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The populist surge comes as Japan, a traditionally insular nation that values conformity and uniformity, sees a record surge of foreigners needed to bolster its shrinking workforce.
Here's your short reminder that there is no such thing as a "too small workforce".
Anti-immigrant policies, which allow populists to vent their dissatisfaction on easy targets, are appealing to more Japanese as they struggle with dwindling salaries, rising prices and bleak future outlooks.
A smaller supply of labor on the labor market means that higher prices will be paid for said labor, which means higher salaries. The decline of japanese population is a good thing for the people. Trying to "fill up" that population with foreigners is the most wrong thing anybody could do in that situation.
I fully, 100% support the japanese people with trying to uphold their own culture, their own way of life, and deal with their problems themselves. If you rely on foreigners to solve your problems, then you have already lost. In fact, you never even tried. If you have dwindling salaries and you try to fix the problem by giving away more jobs to other people, then you're stupid and shouldn't hold a ruling position. That's economics 101, not a conspiracy theory.
I mean, America has traditionally been an immigration country. 97% of people in the US today are the descendants from immigrants, so at least there i can understand that immigration seems like a historically continuous process. But japan always had little migration, both in and out. It's pissing me off that newspapers say we need to "fix" our declining birthrates. We don't need to "fix" it because it's not a problem. It's just people giving the planet a break and creating some more space for themselves. Fewer people in a country means more resources per person. That increases the resource supply and decreases the Cost of Living; which probably increases the Quality of Life.