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MAGA people feel they are being exploited by foreign countries and advocate for stricter immigration policies. In my interviews with Trump supporters or conservatives in United States, I often encounter praise for my country and its culture. In their eyes, Japan has preserved itself as a monocultural and conservative country. In their view, the opposite extreme — and a cautionary example — is illustrated by European countries that adopted lenient immigration policies and lost their original cultures.
However, Japan is undergoing rapid change as the number of foreign residents is rapidly increasing. As of the end of 2025, the number of foreign residents in Japan reached a record high of approximately 4.12 million, surpassing the 4 million mark for the first time. This is more than double the figure of about 2.03 million recorded in 2012, just over 10 years earlier.
In particular, since 2022 — when the Covid-19 pandemic slowly began to subside — the influx of foreign residents has exploded due to the demand for workers, resulting in an unprecedented increase of more than 1 million people over the past three years.
Chinese nationals stand out among this group. Of the 4.12 million, approximately 930,000 are from China, making it the largest group by nationality and accounting for 22.6pc of the total.
