1. Ties at the Subnational Level: Between Oita Prefecture and Foreign Returnees in Shanghai

Foreign returnees, despite being a part of Japan-facilitated “brain circulation” in Asia and serving as the supportive backbone of Japanese businesses’ expansion into Asian markets, remain relatively understudied. Often referred to in national policies as the so-called “Japan alumni” (kikoku-sei), these groups and their interactions with Japan fade from view once they return home. This paper attempts to address this research gap by elaborating on the activities and roles of Chinese returnees in the Oita Prefectural Club’s (kenjinkai) Shanghai branch. Applying Tavares's (2016) theoretical framework of paradiplomacy, it provides a systematic analysis of how Oita prefecture designs and sustains its ties with foreign returnees extraterritorially. Through literature analysis, participatory observation, and oral interviews, this paper demonstrates how Chinese returnees are deeply engaged in the strategies and practices led by subnational governments and play roles in transnational networks often defined by coethnicity. It will discuss the extent to which these ties can be maintained at the subnational level amid current setbacks in bilateral relations. It thus offers a new understanding of the organization and membership of transnational networks in migration studies and points out further directions in paradiplomacy research.

2. The Politicization of Migration in Japanese Electoral Campaigning

Policy reforms initiated under Prime Minister Shinzō Abe have accelerated and diversified migration to Japan. For many years, however, this development received remarkably little attention in electoral politics. This changed during the July 2025 Upper House election, when the far-right populist party Sanseitō placed migration at the center of its campaign. Other parties, including the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, subsequently adopted more restrictive language on foreign residents. This presentation traces the resulting shift in migration-policy framing by comparing party manifestos from the 2024 and 2026 Lower House elections. It examines how parties frame migration in relation to Japan’s economic and national security, as well as the human security of migrant communities. The analysis explores how and why migration moved from a largely depoliticized policy field to an increasingly contentious electoral issue—and considers the broader implications of anti-foreigner populism for Japanese democracy.

Sian Qin is a PhD student at the Japan Center of Ludwig-Maximilian-University (LMU) Munich. As a former METI-MEXT scholarship recipient and current LMU-CSC fellow, she specializes in international migration and foreign returnees, with a geographic focus on Japan and Asia. Funded by the Japan Foundation, she is currently conducting her fieldwork in Kyushu for her dissertation to explore a subnational way to activate foreign returnees’ diplomatic potential. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, the impact of foreign returnees on their home society and the interactions with their former host country.

Gabriele Vogt, Ph.D., holds the Chair of Japanese Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU). Her research focuses on demographic change in Japan and its implications for politics, society, and the economy, with particular emphasis on migration and aging democracy. She is the author of Population Aging and International Health-Caregiver Migration to Japan (2018, Springer) and, with Sian Qin, of “Sanitizing the National Body: COVID-19 and the Revival of Japan’s ‘Closed Country’ Strategy” (2022, in: Asian and Pacific Migration Journal). Vogt serves on several editorial and academic advisory boards and is a member of the Japanese-German Forum, which advises the two countries’ foreign ministries on bilateral relations. She also regularly comments on Japanese politics and society in international media.

本セミナーの発表は英語で行われます。質疑応答の際には、日本語・英語のいずれもご使用いただけますので、参加者の皆様はご希望の言語でご発言ください。

The presentations at this seminar will be delivered in English. During the question-and-answer session, participants are welcome to speak in either Japanese or English, whichever they prefer.

For the campus map, please see the following webpage. https://www.musashi.ac.jp/en/access/access.html 

キャンパスマップについてはこちらをご覧ください。https://www.musashi.ac.jp/access/access.html