[Feature: How to Perceive an "Immigrant Society"] Roundtable Discussion: Thinking about Japan's Future from the Perspective of Becoming an Immigrant Society

Since the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was passed by the Diet last year and came into effect this April, there has been various debate regarding the role of foreign workers.

In reality, there are already over 2.7 million foreign residents living in Japan. Today, based on this reality, I would like to discuss the theme of how we should perceive an "immigrant society."

It is almost too late, but Japan must seriously consider the issues of becoming an immigrant society. Today, rather than short-term policy discussions based on mass media, I hope we can engage in a long-term discussion that includes normative issues and considers what kind of society Japan should aim to be in the medium to long term.

First, regarding the current situation, Mr. Mochizuki's recent book ("Two Japans: The Tatemae and Reality of an 'Immigrant Nation'") focuses precisely on the long-term increasing trend of foreign residents as de facto immigrants. What aspects of the increase in foreign residents are you paying attention to?

This book summarizes what has happened over the 30 years since the 1990s, based on government statistical data and various publicly available research.

My motivation for writing it was a sense that the theme and issue of immigration itself had hardly been noticed as a domestic issue within Japan. Previously, when people saw the term "immigration problem," they tended to think of stories from abroad, such as France or the United States, rather than inside Japan. One of my motivations was to create a common understanding that similar themes actually exist domestically.

In fact, in the foreign resident statistics released by the government, the pace of increase has accelerated to coincide with the 30 years of the Heisei era. The number of foreign residents, which was still in the 900,000s at the end of the 1980s, tripled to 2.73 million by the end of 2018. I think this change is very significant, but I question whether ordinary citizens, including myself, have correctly recognized that it has been increasing continuously in this way.

I feel that we, including myself, have not properly looked at the fact that Japan has continuously increased its foreign resident population. Thinking from the perspective of an ordinary citizen, I feel our perception of our own country was naive.

Mr. Menju, you were one of the first to pay attention to this issue of foreign residents.

I believe that in Japan, both the public and the government have kept foreigners in the position of "temporary stayers." Even as the actual numbers were steadily increasing, I think there was absolutely no recognition of them as "permanent residents." Therefore, there were actually no statistics based on that premise, and the government provided no support at all for the Japanese language education of foreign children.

I call this the "30-year policy vacuum." These 30 years represent one generation. Enough time has passed for children born in Japan to grow up and have children of their own. The number of 2.7 million is comparable to the population of Hiroshima or Kyoto Prefecture. Among them, there are actually many people who are falling through the cracks of society. Therefore, this lack of recognition is very problematic.

Currently, there is talk about taking new policies and increasing the number of foreigners from now on, but I think we should first face the reality that there are already 2.7 million people here and the government has done nothing for them.

However, as you yourself have introduced, various coexistence initiatives have actually been carried out at the local government and civil society levels. What are your thoughts on that?

In the end, because the government basically did nothing, the reality is that it was all dumped onto local governments, NPOs, and citizens. For example, Japanese language education for foreigners is handled by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, but the annual budget was only about 200 million yen last fiscal year. Despite there being 2.7 million people, that amount is almost equal to zero.

Ultimately, I have to say the government did not envision foreign people settling in the community. However, they were actually settling, and in place of the government, local governments and NPOs independently accepted foreigners and promoted multicultural coexistence. In this way, I believe there is a foundation of multicultural coexistence that has been advanced voluntarily by local governments or on a volunteer basis amidst a lack of funds.

However, the volunteers are also aging, and because it is a foundation based on goodwill, it is very precarious. Meanwhile, the number of foreigners is rapidly increasing now, so I don't think this approach can possibly hold up.

Mr. Mochizuki, you edit a web magazine called "Nippon Complex Kiko" together with the Japan Association for Refugees. Having interviewed people placed in complex situations living right now in real-time, what do you think?

As Mr. Menju mentioned, the government has made "low-wage workers who rotate in and out over short periods" the basis for accepting foreigners, and as a result, the situation of insufficient support for daily life continues. However, in reality, they are not just beings who work inside factories; they have lives outside the factories, and there are issues with families and children. It's obvious, but there are naturally various needs such as becoming unemployed, getting old, getting sick, or needing to go to school.

I feel from interviewing each site that those parts have somehow been managed until now through the various efforts of local governments, NPOs, schools, and others. But it makes me wonder, "Is it okay to leave it like this?"

There are children growing up without fully developing either Japanese or their mother tongue. In what form will those children enter the labor market? While such things are far too neglected, the government continues policies even now that suggest it's fine to bring in people who are already finished products as workers and send them back after five years.

Among the foreign workers and their families already in Japan, there are not a few who are currently in some kind of difficult situation. And I also feel there is a problem in the fact that this itself is still not well known.

Unless we rebuild policies after recognizing what is happening and what the state of society as a whole is now, the long-term impact will reach a very large number of people. Situations sufficient to make one think so are already occurring.

I was able to hear in detail from both of you about the current situation of foreigners in Japanese society.

I would like to broaden the perspective a bit. It also becomes necessary to grasp the immigration problem globally, that is, within global trends. From that perspective, how does the reality appear to you, Mr. Se?

Speaking from a macro perspective, in my recognition, the biggest factor in the immigration problem is indeed the advancement of neoliberal globalization over the past 30 years.

In the flow of globalization, the voices of global corporations and investors inevitably become very strong. This is because when globalization occurs, the international movement of capital becomes free through deregulation, and if the environment is not one where it is easy to make a profit and do business, corporations and investors will leave a country. If it is a foreign company, they will stop investing in that country. In that way, the power of global corporations and investors has become increasingly strong.

If you ask what they have become "stronger" than, it is relative to the ordinary people of each country. This trend started in the UK and the US around the time of Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980s. In Japan, it began in earnest around 1996 when the Hashimoto Ryutaro administration introduced financial system reforms and the Financial Big Bang, and since then, many policies advantageous to global investors and corporations have been created.

In recent years, Japan has tended to raise consumption tax and lower corporate tax. It also took policies to hire people more cheaply by steadily increasing non-regular employment. I believe last year's revised Immigration Control Act should also be viewed within this flow; it is part of a policy to lower labor costs.

In Japan, labor costs had been falling for a long time due to deflation, but they hit bottom around 2015 and have shown a slight upward trend. I suspect this is the biggest reason why the issues of the revised Immigration Control Act came up so hurriedly. In other words, isn't it about wanting to hire people even more cheaply?

So you're saying it's thoroughly the logic of globalization.

Japan's economic problem over the last 20 years is the problem of deflation. According to the Monthly Labour Survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, real wages have fallen by about 15.6% over the last 20 years or so. In other words, the economy doesn't circulate because ordinary people can't spend money. Since more than half of Japan's GDP is personal consumption, economic recovery is impossible unless personal consumption is restored to escape deflation.

However, if we bring in many foreign workers to engage in simple labor here, escaping deflation will be impossible. Because labor costs will go down. That is actually the goal. This policy only worsens deflation and makes the lives of ordinary people increasingly difficult.

A book titled "Immigration Economics" (by George Borjas) states the following: It is said that by bringing immigrants into the US, there is certainly a positive impact of about 50 billion dollars annually. This is the part where companies made a profit because immigrants work as cheap labor. However, an even bigger problem is that at the same time, about 500 billion dollars in wealth is being transferred from workers to companies.

Therefore, if you ask who is profiting by accepting immigrants, it is overwhelmingly the companies and investors. In the shadows, ordinary workers face increasingly unstable employment and falling wages. The government also has to pay for so-called social costs, education, and various welfare.

That's why I think when discussing this issue of the revised Immigration Control Act, it is important to look at such extremely unfair underlying issues. This issue must be subjected to more accumulated national debate.

That is a very important point. The 30 years of the Heisei era, which were also in the discussions of Mr. Mochizuki and Mr. Menju, were a period when the movement called neoliberalism became clear, and a series of phenomena known as the gap society became manifest within it. We must not forget that.

The acceptance of "foreign workers" over these 30 years has been through what is called the side door: people of Japanese descent, technical interns, and international students. It seems that the fact that workers have been supplemented in forms that are "not workers" and Mr. Se's point that the corporate side wants to hire cheap foreigners without spending costs coincide.

As you say, forms like technical interns and, recently, migrant international students came to Japan because they can be "used cheaply" by companies.

The Technical Intern Training Program is like a drug for companies, and I think it makes the corporate structure very precarious. Since you can hire up to 15 technical interns for the wages paid to three Japanese people, once you start using them, you become unable to hire Japanese people at all.

In Shikoku, technical interns are now the most common status of residence in all four prefectures. They have increased rapidly in the last five years or so. Mandarins, udon, and bonito—none of it would function without technical interns. In the case of udon, technical interns make it, international students sell it, and foreign tourists buy it.

It has become a closed loop (laughs).

The problem is that technical interns are confined within companies and are invisible to the general public. Therefore, although Shikoku's industry actually wouldn't function without foreign workers, the awareness of the general public is lagging, and prejudice against foreigners is strong. In that way, foreign workers have been used in the easy form of cheap labor.

From now on, the Technical Intern Training Program and the Specified Skilled Worker status will be used together. This means from the company's perspective, there will be two options. Even if the Specified Skilled Worker status reaches its numerical limit, there is no limit on the number of technical interns. In other words, it's like a story where even if you put a lid on the top, the bottom has fallen out.

Another problem is that neither technical training nor specified skills have educational requirements. Therefore, in reality, people from the poorest segments of developing countries are being gathered and brought here. I believe that even in blue-collar fields, we should have people who have studied to some extent come and settle down.

If things stay as they are, the sense of them being disposable will remain, and similar problems could occur again. And Japan will be thought of as a "country that uses foreigners as disposables," and good people will stop coming.

If we consider the theoretical trends in political thought and political philosophy over the last 20 or 30 years, multiculturalism theories have become active in political thought and theory since around the 90s.

What was in mind then was the story of how to coexist and live together in so-called multi-ethnic nations like Canada and Australia. How to treat ethnic minorities. It was about issues of citizenship and political representation. I also wrote a book on multiculturalism in 2007, and at that time, what was mainly in mind in the Japanese context were the Ainu people, the Ryukyuan people, or the Zainichi Koreans known as old-comers.

On the other hand, immigration research has become very popular since around 2010. I think this is a problem similar to but different from the problem of multiculturalism. Immigration is a problem of population movement, and to use the words from Mr. Mochizuki's book, it is a problem of flow, not stock.

One background factor is globalization, as mentioned by Mr. Se. Since globalization promotes the international movement of production factors (people, goods, money), flow naturally occurs.

I think this movement of flow is inseparable from the problem of population decline. I believe the problem of population decline is also behind the various policies of this immigration law revision.

When talking about the immigration problem, the problem of globalization and the problem of population decline are occurring as a set, so I think we must consider them together.

The government says this policy is not a measure against population decline but a "measure against labor shortages." In other words, I think the problem is that it is "not based on the premise of settlement."

Population decline is still just the beginning; data from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research indicates that the population will decrease by 6.2 million in the 2020s.

However, it is already serious in rural areas. Regional revitalization has only considered Japanese people until now, but in the end, even after spending a budget of 1 trillion yen, the birth rate has hardly risen, and the movement of people from rural areas to Tokyo has conversely increased. Maintaining the population assumes that everyone gets married and has two or more children, which I think is impossible no matter how you look at it in today's world.

Therefore, developed countries are adopting immigration policies and thinking about how to bring in good human resources, but Japan has not done that until now. In other words, it assumed things would work with just Japanese people, and there was no strategy for when that failed.

We really have to think seriously about Japan's population decline. Considering that, I think the acceptance of foreigners should have been done much earlier.

Ultimately, that also means flow and stock were being considered separately. If we are to consider immigration as a response to population decline, we must actually have them live in rural areas and integrate them in some form with the previous residents. In other words, accepting immigrants must be considered as a set with how to have immigrants become members of society.

Therefore, shouldn't we think more about multiculturalism, which is the discussion about stock? In Japan's case, the term multicultural coexistence is said to apply there, but there is a debate that it might be slightly different from multiculturalism.

In the theory of multiculturalism, a person named Will Kymlicka broadly divides categories into indigenous peoples and immigrants. In multiculturalism, the issue of immigrants is a kind of secondary issue, and the main issue is based on the premise that people with their own languages, religions, and manners live together in concentrated areas to some extent. I think one form of multiculturalism policy that developed particularly in Canada and Australia was how to maintain their culture and lifestyle customs.

So, for better or worse, I think the challenge of multiculturalism there was how to maintain the uniqueness of the minority society against the majority society.

In contrast, the recent issue of immigrants is about how to blend into the majority society and live as a member of it. Since they came by their own choice, it's about "how to have them integrate."

That is different from assimilation. I feel that the challenge for new immigrants is to integrate into the host country while maintaining their own unique lives and ways of thinking. I wonder if the term "coexistence" in multicultural coexistence includes that kind of meaning.

I think the major argument for pro-immigration people is indeed the declining birthrate. However, I think if we perceive the declining birthrate as a natural phenomenon, we might fall into the trap of neoliberalism.

Looking at the White Paper on Health, Labour and Welfare (FY2013), which is a bit old, there is a marked difference in whether young men are married or not depending on whether they have regular or non-regular employment. 59.3% of regular employment workers are married by age 34. But only 28.5% of non-regular employment people are married.

So it can be said that economic factors are quite large in the declining birthrate problem. Within globalization, Japan continued regulatory reforms because it would lose international competition unless it lowered labor costs, and as a result of steadily increasing non-regular employment since the 90s, the lives of young men have become unstable. In Japan, if a man is in non-regular employment, he rarely gets married. Naturally, the number of children also decreases. Therefore, I think the declining birthrate is largely the result of neoliberal measures.

If the government and industry truly think it's a disaster that Japan won't function from now on due to the declining birthrate, the first thing to do is stabilize the employment of young men. Unless this is done, the declining birthrate problem will not be solved.

Another thing is that we must do something about the extreme concentration in Tokyo. I think the government has hardly taken any serious policies on this either. The prefecture with the overwhelmingly lowest birthrate in Japan is Tokyo. Birthrates tend to be lower in urban areas. When it comes to the birthrate issue, the government only talks about nurseries and children on waiting lists, but rather, it is important to stabilize the employment of young men. I don't think they are responding seriously to the declining birthrate problem.

This is not just Japan; Europe is the same. First, we must review the current state of neoliberal policies and once again conduct politics by prioritizing policies that stabilize the lives of ordinary people in each country—what you might call the "Keisei Saimin" (governing the world and saving the people) line.

I think bringing in foreigners is absolutely necessary, but I agree that economic issues are important for maintaining Japan's population, as you said.

However, if you ask whether the birthrate will become 2 or more if the economy stabilizes, that is quite difficult. In fact, there are quite a few people, both men and women, who have money but live single lives.

Another thing is that the population is decreasing more among younger ages. Looking at population statistics by age for women, comparing the 20-39 age group with the 0-19 age group, the 0-19 group is 22% smaller. In other words, since the base number is decreasing, even if you raise the birthrate, the number of children will not increase. In such a state, I think it is almost impossible to increase the number of children.

Furthermore, even foreign people who have many children in their home countries have lower birthrates when they live in Japan. This is because, as Mr. Se said, they are economically unstable. Unless both Japanese and foreigners are economically stable, the number of children will not increase. In that sense, it is as you say.

Mr. Mochizuki, you also wrote that the hardships of foreigners living in Japan actually have something in common with the hardships experienced by Japanese people placed in unstable situations like non-regular employment.

When talking about the immigration problem, there are several perspectives and themes. One is indeed about culture and prejudice, such as the problem of discrimination against foreigners.

As you say, there is no doubt that the main reason for the rapid increase of newcomers during the Heisei period lies in the logic of capital, which accompanies globalization and wants to "lower labor costs." From that logic, whether it's a "foreigner or a Japanese person" honestly doesn't matter; I think the difference is only about which is more convenient to use.

If we grasp the theme of immigration in the context of the population problem, it will be difficult even for foreigners to have children if we accept them in the current form. It is the same as the situation where it is difficult for Japanese people to form families. With this, the dynamics for the population to increase naturally will never be born.

Also, I think we need a discussion on "why we should maintain the population in the first place." If maintaining the population itself becomes the goal, and as a result, only the number of people whose lives are difficult in Japan steadily increases, then nothing is improved, is it?

It is important that there is a certain degree of economic stability, happiness in life, and an increase in people who have hope for the future. If the logic is just that the GDP will fall if the population isn't large, I think we will go greatly astray.

Thinking about Japan as a whole is important, but whether Japanese or foreign, I think it will be bad unless we think about what path each individual can take to become happy from the perspective of their individual life.

During these 30 years as the shift toward an immigrant society progressed, Japan has been on a downhill slope, and not only poor foreigners but also poor Japanese people have increased significantly, falling into a situation where no exit is visible. Some may say policies were made from the perspective of industry or the state, but looking only at the results, I wonder what on earth we were optimizing for. I think we have reached a time when we must calmly look back at the past and rethink.

Immigration policy should also be considered within such a large framework. How can we realize a wage and a social security system that allows both Japanese and foreigners to live normally? Unless we rethink policies based on that, I think we will become a country where ordinary people cannot be happy.

The story is that properly guaranteeing the citizenship of the people living in that society will become a counter to neoliberalism. When the citizenship of people from diverse backgrounds is included there, it becomes a story of multiculturalism.

Then, the question arises: "Can anti-globalization and multicultural coexistence be compatible?" If these can be compatible, what kind of direction and norms could exist? I think this is extremely important.

That is a difficult question. I believe it is a matter of what will happen in the future. Currently, there is a growing trend among developed nations to break away from the neoliberal path. This was evident in Brexit in 2016 and the emergence of President Trump. The rise of populist forces to power in Italy and the Yellow Vest movement in France since last autumn are also manifestations of this trend.

I believe all of these can be seen as a backlash from the common people against the neoliberal path—in short, the globalization path. Over the past 30 years, the middle class has declined in every country, and inequality has continued to widen.

Looking at the trends in sales, salaries, ordinary profits, dividends, and capital investment of large Japanese corporations over the 20 years since 1997 in the 'Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry,' dividends to shareholders have increased significantly by about 5.7 times. Ordinary profits are about three times higher than in 1997, but employee salaries have actually decreased over those 20 years. Capital investment has also dropped significantly.

For the past 20 years, large corporations have handed over profits as dividends to shareholders and have not returned them to employees. Japan might indeed be the 'star pupil' of neoliberalism.

However, in developed nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France, the common people are raising their voices against such neoliberal paths, saying, 'We've had enough, give us a break.' I believe Japan must cooperate with these nations and, under international coordination, put some brakes on the international movement of capital and shift to a path where the common people of each country can once again become properly prosperous.

If we continue to bring in unskilled foreign workers as demanded by the global business community, I fear that even the Japanese people, who have endured without complaint, might eventually explode. And I worry that an anti-globalism populist movement might emerge in Japan as well. In such a climate, I have a pessimistic outlook that a massive influx of foreign workers could lead to very unfavorable results.

I also believe that risk exists. I observed the Yellow Vest movement in France in April. I actually walked with them for a day, and while it is a movement with a strong 'top vs. bottom' aspect, it is said that a truly diverse range of claims, from right-wing to left-wing, are mixed in.

Resistance to economic globalization and resistance to the diversification of people are easily confused. Movements that intentionally exploit these aspects and use anti-foreigner rhetoric to gain political support have occurred in various places, including Europe. I have concerns that something similar could happen in Japan, and hate speech movements mainly targeting 'old-comers' are already a reality.

When ordinary Japanese people realize that the reason their lives are worsening lies in politics and the underlying logic of economy and industry, and they begin to raise their voices, we must ensure that this does not become a set with the exclusion of foreigners and immigrants.

I think suppressing or stopping the new acceptance of foreign workers is an option that can be taken as a policy, but we must never drive out people who are currently living in Japan in some form, or treat them as second-class citizens while allowing them to remain. This distinction is vital.

To balance the prosperity of ordinary Japanese people with social integration that includes foreigners, we need to steadily appeal to points of common interest—for example, by saying, 'The issue of technical interns is not just a story about Vietnamese people; it is also an issue for Japanese workers.'

The question of why someone wants to get married but cannot, or why it is difficult to have two children even if they want to, is deeply synchronized with how we accept foreign workers. It is very important to keep 'anti-globalism' separate from 'backlash against foreigners.'

I also think there is a possibility that movements to exploit the situation politically will emerge as the number of foreigners increases, but there are decisive differences between Europe and Japan.

First, the number of foreign workers is orders of magnitude different from Europe. Also, Japan is the only developed country where the population has begun to decline, and this will accelerate further. Therefore, I think the situation is different from Europe, where there is a fear of jobs being taken by foreigners. On the contrary, the current situation is that without accepting foreign workers, companies will go bankrupt due to labor shortages.

Furthermore, while it is true that global corporations in Europe profit from immigration policies, in Japan, those who would be in trouble without technical interns are small businesses in rural areas, like the example in Shikoku I mentioned earlier. This is another difference.

Japan has come this far by refraining from adopting immigration policies, but now we are in a desperate situation with a shrinking population and fewer young people, which is why we are accepting foreigners. I believe that if we accept them in an appropriate manner, what happened in Europe will not happen here.

It seems several issues have come to light. As Mr. Mochizuki mentioned, as long as Japan continues to choose capitalism and democracy, there is no option to expel people who are already living legally in Japan. This is the first point.

The second point is that while the opponent populism is fighting is global capitalism, movements might emerge to exclude neighboring foreign workers who are in the same predicament as themselves. This would be fighting the wrong opponent, but such confusion might occur within populism.

Thirdly, as Mr. Menju mentioned, even though Japan has been called closed and assimilationist, there have been efforts made by local communities, civil society, and local governments. How should we evaluate that potential?

Fourthly, in the current Japanese government's acceptance policy, there is a movement to accept so-called semi-skilled workers, symbolized by 'Specified Skilled Worker' or technical internships, on one hand, and a movement to accept so-called highly skilled foreign professionals on the other. The immigration policies of all developed countries have these two sides. In other words, there is a movement to select 'useful' immigrants.

Regarding the selection of immigrants, the background is, after all, economic rationality. It can be seen as part of the logic of globalization—viewing human resources as labor and productive power while avoiding welfare burdens as much as possible.

Relating to the previous discussion, anti-globalization and anti-immigration are often talked about as a set, but I don't think globalization actually aims for cultural diversity. What matters there is economic rationality, and diversity is merely a byproduct. This leads to the treatment of foreigners currently in Japan.

In contrast, when anti-globalization is championed, one response is to maintain our purity by excluding 'impurities' coming from the outside. In that case, the target often becomes immigrants and foreign workers. Indeed, in today's populist movements, there is no small amount of movement to 'reclaim our identity.'

On the other hand, it is a fact that there are already many foreigners in the country, so the question is how we should think about multicultural coexistence.

This is also a question of how we can separate multiculturalism or multicultural coexistence from nationalism, or whether we can separate anti-globalism from nationalism.

That's right. If globalization is what pushes economic rationality, and if we take a stance of 'No, we will protect our way of life,' then diverse ways of living—such as living without marrying, or homosexuality and same-sex marriage—might also, in a sense, go against economic rationality.

But a way of life is a way of life. So, if we expand the concept of multicultural coexistence and move in a direction that recognizes diverse values and ways of living, I feel that the logic of anti-globalization and the approach of purifying the domestic sphere to restore identity will not necessarily proceed together.

In other words, by recognizing diverse multicultural citizenship that includes foreign residents, it might be possible to create a flow that uses that as a driving force for anti-globalism.

Thinking about the immigration policy of the last 30 years in that context, the policy of accepting foreign workers promoted by the LDP government has been one of bringing in workers but not letting them settle—that is, a policy not predicated on long-term naturalization or granting citizenship.

This is typically expressed in the government's words, 'This is not an immigration policy.' The 'opening up' talk of accepting foreigners is always paired with the 'closing off' talk of ensuring it doesn't result in the diversification of Japan's residents because they won't be allowed to settle. When considering Japan's future, the reason we can't feel 'it's okay because diversification is actually progressing' is that purity and homogeneity as norms are always used as excuses to avoid looking at the diversification happening in reality.

Even if the number of settling immigrants is steadily increasing as a matter of fact, words that nullify this are intentionally chosen. It is precisely because these words are believed by the conservative base that the acceptance of short-term workers becomes possible. I think there is a major problem in this combination.

When creating a counter-axis to globalization, I am anxious about whether we can choose a path that assumes the nation of Japan while simultaneously diversifying the domestic sphere, and how much support that would have.

Unless we consciously speak of that necessity, we will be left with only simple choices: either a 'bad nationalism' that says 'homogeneity and purity are important,' or accepting short-term foreign workers under globalization. Currently, I think those two are like mirror images of each other, but we lack the words to say 'there can be an option in between.'

And as Mr. Matsumoto said, this is not just a topic about immigrants; it is likely necessary to establish a new path for the coexistence of various types of diversity.

As Mr. Mochizuki accurately pointed out, I think the contradiction between what is happening in reality and the government's view that 'foreigners should not settle' is growing larger and larger.

In my own view, if we continue like this, Japanese society is becoming unsustainable. The mayor of Akitakata City in Hiroshima Prefecture is a rare individual who has been saying for some time that an immigration policy is necessary. According to the population forecast for Akitakata City in 2035, the population aged 80 and over will be the largest group.

He says that at this rate, the region won't survive and he wants to increase the number of foreigners anyway. Since Japan is also a country with many natural disasters, to maintain society, it will be disastrous without young people, regardless of whether they are foreigners or Japanese. We simply cannot maintain society with only elderly people.

Another point is that workers are not just laborers; they are also consumers. If the number of consumers continues to decrease, Japan's GDP will naturally decrease, and tax revenue will also fall. Then the question becomes how to repay the 1 quadrillion yen debt.

Therefore, my opinion is that it would be better for Japan's future to bring in foreigners to maintain a certain level of population, utilize robots and AI, and somehow keep things running.

Regarding the declining birthrate, I think Mr. Menju's talk is a bit too pessimistic. As I mentioned earlier, we must start by admitting that the problem of the declining birthrate is a failure of economic policy.

Conversely, regarding the acceptance of foreigners, I cannot be as optimistic as Mr. Menju.

For example, I believe the Cold War has not completely ended in East Asia, and we need to think seriously about security issues. For instance, it is said that China has aspects where it does not hesitate to move people, such as through forced relocation. When such a country is nearby, saying we should just send foreigners to rural areas feels like we are not considering security issues enough.

Also, there is the issue of local suffrage for foreigners. In a municipality like Aogashima Village in Tokyo, where the total population is about 160 and there are about 140 voters, if China were to strategically move people and bring in immigrants, the fear that it could be taken over is hard to deny. Therefore, I think saying we should just put foreigners in local areas is too simplistic a solution.

That is the logic of the 'securitization' of the immigration issue, which is also pointed out in the works of Kymlicka that Mr. Se has translated. I think we must be cautious about using that logic. Even if foreigners tried to move to Aogashima Village, there is no employment there to begin with.

However, turning a blind eye to such issues is also problematic. It is true that turning it into a security issue too easily is a problem. Indeed, the book by Kymlicka I recently translated made that point. But conversely, downplaying it too much is neither realistic nor responsible.

Also, I believe it is a problem that while companies are not making capital investments, the government is also significantly reducing public investment, citing fiscal problems. Now, there is the emergence of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), which argues that even if government debt increases, it won't easily lead to fiscal collapse if the bonds are denominated in the local currency. Hasn't Japan been too austere with its finances? Therefore, I think we should return to the basics of nation-building by properly conducting public investment.

How did Japan solve the labor shortage during the period of high economic growth? It was by properly making capital investments and public investments. Through that, productivity was raised, the Japanese people became prosperous, and the economy circulated. This is the royal road to economic growth.

To solve the labor shortage, the first step is improving productivity. Stabilizing employment for young people, increasing salaries, and getting the economy moving. Those policies must come first.

The reason productivity isn't rising in Japan is that society is aging and companies have gone on the defensive. That's why I believe Japanese society won't develop from now on unless we have young people coming in from the outside to stir things up.

The world's population is increasing by about 80 million people every year. Despite that, for Japan to close its doors, refuse to accept foreigners, and just grow smaller as it ages is an abnormal sight. Instead, we should say, 'Capable people from overseas, please come; we will create a foundation where such people can do their best,' and through that, Japanese youth will also be stimulated and revitalized. That is the state Japan should aim for.

Otherwise, since there are many countries around us saying 'Capable foreigners, please come,' we will lose people to those places, and I can't say for sure that a time won't come when Japanese youth eventually emigrate as well.

I think another major flaw in current liberal discourse is that many people uncritically believe that 'it's better for people to move, and accepting immigrants is more humanitarian.' But that's not right. Most people prefer to stay settled.

According to a book by Professor Rieko Karatani of Kansai University, even in today's globalized world, 97% of the people on Earth remain settled. So, the first priority should be to make settlement the basis and create an environment where people in each region can become prosperous without moving.

Most of today's foreign workers and immigrants are people who don't want to move but have to because they can't eat otherwise or are being politically oppressed. Therefore, we should first aim for a world where people can create an environment to live with their families and friends within their own culture. The majority of people do not want to become immigrants. I think most people want to live with their families and friends, within their own culture and language.

I believe there is a major pitfall if we talk about policy based on the assumption of human movement. Making the world order fair should come first, and then we can talk about how to treat those who have moved.

To balance multicultural coexistence and anti-globalism as Mr. Shiobara suggests, instead of immediately accepting immigrants, I think we should first aim for a world where people can live prosperously without moving by creating a fair world order. Before accepting unskilled foreign workers, Japan should seriously work on improving productivity and addressing the declining birthrate. Accepting foreign workers is not automatically liberal or humanitarian.

As I summarized at the beginning, there is a situation where the Japanese people, or the people living in Japan themselves, are diversifying. When we say we should prioritize the well-being of our own people first, I think the ideals of multicultural coexistence inevitably have to enter into that.

There are parts of what Mr. Se says that I understand and parts that I don't. I agree that it would be better if people could live happily wherever they are born on Earth, and a society where that is possible is a fair one. However, in reality, global economic disparities exist, and it is precisely because Japan opened its doors that there are foreigners living in Japan.

Beyond that, what's important is that it's very common for a foreigner who decided to come to Japan on the logic that 'it's better to earn for five years in Japan than to try to eat in my home country' to end up not returning, or being unable to return, after actually working for several years.

Even if they came with a migrant worker mindset initially, it is not at all strange for them to find themselves wanting to stay in Japan because they got married, became settled in their job, or the security in their home country worsened. And this process of settling is exactly what has actually happened over the last 30 years.

At that point, I wonder how the words 'it's important to be able to settle' that you mentioned earlier would be applied to these people. While it is normatively correct that people should be able to live comfortably in the country or region where they were born, in a reality where that is not the case, how do we treat people who came to Japan as a result of the Japanese state's immigration policy and then decided they 'want to be here'? It is not a simple problem.

That's true. Furthermore, 'not migrating' changes depending on how you define migration. In fact, the definition of 'migrant' by the International Organization for Migration includes people who have moved within their own country. Indeed, there is the Japanese term 'chiho iju' (regional migration).

I was born in Saitama Prefecture, but now I have migrated to Yokohama. I don't dislike Saitama, but it's also important whether I can think of Yokohama, where I am now, as my second home. In other words, when we talk about settlement, that includes settling in the place one has migrated to. In that case, isn't it important that those people can think of that place as 'home'?

I don't think this is very far from what Mr. Se is saying. Even if one moves, they create a home at their destination. To put it further, isn't it possible to have two homes—one's original home and the destination?

Therefore, we need to think about policy with that kind of global ideal in mind.

The recent legal amendment introducing Specified Skilled foreign workers was decided with almost no deep discussion in the policy-making process, and I think it was quite hasty.

From now on, there is no doubt that more cautious and thoughtful acceptance and social integration policies are required. If we properly promote social integration, foreigners will become citizens. I would like to ask finally about future challenges.

Regarding social integration, not only culture and daily life but also the nature of employment is important. I think it's a major problem that the current system is not designed with the assumption that low-wage foreign workers will steadily advance their careers. Even migrant workers should be able to form a career just like Japanese people. If their salaries rise, the possibility of forming a family increases, and the possibility of working alongside Japanese people also increases.

The current foreign worker policy, especially technical internships, is far removed from this idea, so I think it should be reconsidered.

Because the technical intern system has continued for so long, many companies view foreign workers as synonymous with cheap labor. I think changing this corporate mindset is a major challenge.

In South Korea, they moved from something like the industrial trainee system (similar to technical internships) to an Employment Permit System. In Japan, they currently coexist, so if a new system for hiring workers has been created, I think we should set a period and phase out technical internships.

And we must pay them salaries on par with Japanese people. We have to make it so that companies that cannot do that must exit the market.

I believe that when creating a stable political order, customs and culture are things that cannot be underestimated. In many countries, such non-legal, non-authoritative things play a major role. If we strip those away, there is a high possibility that we will be forced to take very authoritarian, administrative-state policies.

For example, China is currently trying to create a cashless society, but it is often said that this is an attempt to create a 'digital authoritarian' society. In other words, by going cashless, the movement of money becomes visible to the government, allowing for the creation of a digitally managed state.

China is inherently multicultural, with various races and religions, and is in a sense a society that anticipated globalization. If Japan accepts more and more immigrants in the future, it will become difficult to maintain order. At that time, the form of digital authoritarianism might emerge. I am concerned that Japan will become an immigrant nation, deflation will progress, and it will move toward becoming a managed state.

I believe the current policy, where foreign children have no obligation to attend compulsory education, leads to dropouts, low enrollment rates, and low advancement rates among the children of foreign residents. After all, school is an important opportunity for social integration and, as Mr. Mochizuki pointed out, an opportunity for career formation for foreigners.

Even in terms of the emphasis on culture and manners that Mr. Se mentioned, I think educational opportunities are extremely important. After all, we don't just 'become' Japanese by being born; we become Japanese through education.

What I thought through today's discussion is how we should consider the scope and content of 'we.' Is it the premise that 'we' have always been diverse and will inevitably become more diverse? Or is it a stance of feeling hesitant about becoming more diverse and wanting to stop?

However, my honest impression is that, surprisingly, everyone shares a similar understanding of the current situation. This issue cannot be talked about at all in a simple framework like Conservative vs. Liberal; there are dissenting opinions even among those called conservatives, and among those called liberals or leftists, there are almost no people who unconditionally support the acceptance of immigrants. I felt once again that it is important to discuss this in a way that is not the conventional framework.

Thank you very much for your time today.