Originally Posted by
jib71
Your profile says that you're "Splitting time between UK and Japan" so I assume that you're familiar with Windrush, Home Office hostile environment policies, and the Rwanda asylum plan? Those are deadly sharp edges.
Turning to more mundane issues such as applying for residence visas and dealing with border agents - The experience is consistently, cheaper, faster, simpler, and more competently and courteously handled in Japan than in the UK. It's not even close. If you have never had to deal with the UK Visas and Immigration office at Lunar House in Croydon, consider yourself lucky.
For sure, there are scandalous failings in Japan - child custody issues, treatment of asylum seekers, housing discrimination. Something should probably be done about the snooty restaurants too, I guess. But to point to Japan as particularly xenophobic, on the basis of time spent between UK and Japan is untenable.
Having volunteered to support people to overcome issues with the hostile environment, I'm very familiar. We have our own issues with xenophobia in the UK, without a doubt. Both the UK and Japan have immigration-related scandals. For your average visa applicant pre-covid, Japan had a much friendlier and much cheaper system. However, it was still less liberal in many ways than UK system. For example, in Japan, spouses of foreigners are not allowed to work. It's a cruel and misguided policy that prevents the spouse from integrating into society.
For me, the difference is that in the UK, there is a legal framework that attempts to protect minorities from discrimination. That's what I meant about the legal edge. Also, Windrush was a major scandal in British society. And because of that, it provoked change. I'm not sure the same reaction would have come about in Japan.
Regardless, it's getting a bit off topic I suspect. Japan's 2020-2022 policy is an emotive issue