Thread by @DataRepublican

🧵 THREAD: How mass immigration came to Japan's shores

𝕏 saw a lovely cultural exchange between Americans and Japanese this past week, which got me wondering how and why Muslims came to Japan... so I spent the weekend looking into it.

Japan went from officially having "no immigration policy" to a formal system with a cap of 820,000 foreign workers. Japan's Muslim population has gone from ~110,000 (2010) to ~420,000 (end of 2024). There are now 149 mosques.

The bill that created this was passed at 4:00 AM in December 2018. The opposition called it a "carte blanche." Deliberations were compressed. It passed anyway.

What I found:
🔹 Three consecutive foreign ministers trained at American universities.
🔹 A foundation run by a Trilateral Commission member and a former US intelligence chief.
🔹 A $69 million fellowship network seeding 69 universities in 44 countries.
🔹 A UN framework signed the same month as the 4 AM vote.
🔹 Sixteen bilateral labor agreements managed through a single coordinating body.
🔹 A Japan-specific immigration program drafted by a Japanese national while he was interning inside the US Senate.

In July 2025, a party that didn't exist before COVID won 14 seats and finished third in the popular vote. By February 2026, the LDP won its biggest parliamentary majority since 1955, running on tighter immigration.

Unfortunately, Americans and Japanese have more in common beyond love of BBQ. They have the mass migration problem in common. Receipts below. 👇

As always, patience as I pull together the thread.

Japan's Muslim population:

2010: ~110,000
2024: ~420,000

Nearly 4x in 14 years.

Mosques: 4 in 1980. 149 as of 2024.

This is not organic. Someone built a pipeline.

The Specified Skilled Worker program. SSW.

Original cap (2019): 345,000 workers.
New cap (March 2024): 820,000 workers.

The law that created SSW passed at **4:00 AM** on December 8, 2018.

The opposition called it a "carte blanche." Deliberations were rushed.

Japan had three consecutive foreign ministers during the immigration expansion era.

All three are connected to American universities.

Let me introduce them.

Foreign Minister #1: Taro Kono (2017–2019).

Graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1986.

Georgetown SFS is where America trains its foreign policy elite; Bill Clinton graduated there. Madeleine Albright. CIA directors. State Department officials.

Kono returned to Georgetown as Foreign Minister in 2018 to give a lecture, while the SSW bill was being drafted.

Foreign Minister #2: Toshimitsu Motegi (2019–2021), and now again since 2025, has good relationship with President Trump.

Nonetheless, he has a master's degree from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Harvard KSG is America's most influential graduate school for training future government officials and technocrats. It produces prime ministers, finance ministers, and central bankers around the world.

Foreign Minister #3: Yoshimasa Hayashi (2021–2023).

MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, 1994.

Before Harvard, Hayashi interned inside the US Senate ... for Senator William Roth. While there, he drafted the blueprint for the Mansfield Fellowship Program.

Congress passed it in 1994. It places US federal employees inside Japanese government ministries.

The Mansfield Fellowship Program.

Since 1994: 208+ US federal employees from nearly 30 federal agencies placed inside Japanese government ministries.

Two-year program. Ten months working directly inside Japanese agencies.

The man who drafted this legislation as a Senate intern became Japan's Foreign Minister. In 2022, he supervised its expansion.

The driving force behind the 4 AM vote: Yoshihide Suga.

Chief Cabinet Secretary 2012–2020. He "championed" the SSW program and "emphasised the urgency" as the vote was called before dawn.

Also worth noting: Keidanren (Japan's most powerful business federation) publicly demanded more foreign workers.

Keidanren Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi (2018–2021) — Stanford University educated — was in the chair when the bill passed.

Now for the international layer.

Japan joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as a member state in 1993, and gives almost 20 million dollars annually.

IOM's mission for Japan: help shape a society where people on the move "enrich" both themselves and the local communities.

The same month as the 4 AM vote — December 2018 — Japan participated in the adoption of the **Global Compact for Migration** in Marrakech.

The GCM is aligned with SDG Target 10.7: "facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration."

Japan, as a signatory to the 2030 Agenda, committed to this target.

The normative framework and the domestic legislation arrived together.

How do workers actually flow into Japan? Through 16 bilateral agreements managed by JITCO - Japan International Trainee & Skilled Worker Cooperation Organization.

Sending countries: Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and more. Bangladesh is 91% Muslim.

There's also JICA, Japan's foreign aid agency. American equivalent is USAID.

JICA contracted the ILO to build migrant worker protection infrastructure in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

JICA also helped plan for 100,000 Indonesian workers to come to Japan over five years.

Japan's own aid agency is building the supply-side pipeline.

None of these agreements — the IOM membership, the Global Compact signature, the JICA 100,000-worker plan — were ever put to a public vote.

They were negotiated between government agencies and international bodies.

Does the Japanese public know of this?

Now I want to tell you about the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF).

SPF is one of Japan's largest private foundations.

Its active programs include: "Building Models Towards Inclusive Society" focused on what it calls "the movement of peoples."

SPF Chairman from 2016–2020: Nobuo Tanaka.

He is a listed member of the Trilateral Commission.

The Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller. Its purpose: coordinate policy among North American, European, and East Asian elites. A 1975 report famously worried about "too much democracy."

Tanaka also served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (Paris, 2007–2011) and as Japan's Minister for Industry & Energy in Washington DC.

SPF's US branch is chaired by Admiral Dennis Blair.

Blair was director of National Intelligence (DNI) under President Obama — the top intelligence official in the US government

He chairs the Japan foundation's American operations.

SPF's fellowship program SYLFF (Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) has put $1 million endowments into 69 universities in 44 countries since 1987.

15,000+ students have received fellowships.

The goal: develop future policy leaders who share SPF's values.

SPF also co-hosted a democracy workshop with Freedom House and brought NED, NDI, IRI, and JICA together in 2019.

Americans are arguing about immigration architecture.

Japanese are arguing about immigration architecture.

We're using different words. Different names. But when I look at the structure, the American-educated technocrats, the international bodies, the foundation network, the business lobbying, the midnight votes, the public that wasn't asked...

It's the same blueprint.

Maybe Americans and Japanese should compare notes.

THREAD END.

Since others have asked, here's a prior thread I did on mass migration in the USA: