Recent news tells us that the Japanese government is finally waking up to the fact that we need more immigrants. Great. But how about encouraging more people to come to Japan by establishing laws that explicitly make discrimination on the basis of race and nationality a crime.
Next, the government should scrap its rules that forbid dual nationality. Allow Japanese nationals living abroad to naturalize without jeopardizing their Japanese citizenships, while allowing foreigners to take up Japanese citizenship and still maintain their foreign nationality.
Japan should also join the growing number of nations in the world to allow gay and lesbian Japanese and permanent residents to sponsor their foreign partners. Both Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have made plain their support for similar legislation in the United States. Japan should follow this example.
Japan needs to compete with new skills and talents from abroad, and these steps should help accomplish that.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.