Is Japan Throwing In The Glove On Immigration?

     Japan has preserved its culture (and its low crime rate) by careful control of foreigners and the number of foreigners admitted to the country. But that may be at an end. Business Insider reports that "4 African countries get official hometowns, special visa category in Japan under migration deal." The article reports that "[t]he government of Japan has designated four cities as official 'hometowns' for residents of four African countries from Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and Mozambique, offering a special visa scheme." 

    Director of Information at the State House, Abiodun Oladunjoye, confirmed for the Nigerian side that the partnership will include a special visa category for highly skilled, innovative, and talented young Nigerians wishing to live and work in Kisarazu. Artisans and other blue-collar workers willing to upskill will also benefit from the special dispensation visa.

    Similar arrangements are anticipated for Tanzania, Ghana, and Mozambique, providing structured pathways for professional development while supplying Japan with needed workforce talent.

The justification given in the article for such arrangements are two fold: to counteract growing Chinese influence in Africa, and to provide foreign labor necessitated by Japan's demographic decline. In the latter regard, the article mentions:

Japan faces an aging population, with nearly 30% of its citizens aged 65 and above, and fewer than 60 working-age individuals per 100 retirees. This demographic shift has intensified the country’s need for foreign labour to support key sectors such as technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare.  

Japan has long used imported laborers from Pakistan and the Philippines, but with strict controls on permanent immigration. Perhaps this is more of the same. Nevertheless, it seems to be opening the door to greater immigration. And as we have seen in the West, temporary immigration can often turn into something more permanent, while also bring in forces of chaos and disorder. The protests in the U.K. over immigration are a direct response to the heightened crime caused by immigrants. 

    Historically, the fight between good and evil is often seen as a conflict between order and chaos, or law and lawlessness. For instance, the creation of the world can be seen as God creating order out of chaos. Civilization is a process of bring law and order to a world that previously was full of violence, murder, and distrust. One of the attributions that made the West and certain other countries, such as Japan, so successful was that they are generally are high trust societies with low levels of corruption. 

    But the West entered a period of growing chaos in the 1960s and '70s with declining trust following. There are several reasons for this, but one of the factors identified by Robert Putnam, a researcher at Harvard, was racial diversity. His research showed a correlation between greater ethnic diversity and lower social capital, which he defined as "features of social organizations, such as networks, norms and trust that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit". Some examples of social capital identified by Putnam are:

When a group of neighbors informally keep an eye on one another’s homes, that’s social capital in action. When a tightly knit community of Hassidic Jews trade diamonds without having to test each gem for purity, that’s social capital in action. Barn-raising on the frontier was social capital in action, and so too are e-mail exchanges among members of a cancer support group. Social capital can be found in friendship networks, neighborhoods, churches, schools, bridge clubs, civic associations, and even bars. The motto in Cheers “where everybody knows your name” captures one important aspect of social capital.

 When people are nostalgic for "the old days," much of what they miss is the social interaction and social capital they remember from that time period or believe existed. The same when people long for a small town atmosphere. 

    What Putnam's research revealed was that greater ethnic diversity resulted in lower social capital, including trust. Another way to put this is that diversity brings more chaos beyond just the protests and crime that come from importing people from low-trust societies. Preppers should be particularly concerned because mass immigration, particularly from societies that are incompatible with the norms of the civilization into which they are moving, is a bell weather of the decline and fall of a civilization. It is the deliberate introduction of chaos into what was a previously ordered system, much like what the serpent did in the Garden of Eden.