Immigration Attitudes in East Asia

3.4. Immigration Attitudes in East Asia

As evident in the previous sections, mainstream research on immigration attitudes in general has tended to overlook the other half of the hemisphere. Compared to the traditional settler societies in North America and Australia, and even with European states that only became

“countries of migrant settlement” in the last decade, East Asia has managed to “delay”

immigration despite its economic advancement (Seol & Skrentny, 2009).

With the number of immigrants in the region steadily rising in the past decades,

immigration has become a more contentious issue than before. This is reflected in comparative discussions of Japan and South Korea’s policies on labor migration (Kartikasari, 2013),

immigration (Bisheh, 2017; Kimura, 2016; Lee, 2010), and integration (Lee, 2017). Japan and Taiwan’s labor migration has also been compared (Tsay & Tsai, 2003), and there is also an interesting critical content analysis of national surveys regarding foreign brides in South Korea and Taiwan (Bélanger, Lee & Wang, 2010). Add to that an expansive array of single-country studies on immigration.

However, with regards to quantitative research on immigration attitudes in the region, we have found only three studies in English. It is highly probable that there are other works written in any of the East Asian country’s official languages. In the case of Japan, Green and Kadoya (2013) affirm that immigration remains a “somewhat elusive topic in the English language scholarship, and quantitative analysis on the subject is rare even in the Japanese literature” (p.

15).

Chang and Welsh (2016) draw from the Asian Barometer Survey to see if the region follows global trends on immigration attitudes. Aside from what has been traditionally called East Asia, they also include Southeast Asian countries in their broad analysis of economic, social, and attitudinal predictors. In terms of economic interest, they find that perceptions of economy and perceptions of security do matter, wherein those who had positive perceptions also view immigration favorably. Variables under social conditions seem to depend heavily on country context, but ethnic status and social trust emerge as significant region-wide. For demographic determinants, those with more education and who lived in urban areas favor immigration; while age has inconsistent effects across countries, and gender does not prove important to the region as a whole except for a few countries. With regards to views of

globalization, East Asians who resist imported goods and believe in defending their way of life

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also oppose immigration, while those with more engagement in global events have favorable views.

Fortunately, Chang and Welsh (2016) also include political attitudes in their research.

However, this is the area where expected relationships were surprisingly debunked. For example, Japan is the only country where those who support democracy also support immigration.

Japanese people who believe in diversity also have more favorable views of immigration. But in many countries, it is the opposite scenario. There is also considerable country to country

variation when it comes to support for centralized leadership and immigration attitudes. Thus, the researchers recommend the need for more specific country analyses when it comes to political factors.

More recently, Shim and Lee (2018) move away from economic, social, and political determinants of immigration attitudes by focusing on the psychological dimension of risk

preference. Utilizing the 2008 East Asian Social Survey – a collaborative project between China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan – they hypothesize that those who are more open to taking risks will also be more supportive of immigration. They operationalize immigration in the East Asian context by focusing on attitudes toward foreign laborers. Except for China, the other three countries emerge as anti-immigrant, with more than half of South Korean and Taiwanese

respondents wanting to decrease the migrant inflows. Japanese respondents prove to be the most risk-averse. Results suggest that those who believe in taking chances rather than leading a stable life, as well as those who prefer high-risk and high-return scenarios, are more likely to be pro-immigration. This is even more true for countries which have only recently started hosting migrants and immigrants, as they are relatively unfamiliar with out-group members.

Chang (2019) examines South Korea more closely using the 2010 Korean General Social Survey, revealing that socio-psychological concerns and macro-economic evaluations determine anti-immigrant attitudes in the country. Similar to results of studies in North American and European countries, these predictors include xenophobia, conceptual views of citizenship, and perception of immigration impact on the economy. The difference is drawn when policies have humanitarian dimensions, as Korean ethno-cultural views tend to moderate negative attitudes toward immigrants.

While there seems to be little interest so far in analyzing region-wide immigration attitudes, there are some single country studies in English on South Korea and Taiwan, with relatively more for Japan. Again, the assumption is that more research has been written in their

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own languages, especially since some national surveys have included questions on migrant workers and immigration as early as the 2000s. In Taiwan, cultural proximity – and to a lesser extent – greater economic development, contribute to more positive views of migrants, with the Taiwanese being friendlier towards people from Japan, Europe, and North America, compared to those from South Korea, China, and Southeast Asian countries (Chen & Yi, 2013). In South Korea, evidence suggests that exclusivist definitions of nationality are more associated with those who believe that immigrants are a cultural threat, as opposed to an economic threat (Ha &

Jang, 2014).

In general, anti-immigration attitudes are taken as given in Japanese society, but variation and conditionality has been found. Consistent with literature in other parts of the world,

education leads to more favorable views toward immigrants for both cultural and economic reasons, and different types of natives also prefer different types of immigrants (Kage,

Rosenbluth, & Tanaka, 2018). Contrary to labor market expectations, however, the Japanese tend to favor immigrant workers with higher status and willingness to assimilate, while country of origin only had significant effect among Korean workers over Chinese workers (Kobayashi, Collet, Iyengar, & Hahn, 2014).

Due to their increased international mobility, college students in Japan believe that foreign labor is important to economic development, leading them to be more accepting of migrant workers and their equal treatment with citizens (Wingate, 2012). In relation, Green and Kadoya (2013, 2015) assert that contact theory holds in Japan, where immigrant attitudes become more favorable as natives are more exposed to foreigners. This is largely dependent on English language conversation ability – also associated with more positive views toward out-group members. Regional variation occurs depending on the size of foreign population, while economic threat is insignificant compared to fear of cultural differences. Corroborating this and Shim and Lee’s (2018) findings on risk preferences, Japanese citizens who are more risk-averse support immigration less. This is also true for those who are biased towards the status quo, have pessimistic views of the national economy, and have no personal contact with foreigners

(Tomiura, Ito, Mukunoki, & Wakasugi, 2018).

In the first wide-scale experiment on information campaigns, two studies were conducted to test whether pro-immigrant information treatments can sway public opposition against

immigration. First, they discover that positive information can indeed lead to an increase in immigration support and even encourage people to sign parliamentary petitions for friendlier

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policies (Facchini, Margalit, & Nakata, 2016). Second, regarding the impact of certain demographic variables, results indicate higher baseline support for pro-immigration petitions among males, although treatment effects were significantly higher for females. And while there seems to be an age gap among males, with the older generation more supportive of immigration than the younger; for females, education has more impact and leads to higher support. These findings suggest that public opposition – especially among female voters – may be tempered if the government or certain organizations invest in information campaigns (Hiroyuki, 2017).

One study tests for whether or not greater immigrant presence influence Japanese voters to support the more conservative right-wing party, reporting mixed results (Iida, Matsubayashi,

& Ueda, 2012). Although there is an existing body of research on immigration policies and political parties, only Chang and Welsh (2016) includes political attitudes as a predictor for immigration attitudes in East Asia. As immigration issues become more salient, and as policy discussions take center stage in East Asia, it is all the more imperative to study the relationship between political factors and immigration attitudes.

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This study takes the position that political ideology on a left-right scale cannot be appropriated to the East Asian case. Citing Kinder (1998), Feldman (2003) asserts:

“Although politicians, philosophers, and social scientists often discuss politics along a single left-right dimension, 50 years of research on public opinion show that a

unidimensional model of ideology is a poor description of political attitudes for the overwhelming proportion of people virtually everywhere” (p. 76).

Unfortunately, ABS data does not have a measure for the left-right scale, and thus, this position cannot be properly tested before conducting this study’s analysis. This is precisely because some proponents of the survey itself argue that there is no clear understanding of left and right among East Asians even if such self-proclaimed political parties do exist in some countries.

We also find support for not using a singular dimension of political ideology as a

predictor for immigration attitudes in Hlavek’s (2011) research, which uses the variables laissez-faire views, social traditionalism, and civic/national pride. He contends that for cross-national comparisons, the left-right index can be problematic because the understanding of what is left or right may vary from one country to another. In Wu (2017), one recommendation in dealing with the unidimensional model problem is to “directly measure the substance of left/right ideology rather than using it as it is” (p. 77).

Thus, in this study, instead of choosing political ideology per se as the explanatory variable, we use two political attitudes: defensive nationalism and social traditionalism. These are related to an existing theoretical perspective identified in literature – the significant influence of symbolic interests, such as values and personal identifications with a group, to the formation of opinions on immigrants and immigration (Ceobanu & Escandell, 2010; Hainmueller &

Hopkins, 2014). Additionally, we also include social trust – a belief that people in general are trustworthy – as a third explanatory variable, in light of its widely-accepted role as “the glue for more integrated and cooperative communities” (Herreros & Criado, 2009).

In political psychology, extensive research exists on the relationship between values and political attitudes (Feldman, 2003), and scholars have also proposed multidimensional models of political ideology by linking it with specific value systems (eg. Rokeach, 1973; Braithwaite, 1982). The most relevant would be the body of theories on the economic and social dimensions