Regulating foreign land purchases in Japan: the politics of risk and liberal influences

Drawing on extensive Japanese primary and secondary sources, this paper examines foreign land purchases in Japan through a framework of risk. The paper argues that the Japanese discourse on land insecurity, and ensuing policies and practices conforms mostly to a logic of riskification. The contentious and protracted nature of the legislative process that resulted in the landmark 2021 Land Use Regulation Act was partly attributable to the difficulties in identifying a clear and present danger from foreign land purchases inherent in certain understandings of risk. In addition to this stretching temporality and imprecision of danger, Japan’s land security politics were also shaped by a liberal strategy—not readily associated with the erstwhile neomercantilist developmental state—centring on support for inward investment to stimulate growth and wealth opportunities, especially in the country’s socioeconomically marginalised rural communities, and adherence to rules-based multilateralism.