Originally Posted by
joejones
It may be uncommon in daily conversation depending on whom you are talking to, but the government and media refer to non-white foreigners as "gaikokujin" all the time, including cases where the term is not really intended to include white people (e.g. when people talk about 外国人犯罪 "crime by foreigners" or 外国人参政権 "voting rights for foreigners" they are talking about Koreans and Chinese more than any other groups).
I can't remember ever hearing the word "hakujin" used in the wild although I have seen it in books. I have heard 欧米人 (oubeijin) or "Euro-American person" used on occasion.
Hakujin is used very regularly in business discussions between Japanese identifying a person who one or the other party may not have met. In the real estate industry this is tossed about all the time when agents are discussing tenants. It is if there were something identifying about a person that is indicated by their skin color. Japan is a land of labels though so this is to be expected. It makes as much sense as lumping everyone into a Euro-American term like 欧米人 (oubeijin) but such is the nature of the beast.