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With Borders Still Shut, Japan Risks Becoming ‘Pure Invention’

With Borders Still Shut, Japan Risks Becoming ‘Pure Invention’

Oscar Wilde once said that “the whole of Japan is a pure invention.” 

“There is no such country, there are no such people,” Wilde wrote. He meant that the Japan we think of is mostly a product of the imagination of outsiders. But with the country’s borders closed to tourists for two years now and its international significance dimming, Wilde’s words are closer to becoming reality. 

Japan’s out of sight, and threatens to become out of mind with one its main lines of communication to the world still cut — the tens of millions of tourists who returned home each year with gushing tales of encounters with the country’s people, culture and food. That was the single unquestionable success of the economic program of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. What was once a tourist backwater that attracted just 5 million visitors in 2003 saw a surge, swelling the numbers to more than 30 million in 2019. 

A cycle of tourists that attracted investment took hold, which then attracted more tourists. Foreign spending surged, department stores added Chinese, Korean and English-speaking staff, and hotel construction boomed. Around 40 million visitors were expected in 2020, when the Tokyo Olympic Games were planned. Instead, just 4 million came before the gates slammed shut due to the pandemic. The Olympics came and went in 2021 without even domestic spectators. 

With Borders Still Shut, Japan Risks Becoming ‘Pure Invention’

While Japan has recently, and belatedly, started to admit students and long-term workers, it remains closed to tourists. Neighboring South Korea is re-opening to vaccinated travelers and even “Fortress New Zealand” says it’s ready to reopen, but Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is yet to outline even a potential date when tourists might return.

Like many of the country’s Covid steps, strict border controls once had their place. Japan’s cautious approach to the pandemic has been vindicated, seeing fewer Covid deaths in the two years since the pandemic began than the U.S. saw in the month of March alone. 

But it’s no longer clear what Japan is waiting for. The population is well vaccinated, with more than 80% of those aged 65 or older having been boosted. It’s not as if it’s keeping out a foreign threat. Unlike China, Japan has never attempted to pursue a Covid-zero strategy, and currently sees around 40,000 coronavirus cases a day. 

With Borders Still Shut, Japan Risks Becoming ‘Pure Invention’

In other words, Japan is simply keeping the stable door shut long after the horse has bolted. Alpha, delta and omicron all found their way in despite a lack of tourists. Japan does not fully control its porous borders, with the flow of U.S. military troops blamed by some for introducing omicron. 

One reason the ban persists is that, effective or not, border controls are popular. An NHK opinion poll last month found fewer than a third were in favor in opening up further. At least some of this can be laid at the door of a fever-pitch campaign against holding the Olympics, which helped amplify in a nation’s mind the message that Covid was imported.

But even before the pandemic, the Japanese were never as enamored with the idea of being a tourist paradise as visitors were. A key battle in the Feb. 2020 mayoral campaign in Kyoto was the problem of over-tourism, with residents fed up of littering and being pushed out by rising land prices. Elsewhere, local governments have passed ordinances cracking down on the use of apartments as Airbnb listings.

Kishida is sensitive to polls and conscious of an upcoming summer election. But the benefits of staying closed are questionable. 

A year ago, when the world still hoped vaccinations might end the pandemic, waiting had merit. But it’s clear now that there’s no eliminating Covid entirely. Fully vaccinated foreign travelers, particularly from countries with fewer cases per capita than Japan, carry little additional risk. If anything, they might take back home Japan’s common-sense approach to steps like masks.

Japan doesn’t even need to fully reopen to tourists. China, which accounted for about a third of visitors before the pandemic, won’t be contributing anytime soon. A cautious opening could help Kishida’s goal of restoring the economy to “nearly normal.”

And costs are mounting. Loans and government support have largely kept businesses afloat, but the tourism sector needs outside funding for sustainable growth. Infrastructure built for the Olympics goes unused. Japan’s listed airlines, rail operators and department stores are mostly in the red. 

The wider need is also to halt the declining relevance of Japan to the outside world. Japanese politicians have long spoken of the shift from the “Japan Bashing” of the 1980s to “Japan Passing” — the phenomenon of Japan being overlooked internationally, coined after Bill Clinton skipped over the country on a visit to China.

That’s now a common occurrence. But Japan’s isolation during the pandemic is only accelerating this trend, crowded out by South Korean soft power and Chinese economic might.

Steps are needed to redress that before Japan becomes in the eyes of the world — and the words of Wilde — “simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.”

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:

  • The Yen's Plunge Is a Dilemma of Japan's Own Making: Daniel Moss

  • I Caught Omicron. People in China Thought I Was Dying: Shuli Ren

  • Hong Kong Expats, Where’s Your Next Destination?: Anjani Trivedi

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg News senior editor covering Japan. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.