> 56.3 percent of Japanese people said they opposed accepting more foreigners, up from 35.6 percent in 2024

that's a huge jump in 1 year. What happened?

Extreme tourism influx due to covid rebound and weak yen. And most Japanese people not being observant enough to understand that those foreigners causing trouble (or simply just putting pressure on existing infrastructure) is not the residents but shitty tourists.

Most of the issue they have would be reduced if the yen got stronger or they introduced some expensive tourist fee, but that's very unlikely

Sanseito scapegoating foreigners for every problem (particularly Chinese and SE Asian), highly organized social media campaigns with a lot of help from western right wingers, nuisance video streamers exploiting the weak yen to do 'insult/abuse the locals vacations' for cheap, and a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment since the beginning of the year.

Early in Takaichi's premiership, she answered a parliamentary question about the possibility of a Chinese attack on taiwan by sying that this would present an 'existential' problem for Japan. This alarmed the Chinese who saw it as an intrusion on their private business and a reminder of Japanese war atrocities; but before they could make a restrained diplomatic complaint, a Chinese consul in (iirc) Osaka went nuts on social media telling Takaichi to pull her filthy neck in before it was chopped off. After that neither side could back down without losing face so they're stuck in a diplomatic deep freeze.

There are a lot of other structural factors I could go into but those are the major differences since 2024. Actual incidence of crime or large population shifts seem to be absent.

Good question. I wonder about the validity of these surveys.

In my experience, having lived in Japan for a bit, I would estimate the opposition rate to be much, much higher.

>What happened?

Johnny Somali.

I don’t support xenophobia, but after visiting Japan, I can see how it happens. Foreigners are disruptive and disrespectful, often carelessly, but also often when they are trying not to be. I was really trying to be polite and respectful, and I learned some Japanese (not nearly enough), and I could tell I was bumbling at times.

It is one thing when it is one person, it is another when it is every tenth person.

I came away with more empathy for Japanese xenophobic sentiment. I was getting frustrated by rude gaijin and I was one (well I was trying really hard not to be rude).

foreigners