Ikebukuro's 'Chinatown' and the Question of Social Integration

There is a district in Tokyo where Chinese residents can live almost entirely within their own world. Step out onto the street on the north side of the west exit of Ikebukuro Station, and you enter what many call Ikebukuro's "Chinatown." Here, the air carries the smell of spices and cooking oil. Across an area roughly 200 square meters (2,153 sq ft), the streets are filled with all things China. Mixed-use buildings are packed with Chinese restaurants, grocery stores, and other businesses. The area is said to have more than 200 such establishments.

Already China

A 32-year-old businessman who moved to Japan from China about a decade ago put it bluntly. "We don't even use much Japanese, and we hardly need yen anymore," he said. "This is already China."

Until a few years ago, he ran a business in the area, importing cosmetics and clothing from China and selling them to tourists and Chinese residents in Japan. In Ikebukuro, he said, he didn't have a single Japanese friend and spoke almost no Japanese.

Daily shopping and business transactions were handled through QR-code payment services such as Alipay, one of China's biggest smartphone payment platforms. Funds were withdrawn in yuan from bank accounts in China. The system is similar to Japan's PayPay and works much like a Japanese traveler using a credit card overseas, with the payment ultimately debited in yen from a bank account back home.

China's long-running problem with counterfeit bills helped fuel an explosive shift to cashless payments, which now account for more than 80% of all transactions. Chinese residents in Japan, too, are said to rely heavily on smartphone payments, following habits formed back home.

A 48-year-old woman who moved to Japan from China more than 20 years ago and now runs a restaurant in the area said she still deals mainly in yen. But with the yen's recent slide boosting the yuan, she said, "there's no reason anymore to go out of my way and pay fees just to hold yen."

How a Chinese Business District Emerged

As of January 2025, Toshima Ward, home to Ikebukuro's Chinatown, had about 36,000 foreign residents. That amounted to roughly 12% of the ward's population, about four times the national average of 3%. Chinese nationals accounted for around 45% of that total.

Kiyomi Yamashita, a 74-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, is known for his research on Chinatowns. He said Chinese students began gathering in Ikebukuro around the late 1980s, attracted by rents that were relatively cheap by Tokyo standards. "After the asset bubble burst in the early 90s, vacant properties gradually began to be taken over by Chinese-run restaurants, food stores, travel agencies, and real-estate firms," he said. "A Chinatown took shape."

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Post-Pandemic Shift

More recently, a notable pattern has emerged. After Japanese-run businesses pulled out because they could not repay loans taken out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese tenants have increasingly moved into those spaces as ready-to-use storefronts.

But a 77-year-old company executive who heads the local shopping association said the group has only a limited grasp of how many such businesses are operating. "There are at least 10 of them, but we don't know the exact number," he said. "They don't join the shopping association, and when we go to invite them, they just say, 'No understand Japanese.'"

Every autumn, the area hosts Fukuro Matsuri, one of Tokyo's best-known festivals, including a mikoshi procession in which foreign residents carry a portable shrine through the neighborhood. "But the people carrying it are from the Middle East or the West," Kato said. "There are no Chinese participants."

Preventing a 'Parallel Society'

In Germany, Turkish immigrants formed insular communities known as "parallel societies." The resulting divide from mainstream German society, along with worsening public-order problems, became a serious issue.

In 2005, Germany made it mandatory for foreigners who do not speak German to take "integration courses" teaching the language and basic knowledge of society. Recently, the country has been spending about €1 billion EUR a year on the social costs involved.

Japan, too, has recently seen growing public unease and resentment over illegal acts and rule-breaking by some foreign residents. In January, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government set out a new basic policy on foreign residents. Alongside tighter screening for residency status, it also included "social integration" measures such as programs to teach Japanese and social norms.

Eiji Hara, 59, who heads a policy think tank focused on immigration, warned that if closed-off foreign communities take shape outside mainstream society, "the cohesion of Japanese society itself will be undermined."

As the government considers a social integration program, he said the real test should extend beyond language ability to whether people can share the laws, customs, and values Japan has long prized. "Simply attending a course is not enough," he said. "The key is not to accept foreign nationals who cannot integrate into Japanese society."

(Read the article in Japanese.)

Authors: Hikaru Ichinosawa, Ikki Tokumitsu, The Sankei Shimbun