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Based on the last paragraph of this post perhaps you might allow me to pose a question.
I am an American citizen (Caucasian, more or less, if it matters, with some Native American ancestry) living in Japan, my home now over two decades. I speak the language passably well though my kanji isn't what it should be (even recently on this forum I goofed a very basic term, and, as one might expect, was gently corrected). Though I am not in a service job, I am public-facing in that I stand in front of adult students every day. Would you argue that I shouldn't make efforts to learn Japanese, or that my learning of Japanese should be done only as a means of communication, and not as one of a larger set of strategies to integrate (to whatever degree) into Japanese culture?
You may suggest that I am "not Japanese and never will be" and that is of course not an unpopular perspective (particularly, even especially here). But surely the old saw about when in Rome carries some water in your mind? It's possible I'm misunderstanding you.
You are inclined to learn Japanese and respect the local culture, my point is it's not reasonable to expect that same behavior from masses of third world economic migrants. If a Japanese person wanted to maintain Japanese culture, it would be a bad idea to import masses of people who are unlike the Japanese and expect they will adopt the "when in Rome" mentality that you have. Culture is more dynamic than people and their personalities, it's more likely the culture is going to change than a Paki is going to start acting like a Swede.
If mases of Turks or Syrians moved to Japan, how many Japanese people would say "oh well, being Japanese is an idea that has nothing to do with ethnicity so these are now fellow Japanese people"?
I'll trust your judgement on that question, but why would their response be so different than the Swede who feels compelled to voice his objection by couching it in terms of taxes?
A friend of mine has a daughter, raised her here though my friend and her husband are from the US and both blue-eyed and white--their daughter is also. But the girl, because of her upbringing, can, and does, move as fluently through Japanese culture as her classmates. She is also perfectly, natively fluent in English. It's a marvel to see her slip in and out of these versions of herself.
In Nihonjinron scholarship (if that's the word to use) there have been many efforts at defining "Japaneseness." Some suggest both parents need to be ethnically Japanese. Because Japanese culture is so much a part of functioning here, however (that's a whole can of worms), others suggest that to be Japanese one has to be fluent in the language and preferably born in Japan.
That, too, sometimes doesn't matter. Returnee students who may have spent a few years abroad (especially if in early youth) are routinely told, on return, that because of some alteration in attitude, dress, or ineffable behavioral trait, they're "not really Japanese," as if their Japaneseness has been stripped from them.
The dimensions of the definition become more and more Procrustean as one goes on, as you might expect.
Eventually the concept "I know a Japanese when I see one" becomes the answer if the subject is pressed--and of course one cannot press the subject very far, for highlighting disagreement.or inconsistency in this way would be poor manners, itself "un-Japanese."
Older people might not consider the girl in my example above as ever having any chance of being Japanese, any more than a Zainichi Korean or third-generation Chinese. It isn't hard to find people using the term "Japanese blood" when the topic comes up. One quickly realizes nationality isn't the issue, or even culture, or language--or even biology (though there is of course that rather infamous book arguing the Japanese person's brain is structurally different from, well, from all the rest of us.)
I have the distinct sense that all this evaporates if you boil it down enough and you'll be left with steam, and, eventually an empty pot.
To address your question, there seems to be no real movement here (with a non-Japanese presence of around 2%) to shepherd anyone into the Japanese fold. Though I am considered uchi (内) or "one of the group/family/elect" in certain contexts here, remove one layer and I am again soto (外) or an outsider. But I haven't ever considered attempting applying for Japanese nationality.
I'd a fairly extreme (if benign) racist acquaintance some years ago who liked Japan and the Japanese fine because of the sense of clear delineation he felt here.
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