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Japan is a pretty good cautionary tale for Britain (and to a lesser extent to the US) on how shutting yourself off from immigration tends to go. Japan was expe

Japan is a pretty good cautionary tale for Britain (and to a lesser extent to the US) on how shutting yourself off from immigration tends to go. Japan was expected to become the next global superpower in the 1980s, and instead has seen closing in on three lost decades. It’s only now trying to catch up, politically, culturally and economically.

bluedino 7y ago
Except the US has been pretty open to immigration for the last 250 years, while Japan is 98% Japanese.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  US has been pretty open to immigration at some points, and relatively closed at others. For the most of last 250 years, it has been mostly closed to non-white immigration, for example. With the exception of black Americans, the current racial and ethnic diversity in the US is a rather recent phenomenon.
  - tonmoy 7y ago
    I don’t understand the point of “white” and race in this conversation. In fact the concept of “white” may be a rather recent phenomenon.
  - wil421 7y ago
    Tons of people hated the Irish for immigrating to the US. There are plenty of example of the hatred of Italians and Irish in the turn of the last century. Watch Gangs of New York for a taste of the bigotry. Irish and Italians are lumped into White and now we have comments like yours. Most of the people in the US are from Europe so of course they favored family, friends, and countrymen coming over.
  - elgenie 7y ago
    The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882. The national origin quota system didn't exist at all until the 1920s. Ethnic diversity has been part of the fabric of the US since before it was a country. Per census figures, the percentage of the population that wasn't born in the US was higher in 1910 that in it today. And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them => white" is a lot more recent than 250 years ago. The Irish weren't considered "white" when they arrived en masse after 1820. Italians, Greeks, and various Slavs also weren't considered "white" when they arrived in the early 20th century. Suspicion of divided loyalties for a Catholic president was a big issue in the 1960 elections (JFK vs Nixon).
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      > The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882. Yes, but it had Naturalization Act of 1790 that restricted naturalization only to white people. It wasn’t an immigration restriction, to be sure, but very few non-whites immigrated to US anyway (other than the forced immigration of black slaves), rendering the issue moot. > And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them => white" is a lot more recent than 250 years ago. The Irish weren't considered "white" when they arrived en masse after 1820. Italians, Greeks, and various Slavs also weren't considered "white" when they arrived in the early 20th century. This is very much false and ahistorical. Many of them weren’t liked by then-locals, and in fact we’re often discriminated against, but at no point they were seriously considered non-white. There have been some activists recently claiming otherwise, but it has been based on very weak historical grounds. Consider, for example, that after the Ozawa case, at no point the question of Irish or Slavs’ whiteness ever came up on a court docket, while it did for Arabs, Syrians, Filipinos, and many others: https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White05.htm https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White05.htm > Suspicion of divided loyalties for a Catholic president was a big issue in the 1960 elections (JFK vs Nixon). There was, but, as it turns out, Catholicism is not a race.
mc32 7y ago
The global superpower fears were wild exaggerations. They didn’t have the pop (workers and also consumers) to support those claims. Of course contributing to those fears was vast underinvestment in modernization by US firms which were still relying on very old and inefficient technologies, so of course to some stateside companies (and “pundits”) they looked like worldbeaters.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
  They do have the population. Just the prefecture of Tokyo is more populated than the whole continent of Australia (32 million vs 23 million)
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    They have the population to compete with European nations as a world superpower. But the world superpower is not a European country, it's the US. Japan has something like 1/3rd of the population of the US, and is also extremely constrained on a bunch of natural resources.
  - Xixi 7y ago
    Japanese economy is about 3.5 times bigger than that of Australia. I'm not sure what your point is. Economical measures are hard to interpret, but they can give an indication: Japan GDP/capita is standing at 48,920 USD, and Australia at 56,919 USD. Germany is at 47,502 USD, France at 43,664 and UK at 42,986 USD. Japan is there, slightly ahead of Europe. Australia is somewhat ahead, but benefits from way more natural resources (minerals and oil). You can only grow fast so far: once your entire country is middle-class growth will be slower. By comparison, Korea is at 26,762 USD, and China at 7,755 USD. These two countries have way more potential for growth, but also because they are way less developed for large groups of people. I forgot the exact salary difference for the same job between a chaebol and a small company in Korea, but I think we are talking 4x or 5x more at the chaebol.
golemiprague 7y ago
As someone who lived in both countries I will take Japan any day over Britain. I wish Japan will not get tempted to do the mistakes Britain has done, if anything Britain should be a caution to Japan about the disaster that is looming for them if they open their country to immigration. The reason Japan didn't become a global power is because of it's size and size of population, they are still doing very well only without all the "enrichment" that Britain has to deal with.
seiko988 7y ago
Yet China is a global superpower and shut off from immigration
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  china has a billion people. they don't need immigration. japan's population is declining
  - dobleboble 7y ago
    It is estimated to be at 1.4 billion now https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=C...
  - wnevets 7y ago
    Not just a billion people but millions who are just now entering the workforce
  - seiko988 7y ago
    The solution to people not having enough children is to have more children, you could enlist people from abroad to help with the effort, but you could also try to raise the birthrate using the existing population.
  - brobinson 7y ago
    The PRC's total population and working age population will peak in the next five years or so and begin a steady decline from there. 33% of the population will be over 65 by 2050 according to projections. There was a recent study from Peking University which hypothesized that the population actually peaked in 2018 and is already shrinking. (government numbers are unreliable)
- user- 7y ago
  You understand that China is a widely different case right?
- raverbashing 7y ago
rb808 7y ago
Japan has virtually identical GDP/capita to the UK, the numbers are a little out of date as GBP has fallen in last few years. Maybe UK could try to emulate Japan to try to catch up with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- namirez 7y ago
  Your claim is correct only between 1985 and 1995. Since 1995, Japan's economy has stagnated but UK's has grown significantly. source: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:JPN:CHN:KOR&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:JPN:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
  - _0ffh 7y ago
    Looking at these numbers, UK has also been stagnating since ca 2005. Comparing between 1980 and 2015, both had about the same growth in GDP per capita, and about the same absolute numbers. Only Japan did the bulk of it's growing earlier in that time span, and the UK later.
  - mrb 7y ago
    Looking at your chart, rb808's claim is correct even as of the latest numbers. UK at $39720 and Japan at $38428 is "virtually identical".
YinLuck- 7y ago
There were no 'lost decades' -- that's just a low IQ meme. Japan's per-capita Gross National Income in constant USD equivalent has tracked the USA's almost 1 to 1 since the 1970s. All the while they have maintained their culture, their social and political stability and their sense of shared destiny. Here's a link to the Google Chart showing the data: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:JPN:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... To put it another way, a flat economy in the face of a declining population (specifically working age population) means people are actually getting richer per-capita. You can still prefer America's experiment in mass immigration, but after looking over the facts, you have to at least admit we're still waiting for an answer on which route proves superior.
Mikeb85 7y ago
How is Japan a cautionary tale? They're one of the most (the most?) developed countries on earth, enjoy one of the highest standards of living and economically punch well above their weight (based on population and access to resources). I don't see where the problem is... The vast majority of countries, even many western countries only wish they had Japan's 'problems'.
- rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
  Their demographics are horrific. More diapers are sold to adults than babies. People are worked to the bone to support the needs of a massive elderly population. Japan does a lot of things exceedingly well but demographics are one of those forces of history that are dammed near impossible to mitigate or circumvent without enormous cost, like trying to stop a train with your fist. EDIT: Just to be clear, my point is about demographics, not immigration. We have yet to see if productivity advancements such as robotics can fill the void, but either way, Japan has a significant struggle ahead of itself.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    The Japanese are just the first country to tackle the demographic transition without gambling their entire culture and country on mass immigration. We don't know yet whether it's a bad bet. In favor of their approach: 1) the demographic transition will pass (since fertility is heritable), 2) increasing automation will probably reduce the demand for labor, 3) meanwhile life is still good for Japanese people.
    - opportune 7y ago
      "1) the demographic transition will pass (since fertility is heritable)" Citation needed. Sure fertility is well correlated with educational attainment which is likely somewhat "heritable" by proxy (social class, intelligence, lack of disabilities) but that doesn't mean the heritable effect will be large enough in aggregate.
      - 7y ago
wil421 7y ago
It’s been my experience the US is against illegal immigration and abuse of things like H1-B but not immigration itself. The US has the most immigrants than any other country by almost 5x at 48 million.
lggdn 7y ago
> Japan is a pretty good cautionary tale for Britain (and to a lesser extent to the US) on how shutting yourself off from immigration tends to go. The US? You do realize that the US became the largest economy in the world when it was isolationist and pretty much banned immigration right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 Also, China has become the 2nd largest nominal economy ( or the largest in terms of purchasing parity ) in the world without being open to immigration. Instead of letting agenda drive your reasoning, why not let the facts? > Japan was expected to become the next global superpower in the 1980s By whom? The media? Nobody in their right mind thought Japan was going to be a global superpower. Japan depends almost entirely on the US for defense and resource acquisition. They neither had the population nor the resources nor the international presence to be a global superpower - economic or military.

bluedino 7y ago

Except the US has been pretty open to immigration for the last 250 years, while Japan is 98% Japanese.

xyzzyz 7y ago
US has been pretty open to immigration at some points, and relatively closed at others. For the most of last 250 years, it has been mostly closed to non-white immigration, for example. With the exception of black Americans, the current racial and ethnic diversity in the US is a rather recent phenomenon.
- tonmoy 7y ago
  I don’t understand the point of “white” and race in this conversation. In fact the concept of “white” may be a rather recent phenomenon.
- wil421 7y ago
  Tons of people hated the Irish for immigrating to the US. There are plenty of example of the hatred of Italians and Irish in the turn of the last century. Watch Gangs of New York for a taste of the bigotry. Irish and Italians are lumped into White and now we have comments like yours. Most of the people in the US are from Europe so of course they favored family, friends, and countrymen coming over.
- elgenie 7y ago
  The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882. The national origin quota system didn't exist at all until the 1920s. Ethnic diversity has been part of the fabric of the US since before it was a country. Per census figures, the percentage of the population that wasn't born in the US was higher in 1910 that in it today. And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them => white" is a lot more recent than 250 years ago. The Irish weren't considered "white" when they arrived en masse after 1820. Italians, Greeks, and various Slavs also weren't considered "white" when they arrived in the early 20th century. Suspicion of divided loyalties for a Catholic president was a big issue in the 1960 elections (JFK vs Nixon).
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    > The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882. Yes, but it had Naturalization Act of 1790 that restricted naturalization only to white people. It wasn’t an immigration restriction, to be sure, but very few non-whites immigrated to US anyway (other than the forced immigration of black slaves), rendering the issue moot. > And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them => white" is a lot more recent than 250 years ago. The Irish weren't considered "white" when they arrived en masse after 1820. Italians, Greeks, and various Slavs also weren't considered "white" when they arrived in the early 20th century. This is very much false and ahistorical. Many of them weren’t liked by then-locals, and in fact we’re often discriminated against, but at no point they were seriously considered non-white. There have been some activists recently claiming otherwise, but it has been based on very weak historical grounds. Consider, for example, that after the Ozawa case, at no point the question of Irish or Slavs’ whiteness ever came up on a court docket, while it did for Arabs, Syrians, Filipinos, and many others: https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White05.htm https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White05.htm > Suspicion of divided loyalties for a Catholic president was a big issue in the 1960 elections (JFK vs Nixon). There was, but, as it turns out, Catholicism is not a race.

mc32 7y ago

The global superpower fears were wild exaggerations. They didn’t have the pop (workers and also consumers) to support those claims. Of course contributing to those fears was vast underinvestment in modernization by US firms which were still relying on very old and inefficient technologies, so of course to some stateside companies (and “pundits”) they looked like worldbeaters.

ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
They do have the population. Just the prefecture of Tokyo is more populated than the whole continent of Australia (32 million vs 23 million)
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  They have the population to compete with European nations as a world superpower. But the world superpower is not a European country, it's the US. Japan has something like 1/3rd of the population of the US, and is also extremely constrained on a bunch of natural resources.
- Xixi 7y ago
  Japanese economy is about 3.5 times bigger than that of Australia. I'm not sure what your point is. Economical measures are hard to interpret, but they can give an indication: Japan GDP/capita is standing at 48,920 USD, and Australia at 56,919 USD. Germany is at 47,502 USD, France at 43,664 and UK at 42,986 USD. Japan is there, slightly ahead of Europe. Australia is somewhat ahead, but benefits from way more natural resources (minerals and oil). You can only grow fast so far: once your entire country is middle-class growth will be slower. By comparison, Korea is at 26,762 USD, and China at 7,755 USD. These two countries have way more potential for growth, but also because they are way less developed for large groups of people. I forgot the exact salary difference for the same job between a chaebol and a small company in Korea, but I think we are talking 4x or 5x more at the chaebol.

golemiprague 7y ago

As someone who lived in both countries I will take Japan any day over Britain. I wish Japan will not get tempted to do the mistakes Britain has done, if anything Britain should be a caution to Japan about the disaster that is looming for them if they open their country to immigration. The reason Japan didn't become a global power is because of it's size and size of population, they are still doing very well only without all the "enrichment" that Britain has to deal with.

seiko988 7y ago

Yet China is a global superpower and shut off from immigration

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
china has a billion people. they don't need immigration. japan's population is declining
- dobleboble 7y ago
  It is estimated to be at 1.4 billion now https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=C...
- wnevets 7y ago
  Not just a billion people but millions who are just now entering the workforce
- seiko988 7y ago
  The solution to people not having enough children is to have more children, you could enlist people from abroad to help with the effort, but you could also try to raise the birthrate using the existing population.
- brobinson 7y ago
  The PRC's total population and working age population will peak in the next five years or so and begin a steady decline from there. 33% of the population will be over 65 by 2050 according to projections. There was a recent study from Peking University which hypothesized that the population actually peaked in 2018 and is already shrinking. (government numbers are unreliable)
user- 7y ago
You understand that China is a widely different case right?
raverbashing 7y ago

rb808 7y ago

Japan has virtually identical GDP/capita to the UK, the numbers are a little out of date as GBP has fallen in last few years. Maybe UK could try to emulate Japan to try to catch up with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

namirez 7y ago
Your claim is correct only between 1985 and 1995. Since 1995, Japan's economy has stagnated but UK's has grown significantly. source: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:JPN:CHN:KOR&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:JPN:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
- _0ffh 7y ago
  Looking at these numbers, UK has also been stagnating since ca 2005. Comparing between 1980 and 2015, both had about the same growth in GDP per capita, and about the same absolute numbers. Only Japan did the bulk of it's growing earlier in that time span, and the UK later.
- mrb 7y ago
  Looking at your chart, rb808's claim is correct even as of the latest numbers. UK at $39720 and Japan at $38428 is "virtually identical".

YinLuck- 7y ago

There were no 'lost decades' -- that's just a low IQ meme. Japan's per-capita Gross National Income in constant USD equivalent has tracked the USA's almost 1 to 1 since the 1970s. All the while they have maintained their culture, their social and political stability and their sense of shared destiny. Here's a link to the Google Chart showing the data: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:JPN:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... To put it another way, a flat economy in the face of a declining population (specifically working age population) means people are actually getting richer per-capita. You can still prefer America's experiment in mass immigration, but after looking over the facts, you have to at least admit we're still waiting for an answer on which route proves superior.

Mikeb85 7y ago

How is Japan a cautionary tale? They're one of the most (the most?) developed countries on earth, enjoy one of the highest standards of living and economically punch well above their weight (based on population and access to resources). I don't see where the problem is... The vast majority of countries, even many western countries only wish they had Japan's 'problems'.

rm_-rf_slash 7y ago
Their demographics are horrific. More diapers are sold to adults than babies. People are worked to the bone to support the needs of a massive elderly population. Japan does a lot of things exceedingly well but demographics are one of those forces of history that are dammed near impossible to mitigate or circumvent without enormous cost, like trying to stop a train with your fist. EDIT: Just to be clear, my point is about demographics, not immigration. We have yet to see if productivity advancements such as robotics can fill the void, but either way, Japan has a significant struggle ahead of itself.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  The Japanese are just the first country to tackle the demographic transition without gambling their entire culture and country on mass immigration. We don't know yet whether it's a bad bet. In favor of their approach: 1) the demographic transition will pass (since fertility is heritable), 2) increasing automation will probably reduce the demand for labor, 3) meanwhile life is still good for Japanese people.
  - opportune 7y ago
    "1) the demographic transition will pass (since fertility is heritable)" Citation needed. Sure fertility is well correlated with educational attainment which is likely somewhat "heritable" by proxy (social class, intelligence, lack of disabilities) but that doesn't mean the heritable effect will be large enough in aggregate.
    - 7y ago

wil421 7y ago

It’s been my experience the US is against illegal immigration and abuse of things like H1-B but not immigration itself. The US has the most immigrants than any other country by almost 5x at 48 million.

lggdn 7y ago

> Japan is a pretty good cautionary tale for Britain (and to a lesser extent to the US) on how shutting yourself off from immigration tends to go. The US? You do realize that the US became the largest economy in the world when it was isolationist and pretty much banned immigration right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 Also, China has become the 2nd largest nominal economy ( or the largest in terms of purchasing parity ) in the world without being open to immigration. Instead of letting agenda drive your reasoning, why not let the facts? > Japan was expected to become the next global superpower in the 1980s By whom? The media? Nobody in their right mind thought Japan was going to be a global superpower. Japan depends almost entirely on the US for defense and resource acquisition. They neither had the population nor the resources nor the international presence to be a global superpower - economic or military.