Did Taro Kono, the Japanese minister for digital reform, make a speech asking Chinese people to take Japanese citizenship so that Japan can create "new Japanese"? No, that's not true: This was not a comment directed at Chinese people and was taken out of context from a discussion about immigration.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 27, 2023. It opened (translated from Japanese to English by Lead Stories staff):
Taro Kano
Advice to Chinese people on how to 'senori' [a Japanese word used when an intelligence officer or member of a criminal organization takes over the family register of a missing person and pretends to be that person].
If you want to stay, please become a permanent resident first. Please acquire citizenship and become Japanese some day. When discussing immigration issues, we must consider how to create new Japanese.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jan 30 12:40:10 2024 UTC)
In March 2017, Kono (archived here) was invited as a guest speaker at the National Chairman's Summit (archived here). The user on TikTok used a portion of this speech, from the 23:42 to 25:06 marks. At the 22:24 mark, the audience asked Kono the definition of immigration and whether it creates new Japanese people or just workers. He responded at the 23:42 mark (as translated):
When we talk about immigration, we are probably not discussing a fixed period of time. We want them to come in as human beings, not as workers. If you work 8 hours, you live in this country for 16 hours. Whether it's short term or medium term, it's not an argument about going back after a few years. Japan has its own prerequisites, but the other side also has the right to choose. Some people come in, but some people go home. If you want to stay, please become a permanent resident first. Please acquire citizenship and become Japanese some day. When discussing immigration issues, the discussion we need to have now is how to create new Japanese people.
Kono did not say anything about Chinese people in the above speech. He said immigrants are not a labor force, but people who are part of the future Japan.
Kono responded to the claims with a post on X on September 9, 2023, (archived here) that reads (as translated):
Recently, some people have been tweeting and spreading tweets that distort my intentions by cutting out or altering what I said, but I will take legal action against those who go too far. The same applies to retweets. Please be responsible for your own tweets.
