I almost fell out of my seat when I read this article in Mainichi the other day.

The subject is the rampant street prostitution around Shinjuku’s Ōkubo Park. It’s a topic that’s been bubbling in the press for a while. While some sexual services in Japan are legal, street prostitution decidedly isn’t.

But here’s the thing. There’s always been prostitution near Ōkubo Park. It’s just that no one cared about it pre-pandemic, when the majority of sex workers were foreign women.

Now, however, Japan’s economy is in worse shape than ever. And headlines of Japanese women resorting to prostitution to fund host club habits have shocked the public conscience.

That led the Constitutional Democratic Party’s Shiomura Ayaka to vent in a recent Diet session about how Japan needed to do something about all these foreigners paying for sex with Japanese women.

“Use of prostitution by foreign tourists is rampant,” she said. “Japan is developing a reputation as a country that fails to protect women.”

(I think the only thing Japan really cares about protecting here is getting its tax cut from that tourist money. But I digress.)

It’s one thing for foreign girls to work the streets. But Japanese girls offering themselves to…foreigners?! Inconceivable!!

This is just the latest (and maybe silliest) example of how Japan has chosen to fixate on foreigners rather than address deep, systemic issues in its economy and population. Because doing that would force Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled the country almost continuously since World War II, to admit that it’s failed the nation.

The meaningless crackdowns on foreign residents

This is a small example. But it’s part and parcel of a larger trend to crack down on foreigners in Japan in small but ultimately meaningless ways.

The trend started before LDP member and Abe Shinzō protégé Takaichi Sanae became Prime Minister. The surprise showing by right-wing party Sanseitō, coupled with the rise of the right-leaning Democratic Party for the People (DPFP), led the LDP to push for legal revisions that would prevent foreigners from “taking advantage” of Japan’s generosity.

The first such revisions made sense. But as time’s gone on, they’ve become increasingly mean-spirited.

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