Faccessing the threat of Christianity at the beginning of the 17th century, the Tokugawa shoguns closed the borders of Japan. Foreigners were only allowed to visit a handful of ports. Japanese who attempted to travel overseas, or who did and returned home, were put to death. If they brought back a letter, their families were also executed. Thus began the period dubbed later sakoku, or “closed country”; it lasted until Western warships “opened up” Japan in the mid-19th century.
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Coupe in the 21st century. Throughout the pandemic, Japan has maintained some of the strictest border controls of any democratic country. To this day, tourists are prohibited unless they are part of a group tour. Some observers call the government’s approach “neo-sakoku”.
In some ways, Japan’s pandemic policies are par for the course for Asia, where many places have taken a drastic approach to keeping the virus out. Yet while other countries pursuing zero covid strategies, such as China and Australia, even banned their own citizens from leaving, Japan created a dual system. Japanese nationals were largely free to come and go. Foreigners, even those with permanent residency, face restrictions. Nikkei, a daily, reported in October that about 370,000 foreign students, guest workers and their relatives were stranded outside the country despite having residency visas. “Does the virus read your passport? joked a global health official.
Such isolationism is a reversal of the direction of pre-pandemic travel, so to speak. Spurred on by aging and shrinking population, Japan has opened up. The number of tourists increased from less than 7 million in 2009 to more than 30 million in 2019. The number of foreign students almost doubled during the same period. The number of foreign workers had tripled, albeit from a low base. In 2019, the Japanese government relaxed laws to allow some foreigners to stay longer.
The pandemic has reignited lingering skepticism about foreigners. “The Japanese have conceptualized covid as something that comes from outside,” says Oussouby Sacko, former dean of Kyoto Seika University, born in Mali. The unspoken logic is that outsiders cannot be trusted to stick to the practices, from mask-wearing to quiet eating, which many believe have helped the country maintain the covid death rate the lowest in the world. oecd, a club of 38 mostly wealthy countries, despite having the highest proportion of older people. Border closures have been popular: nearly 90% of Japanese people approved when Kishida Fumio, Japan’s prime minister, tightened travel restrictions in response to the appearance of the Omicron variant late last year.
The short-term political gain comes at a cost, however. Japan has already lost a cohort of foreign students, the very people who often become bridge builders between countries. Only around 11,600 managed to enter Japan in 2021, compared to some 120,000 in 2019. Foreign students stuck in limbo protested. Some have turned to study in countries with more open borders, such as South Korea. Foreign businessmen complain that the policies have made it more difficult to monitor operations, negotiate deals and make investments.
Current isolationism reminds us why Japan needs foreigners in the first place. The country needs to quadruple the number of foreign workers by 2040 to sustain the government’s modest average growth target of 1.2%, according to a recent study by a group of Japanese think tanks. (Without sustained investment in automation, the number is expected to increase more than tenfold.) Japanese business leaders have been among the loudest voices calling for reopening. “Business is not conducted only on a national basis,” said the head of Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, calling for an end to the “sakoku situation” earlier this year. As demographic change accelerates, labor shortages will become more acute.
Fortunately, neo-sakoku seems likely to fade much sooner than the original version. Japan began allowing business travelers and students to enter the country in March and allowed group visits in June. Officials are whispering that a full reopening will come after upper house elections on July 10, barring a resurgence of the virus. On the contrary, demand for travel has probably increased rather than decreased: in an annual survey, readers of Conde Nast Traveler, an American magazine, placed three Japanese cities at the top of their list of favorite foreign cities in 2021, despite not being able to visit them. Like it or not, the world wants Japan, and Japan needs the world.
All of our pandemic-related stories can be found on our coronavirus hub.
Read more from Banyan, our columnist on Asia:
By electing another Marcos, Filipinos show they have forgotten history (June 29)
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Thailand’s military leader is on a war footing (June 16)
