau in the Ministry of Justice and gives the Ministry of Justice

complete control over entry to Japan. Since ratifying the Refugee Convention and Protocol

the Japanese government has amended the ICRRA in 2004 and 2009. The latter amendment

came into force in 2012 and both amendments maintained the unitary legal framework

(Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act 1951). The few significant amendments

include the possibility, under certain conditions, that long term residency rights could be

granted to recognised refugees (Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act 1951,

Article 61-2-2). Dean and Nagashima (2007: 498) comment that in 2004 the Japanese

government “failed to seize the opportunity to disengage the law on immigration from that on

asylum and refugees.” If it was the case that the Japanese government were seeking ways in

which to disengage the two, they 'failed' again in 2009. However, the government sought to

30 | P a g e

maintain its control over refugees as they were viewed as a precursor to large-scale

immigration and as such a threat to Japan's homogeneous identity; if the primary

consideration of the government was to protect the homogeneous narrative of Japanese

national identity then the amendments of both 2004 and 2009 can be seen as positive

developments.

This sentiment is illustrated by the director of the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of

Justice, Kagei Umao, who argued against the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees during a

parliamentary session because “Japanese people, for historical and geographical reasons, have

been an ethnic group that has always been homogeneous” (HOR, 1975: np). This view of

Japanese society is also evident later in 1979 in an editorial discussing refugee resettlement in

the Yomiuri Shinbun that states as fact the view that Japanese society was a homogeneous

society “in which other ethnicities are firmly rejected” and that by allowing large numbers of

Vietnamese refugees to settle in Japan the “social and spiritual climate” of the state will

change (Yomiuri Shinbun 1979: 4). Later in 1978, the Liaison and Coordination Council for

Indochinese and Displaced Persons Japan attempted to explain Japan's reluctance to accept

refugees by claiming that Japan is not an “immigration country” that can accept the ethnic or

cultural diversity that immigration brings (Naikaku Kanbo 1987: 19).

Countries that have admitted large numbers of refugees, such as America, Canada,

Australia, France, either originated with a tradition as immigration countries or

had a background of involvement with the Indochinese countries; also, countries

such as Switzerland and Sweden, had a tradition of caring for disabled people

based in Western European humanism (Naikaku Kanbo 1987: 19- 20).

This perception that the very nature of Japanese identity is possibility threatened by allowing

refugee resettlement sheds light on the motivation behind inserting humanitarian refugee law

into existing immigration legislation that falls within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of

Justice.

Public attitudes towards refugee resettlement in Japan in the late 1970s and early 1980s were

not favourable. This can be seen in a number of public polls undertaken by the Japanese

government's Cabinet Office. In 1980, 49.6% of respondents did not support refugee

resettlement at all or wanted the refugee resettlement quota to remain at 500 while only

22.8% of respondents supported increased resettlement (Naikakufu, 1980: np). By 1982 when

31 | P a g e

Japan increased its Vietnamese refugee resettlement quota to 3000, support for resettlement

had increased, however less than 50% of respondents thought that the quota should be

increased at all and among that number only 7.4% wanted a substantial increase (Naikakufu,

1982: np). Despite this lack of clear public popularity, in 1985 Japan established a quota of a

total of 10,000 Vietnamese refugee resettlement places and by 2005, the last year Vietnamese

people were resettled after Japan's family reunion orientated Orderly Departure Plan was

terminated in 2004, Japan had allowed the resettlement of over 11,300 Vietnamese, Laotian,

and Cambodian refugees (MOFA 2013: np; Naikaku Kanbo 1987: 11; Akashi, 2010: 94,

n.55). However, very few of these were given Convention status – between 1989 and 1997

nearly all applications for Convention refugee status were rejected and an average of two

people per year were granted refugee status; 18 were granted Convention refugee status out of

756 applications during this period (MOJ 2005: np; UNHCR 2005: 382; UNHCR 2002: 348).

Between 1982 and 2010 the total number of refugee recognised as such under the Refugee

Convention and Protocol reached 577 (MOFA 2013: np). Refugee application rates were also

kept low during this period due to a number of factors such as officials failing to provide

interpreting services and application forms not being available or when they were available

they were only in Japanese or English (Amnesty international 2002: 4, 6). Immigration staff

frequently gave incorrect advice or actively discouraged people from making an asylum claim

(Amnesty international 2002: 4). In addition the Japanese state violated the principle of non-

refoulment under the Refugee Convention and Protocol by frequently arresting and deporting

potential asylum applicants before they were able to make a claim of asylum (Amnesty

international 2002: 2).

The policy of resettlement of several thousand Indochinese refugees was not believed to be a

serious threat to the narrative of homogeneity. Japanese politicians and bureaucrats believed

that “such a policy would not set a precedent that would cause Japan to become a destination

for large-scale refugee resettlement” (Strausz 2012: 246). This was made clear in government

discourse. In 1982, the year after Japan signed the Refugee Convention and Protocol, the

Director of the Japanese Administrative Management Agency, Nakasone Yasuhiro,

commented that there are two types of refugees, refugees that fall under the Convention and

Protocol and Vietnamese refugees that are not refugees under the Convention and Protocol of

which a limited number are accepted for resettlement due to international pressure (HOC,

1982: np). In 1987, the Liaison and Coordination Council for Indochinese and Displaced

Persons published a report that made the argument that refugees from Vietnam or other parts

of Indochina were not refugees under the Refugee Convention and Protocol and that Japan

32 | P a g e

was granting refugee status and resettlement to such refugees, limited by a quota, due to the

specific request of the UNHCR and the United Nations General Assembly (Naikaku Kanbo,

1987: 11). International pressure was required for Japan to accept a limited number of

Vietnamese refugees, however it was not sufficient (Strausz 2012: 246). Japanese officials

agreed to resettlement after they came to believe that the Vietnamese refugee resettlement

would be a special case within limited parameters, and therefore not a long term threat to

homogeneity.

Dean and Nagashima (2007: 504) state that the influence of the international community,

through international organisations such as the UNHCR, “should not be underestimated” and

that the UNHCR's input into the 2004 amendment to the Immigration Control and Refugee

Recognition Act resulted in a “more positive outcome for the revision than had been

previously thought possible”. They also claim that:

As international awareness of Japan's burdensharing [sic] deficit and quasi-closed

door policy towards asylum-seekers grows, so too will the pressure to take more

positive action and put humanitarian considerations at the heart of its refugee

policies and practice (Dean and Nagashima 2007: 505).

However, as long as homogeneity remains the basis for the dominant narrative of Japanese

identity the pressure from the international community will not be sufficient to significantly

alter Japan's response to refugee resettlement. This can be seen in Japan's responses to the

Refugee Convention and Protocol, the Vietnamese refugee crisis and, more recently, UN third

country resettlement programs.

Section 2. UN Third-Country Resettlement Program: Engagement with the refugee

regime and securing homogeneity

In 2010 Japan joined the list of states taking part in regular refugee resettlement programs.

However it has been made clear that Japan's resettlement program is a pilot program and not

yet a permanent part of Japanese refugee policy (UNHCR 2013c: 82). The pilot program was

originally intended to be in place for the three years of 2010, 2011 and 2012 (UNHCR, 2012a:

1). 2013 has not seen Japan put in place a permanent refugee resettlement program but the

pilot program has been extended until 2015 (UNHCR 2013b: 1). As Japan is one of the most

developed countries in the world with one of the largest economies in the world the UNHCR

33 | P a g e

signalled Japan's establishment of a refugee resettlement program as a major success and a

very positive step forward in Japan's contribution to refugee protection. UNHCR High

Commissioner António Guterres stated, in December 2008 when Japan's pilot program was

announced, that he was glad Japan was starting with a small program as “quality comes

before quantity. Success is essential” and that he was “confident that the pilot program will

develop and expand into a regular and large programme” (UNHCR 2008: np). While

establishing a program of refugee settlement may have been a novel innovation in Japanese

refugee policy the long term commitment to the program by Japan is far from clear.

The current, short term, level of success of Japan's pilot program is also unclear. Under the

program, Japan agrees to accept an annual maximum of 30 refugees from Myanmar currently

living in Thailand (Piper et al. 2013: 15). In 2010 Japan accepted 27 individuals. In 2011

eighteen refugees were resettled in Japan under the program (UNHCR 2013c: 82). In 2012 the

number of resettled refugees under the program dropped to zero (UNHCR 2013c: 82). On the

28 September 2013 eighteen Myanmar refugees arrived in Japan under the program (Japan

Times 2013b: np). If total numbers of resettled refugees under resettlement programs are a

measure of success then Japan rates poorly when compared to the 25 other nations that had

regular resettlement programs in 2012 (UNHCR 2013d: 1)1. Over the first three years of the

pilot resettlement program, Japan accepted forty-five refugees for resettlement. This is well

below the United States, admittedly with a population and territory much larger than Japan,

which accepted 150,345 over the same period. States with much smaller populations, and

often smaller territories, than Japan also far exceeded Japan's intake from resettlement over

the same period. These states include Canada (18,288), Australia (16,312), New Zealand

(1,731), Sweden (5,168), the Netherlands (1,171), Norway (3483) and Portugal (73) (UNHCR

2013c: 82). Developing states also accepted more refugees under their resettlement programs

than Japan between 2010 and 2012 with Brazil accepting 59 and Argentina accepting 52

refugees (UNHCR 2013c: 82). In 2012, only Japan and Romania did not resettle any refugees

under their respective programs and if Japan's refugee resettlement program continues on its

current trend the total number of refugees resettled under the program by the end of the

decade will be unlikely to exceed 150 individuals.

If a refugee resettlement program success is measured on a per capita basis then Japan's

1 Countries with regular resettlement programs as of 2013; Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan (pilot), the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay and the United States of America.

34 | P a g e

success under its pilot program is again questionable, especially when compared to other

states with resettlement programs. In 2011 Japan's “Population per Refugee Resettled”

(PPRR) was 7,029,778 (UNHCR 2011a: 16). Only Brazil ranked lower and Japan's per capita

acceptance of resettled refugees stands in stark contrast to the per capita rates of Norway

(3,882), Australia (3,979) and Sweden (4,947) (UNHCR 2011a: 16). Japan's per capita

refugee resettlement ranking in 2010, the first year of its program, was marginally better with

its PPRR of 4,703,519 – only Brazil and Belgium ranked lower (UNHCR 2010: 16). The

negative experiences of refugees resettled under the program have also raised concerns over

the success of Japan's program. Resettled refugees have reportedly been given little support

after their initial 180 day language and cultural introductory program and the UNHCR, in its

2012 Universal Periodic Review Report on Japan, highlighted racial discrimination and

xenophobia together as one of five key issues facing Japan's current refugee system (UNHCR,

2012a: 6; Simone 2012: np).

Conclusion

Japan's engagement with the third-country refugee resettlement program has parallels with

Japan's experience with Vietnamese refugees. Japan is engaging with the international refugee

regime yet it is doing so in a way that will not lead to significant refugee resettlement or

immigration. Japan's refugee resettlement program poses no significant risk to the narrative of

Japanese homogeneity as the maximum resettlement quota of 30 individuals per year is

extremely low and will not have a significant impact on Japanese society nor the narrative of

homogeneity. It is this narrative of homogeneity, and its dominant role within Japanese

identity, that has guided Japan's response to refugee resettlement from the mid-1970s when

the first Vietnamese refugees began arriving in Japan.

35 | P a g e

Conclusion

This thesis has argued that the dominant narrative of Japanese national identity is the idea that

Japan is a homogeneous society and has been so for an extended period of time. Historical

analysis in this thesis has demonstrated that this is not the case. During the Edo period, the

islands that make up modern Japan were socially, linguistically and culturally heterogeneous.

The Meiji period that followed was a period of state building and expansionism where the

national identity that emerged was dominated by a narrative of a multi-ethnic, pan-Asian

Japan. It was not until the end of World War Two, when Japanese elites consciously sought to

break away the past, that a homogeneous Japanese national identity emerged and the

homogeneous narrative was entrenched throughout the latter half of the twentieth-century. It

has also been shown in this thesis that a number of threats to the narrative of homogeneity

exist and as such the very nature of the current Japanese national identity is contested and

challenged. These challenges include ethnically diverse Japanese citizens and Japanese non-

citizens, who have little chance of acquiring citizenship or who had the citizenship of their

ancestors revoked. In addition, large-scale immigration is also a threat, whereby ethnically

diverse people settle in Japan and become Japanese citizens, therefore challenging the notion

of national homogeneity.

The Japanese state has responded to these identity threats in a number of ways. Ethnic

diversity within the Japanese nation is generally officially ignored and immigration is

restricted. In the Japanese context, refugees fit within the potentially threatening category of

immigration. As such, the Japanese state, despite its economic and infrastructural capacity to

accept refugees, has restricted refugee resettlement as much as possible and this has resulted

in an extremely small number of Convention status refugees being recognised by the Japanese

government. International pressure on Japan has resulted in its engagement with the

international refugee regime and Japan is a major financial contributor to the UNHCR.

However, Japan's engagement with refugee resettlement programs has been carried out in a

manner that lessens international pressure to an extent while continuing to severely limit the

numbers of refugees resettled in Japan. In this way, the homogeneity narrative is protected.

With regard to the dominant narratives and counter-narratives around which contestation over

Japanese national identity occurs, there remains a number of further avenues of research. As

numerous local municipalities are required to come to terms with large and increasing

36 | P a g e

ethnically diverse populations, further avenues of research could investigate the development,

or lack thereof, of internal, ethnically inclusive national identity counter-narratives. Further

research could also inquire into the specific role of norm entrepreneurs such as Arudou Debito

and Yamawaki Keizo in promoting or influencing national identity counter-narratives. Finally,

the trajectories of discourse and contestation over Japanese national identity, and the ways in

which this impacts on Japan’s attitude and approach to immigration and refugees, will remain

a significant area of research in the years ahead.

37 | P a g e

Glossary

Gaikoku ni tsunagara kodomo 外国につながら子供 ----------- Children with overseas ties /

Children with overseas ancestry

Gaikokujin 外国人 --------------- Foreign National / Foreigner / Person who is not ethnically

Japanese

Gaikokujin jumin 外国人住民-- Foreign Resident

Han 藩 ---------------------------- a Domain

Imin 移民 ------------------------- an Immigrant

Kankokujin 韓国人 -------------- a Korean Person

Kokka 国家 ---------------------- a State

Kokumin 国民 -------------------- the Japanese Nation

minzokuteki 民族的 ------------- Racial / Ethnic / Ethnic Minority

Nihonjiron 日本人論 ------------ the scholarly study of 'what it means to be Japanese'

Nikkeijin 日系人 ---------------- Person in Japan who has Japanese ancestry but is not a

Japanese citizen

Shinbun 新聞 --------------------- Newspaper

Tabunka kyosei 多文化共生 --- 'Multicultural living together' / 'Multicultural co-living' /

'Multicultural Co-Existence'

Tabunka 多文化 ----------------- Multicultural

38 | P a g e

Tabunka shugi 多文化主義----- Multiculturalism

39 | P a g e

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