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The one major recent episode of immigration was the movement of Koreans to Japan during the Japanese colonization of Korea and later during the Korean War. Due to Japan’s lack of birthright citizenship, the descendants of those immigrants have become a racialized minority, speaking no Korean but bearing Korean passports. Discrimination against these people, sometimes called Zainichi Koreans, was severe for decades, and though it has decreased substantially in recent years, a far-right fringe has emerged to persecute and slander the Zainichi.
Abe, despite being a conservative on foreign policy issues, has not tolerated these groups. In 2016 Japan passed its first law against hate speech, which is now being used to prosecute members of this group.
But the episode shows that Japanese society probably won’t be immune to the waves of nativist populism that have rocked Western countries in recent years. If even ethnic Koreans — who are generally physically indistinguishable from ethnic Japanese people — face persecution, people of visibly different racial groups may encounter even more.
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