Governor Suzuki sees foreigners in Japan as equal members, not just workers. He stresses multicultural education fosters integration and notes crime rates in diverse cities like Hamamatsu are decreasing, not rising.
Tokyo
Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture Governor Yasutomo Suzuki is actively working to build a multicultural symbiosis society by strengthening ties with India. As a former mayor of Hamamatsu, home to Suzuki Motor’s headquarters, he has leveraged the company’s international presence to advance cross-cultural relations. Although not from Suzuki Motor’s founding family, Suzuki has successfully utilized its resources to foster global connections.
He emphasizes that when diplomacy between nations faces challenges, city-to-city and state-to-state relations can promote multicultural coexistence. For example, Hamamatsu has longstanding connections with Chinese Zhejiang and Brazil. In the 1990s, Japan allowed unlimited immigration of Brazilians and Peruvians with Japanese ancestry, many of whom came to Hamamatsu to work in the automotive industry. Suzuki personally appealed to Brazil’s President Lula to establish a consulate in Hamamatsu, further strengthening ties.
Governor Suzuki believes foreigners living in Japan should be seen as equal members of society, not just laborers. He highlights how children of different nationalities learn together in schools, helping to foster mutual understanding and integration. Addressing concerns about crime, he notes that crime rates in cities with many foreigners, like Hamamatsu, are actually declining.
He advocates for a “Social Unity Basic Law” and the creation of a special government division to treat foreigners as partners in society, controlling their entry in a fair and organized way. Suzuki also proposes forming a meeting of Japanese prefectural governors involved with Indian relations to promote collaboration, such as between Gujarat state and Shizuoka, which already have strong industrial and educational partnerships.
Through these efforts, Suzuki aims to position Shizuoka as a leading multicultural region, leveraging its industrial strengths and his extensive political experience to foster a truly global and symbiotic community.
