Why sentiment in Japan has turned against foreigners despite a worker shortage

When Nikki Maruschak arrived in Japan in 2019 she saw it as a place where she could build a life.

Today she finds herself feeling unwelcome.

Walking to the train station, home, or just to the grocery store, she has experienced an increase in "butsukari", where someone will intentionally bump into, or push, a person in a public space while walking.

"There's been a number of times where in a train station or in a very crowded public area someone will bump into me, get very upset and say, 'Go back to your country,'"

she said.

The worst instance was when a man shoved her, for seemingly no reason, while she was with her partner at a subway station in March 2024.

After police saw CCTV proving the assault, an official report was made and the man was forced to apologise.

"The excuse was 'well, she can't read Japanese' which had nothing to do with the situation," Ms Maruschak said.

"He just needed to make up an excuse for why he felt he was justified in walking past me, then turning around and shoving me from behind."

The shift comes as Japanese people are increasingly embracing anti-immigration politics.

Since 2024 the Japanese far-right party Sanseito has moved from the fringes of national politics into the spotlight, securing 15 seats in the lower house and 15 seats in the upper house of parliament, all on a Japan-first and anti-foreigner platform.

Now it is the fourth-largest opposition party.

Professor at the Waseda University School of Political Science and Economics in Tokyo, Tetsuro Kobayashi, said the success of Sanseito had pushed Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to take a tougher stance against immigration.

It included tougher requirements for foreign property owners, higher visa costs and a cap on the number of foreign residents in Japan.

A telephone survey conducted by the national Asahi Shimbun newspaper in November 2025 found 66 per cent of respondents supported these new policies and 56 per cent said Japan did not need more immigrants and visitors.

The changing environment has made Ms Marushak and her South African partner Miguel Carmichael rethink their future in Japan.

"It is definitely something that is tangible, the shift in the general impression of a foreigner in Japan,"

Mr Carmichael said.

Ms Maruschak describes her Japanese comprehension as "advanced conversationally" and said she had heard people in public spaces ask, "Why are there so many foreigners here?"

"I would say in the week that the election where Sanseito suddenly won a lot of seats … there was a sudden increase in Japanese people being stand-offish or staring at you with an angry face from across the building," she said.

Importing MAGA

Professor Kobayashi said Sanseito found its stride following the COVID-19 pandemic.

"So not only the anti-vaxxers … they also tried to appeal to those who like spiritualism, naturalism, alternative medicines," Professor Kobayashi said.

In a bid to capture new segments of the public, the party has sought to capture anti-immigration sentiment, he said.

"There have been no established political parties in Japan that have made anti-immigration sentiment a central component of their political platform," Professor Kobayashi said.

Adjunct senior research fellow at Curtin University, Yasuo Takao, wrote "Sanseito's success showed that appeals to cultural protectionism and scepticism towards foreigners could siphon conservative voters" from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), an assessment Professor Kobayashi agreed with.

He said Sanseito was supported by many people who had an "anti-establishment orientation".

"So [Japanese Prime Minister Sanae] Takaichi has to keep the momentum by appealing to those anti-establishment people," Professor Kobayashi said.

"The effectiveness of right-wing populist rhetoric, to me, seems very much universal."

He added that Sanseito imported many of its policies from the Make America Great Again movement, even inviting Charlie Kirk to speak before he was killed in September 2025.

But if public attitude towards immigration improved, Professor Kobayashi said the populist Sanseito was likely to "move onto another issue" to "keep up the momentum".

'Low birth rate and shrinking population'

The message of Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya is one that may seem familiar to Australians following the rise of One Nation.

His speeches focus on Japan first, a crackdown on "excessive acceptance of foreigners" and suspending social services for foreign residents living in Japan.

But this rhetoric is up against the reality that Japan is a country that is aging rapidly, with a plummeting birthrate.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency's Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development estimated the country would need 6.74 million foreign workers by 2040 to maintain economic growth.

Japan's population peaked at 128 million in the 2010s and has contracted by roughly 5 million since then.

In 2025 the birth rate hit a record low, with the government reporting just 1.14 births per woman, well below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain the population, according to Japan's Ministry of Health.

Foreign residents make up about 3 per cent of Japan's total population.

By contrast, 32 per cent of Australia's population was born overseas as of June 2025, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The largest groups of emigrants come from China, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines and are concentrated in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan area, Osaka and Aichi, three areas where Sanseito has won seats.

Professor Kobayashi said the Japanese public was not necessarily making the connection between rising demand for foreign labour and "low birth rate and shrinking population".

"In Japan, anti-foreigner sentiment appears to be driven more by perceived cultural threats than by economic competition over jobs," he said.

'One of the good ones'

Following the assault of Ms Maruschak, police still insisted on searching Mr Carmichael, who is multiracial, even confiscating his wallet.

"Were the colour of my skin a little bit different I feel like that interaction would have gone a lot smoother, a lot easier,"

Mr Carmichael said.

Hyogo Prefectural Police have been contacted for comment.

Nonetheless, Mr Carmiachael believes he benefits from being a teacher, saying white-collar workers are perceived as "one of the good ones".

A study by Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Centre found the Japanese public preferred immigrants who were from "western countries" and spoke fluent Japanese.

The March 2026 Stanford Japan Barometer public survey found 55 per cent of respondents favoured immigrants from the US and Germany, 51 per cent favouring Vietnamese immigrants, 48 per cent favouring South Korean immigrants, and only 37 to 39 per cent favouring Chinese applicants.

A study published from a survey of 100 Vietnamese people and published in the Japan Medical Association journal found many had negative experiences working in Japan.

One Vietnamese worker on a technical intern training visa said "Japanese people hate foreigners".

"Vietnamese workers are made to do jobs that Japanese people don't want to do," they said.

Another specified skilled worker visa holder said "the manager often showed disdain toward us because we're not Japanese".

A nursing care worker said she did not feel her opinion was respected and "foreign workers receive no attention".

Overtourism concerns

Despite the anti-foreigner rhetoric, Japan has set a target of attracting 60 million inbound visitors to the country annually by 2030.

By the end of 2025, Japan reported more than 42.6 million international arrivals that year, a record according to the Japanese National Tourism Organisation.

More than a million of these visitors were Australians, up 15 per cent from 2024.

Professor Kobayashi said there was a growing concern in the Japanese public towards overtourism "which is certainly happening in some areas in Japan".

In a survey conducted by the Japanese Cabinet Office in 2015, roughly 20-30 per cent of respondents expressed concerns about increases in the number of tourists," he said.

"It is easy to imagine that this proportion has grown over the past decade."

Despite reports of record spending from tourists by the Japan Tourism Agency, some local authorities have cracked down, cancelling events like the Fujiyoshida Cherry Blossom festival or banning tourists from some areas of Kyoto.

"While residents of tourist destinations may suffer from overtourism, people working in the tourism industry benefit from foreign visitors," Professor Kobayashi said.

"It seems more likely that citizens will demand that governments manage inbound tourism more effectively, for example through measures such as tourist taxes and other mechanisms to control visitor flows."

Japan has now increased its international tourist tax, which is automatically added to the ticket price of flights departing Japan from roughly $9 to $26, among other measures.

University lecturer Mathew Cooper, 63, has not noticed any change in attitude toward foreigners but said when he moved to Japan in 1988, foreigners were "more of a novelty".

Mass tourism has made this the opposite, he said.

"There's been some kickback against that, although I think that's a bit naïve because they're bringing a lot of money into the country," he said.

"You can't have it both ways."