I thought this was a good read, but I think there are some things he minimizes. For example, he talks about increasing foreign worker visas, but only has this sentence about citizenship:
> Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years.
I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people try. Everything I've read about Japan has stated that the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people, even to many mixed-race people of Japanese descent (e.g. from Brazil).
Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration.
> Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years.
I recall reading a news article from a few years ago that said that the Japanese citizenship test is almost impossible to the point that few people try. Everything I've read about Japan has stated that the overall culture is extremely hostile to granting citizenship to non-native people, even to many mixed-race people of Japanese descent (e.g. from Brazil).
Having a culture that just says "we're happy to have you work here for a while, but you'll never really belong here" isn't really a good sign for long-term integration.