Number of foreigners in Japan increases, again!

Debito has posted a blog entry about the rising number of NJ residents (new Japanese residents).

Both because I am a foreign resident in Japan and I like diversity, I'm glad this number keeps on rising. Tangentially I'll note, I think the best way to utterly destroy Japanese culture is to entrust it to government bureaucrats, while the best way to preserve and foster it is to gradually introduce some competition into the mix. After all culture isn't something you put in a bottle and stare at, it's something you grow.

I'm getting off topic.

Debito notes that the Ministry of Justice has recently released their official yearly report on this. It's a PDF file and can be downloaded here.

The Yomiuri had this to say about the report:

Foreign residents at record high The number of foreign residents in Japan as of the end of 2006 hit a record-high of 2.08 million, increasing 3.6 percent from the previous year, according to the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau. The figure of 2,084,919 accounted for 1.63 percent of the nation's total population. By nationality and place of origin, the two Koreas combined had the largest share at 28.7 percent, or 598,219. But because of the aging population and naturalization, the number of special permanent residents is decreasing after peaking in 1991 ...

... because of the aging population and naturalization, the number of special permanent residents is decreasing after peaking in 1991. ??

Hm? So special permanent residents, that is zainichi Koreans and Chinese, are not really decreasing, their just becoming Japanese.

So this would imply one day you're Korean, and the next -- after your naturalization, you're Japanese. That is, as I understand it, once you naturalize you are Japanese as far as any census measures are concerned.

Now, if this was a testament to how color blind and accepting people in Japan were, I'd offer this up as an example of tolerance in Japanese society. In a perfect world it shouldn't matter what your supposed ethnic group might be, just whether your a citizen or not. So, ultimately, I think that's just how the census should be done. As an individualist, I sincerely don't like groupism (categorizing people according to groups.)

However, in Japan's case, where numerous arguments for policy proposals take as their premises a homogenous Japan, census reporting that doesn't account for naturalized non-homogenous Japanese becomes really dubious and even slightly sinister.

How many Korean-Japanese are there? How many American-Japanese? How many Chinese-Japanese? How many Philippine-Japanese? Would the emperor be Korean-Japanese? So long as Japanese policy-makers are going to argue for or against policy using as a premise a homogenous Japan, then we desperately need these numbers. As far as I know there aren't any.

Of course, somehow I think words like homogenous should be reserved for things like ... you know ... milk or something, not people. But perhaps I'm just too radical?