Japanese people in China

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese government introduced a plan to settle 5 million Japanese in Manchukuo. Following the end of the war, approximately 2,800 Japanese orphans in China were left behind by families repatriating back to Japan.[2] The majority of Japanese left behind in China were women, and these Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (残留婦人, zanryū fujin).[3] Because they had children fathered by Chinese men, the Japanese women were not allowed to bring their Chinese families back with them to Japan so most of them stayed. Japanese law only allowed children fathered by Japanese men to become Japanese citizens.

As of October 2018, the number of Japanese nationals living in China is 120,076 (including 25,705 in Hong Kong) according to a report by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the second largest group of Japanese people outside Japan after the United States.[4] However, the 2010 Census of the People's Republic of China recorded 66,159 foreign nationals from Japan residing in Mainland China (figure excluding Hong Kong and Macau),[5] representing nearly half of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry figure. The number of Japanese emigrants to China and their descendants are unknown.[4][6]

In 2000s, more Japanese were coming to China due to its opening up and economic reforms, and Japanese nationals living in China increased roughly three times from 46,000 to 127,000 in proportion to the growth in trade volume between the two countries.[6][7] However, the peak was 2012 and recently decreasing.[4] As of October 2018, the permanent resident ratio is only 2.7%.[4]

Shanghai has the largest concentration of Japanese nationals in Greater China.[4][8] As of October 2018, 40,747 Japanese nationals are living in Shanghai.[4] The second-largest concentrated city is Hong Kong and the third is Taipei.[4]