The Japanese landscape is changing regarding Foreign movement. Toyo Keizai, a business magazine, recently covered the sensation of Taiwanese children joining in some of Tokyo’s best secondary schools.
The post series focused on Tokyo’s Bunkyo-ku, house to the University of Tokyo and some of the city’s top public schools, noting that the number of non-Japanese children living in the area has more than doubled since 2019. According to the post, Chinese made up half of the increase.
The number of Foreign residents living in Japan, which is on the rise, reached a record high of 873, 000 at the end of 2024 from 761, 600 in 2022, with a new perspective.  ,
But much more important, the content of Chinese immigrants has changed dramatically over the past few years. Chinese render up 23 % of Japan’s 3.76 million international citizens, but they now make up a significant and growing portion.
Chinese workers now dominate the most highly skilled categories in the Japanese visa system, namely the” Management and Administration” ( 51.3 % in 2023, 50.3 % in 2022 ) and” Highly Qualified Professionals” ( 65.7 % in 2023, 63.9 % in 2022 ).
In contrast, there has been a steady decline in the number of Chinese citizens who are” Technical Trainee” card holders, which forbids the holder from bringing community members. More than 38, 000, or 43 % of the full, were the Chinese, who were the largest population of these employees as late as 2015, making up the majority of the full. However, by the previous year, the Chinese had dropped to fourth position, just making up 7.4 %.  ,
It is no wonder that there is a corresponding increase in Chinese kids when you factor in the increase in the number of permanent people, scientific experts, and other types of long-term white-collar practitioners among Chinese people in Japan.
The Chinese are increasingly viewed as travellers, university students, and unskilled laborers who work in companies.
Foreign residents in Japan are extremely sharing the same physical spaces with “regular” Chinese people, competing for the same minimal resources such as high-quality pre-college knowledge instead of just spending money and then going home or concentrated on far-flung university campuses, farms, and factories.
Recipe for a backlash
It’s unlikely that the Chinese will like them even more because of the change in their composition in Japan. A survey survey results released in December 2024 revealed that 89 % of Japanese people have a negative outlook on China, which undoubtedly influences how they perceive the Chinese people they encounter there as well.
A quick look at the extensive coverage of China by Toyo Keizai, including those of Chinese immigrants in Japan, reveals that the majority of them are calling for the Chinese to leave and stop enriching themselves by stealing Japanese technology, despite the fact that it is statistically unrepresentative.  ,
Such vitriol will only get worse with the zero-sum nature of education. The lack of elite education, as shown by the limited number of places available in Bunkyo-ku’s top elementary schools and the fierce admissions battles that face China because of their presence, which is thought to excite more deserving Japanese students, will increase grievances toward the Chinese.
The fact that the Chinese are looking for cheap public school spots rather than paying for private education that the majority of the Japanese population can’t afford will unavoidably sputter more nationalistic sentiments as Japan’s average real income continues to decline.  ,
A number of factors that are beyond the control of both countries and their peoples will also contribute to the Chinese’s continued growth in population in Japan, at the risk of locals treating them with more hostility.
With Japan’s stricter visa laws and labor market conditions, Trump’s growing tendency to view Chinese STEM talent as a threat to national security will result in the displacement of many of them.
Additionally, Chinese companies’ increasing competitiveness has frequently come at the expense of Japanese pride, not to mention traditional automakers, as most recently demonstrated by its surge in electric vehicle exports. More of them will likely flood Japanese markets as the Trump tariffs create a barrier to Chinese goods.
Hedging hostility
Japan’s efforts to embrace multiculturalism in response to Japan’s long-standing issues of labor shortage, aging, and population decline are causing a problem because of the increasingly wealthy, competitive, and ubiquitous Chinese immigrants.
The government has made it clear that it intends to increase the number of highly skilled foreign workers over the coming years, but the nation may become less and less interested in having to compete for limited resources with these highly skilled workers, the majority of whom are Chinese.
The government has not yet shown a clear direction in juggling practical needs and hostile feelings. The government’s decision to begin issuing 10-year multiple-entry tourist visas to wealthy Chinese people in the late last year has sparked even more hostility toward them from Liberal Democrats, who are currently in power.
The government will need to first clarify its stance and formulate a concerted plan to address the public’s concerns while highlighting the positive contributions Chinese citizens are making to the nation for the Japanese to form more lucid opinions on the presence of China in their midst.
Although it would be unpalatable for any politician to speak out and defend the benefits of a greater foreign presence, especially from the Chinese, in a traditionally homogenous nation like Japan.
A lack of clarity among officials will only lead Japan down the same path as the West, where anti-immigrant rhetoric has risen on the assumption that the government has lost control over national borders, given the undeniable reality of an ever-increasing foreign population in the nation.