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An attempt to promote friendship between Japan and countries in Africa has transformed into a xenophobic row about migration after inaccurate media reports suggested the scheme would lead to a “flood of immigrants”.
The controversy erupted after the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, said this month it had designated four Japanese cities as “Africa hometowns” for partner countries in Africa: Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.
The programme, announced at the end of an international conference on African development in Yokohama, will involve personnel exchanges and events to foster closer ties between the four regional Japanese cities – Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and Nagai – and the African nations.
Media coverage in the four countries, and Japanese-language references to the articles, have been blamed for triggering an ugly backlash on social media in Japan, along with a wave of angry calls and emails to the Japanese cities’ offices.
Some critics appeared to believe that “hometown” status meant that people from the African countries would be given special permission to live and work in their Japanese partner cities.
“If immigrants come flooding in, who is going to take responsibility?” said one social media post.
One post on X claiming that Kisarazu was “seriously considering handing over the city to Africans” attracted 4.6m views.
The four cities have received thousands of complaints from confused residents. “Our team of 15 officials spent a whole day handling hundreds of phone calls and thousands of emails from residents,” an official in Sanjo told Agence France-Presse.
The town has received 350 phone calls and 3,500 emails since Monday, the official said, while Imabari has fielded 460 calls and 1,400 emails from residents asking if the town had adopted a new immigration policy.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said the claims were baseless. “There are no plans to promote accepting immigrants or issue special visas,” he told reporters.
The cities also attempted to set the record straight. The mayor of Kisarazu, Yoshikuni Watanabe, pointed out that the city had hosted Nigerian athletes during the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, adding that project would not lead to “accepting migrants”.
He added: “Our initiatives will involve cooperating in the education of young people based on discipline through baseball and softball, and it’s not a programme that will lead to relocation or immigration.”
The mayor of Sanjo, Ryo Takizawa, said in a statement: “It is not true that the city has requested to accept migrants or immigrants from Ghana, and the city has no plans to make such a request in the future.”
Some attributed the outcry to an article in the Tanzania Times that carried the headline “Japan dedicates Nagai city to Tanzania.”
The word “dedicates” was translated on social media into the Japanese word sasageru, which could be interpreted to mean the town was being “sacrificed” to Tanzania, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
Nigeria’s government also appeared to have misunderstood the details of the programme, describing Kisarazu as a location open to “Nigerians willing to live and work [in Japan]”. Japan’s government, it added, would create a special visa category for skilled people from the West African country.
Japan’s foreign ministry has reportedly asked the Nigerian government to issue a correction, while JICA – a government agency – said several media organisations had published articles containing “inaccuracies and potentially misleading information”.
“JICA is currently urging the relevant local media and the African government [sic] to promptly correct the inaccuracies contained in their coverage,” it said on its website.
