Creator: Petrice R Flowers, College of Hawaii at Manoa

In March 2022, the Japanese authorities introduced that it might settle for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. It quickly turned clear that preliminary hopes that this may result in long-term modifications in Japan’s refugee coverage had been unwarranted. Not solely would the introduced plan have little influence on Japan’s restrictive refugee coverage, however it might even have little influence on the huge numbers of individuals fleeing Ukraine.

The plan to just accept Ukrainians fleeing the conflict was stunning to many. Individuals puzzled how the federal government may determine — seemingly in a single day — to just accept Ukrainians whereas persevering with to reject others looking for safety. Some believed that the federal government would lastly increase refugee safety and enhance Japan’s dismal asylum recognition charges. Others noticed it as a cynical transfer to rehabilitate Japan’s fame after the March 2021 demise of former asylum seeker Wishma Sandamali in a detention cell, regardless of her repeated pleas to be taken to a hospital.

The unique coverage on accepting Ukrainians was restricted to those that have relations residing legally in Japan. Initially, the federal government wouldn’t settle for fleeing Ukrainians as refugees however was as an alternative contemplating making a particular quasi-refugee standing to regularise their keep. This plan has since been shelved. As of 26 October 2022, 2,057 Ukrainians have arrived in Japan and have been granted momentary permission to remain.

Japan ratified the Refugee Conference in 1981. Its refugee coverage has turn into extra humane and human rights-oriented since a essential mass of refugee advocacy organisations and refugee attorneys emerged within the early 2000s. Nonetheless, insurance policies and packages are all the time restricted in scope and restricted in effectiveness.

These persistent limitations may be described because the ‘tyranny of small numbers’. The federal government’s give attention to limiting the variety of long-term sojourners, together with refugees, severely limits the safety that’s obtainable to refugees, with an emphasis on controlling numbers seeming to dominate decision-making.

Activists usually criticise Japan’s authorities for its small refugee consumption. In 2019, Japan acquired 15,505 purposes for recognition of refugee standing and granted solely 38. One other 38 candidates acquired humanitarian permission to remain, whereas 4421 instances had been closed.

In 2017, in the course of the Syrian refugee disaster, the Japanese authorities introduced that they might settle for a most of 150 younger Syrians over the following 5 years below a brand new scholarship program that may primarily permit them to enter Japan as alternate college students, not as refugees. In response to the post-Vietnam Struggle refugee disaster in 1975, Japan initially agreed to just accept 500 Vietnamese refugees, although this was incrementally elevated to 11,000.

Because the early 2000s, Japanese non-government organisations have advocated for a complete refugee coverage that addresses refugee standing willpower and supplies materials help. Whereas this objective has been elusive, the federal government’s resolution to turn into the primary Asian nation to companion with the United Nations as a vacation spot for refugee resettlement has expanded refugee safety. The resettlement program began as a three-year pilot program in 2010 and was made everlasting in 2015.

Japan’s refugee resettlement program is the primary of its variety in Asia. The federal government deserves recognition for formalising a program to resettle refugees from abroad camps. However regardless of the promise, this system has been a disappointment. Although it has allowed resettlement and the prospect to construct a secure life for many who have gone to Japan on this system, it has not met its potential or the expectations of refugee rights advocates. This system falls brief as a result of, like all Japanese authorities makes an attempt to supply refugees safety, it’s restricted and unique.

The pilot resettlement program focussed on resettling folks from just one camp alongside the Thailand–Myanmar border, Mae La, successfully limiting it to ethnic Karen. The doable applicant pool was additional narrowed by restrictions equivalent to choice for nuclear households with younger kids and prohibitions on sponsoring different relations equivalent to grownup kids or grandparents after resettlement.

Issues on the bottom additional affected the resettlement program after refugees arrived in Japan. These points with this system resulted in there being no candidates for resettlement in 2012, the third 12 months of this system — folks selected to remain within the camp as an alternative of settling in Japan.

Like all international locations, Japan’s choices on refugee consumption are complicated. Usually, analyses that attempt to account for these choices examine the function of race, ethnicity, or nation of origin. But the tyranny of small numbers displays an try to manage and Japan’s refugee choices have to be understood on this broader framework.

Petrice R Flowers is Assistant Professor within the Division of Political Science on the College of Hawaii at Manoa, the place she teaches programs in worldwide relations and Japanese politics.