Chinese people have had a long history in Japan and make up the largest foreign minorities in Japan. This includes any Japanese individuals self-identifying as ethnic Chinese or Chinese permanent residents living in Japan. People aged 22 or older cannot possess dual-citizenship in Japan, so Chinese people possessing Japanese citizenship typically no longer possess Chinese citizenship.
Population and distribution + Chinese people in Japan (as of December 2025)Status of ResidenceNumber of personPermanent resident357,565 Spouse or Child of Permanent resident21,762 ResidentStudent148,151 Technical Intern training22,583 Dependent93,581 Specialist in Humanities / International Services117,314 Others22,105 Spouse or Child of Japanese National26,617 Long-Term Resident*132,047 Special permanent resident*2610 Total930,428 *1 Those who are authorized to reside in Japan with a period of stay designated by the Minister of Justice in consideration of special circumstances.*2 A special permanent resident provided for by the Special Act on the Immigration Control of, Inter Alia, Those who have Lost Japanese Nationality Pursuant to the Treaty of Peace with Japan (Act No. 71 of 1991)Most Chinese people, or descendants of Chinese immigrants, who are living in Japan reside in major cities such as Osaka, Yokohama, and Tokyo, although there are increasingly also significant populations in other areas as government immigration policies increasingly attract workers to 'training programs', universities seek increasing numbers of international students and Chinese people see business opportunities. Japan's first recognised Chinatown was in Nagasaki, developing in the 1680s when economic prerogatives meant that the shogunate needed to restrict and control trade to a greater extent than previously. Before this, there had been a large number of Chinese communities in the west of the country, made up of pirates, merchants, and people who fitted into both categories. In the 19th century, the well-known Chinatowns of Yokohama and Kobe developed, and they are still thriving today, although the majority of Chinese people in Japan live outside Chinatowns in the regular community. The communities are served by Chinese schools that teach the Chinese language. The Chinese community has undergone a dramatic change since the PRC allowed more freedom of movement of its citizens, but citizens of Taiwan (ROC), Singapore and Hong Kong nationality are not counted in these figures. A study that was conducted in 1995 estimated that the Chinese population of Japan numbered 150,000, among whom between 50,000 and 100,000 could speak Chinese. In 2000, Japanese governmental statistics revealed that there were 335,575 Chinese people in Japan. Current demographic statistics reveal that these numbers have reached over 600,000 legal immigrants, although there is probably also a significant population, although of unknown number, of undocumented immigrants. A significant number of Chinese nationals are naturalized each year; following naturalization, they are not counted as immigrants in Japanese statistics.
Technical emigration has decreased due to increasing salaries in China as well as Japan's economic stagnation following the Lost Decades. From 2015 to 2023, the number of Chinese people in the technical intern program dropped from 38,327 to 11,347.
History
Pre-modern era
It is believed that a substantial component of the Yayoi people migrated from China to Japan. The Yayoi people who introduced wet rice cultivation to Japan may have come from Jiangnan near the Yangtze River Delta in ancient China.崎谷満『DNA・考古・言語の学際研究が示す新・日本列島史』(勉誠出版 2009年)(in Japanese) This is supported by archeological research and bones found in modern southeastern China and western Japan. According to several Japanese historians, the Yayoi and their ancestors, the Wajin, originated in the today Yunnan province in southern China.鳥越憲三郎『原弥生人の渡来 』(角川書店,1982)、『倭族から日本人へ』(弘文堂 ,1985)、『古代朝鮮と倭族』(中公新書,1992)、『倭族トラジャ』(若林弘子との共著、大修館書店,1995)、『弥生文化の源流考』(若林弘子との共著、大修館書店,1998)、『古代中国と倭族』(中公新書, 2000)、『中国正史倭人・倭国伝全釈』(中央公論新社, 2004) Suwa Haruo considered Wa-zoku (Wajin) to be part of the Baiyue (百越).諏訪春雄編『倭族と古代日本』(雄山閣出版、1993)また諏訪春雄通信100 It is estimated that Yayoi people mainly belonged to Y-DNA Haplogroup O-M176 (O1b2) (today ~36%), Haplogroup O-M122 (O2, formerly O3) (today ~23%) and Haplogroup O-M119 (O1) (today ~4%), which are typical for East- and Southeast-Asians. Mitsuru Sakitani suggests that haplogroup O1b2, which is common in today Koreans, Japanese and some Manchu, and O1 are one of the carriers of Yangtze civilization. As the Yangtze civilization declined, several tribes crossed westward and northerly, to the Shandong peninsula, the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.崎谷満『DNA・考古・言語の学際研究が示す新・日本列島史』(勉誠出版 2009年 It is suggested that the linguistic homeland of Japonic is located somewhere in south-eastern or eastern China before the proto-Japanese migrated to the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.Reconstructing the Language Map of Prehistorical Northeast Asia - Juha Janhunen Studia Orientalia 108 (2010) According to linguist, Alexander Vovin, the urheimat of the Japonic languages may have been located in Southern China. Japanese linguist, Miyamoto Kazuo, instead has suggested a homeland further north in China, around modern Liaoning.Archaeological Explanation for the Diffusion Theory of the Japonic and Koreanic Languages - MIYAMOTO Kazuo
Ambassadorial visits to Japan by the later Chinese dynasties Wei and Jin recorded that the Wajin of Japan claimed to be descendants of Taibo of Wu, traditionally believed to be the founder of Wu.Encounters of the Eastern Barbarians, Wei Chronicles Several scholars in Japan suggested that the Yamato people and the Imperial House of Japan are descendants of the Wu and possibly Taibo. Many Japanese historians also link the early Japanese Yayoi people to the Baiyue tribes that also include the Wu people.崎谷満『DNA・考古・言語の学際研究が示す新・日本列島史』(勉誠出版 2009年)
A Chinese legend of uncertain provenance states that Xu Fu, a Qin dynasty court sorcerer, was sent by Qin Shi Huang to Penglai Mountain (Mount Fuji) in 219 BC to retrieve an elixir of life. Xu could not find any elixir of life and was reluctant to return to China because he knew he would be sentenced to death, Xu instead stayed in Japan. Other immigrants are also thought to include major population movements such as that of the Hata clan. The Hata clan claimed to be the descendants of Qin Shi Huang.
According to a study conducted in 2021, a large number of East Asian people with ancestry mainly resembling Han people arrived in Japan around 300 AD during the Kofun period. This group is responsible for 71% of the ancestry in the modern Japanese population.
In 499 CE, a Chinese Buddhist missionary Hui Shen, paid visit to an island east of China known as Fusang, typically identified with modern-day Japan, which was described in the 7th-century Liang Shu.
Master Jianzhen came to Japan in 754 CE, he helped to propagate Buddhism in Japan and introduce the Vinaya with the establishment of Ritsu School. Emperor Shōmu and Empress Kōmyō received their ordination from him and he also established Tōshōdai-ji, he is also an important conductor of Chinese culture with the introduction of Traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese calligraphy and other Tang era cultural relics into Japan.A Blessing over the Sea: The Tōshōdai-ji Exhibition, in Shanghai, , Documentary on Buddhist Monk, Jianzhen, who made a sea voyage to the East (to Japan), to teach the precepts of Buddhism to the Japanese. / Dec 2019, minutes 1:19 (with subtitles).
According to the Shinsen Shōjiroku (815), 163 Chinese aristocratic families lived in the Kinai area of Honshu, around the modern-day Kansai region. These immigrant clans were referred to as Toraijin (渡来人).
Sakanoue no Tamuramaro (坂上 田村麻呂, 758 – June 17, 811) was a court noble, general and shōgun of the early Heian period of Japan. According to the Shoku Nihongi, an official historical record, the Sakanoue clan is descended from Emperor Ling of Han China.Shoku Nihongi 延暦四年六月の条:右衛士督従三位兼下総守坂上大忌寸苅田麿ら表を上りて言さく、「臣らは、本是れ後漢霊帝の曾孫阿智王の後なり。漢の祚、魏に遷れるとき、阿智王、神牛の教に因りて、出でて帯方に行きて忽ち宝帯の瑞を得たり。 The Sakanoue clan's family tree shows that Tamuramaro is a 14th-generation descendant of Ling.塙 保己一 [Hanawa hokii] 続群書類従 [Zoku Gunsho Ruiju Series] 従十八巻坂上系図 [Volume 18 Sakagami Clan's family tree]
During the Mongol invasions of China, many Chinese refugees fled to Japan. Some of these Chinese refugees became immensely powerful, for example, Mugaku Sogen, a Chinese Zen Buddhist who fled to Japan after the fall of the Song dynasty. After fleeing Japan, Mugaku Sogen became an advisor to the then ruler of Japan, Hōjō Tokimune. The Chinese refugees who fled the Mongols warned the Japanese that the Mongols would also intend to invade Japan. Mugaku Sogen gave a bad report to Tokimune about the barbarity and cruelty of the Mongols after witnessing Mongol soldiers killing his fellow monks at a monastery. This encouraged Tokimune to not pay tribute to the Mongols as the emissaries Kublai Khan sent to Japan demanded, and instead resist the Mongols in their later attempted invasions of Japan. During the second Mongol invasion of Japan, many Chinese soldiers landed in Japan. After the Mongol defeat, the Japanese defenders killed all the Koreans, Mongols, and Jurchen soldiers they found, except for the Southern Chinese, who the Japanese felt had been coerced by the Mongols into joining the attack on Japan.『元史』巻二百八 列傳第九十五 外夷一 日本國「（至元十八年）官軍六月入海、七月至平壷島（平戸島）、移五龍山（鷹島?）、八月一日、風破舟、五日、文虎等諸將各自擇堅好船乘之、棄士卒十餘萬于山下、衆議推張百戸者爲主帥、號之曰張總管、聽其約束、方伐木作舟欲還、七日日本人來戰、盡死、餘二三萬爲其虜去、九日、至八角島、盡殺蒙古、高麗、漢人、謂新附軍爲唐人、不殺而奴之、閶輩是也、蓋行省官議事不相下、故皆棄軍歸、久之、莫靑與呉萬五者亦逃還、十萬之衆得還者三人耳。」 The Southern Chinese soldiers were spared from being killed by the Japanese, but instead forced to become slaves.
During the Ming dynasty, Japan became decentralized without a central government and with many local daimyo reigning the country, in what would be called the Sengoku Period. Many of these daimyo encouraged Chinese immigration to Japan due to their skills and boost to the local economy. Many Chinese communities would be established in Japan, especially on the island of Kyushu. Many Chinese pirates would set up their bases in Japan in order to launch raid and attacks on mainland China as part of the wokou. For example, the powerful Chinese pirate, Wang Zhi, who became known as the "king of the wokou", established his base of operation in Japanese islands, in order to launch raids against the Ming government. Many of the Chinese pirates were supported by Japanese daimyo themselves. Chinese people are also known to have settled in Okinawa during the Sanzan period at the invitation of the Ryukyuan kings; these were high level royal advisors who lived in the village of Kumemura, for example, claim to all be descended from Chinese immigrants.
During the Manchu conquest of China, many Chinese refugees would again flee to Japan to escape Manchu rule. For example, the Chinese scholar, Zhu Zhiyu, was one of the greatest scholars of Confucianism in the Ming dynasty and Edo Japan. Zhu remains the best remembered of the Ming political refugees in Tokugawa Japan and the one who contributed most to Japanese education and intellectual history.Ching, J. (1975). Chu Shun-shui, 1600-82. A Chinese Confucian Scholar in Tokugawa Japan. Monumenta Nipponica 30 (2), 177-191.
One of the most well-known Chinese folk heroes was the Ming loyalist Koxinga, who conquered the island of Taiwan from the hands of the Dutch, in order to establish the Tungning Kingdom, the last remnant of the fallen Ming dynasty, where he could continue to fight against the Manchu invaders of China. Despite being a Chinese folk hero, Koxinga was actually born in Japan, to a Chinese merchant father and a Japanese mother. Koxinga is still worshiped as a folk deity, especially in Fujian and Taiwan.
Modern era