...they're just unwilling to actually do anything about it. Allow immigration? Make it possible for women to have careers after childbirth? Stop funding increasingly ridiculous infrastructure boondoggles and give tax cuts to consumers instead of zaibatsu? Hire and promote based on talent, not seniority and what school you graduated from? Nope nope, it's all too muzukashii.
I've been visiting Japan regularly for 20 years now. To a first approximation, nothing about the fundamentals above has changed.
What do you mean by "allow immigration"? If you have a degree and a job you can come work and live in Japan. Japanese immigration is not that restrictive. My native country, the UK, has far more hoops to jump through to get permission to work.
The social changes are a much bigger challenge. If your family sees you as a bad mother for working while raising children then financial incentives and back to work schemes will only get you so far.
I guess he mean poor immigrants vs rich expats. The only relatively poor immigration they welcome is ESL teachers. Aside from that.. If you can make it in Japan, you can live well anywhere else.
There's very little of euro/us style poor 3rd world kind of immigration. Even if one would get a visa, they'd have a really really hard time finding a job. Strip club bouncers is very limited market.
I've been visiting Japan regularly for 20 years now. To a first approximation, nothing about the fundamentals above has changed.