Thread by @UnseenJapanSite

The phrase #外国人に土地を売らないで ("don't sell land to foreigners") is trending on Japanese Twitter, the belated result of the fervent words said by musician Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi to a crowded venue in Kagawa some weeks ago. The involved tweets are about the quality you'd expect.

Nagabuchi is referring to the selling off of large tracks of depopulating countryside to largely Chinese financial/corporate interests, but his words are exciting nationalists who see these capitalists ventures as a literal slow-moving foreign invasion.

https://twitter.com/8ueBd6tf29iYRpZ/status/1583808012946665472

An example tweet using this hashtag: this user shows this news clip, which highlights areas of Japan where the "foreign" population has increased (using ominous red). The context of foreign workers propping up Japanese industries with dwindling local workforces is left out.

For decades, there have been more and more jobs young Japanese people have no interest in. The Japanese-Brazilian population was enticed in their hundreds of thousands to return to Japan to work these jobs, then pressured to leave when they didn't "fit in"

That started in the 80's, before the depopulation of the countryside made this less an issue of young people not wanting to work difficult 3-K (kitanai, kitsui, kiken) jobs, and more an issue of there literally not being enough people to keep industries going in the first place

Now the task of keeping Japanese industry and services running is often left to an increasing number of non-citizen workers who are expressly courted by Japanese companies via oft-abused "trainee" visas. In many places, factories, convenience stores, and more rely on them.

This isn't the only trending hashtag in recent weeks to target foreigners - as opposition to former PM Abe's state funeral rose, nationalists tried to switch the topic to perceived spending on foreigners in Japan (foreigners who are, of course, taxpayers).
unseenjapan.com/japan-foreigne…

The land issue is also used by nationalists to bury consideration of indigenous groups. Hokkaido is seeing the largest land buy-outs, and nationalists claim that the indigeneity of the Ainu people is in fact a Chinese plot to separate Hokkaido from Japan.

The sale of tracts of land to financial interests is a problem that a depopulating Japan will have to deal with; Though Japanese companies do the same in China, building factories to produce on the cheap - perhaps only less of an issue as China has so much more land than Japan.

But with Nagabuchi invoking "the true beauty of [Japanese] national flags waving back and forth," it's no surprise his words have stirred up nationalist resentment towards foreigners in Japan in general - foreigners who, in large part, Japan has purposefully wooed to Japan.