TOKYO: An Indian man gave 30 years of his life to Japan, where he opened a humble curry house in suburban Tokyo 18 years ago and placed his two children in the public school system.
But Manish Kumar, 54, now cries injustice at being expelled from the country after immigration authorities did not renew his Business Manager visa allegedly because of tightened guidelines enacted in October 2025.
Speaking tearfully at a conference at the Upper House Parliamentarians’ Office Building by a citizens’ group protesting against the new visa regulations earlier in May, Kumar pleaded: “My children speak only Japanese and have only Japanese friends. I’ve made an honest living and bought a house. But the authorities are telling me to go back to India. How is this humane?”
Critics argue that the new regulations, which include a sixfold increase in the minimum capital investment from five million yen to 30 million yen (US$188,424), will spell the death knell for ethnic mom-and-pop restaurant owners in Japan.
There are said to be about 45,000 holders of the Business Manager visa, which is intended for all overseas entrepreneurs who come to Japan.
While their industries vary, media reports point to disaffected restaurateurs from across Asia – India, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea – who have, or are planning to, shut down.
Although there is a three-year grace period, during which business owners can still get their visas renewed if they prove that they can meet the new requirements through viable business compliance plans, the new threshold remains insurmountable for many.
Yet, rather than drawing sympathy, Kumar’s plight has become a lightning rod for anti-foreigner sentiment as commentators weaponise the presence of extreme left-wing activists at the rally.
Some maligned his character, saying that he must have dodged taxes or mandatory pension and health insurance payments in his failure to secure permanent residency despite living in Japan for three decades.
Others fall back on rigid legalism: If he cannot meet the new laws, he has no right to live in the country.
This friction points to a deeper, systemic insularity in a country that historically sees itself as homogeneous.
The fact that only 19 per cent hold passports means few travel abroad and hence have little direct exposure to foreign cultures.
As a result, the strain of unprecedented overtourism and increased immigration – with a record 4.1 million foreign residents as at 2025, or about 3.35 per cent of the population – is acutely felt.
Having been born and raised in Singapore, I am reminded of how easy it is to take multiculturalism for granted, even as the Republic faces its own difficult conversations over transient workers.
During all my years in Japan, I am fortunate never to have experienced overt discrimination, though I wonder if that is simply because, as a Japanese-speaking Singaporean Chinese, it is easier for me to assimilate.
There has been a clear shift in sentiment against foreigners in Japan, especially after the rise of anti-foreigner parties in the political landscape.
Rather than the tolerated coexistence before, they are increasingly being made easy scapegoats for anything perceived as meiwaku (public nuisance or disruption to harmony).
The blame seems to be exacerbated when religious, cultural, ethnic or skin colour differences are visible.
Even the local media is complicit, routinely spotlighting foreign suspects in ways they never do for Japanese offenders.
On May 25, when a toxic substance was sprayed at the luxury Ginza Six mall, putting 19 people in hospital, several media outlets said the culprit is “foreign-looking” – a highly loaded turn of phrase.
This also betrays an inherent bias, reinforcing the myth of a singular Japanese “look” while ignoring the reality of mixed-race citizens.
Cultural friction
The presence of distinctively different cultural communities has increasingly drawn ugly backlash.
Local resistance has forced plans for Muslim cemeteries in Oita and Miyagi prefectures to be shelved, while a public briefing for a new mosque in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, recently turned into a hostile shouting match.
In Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, city officials reportedly pressured a local mosque to withdraw its application to use a public park for a Hari Raya cultural festival on May 27, despite the event being an annual community fixture since 1997.
Even education is a battleground: In Sapporo, a proposal by the Singapore-based operator Global Indian International School to open a campus catering to both local and foreign children drew over 1,200 public comments, many filled with misguided anxieties of “more crime due to more Indians” or alleging “community decay”. This feeds into the myth that foreigners are more culpable of crimes than the Japanese.
Far from representing a fringe minority, this sentiment aligns with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) populist pivot towards immigration crackdowns – evident through policy pledges that won it a landslide victory in February polls.
The government itself has acknowledged that the new 30 million yen threshold for Business Manager visas is onerous, noting that only four per cent of current visa holders meet it, but insisted that it is necessary to purge “black sheep” who use the visa as an immigration backdoor into the country.
By comparison, only 8.7 per cent of all Japanese-run companies have a capital investment of above 30 million yen, government statistics show.
The requirement now exceeds that of South Korea’s 100 million won (US$66,640) and Singapore’s S$100,000 (US$78,301), with monthly applications plunging by 96 per cent, from an average of 1,700 to just 70.
Under Kimi Onoda, whose official title is “Minister in Charge of a Society of Well-Ordered and Harmonious Coexistence with Foreign Nationals”, the LDP has tabled measures to substantially raise visa renewal fees from 6,000 yen to 100,000 yen, and permanent residency application fees from 10,000 yen to 300,000 yen.
Ultimately, Japan faces a high-stakes balancing act. While it has a prerogative to protect its borders from exploitation, it should also tread carefully to ensure that these steps do not foment xenophobia.
It must be careful not to lose its basic human compassion. If it does, it will not only become less attractive to foreign tourists, but also cease to be an appealing destination for global talent and the foreign workers it will increasingly need as its population shrinks. - The Straits Times/ANN
