IMO this means the demographic problem is nonexistent for japan. If things became critical, all they need to do is loosen immigration policies and there is enough latent demand in the world for citizenship in a stable country that the population can be maintained through immigration.

If immigrants replace Japanese in the country of Japan, is it still Japan?

Why will the Japanese get replaced? Immigrants will just blend in and build a future Japan.

Just like Japan of 2020 is not the same as Samurai Japan of medieval times. Times change, societies change, demographics change. That is just the way things are. It's better to harness it than to reject it to the detriment of progress. See: The story of America becoming a superpower.

Not much has really changed in Japan since the fuedal period, in fact, a lot of the policies from the feudal period play a direct role in modern day japan. Anyways Immigration is always an issue with many aspects of Japanese life, without a stable population growth in Japan the japanese people could easily disappear in a similar way that many ethnic groups in America have disappeared over generations or in east europe where several ethnic groups banded together to form larger nationalistic identities such as the creation of the russian "ethnic" group. Japan has suffered a similar fate with the designation of a Yamato people that does not have a true ancestry. Ethnic groups in Japan are unacknowledged as the Ainu people suffer from discrimination on a systemic level in the Hokkaido region. Comments like this show true ignorance on topics in relation to societies. By your logic should we all just die out and let the Indian and Chinese ethnic groups become the dominant and only groups in the world? Is everyone actually just Han Chinese?

> Not much has really changed in Japan since the fuedal period,

Hard to take a comment that starts with this seriously.

Japan had a caste system, but it’s not what it used to be.

compare riding the subway in nyc to the subway in japan and tell me everyone will just blend in and no one will notice

If immigrants replaced Americans in the country of America, is it still America?

The United States is not an ethno-state though. Maybe during its founding and in the past it was, but it has long stopped being so, despite the recent desires of some factions to want to turn it into one again.

Multiculturalism has long become one of the defining characteristics of the US.

Japan (and frankly, many other countries) are indeed ethno-states.

Comes down to the culture and ideology of the country.

Is the culture thinking being a X is race based or is it based on a way of life, or both?

At least back in the 80s and 90s, my US education and history books say that America is the melting pot of the world, and ideally not race based, but based on the idea of personal and religious freedom. USA as we know now began as a country of immigrants - so by definition, yes, USA still stands regardless of race and ethnicity.

Whereas, the older countries having a more homogeneous race, ethnicity, and culture, that question is a lot fuzzier.

America isn't a several millennia old, monoculture-ish country.

Edit: well, it was.

That’s essentially my own question. It’s not specific to Japan. Do you want to answer it?

Yes, it's still the same country. And nobody's being replaced if the Japanese are reproducing at lower than replacement rate.

If you replace a country’s culture, it’s still the same country?

Japan's culture has arguably been almost completely replaced several times over. Is it still Japan?

Change is the only constant in nature

That's just called changing culture. This happens at each generation at least.

yes. A country is a series of lines on a map.

also did you mean to imply that culture is essentially tied to ethnicity? because it isn't.

USA with maybe Canada, is rather special case. In general other countries around the world are more or less ethnic, or at least have be big ethnic groups and somewhat shared cultures.

>You’re tiptoeing dangerously near some very questionable ethnic/racial arguments

Is he ? What's so dangerous about liking homogenous cultures and homogenous races ?

I don't want to assume too much about you, but this smells like the usual progressive tendency to glorify population-importing immigration and taboofy any discussion of it that views it in negative or critical light. There is nothing wrong about disliking foreigners on one's own land, just like there is nothing wrong about disliking guests in one's own house.

> but this smells like the usual progressive tendency to glorify population-importing immigration

That is a massive leap from what I said. I really need you to point out where I “glorified” anything.

> There is nothing wrong about disliking foreigners on one's own land

When you put it that way…yeah something definitely sounds wrong.

>I really need you to point out where I “glorified” anything.

The commenter you replied was questioning if a nation could maintain it's character after wholesale replacement of it's population by other people, and you said yes, and implied that thinking otherwise is dangerous.

>yeah something definitely sounds wrong

What is that something ? If I own a car or a house, I can control who gets inside that car or house, and I can exclude people on whatever basis I like, including race and culture. This is not ideal, but that's the reality. Changing it is likely to be extremly hard and violent.

A country is "owned" by it's population, if a substantial majority of it's population don't want to let certain people into it, why is that such a problem ? Do you think those same people who want to immigrate would welcome a country's worth of people into their own land, if that were to happen ? Nearly every single culture in existence values itself more than others, and feels threatened when it's numbers decrease in relation to another.

I’m not touching this. Sorry mate.

That's a very Western view of what a country is. The current immigration policies of Japan suggest that "they" do not see it that way.

A country is literally a boundary set by a group of people that other groups of people (largely) agree on. It is, by definition, a social construction. There’s no interpretation to be had tbh.

Now the Japanese’s own sense of identity/culture? It’s a deeply personal and subjective matter. But national boundaries? Not at all.

More than a country, I'd say the Japanese are a nation, see meaning #4 of the definitions below. I think America (the US) is nation only in sense of meanings #1, 2 and 3 which are synonyms of country.

country kŭn′trē noun 1) A nation or state. 2) The territory of a nation or state; land. 3) The people of a nation or state; populace. 4) The land of a person's birth or citizenship. 5) A region, territory, or large tract of land distinguishable by features of topography, biology, or culture. 6) An area or expanse outside cities and towns; a rural area. 7) The people of a district who are eligible for jury service.

nation nā′shən noun 1) A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country. 2) The territory occupied by such a group of people. 3) The government of a sovereign state. 4) A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality. 5) A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans. 6) The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

The Japanese are indeed a nation. They’re a culture. An identity.

Japan is a country with boundaries that most of the world agrees on. There is nothing innate about its location or composition.

Who is “they”? Cf. ship of Theseus.

The ruling party never been serious for demographic problem. They even don't want to allow different surname for family despite changing surname is annoying and it's blocker to marriage.

Unless, of course, there were some let's say ideology that would make people chose to uphold restrictions on immigration even if it weren't in the rational interest of the country.