Facing a rapidly aging society with a low birthrate, Japan should discuss on a nationwide level whether it should increase its workforce through immigration, the chief of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau said Wednesday.

The bureau's director general, Hidenori Sakanaka, made the statement during an address to an international symposium in Tokyo on the possibility of Japan becoming a "multiethnic society" in the future. The bureau is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice.

Japan's population is expected to decrease to 100 million from the current nearly 130 million within 50 years, and fall to 70 million within another 50 years, with much of the population being elderly if the birthrate remains as low as it is now, Sakanaka said.

"In a few years, Japan will have to make a choice on whether it should be a 'big Japan' by accepting workers from abroad or whether it should maintain tight immigration control measures and become a 'small Japan'," Sakanaka said.

"Japan must not lose this opportunity. We need to talk through this issue in the next few years, and it should involve government officials and the public," he said.

The symposium titled "Will Japan Become a Multiethnic Society?" was jointly sponsored by the Asian Foundation and a German foundation named Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Asked about policies to be taken by the government if it chooses to become a "big Japan," he suggested Japanese authorities could learn from nations which have been traditionally open to immigrants, including Canada and Australia.

"However, Japan might choose to get smaller as the Japanese still tend to have relatively closed and chilly feelings or positions toward foreigners," he said, citing results of a recent Cabinet Office survey showing that 32.4 percent of the respondents wanted to see no increase in foreign tourists in Japan.

A large majority of those respondents said they worry about a possible increase in crimes committed by foreigners.

Sakanaka termed such views toward foreigners "horrible," adding that "few tourists from abroad commit crimes in Japan."

(Xinhua  News Agency November 13, 2003)