Japan Immigration News

(The Conversation)Emerging anti‑immigration sentiment in Japan obscures a surprising history of strategic engagement with Islam

Release Date: 2026-08-11
Media: The Conversation
Summary: Anti-immigrant sentiment has recently increased in Japan, with hate speech spreading online and some mosques receiving abusive messages. At the same time, Japan’s Muslim population has grown from about 230,000 in 2019 to 420,000 in 2024, while the number of children with non-Japanese parents has also risen. These demographic changes are challenging the long-standing myth of Japan as an ethnically homogeneous society.

However, Japan’s relationship with Islam has a much longer history. After Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, many Muslim intellectuals viewed Japan as a successful non-Western model of modernization and resistance to European domination. Admiration became so strong that false rumors spread across parts of Asia that the Japanese emperor and population would convert to Islam and that Japan might lead Asian Muslims against Western colonial powers.

Japan later used these favorable perceptions for geopolitical purposes. Pan-Asianist organizations such as the Black Dragon Society developed networks with Muslim nationalists in Russia, China, India and the Ottoman Empire. Japanese converts to Islam, including Omar Yamaoka, also helped establish relationships across the Muslim world while supporting Japan’s imperial ambitions.

By the 1930s, Japan had developed an explicit “Islam policy” aimed at expanding its influence through alliances with Muslims across Asia. This strategy ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945 and was largely forgotten during the postwar period.

The article argues that today’s debates over immigration, Islam and “Japaneseness” should therefore be viewed within this more complex historical context. Long before recent immigration, Japan and the Muslim world had significant political and intellectual connections, including a period when some Muslims regarded Japan as a symbol of Asian resistance to Western colonialism.
Tags: Coexistence

News Articles including "Coexistence"

Released on

Article Title