The president made the remark while arguing that Japan, along with Russia and China, would perform better economically if the countries embraced immigration more.
Oh, well that’s true enough. Japan is crazy anti immigration despite that being a solution to their low birth rate.
I can’t speak to Russia or China, but Japan has a history of xenophobia going back CENTURIES. It’s not exactly a newsflash.
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True, also: from what I understand, Korea has been historically worse.
Just looked it up, looks like a nosedive!
Immigration absolutely helps the US economy, because it parasitically siphons all the skilled workers out of other countries that it underdevelops and hoards their labor for itself.
People think remittances help underdeveloped countries, but labor is the superior of capital, losing that skilled labor is never worth the paltry sums that get sent back home. It’s just another shape that imperialism takes.
In Canada we heavily base immigration on education. So we’re siphoning off the best educated of other countries. I mean this is just fucking those countries.
That’s truly one of the worst things about brain drain / educated people moving to the imperial core countries for the high salaries. Global south countries really need educated young people helping to solve their own problems, and Canada and the US rip out their heart and soul.
At least in tech / programming, a good chunk of us are devoting most of our labor time to not just wasteful things, but actively harmful things, like trying to get people to click on ads, or increasing viral engagement.
I mean that’s the whole point of the US higher education system, excepting the Republicans (with the help of Democrats) broke the parts of our immigration system that is supposed to take advantage of educating the world.
Except where there’s little opportunity to utilize the highly skilled labor. They are going abroad anyway to find job opportunities befitting of their skill set and the highest bidder. Doesn’t matter if the US or EU took them, they’re leaving because the local opportunity doesn’t exist.
Yes, and the people who could develop that local opportunity aren’t there. They all leave as soon as they can.
That’s why I said they’re underdeveloped countries. They’re not “developing” in truth, but are being kept from becoming developed. How do you think that happens? In part it happens because of the IMF giving predatory loans and then imposing austerity on the people when the government can’t pay their loans back, but it also happens because labor is the superior of capital and these countries are losing skilled labor.
I am not blaming them for leaving their countries. I am blaming underdevelopment, which is a product of imperialism.
Did you just say people moving to the US for a better life are a part of imperialism?
Don’t misunderstand, the people moving to the US are blameless. Imperialism works by siphoning up all of the skilled labor around the world for itself in order to make life better for people within the imperial core, and this is part of how the imperial nations underdevelop other countries. People get educations in their home countries (often at the government’s expense) and then they take that education out of the country to put it to use in the US (or France or Canada etc). They’re just going where the jobs are, though, that’s not their fault at all.
Japan simply is xenophobic. I lived there for 2 years. That’s just a fact.
I lived there for four years. Nice and friendly people. Never felt unsafe.
Unsafe doesn’t mean they liked or respected you as an equal
True. But I did mention that they were also friendly. I had no issue getting into all sorts of activities with them. From playing the Shamisen to practicing Sadō. I had lots of friends who would help me out in all sorts of things, such as the University entrance exam, moving stuff, and translation.
I’m speaking of my experiences of course. I come from a different cultural background (Arab). I lived in both the US and Japan, and in almost all aspects except employment and income, I prefer Japan. Your mileage may vary.
I shared that experience. I also was actively excluded from all sorts of things (including essential services) because I was a foreigner. Whenever a group of expats got together, at some point in the night, the conversation would be about how everyone got discriminated against recently.
Did you put effort into learning Japanese? I didn’t experience any exclusion.
Welcome, though? They pretty famously don’t like foreigners around them, even if they’re not going to say it directly to you.
Have you lived there? Not my experience. I felt like I was welcomed. I was welcomed into their cultural activities, I was welcomed into their homes. I did put effort into learning the language and the culture, and followed their norms to the best I can.
No, but a lot of other people have and you’re a definite minority saying that, so, X to doubt basically.
It’s not just people who don’t bother trying, either. BBC’s long term Japan correspondent wrote an article about it when he finally left, and I’m pretty sure he’s fluent.
… BBC’s long term Japan correspondent wrote an article about it when he finally left, and I’m pretty sure he’s fluent.
I wouldn’y be too sure about being fluent part. I am an Indian and I have seen bulk of so called indologists (professors in American and European academia) unable to pronounce common sanskrit words - despite writing bestsellers on the subject.
Never felt unsafe is a very low bar. Not feeling unsafe now
He’s not wrong but also I believe there’s a saying in English about stones and glass houses.
Even the most bigoted parts of the US are nowhere near as xenophobic as Japan. Housing discrimination based on race is still perfectly acceptable over there, many people will refuse to rent to foreigners.
perfectly acceptable
At least some governments in Japan appear to disagree:
Japan signed the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)” in 1996
Tokyo Metropolitan Government educates real estate agents on the illegality of nationality-based rental refusals, considering them discriminatory
And the article itself seems to contradict with those statements…
Do you think there isn’t housing discrimination happening in the US?
Black families often have their homes appraised for less than white family homes.
Housing applications often get denied if the person has a non white last name.
Hell, the last time I was looking around for a room to rent I got asked multiple times over the phone. “You’re white right?”
Xeno Biden doesn’t care.
Don’t let your stones hang out if you live in a glass house? /s
I swear I’ve heard balls referred to as stones likely by a British person, but I don’t know if I’m making that up.
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About all 3 tbh. China and russia are literally in the middle of committing genocides. Doesnt get much more xenophobic than that lol
As neat as Japan sounds and as much as I’d like to be there, I mean, he’s not wrong
I watch YouTubers who moved to and live there talk about how they’re just indefinitely treated like a tourist
China xenophobic? I don’t think Biden knows what the word means. The oldest mosque outside of the Middle East is in China of all places built in 627 CE, and still standing.
What happened to the mosques in Spain and Occupied Palestine? Turned into bars and chicken coops.
not demolishing a single mosque isn’t exactly the kind of standard one sets when determining xenophobia
still a higher standard than many modern Western states such as Israel, or a modern democracy such as India, if the Chinese were xenophobic they could have demolished the mosque at any point in history, they didn’t
Pretty much every country in the world where citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity are the same thing you find xenophobia.
I think “extremely ethnocentric” is a more fair description/criticism of Japan. Close to 98% of their population is ethnically homogeneous, so it kinda makes sense.
You’d be wrong
Partly true about inviting foreigners. Japan has a trainee visa system that is abusive, as they always are, and is designed so that those employees (victims) never get citizenship. And it’s a single citizenship country, because of course it is. But hey, employers are very willing to bring in those laborers, since it’s cheaper than paying what the law requires.
And you can’t fix demographics with people who only stay for a year or two.
Lmfao
I don’t live in Japan. But, I don’t see the issue with Japan being ‘xenophobic’.
Xenophobia is a bad thing, so being xenophobic is bad too. 👍
Wait Biden actually said something true?
Broken clocks and all that - but this one only has one hand working at this point. We’re always counting down to midnight, for some reason.
FFS. In a site where “news” = “stupid shit that happens in the US”, can something named “world news” exclude the US? Please? Does it need to be called “non US news”?
I know other countries are mentioned here. But it’s just the ramblings of dementia.
