Recommendations

The International Migration Team of The Asahi Shimbun Asia Network (AAN) has conducted research, in cooperation with leading academics, on Japan's course in an age when cross-border migration is a rapidly developing trend in Asia.

Against this backdrop, it is clear that Japan must transform its regional and industrial policies in order to live in harmony with its Asian neighbors, and bring about mutual benefits.

Today, there are 670,000 foreign workers living in Japan, excluding permanent residents and spouses of Japanese. However, when they encounter problems raising children, discrimination in finding housing, or caring for the elderly, they often have no one to turn to for help despite the fact that those - who work here pay taxes just as Japanese citizens do.

There is an urgent need to build local communities where foreigners can live in harmony with their neighbors, instead of being turned away as ''different.''

In an effort to entice information technology (IT) specialists from India to come to Japan, the government has decided to make it easier for them to acquire visas. However, this alone is not enough to attract high-tech talent to Japan. Conditions such as a Silicon Valley-style industrial cluster, and guarantees of a comfortable lifestyle, must be created, or Japan risks becoming a faint shadow on the map of international migration for IT ''brains.''

But there is a negative aspect to the age of international migration, since criminals, too, find it easy to cross borders. Drug trafficking and other dangerous international crimes must therefore be combated through cooperation with other Asian countries.