SNA (Yokohama) — Despite the drastic decrease of new Covid cases in recent weeks and more than two-thirds of the population having become fully vaccinated, the Japanese government has still given no explanation why it is continuing to refuse to let international students and some foreign workers back into the country.

Many countries that imposed stringent border measures during earlier phases of the pandemic–including Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand–have consecutively announced entry plans for international students and foreign workers, leaving Japan the only G7 member that remains silent about the future direction of its policies.

On March 18, 2021, the government decided to suspend in principle non-essential entries from all countries due to a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic. This entry ban remains in place, even as the severity of the situation has significantly eased.

The current situation remains particularly disruptive for international students.

According to the Immigration Services Agency, the number of student entries has dropped from more than 120,000 in 2019 to less than 8,000 in the first seven months of this year. Many international students have already been forced to give up on Japan as their study abroad destination because of this travel ban and have gone to other countries instead.

Professor Sachihiko Kondo, president of the Japan Association for International Student Education, expressed concerns in a recent television interview that the travel ban undermines Japan’s ability to attract people with high-level knowledge and skills, and that this will ultimately have an economic impact on the nation.

In addition, Kondo points out that if the travel ban continues, many language schools are likely to go bankrupt, directly damaging the lives of many Japanese citizens.

The Japan Association of Private Universities and Colleges and the Japan Association of National Universities have officially petitioned the government to end its silence and to begin letting the international students back into Japan.

At the same time, some international workers are also living in uncertainty due to the ban.

Since the suspension of “residence track” and “business track” visas in March, most foreign nationals hired by Japanese firms have not been able to start their careers. Even the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) has publicly urged the Japanese government to open the borders to vaccinated international workers.

Yukio Edano, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has criticized the opaque and inconsistent nature of travel ban enforcement.

Tens of thousands of people from abroad were let into the country for the Tokyo Olympics during the same period that the doors remained barred to most international students and foreign workers. Some of the other exceptions have also been dubious, such as when famous DJs, Zedd from Germany and Alan Walker from Norway, were allowed into the country last month to perform at Supersonic, a music festival hosted in Chiba in the midst of the state of emergency period. The DJs were even given a special exemption by undergoing only a shortened three-day quarantine rather than the standard fourteen days.

Edano argues that the LDP government needs to make up its mind: Either ban every traveler from entering Japan or else fully lift the border restrictions on visa holders and impose tighter quarantine measures.

Many international students long ago began taking to social media platforms to try to spread awareness of the problem, using hashtags such as #JapanTravelBan and #EducationIsNotTourism.

Frustrations have been rising at the inconsistent and uncommunicative nature of these government policies, damaging the nation’s international reputation among some of the young foreigners who have been the most interested in and committed to Japanese studies.

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