To highlight the friendship with African countries, the Japanese government has designated four Japanese cities as “the hometown of Africa” to spark misunderstandings, sparking a wave of anti-immigration.
Japan recently announced the designation of Imabari in Ehime Prefecture, Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture, Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture, and Nagai in Yamagata Prefecture as "hometowns of Africa" in Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania during the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development. The plan aims to deepen ties between the four Japanese regions and four African countries through collaborative activities such as cultural, educational, and people-to-people exchanges, addressing Africa's challenges while revitalizing local communities facing economic and demographic decline in Japan.
However, after the plan was officially announced, some African media and government entities published reports with inappropriate or inaccurate content. For example, the Tanzanian media carried the headline "Japan'dedicates' Nagai City to Tanzania", and the Nigerian government issued an announcement last Friday (now deleted) that "The Japanese government will create a special visa category for highly skilled and innovative Nigerians who want to live and work in Kisarazu City".
These allegations are misrepresented as signals that Japan is relieving immigration and allowing large-scale Africans to enter Japan. In Japan, they are rapidly fermented. On social media, “Who will be responsible if immigrants are crowded?” and “Maybe the city is considering handing the whole city over to Africans.” These statements sparked public panic, and four cities received large numbers of public calls and mail complaints. For example, a three-city official said that they handled hundreds of phone calls and 3,500 emails a day. Now the city receives about 460 calls and 1,400 emails, and citizens are confused “whether a new immigration policy has been launched.”
In the face of these doubts, the Japanese government and relevant agencies rushed to clarify the rumors. The Japanese Cabinet Secretary-General (note: similar to the Secretary-General of the State Council of China, but also holding the duties of a part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Director of the Central Office) Lin Feng is clear that the so-called “special visa” or “immigration policy easing” is nonexistent, and the government has no plans to do so. The mayor has also spoken, and the mayor of Miyamoto pointed out that the city had been hosted by a Nigerian delegation during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, stressing that the project was based on this actual link to cultural exchanges and not an immigration arrangement. The mayor of the three cities said that the city
The situation is ridiculous and scary for Japanese people who are very rejecting immigrants, but the background of the incident is Japan’s increasingly active promotion of its African strategy in recent years, a strategy that is carried out through political, economic and resource security across multiple levels, and the core platform is the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development, which has been established since 1993.
Japan's strategic focus on Africa is on key mineral resources. Like most countries in the world, Japan relies on China for rare earths and some key minerals for the development of high-end manufacturing, and Africa's natural resource endowments need not be mentioned. Securing the resource supply chain has become the core consideration of Japan's economic security. Since 2023, Japan has signed a series of mineral development agreements with Namibia and other countries, and has focused on promoting the development of the "Nacala Corridor" logistics project to strengthen the mineral transportation corridor from Mozambique to Zambia and reduce dependence on the Chinese supply chain.
On a geostrategic level, Japan’s African policy has been incorporated into its “free-open Indo-Pacific” framework. In 2016, Abe expressed this idea at the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development, emphasizing shaping the regional architecture through high-quality infrastructure, rule of law and maritime order. In 2025, Prime Minister Shapiro Shapiro further launched the “Indo-Africa Economic Circle Initiative” to try to integrate the economic links between India, the Middle East and Africa and strengthen trade and infrastructure connections to balance China’s Belt and Road initiative’s ever-expanding influence in Africa.
Despite its clear strategic layout, Japan still faces significant challenges in Africa. A major problem is financial constraints. For example, in 2013, Japan promised to provide a total of US$32 billion in support to Africa within five years, but by 2021, its stock of direct investment in Africa will only be $5.7 billion. China, which has been identified as a challenge by Japan, has a first-mover advantage in Africa. Data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows that China's investment stock in Africa in 2019 was approximately US$43.4 billion, which directly reflects the magnitude gap between China and Japan in Africa's dominant infrastructure. Reflecting in trade volume, the total bilateral trade between China and Africa in 2024 will reach US$295.6 billion (of which, China's exports to Africa are US$178.8 billion, imports are US$116.8 billion, and a trade surplus of US$61.9 billion). In Japan, many sources speculate that it is between US$20 billion and US$24 billion, while the data provided by the Japan External Trade Organization is far lower than the agency's forecast, only$89 billion in 2024。
Therefore, in the past two years, Japan's Africa strategy has begun to emphasize "people-oriented" and "high-quality growth", such as training skilled talents, encouraging innovative financing and entrepreneurial support through major Japanese companies, and supporting the fight against infectious diseases. This is also the background of our briefing news. Japan, with limited strength, wants to build influence in Africa through circuitous routes.