ABSTRACT
The so-called “100,000 International Students Plan” is the government’s attempt to increase the number of international students studying in Japan to a size appropriate for a developed nation with a powerful economy. This plan aims at increasing international students to the levels enjoyed by West Germany, the United Kingdom, and France (Hanami, 1995, pp. 113-115). While students from China, Korea, and Taiwan — three countries upon which Japan exerted a considerable influence as a colonizer — constitute 80 percent of foreign students in Japan, more than 60 percent of Japanese students abroad are concentrated in the United States (see Table 5 and 6). The influx of foreign students from Asia to Japan makes a sharp contrast with the efflux of Japanese students to English-speaking countries. China is the second most popular destination for Japanese students with about 20 percent of all Japanese students abroad, and this reflects the fact that, for over a thousand years, China had been the center of Asia and the civilized Other for Japan until Japan embarked on its modernization project. Clearly, students from countries invaded or colonized by Japan find a Japanese degree desirable, while students from Western Europe and the United States-the white Other-do not seem to see merit in acquiring degrees in Japan.13 This shows that, for the darker Other, Japan does represent modernity, cultural authority, and knowledge/power. For the civilized West, however, Japan belongs to the nonwhite Other (see figure 1). Interestingly, concerned with the long-term surplus of Japanese students studying in North America and Western Europe, Nakasone’s AHCE even insisted that more Japanese university students choose Asia when they go abroad to study (Lincicome, 1993, p. 133).
