Hideyuki Ishii - a real estate broker on Hokkaido Island - said that recently, many Chinese people who want to buy real estate can stay if they move to Japan.
One of his customers is Amanda Wu, 62, a former CEO of a Chinese state-owned company and a rich man with international real estate investments. Ms. Wu said that her friends are interested in moving to Japan to live.
Since November, Wu has lived in a 4-bedroom house in Otaru, a snow-covered port city in Japan. She also owns about a dozen other properties here that she bought for about 300,000 USD.
Ms. Wu had been to Japan as a tourist, but this time she entered the country on a business intelligence visa.
In the first 10 months of 2022, 2,133 Chinese entered Japan under the above visa type, surpassing the annual record of 1,417 established in 2019, right before the pandemic stalled most travel activities between the two countries. This type of visa usually lasts at least 1 year and can be extended.
Japan is one of the attractive destinations thanks to its low crime rate, fresh air and reasonable real estate prices when the Yen decreases against the USD and the yuan.
Wang Qing - a Chinese businesswoman who has lived in Japan for nearly three decades - often chats with friends in China and many people have expressed their desire to move to Japan to live. As China's COVID-19 prevention policy is eased, Ms. Wang believes that Chinese people considering moving to Japan will travel more smoothly.
Japan is not the only country accepting Chinese migrants. The China & globalization Center, a research institute in Beijing, collected United Nations data from 2019 and found that the US is the place with the largest number of Chinese migrants - about 2.9 million people, followed by Japan - 780,000 people, followed by Canada and Australia. This figure only includes the number of Chinese citizens, excluding those of Chinese origin in the host countries.
Currently, the US has tightly controlled immigration, so more and more Chinese people are considering Japan. If a foreigner invests capital equivalent to $40,000 or more in a Japan-based enterprise - such as buying real estate, establishing a property management enterprise - that person may be eligible for a business visa.
Meanwhile, the minimum investment to get a similar visa to enter the US is $800,000. Singapore - another popular destination for Chinese people - requires a minimum amount of about 1.85 million USD.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Chinese people have traveled to Japan. Many people buy accommodation in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto, or invest in commercial real estate here.
Visa service providers in Japan have also seen a surge in demand from China this year. A Chinese man with a real estate company in Tokyo confirmed that Chinese customers have recently rented out all the offices his company has in. One of the conditions for being granted a business visa in Japan is to have an official office.
In Otaru, where Ms. Wu lives, the population is declining and many houses are vacant. She said that the price of a house at Otaru is much cheaper than in Beijing.
Real estate broker Ishii said that recently, his company sold a house near the sea to a Chinese customer for about 287,000 USD, 3 times higher than the price offered by local brokers.
Mr. Ishii also believes that the newcomers will contribute to the local economy. Ms. Wu revealed that she is thinking about starting to export Japanese goods to China. There is a huge demand for Japanese goods in China, she said.
