Honestly, I’m a bit pro-nationalistic when it comes to Japan. That is one country I’m not from that needs to be as insular as possible to keep its charm.
Over tourism is killing Japan. Not just people coming over, but not really respecting anything about the country (this is a lot of Chinese people too).
Keep this shyt away.
I agree they need to chill with letting in chinese people specifically because they've been acting a fool in Hokkaido, but being insular isnt an option.
Closing in on themselves is basically a suicide pact because of where their population is going.
Someone has to pay into their social security system in the absence of young japanese. someone must pay taxes to maintain those fancy bullet trains.
Even more than numbers, they have a serious innovation problem that prevents them from being competitive globally because they are insular. The koreans and taiwanese snagged semiconductors from them due to their insular bussiness culture. And we are watching the same thing happen with cars in 2025 as BYD and Geely steal their car marketshare due to being forward thinking, while the conservative Japanese business culture stuck with hybrids.
Foreigners like Carlos Ghosn were badly needed to change japanese bussiness culture. If we ignore Ghosn's legal fckery for a moment , him shifting their automotive business culture away from hybrids towards electric cars would have protected them from BYD encroachment. Japan needs tens of thousands more of Ghosn(s) to change their bussiness culture if they wanna compete .
In 2011, Ghosn predicted that by 2020, electric cars would make up 10% of the global market.
time.com