Foreigners and civil society in Japan

Pacific Affairs

Volumn 79, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 269-289

  Shipper, Apichai W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; POLITICAL SYSTEM; STATE;

ASIA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; JAPAN;

EID: 33845669041     PISSN: 0030851X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5509/2006792269     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. Ministry of Justice, Shutsunyūkoku Kanri [Annual Statistics on Immigration Control] (Tokyo: Okurashō Insatsukyoku, 2005).
2. Korean and Chinese belong in both categories of zainichi and rainichi (newcomers). For the linkage and differences between zainichi and rainichi Chinese, whose population in Japan has risen dramatically in the past two decades, see Junko Tajima, "Chinese Newcomers in the Global City Tokyo: Social Networks and Settlement Tendencies," International Journal of Japanese Sociology 12 (November 2003), pp. 68-78;
3. Robert Efird, "Japan's War Orphans and New Overseas Chinese: History, Identification and (Multi) ethnicity" (Seattle: University of Washington, Ph.D. thesis, 2004).
4. The NPO law was designed to promote corporate status to small voluntary organizations by eliminating financial requirements and easing the approval process. Previously, the criteria for certification of incorporation were too rigid and difficult for many small voluntary organizations, due to a specified minimum level of financial assets and a lengthy approval process. The process was subjected to intense bureaucratic intervention both during and after the approval process. Since the passage of the law, Japan's civil society groups have been growing at an impressive rate, with 22,434 NPO legal persons by June 30, 2005. On the passage of this law, see Robert Pekkanen, "Japan's New Politics: The Case of the NPO Law," Journal of Japanese Studies 26:1 (2000), pp. 111-143.
5. Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: the Growth of Industrial Polity, 1925-1977 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982);
6. Richard Samuels, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
7. Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
8. Robert Pekkanen, "Molding Japanese Civil Society: State-Structured Incentives and the Patterning of Civil Society," in Frank Schwartz and Susan Pharr, eds., The State of Civil Society in Japan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 116-134.
9. Under the NPO Law, the governor of the prefecture in which an NPO is located (or the director-general of the Economic Planning Agency in the case of NPOs with offices in at least two prefectures) sets guidelines and authorizes incorporation.
10. Kitty Calavita, Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
11. Changsoo Lee and George de Vos, Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 48-49.
12. Richard H. Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 51-52.
13. Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan, p. 82.
14. This was the case despite the fact that the Welfare Ministry Regulation 145 (26 December 1942) stated that the leaders of the Kyōwakai had to be Koreans. Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan, p. 88.
15. Eiji Takemae, The Allied Occupation of Japan (New York: The Continuum International Publishing, 2002), p. 497.
16. Lee and de Vos, Koreans in Japan, pp. 81-84.
17. Tokyo has the largest population of overseas Chinese; at approximately 30,000; they are claimed by both the pro-Taiwan and the pro-PRC group.
18. Personal interviews with: Chung Mong-Joo of Mindan in Tokyo, 8 December 1999;
19. So Chungon of Chōsen Sōren in Tokyo, 8 December 1999;
20. Seki Hiroyoshi of the Yokohama OCA (Taiwan) in Yokohama, 28 May 1999;
21. Wen Yao Quan of the Yokohama OCA (PRC) in Yokohama, 31 May 1999.
22. Also see Mindan, ed., Kankoku mindan 50 nen no ayumi [The 50 Year Path of Mindan] (Tokyo: Gosatsu Shobō, 1997);
23. Chosen Soren, Chōsen sōren (Tokyo: Chōsen Sōren, 2005);
24. Sonia Ryang, North Koreans in Japan (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997).
25. Personal interview with an official of the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau in Tokyo, 8 January 1999.
26. Public opinion towards Chinese has also worsened, as there has been a dramatic escalation in recent years in news of serious crimes committed by Chinese newcomers. In addition, there also exists significant media complicity in police efforts to vilify foreign workers, portraying them as a threat to law-abiding Japanese citizens, an image that resonates with the Japanese public. Illegal foreigners, in particular, are increasingly portrayed as "criminals." See Apichai W. Shipper, "Criminals or Victims? The Politics of Illegal Foreigners in Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies 32:1 (summer 2005), pp. 299-327.
27. Personal interview with So Chung-on of Chōsen Sōren in Tokyo, 15 March 2006.
28. Itô Satoko, "NPO to Gaikokujin Juumin" [NPO and Foreign Residents] in Menju Toshihiro, ed., Kusa no ne no kokusai kōryū kokusai kyōryoku [Grassroots International Exchange and International Cooperation] (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2003);
29. Glenda Roberts, "NGO support for migrant labor in Japan," in Mike Douglass and Glenda Roberts, eds., Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), pp. 275-300.
30. For a list of these groups in Tokyo and Kanagawa, including their founding year, memberships and ethnic groups served, see tables 1 to 6 in Apichai W. Shipper, "The Impact of the NPO Law on Foreigners Support Groups in Japan," posted 31 August 2004, on the Web site of the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, (last accessed 27 April 2006).
31. Interestingly, established legal foreigners generally do not come to the assistance of their co-national and co-ethnic residents; because acceptance into Japanese society is difficult for outsiders, legal foreigners tend to distance themselves from their illegal counterparts, securing their own position rather than coming to the aid of those who share their language and culture, but whose legal status in Japan is far less secure.
32. Personal interview with Ishii Yoshiko of the Society in Solidarity with Foreigners in Japan in Tokyo, 27 August 1998.
33. Personal interview with Akimoto Haruo of the Nagano's Society in Solidarity with Foreigners in Japan in Atami, 27 June 1998.
34. Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan, "Statistics of the Catholic Church in Japan 2000," available at (last accessed April 27, 2006).
35. On the Christian concept of equality and for a history of Christian activism, see Irwin Scheiner, Christian Converts and Social Protest in Meiji Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 147.
36. Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan, "Seeking the Kingdom of God Which Transcends Differences in Nationality" (Tokyo: Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan 1993), p. 5.
37. Personal interview with Yoshida Yukio of the Yokohama Workers' Union in Yokohama, 30 September 1998.
38. Personal interviews with: Kase Junji of the Fureai Koto Union in Tokyo, 18 May 1998;
39. Okamoto Testufumi of the Sumida Union in Tokyo, 18 May 1998;
40. Udagawa Masahiro of the Edogawa Union in Tokyo, 23 May 1998;
41. also see "Kumiai no nai hitotachi no tsuyoi mikata 'Shitamachi Yunion' hata age 3 chīki rōso," Asahi Shimbun, 15 September 1998, p. 10.
42. See inter alia Andrew Gordon, The Wages of Affluence: Labor and Management in Postwar Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998);
43. Ikuo Kume, Disparaged Success: Labor Politics in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
44. In Taiwan, by contrast, the Taiwan International Workers' Association (TIWA) has embraced foreign workers who appear to be revitalizing the labour movement there. See Marie Feliciano, "Taiwan labor movement supports Thai workers' collective 'uprising,' migrant advocacy group says," Taiwan Times, 28 August 2005, pp. 9-10.
45. Personal interview with Õshima Chizuko of HELP in Tokyo, 2 December 1998.
46. Migrant Women Workers' Research and Action Committee, "NGO's Report on the Situation of Foreign Migrant Women in Japan and Strategies for Improvement" (Tokyo: The Forum on Asian Immigrant Workers, 1995).
47. The NHI programme is a medical insurance system to cover local residents or self-employed persons who are not subscribers to any type of employee insurance. It is run by local governments and financed by the insurants' premiums and National Treasury disbursements. Under this programme, the insured pay 30 percent of the medical expenses. The medical institution then receives the remainder of the fee out of the funds of the insurance system. In 1992, the Ministry of Health and Welfare instructed local governments' welfare offices to provide public-subsidized NHI only to Japanese citizens, permanent residents and foreigners who have "registered themselves, and who will be in the country for over one year from the time of arrival." As a result, overstayed foreigners cannot be insured under a public medical insurance scheme.
48. On various problems caused by government policies, see Apichai W. Shipper, "The Political Construction of Foreign Workers in Japan," Critical Asian Studies 34:1 (2002), pp. 41-68.
49. Personal interview with Oshii Tetsuo of the Japan Legal Aid Association in Tokyo, 28 April 1998.
50. This pattern of Christian early involvement in assisting illegal foreigners is remarkably similar to that of South Korea, where more than half of its support groups are Christian. See Timothy C. Lim, "Racing From the Bottom in South Korea?" Asian Survey 43:3 (May/June 2003), pp. 423-442.
51. The 1990 revision of the Immigration Control Law demarcated the legal from the illegal unskilled foreign workers, thus allowing state officials to discriminate against illegal foreigners. The 1990 oral directive from the Ministry of Health and Welfare discontinued public-subsidized medical services to illegal foreigners, and excludes illegal foreigners from the Livelihood Protection Law.
52. Personal interviews with: Imaizumi Megumi of the Kalabaw-no-kai in Yokohama, 16 June 2003;
53. Yoshinari Katsuo of the APFS in Tokyo, 10 June 2003;
54. Yano Manami of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan in Tokyo, 18 July 2003.
55. TOSHC hopes to form partnerships with its local government soon.
56. Personal interview with officials of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government International Division in Yokohama, 4 August 2004.
57. Personal interview with Nîkura Hisano of Saalaa in Yokohama, 20 July 2003.
58. Personal interview with Iida Katsuyasu of the TOSHC in Tokyo, 8 August 2004.
59. Personal interview with Kikutani Hideko of Mizula in Yokohama, 16 July 2004.
60. Personal interview with Yoshinari Katsuo of the APFS in Tokyo, 10 June 2003.
61. The number of illegal foreigners peaked in 1993 with 298,646 people, but steadily declined to approximately 200,000 people in 2005. Ironically, this decline is attributed, in part, to the success of the APFS in turning illegal foreigners into legal ones as will be discussed below.
62. Personal interviews: with Pham Dinh Son of the SOL and the PACEM in Kawasaki, 1 November 2005;
63. Watanabe Midori of the LAFOCC in Tokyo, 16 June 2003.
64. Personal interview with Sawada Takashi of SHARE in Tokyo, 31 July 2004.
65. Until the election of Ishihara Shintarō as governor, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government sponsored multi-part seminars to enhance cooperation between its officials and NGO activists. In February 1998, for example, it brought NGO activists, such as Sawada Takashi of SHARE, Suzuki Akihiko of the OC Net, and Tsunami Kimie of the APFS and officials together in a seminar to discuss the provision of medical and consultation services to foreigners as well as Japan's immigration system. For a contrary view on the limited interaction between NGOs and local governments during the 1990s, see Katherine Tegmeyer Pak, "Foreigners are local citizens, too: local governments respond to international migration in Japan," in Douglass and Roberts, eds., Japan and Global Migration, pp. 244-274.
66. Personal interview with an official of the Kotobuki-chō Health and Welfare Center in Yokohama, 5 June 1999.
67. Paul Waley observes similar practices by local officials in environmental action. See his "Ruining and Restoring Rivers: The State and Civil Society in Japan," Pacific Affairs 78:2 (summer 2005), pp. 195-215.
68. Personal interview with an official of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government's Foreign Affairs Section in Yokohama, 1 December 1998.
69. Also see Kanagawa International Policy Promotion Discussion Group, Gaikokujin kenmin kanagawa kaigi oyobi NGO kanagawa kokusai kyōryoku kaigi [Kanagawa Foreign Residents' Council and NGO Kanagawa International Cooperation Council] (Yokohama: Kanagawa Prefectural Government's Foreign Affairs Division, 1998), pp. 8-12.
70. Personal interview with officials of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government International Division in Yokohama, 4 August 2004.
71. Personal interview with Sawada Takashi of SHARE and MF-MASH in Tokyo, 31 July 2004.
72. Personal interview with Tsuruta Mitsuko of MIC Kanagawa in Yokohama, 23 July 2004.
73. NGO activists have proposed a Law on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that states, "All persons shall have the right to receive medical treatment... [despite] undocumented residency.... All persons shall have the right to participate in health insurance, welfare pension insurance, National Health Insurance, and the National Pension Plan free of Racial Discrimination." Migrant Network News no. 59 (June 2003), pp. 3-4.
74. "Fuhō taizaisha no kokuho kanyu, ichibu mitomeru saikōsai 'Kobetsu jijyō de handan" [High court decision - Participation in the national health insurance of overstayed foreigners is to be partially admitted 'based on individual case'] Asahi Shimbun, 15 January 2004, p. 14.
75. Personal interview with Hayakawa Hiroshi of the MF-MASH in Yokohama, 23 July 2004.
76. "Fuhō taizai gaikokujin: Kokuho kara zenmen haijyo Kōrōshō ga meibunka," [Overstayed foreigners to be excluded completely from the national health insurance - Ministry of Health and Labor stated] Mainichi Shimbun, 8 June 2004, p. 2.
77. The idea, however, originated after the 1993 UN Declaration on the Protection of Women's Rights. See Kanagawa-Women's Space "Mizula," Shierutā-Onnatachi no kiki [Women's Crisis - Shelter] (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2002), p. 239.
78. Personal interview with Kikutani Hideko of Mizula in Yokohama, 16 July 2004.
79. The law, however, does not protect unmarried partners or overstayed foreign women.
80. Personal interview with Yoshinari Katsuo of the APFS in Tokyo, 16 May 2001.
81. Hiroshi Matsubara, "Visaless foreigners easy scapegoats," The Japan Times, 31 December 2003, p. 3.
82. Ministry of Justice, Shutsunyūkoku Kanri [Annual Statistics on Immigration Control] (Tokyo: Ōkurashō Insatsukyoku, 2001-2005).
83. Personal interview with Yoshinari Katsuo of the APFS in Tokyo, 7 July 2004.
84. See inter alia Sunhyuk Kim, The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2000);
85. Juree Vichit-Vadakan, "Thai Civil Society: Exploring a Diverse and Complex Landscape," in David Schak and Wayne Hudson, eds., Civil Society in Asia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 87-102.
86. William Case, "Thorns in the Flesh: Civil Society as Democratizing Agent in Malaysia," in Schak and Hudson, eds., Civil Society in Asia, pp. 40-58.
87. Susan Pharr and Robert Putnam, Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000);
88. Multhiah Alagappa, "Civil Society and Democratic Change: Indeterminate Connection, Transforming Relations," in Multhiah Alagappa, ed., Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).