Japan’s delicate surge of top-tier Chinese workers

The face of Chinese migration in Japan is changing. Last month, the business magazine Toyo Keizai profiled the phenomenon of Chinese children enrolling in some of Tokyo’s top elementary schools.

The article series zoomed in on Tokyo’s Bunkyo-ku, home to the University of Tokyo as well as some of the capital’s best public schools, noting that since 2019, where the number of non-Japanese children living in the neighborhood has more than doubled. The article said Chinese accounted for half of the increase.

The coverage presents a new side to the ever-increasing number of Chinese living in Japan, which hit a record high of 873,000 at the end of 2024, up from 761,600 in 2022. 

But much more importantly, the composition of Chinese immigrants has evolved rapidly in recent years. Whereas Chinese make up 23% of the 3.76 million foreign residents in Japan, they now account for a majority and growing proportion.

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, the number of Chinese citizens on the “Technical Trainee” visa, which does not allow the holder to bring family members, has steadily declined. As recently as 2015, the Chinese were the largest cohort of these trainees, numbering more than 38,000, or 43% of the total. But by last year, the Chinese had slid down to 4th place, making up only 7.4%. 

Adding in the increase in the number of permanent residents, academic researchers and other types of long-term white-collar professionals among Chinese citizens in Japan, there is little wonder that there is also a corresponding increase in Chinese children.

The image of the Chinese in Japan as tourists, college students and unskilled laborers toiling in factories is increasingly outdated.

Rather than just spending money and then going home or concentrated in far-flung university campuses, farms and factories, Chinese residents in Japan today increasingly share the same physical spaces with “regular” Japanese people, competing for the same limited resources such as high-quality pre-college education.

Recipe for a backlash

The shift in the composition of the Chinese in Japan is unlikely to endear them further to the Japanese. A set of survey results published in December 2024 shows that 89% of Japanese people have a negative view of China, no doubt coloring their views of the Chinese people they encounter in Japan as well.

While statistically unrepresentative, a quick scan of Facebook comments on Toyo Keizai’s extensive coverage on China, including those of Chinese migrants in Japan, shows the overwhelming majority calling for the Chinese to go home and stop enriching themselves by stealing Japanese technology. 

The zero-sum nature of schooling will exacerbate such vitriol. The inelastic supply of elite education, as clearly illustrated by the limited number of places across Bunkyo-ku’s top elementary schools and the fierce competition for admissions to the University of Tokyo, will amplify grievances toward the Chinese as their presence is perceived as pushing out more deserving Japanese students.

As Japan’s average real income continues to decline, the fact that the Chinese are seeking out cheap public school spots, rather than paying for private education that most of the Japanese population cannot afford, will inevitably rile up more nationalistic sentiments. 

A host of factors outside the control of both countries and their peoples will also ensure that the Chinese will continue to grow in number in Japan, at the risk of being met with more hostility by locals.

Trump’s increasing tendency to view Chinese STEM talent as a national security threat will drive many more of them to Japan, with its looser visa regulations and tighter labor market.

Moreover, Chinese firms’ increasing competitiveness, most recently illustrated in its surging electric vehicle exports, has often come at the expense of Japanese pride, not to mention traditional automakers. As the Trump tariffs erect a barrier to Chinese goods, more of them will likely flood Japanese markets.

Hedging hostility

The overwhelming presence of increasingly wealthy, competitive and ubiquitous Chinese migrants presents a problem for Japan just as it works out how exactly it should embrace multiculturalism to mitigate its long-standing issues of labor shortage, aging and population decline.

The government’s clearly stated intention is to increase the number of highly skilled foreign workers over the coming years, but the country may increasingly balk at the idea of having to compete for limited resources with these highly skilled workers, the majority of whom are Chinese.

So far, the government has not shown a clear direction in balancing practical needs with hostile sentiments. The government’s decision late last year to start issuing 10-year multiple-entry tourist visas to affluent Chinese has attracted further hostility toward the Chinese over their potential role in overtourism and Sinicization, even among members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

For the Japanese to form more clear-headed opinions on the Chinese presence in their midst, 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 that Chinese citizens are making to the country.

Granted, in a traditionally homogenous country like Japan, it would be unpalatable for any politician to stand out and proclaim the merits of a greater foreign presence, especially by the Chinese.

But given the undeniable reality of an ever-increasing foreign population in the country, 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 belief that the government has lost control over national borders.