What's with the bias towards Japanese among the (few) East Asian officers in Starfleet?

Question

Sort of related, but here I'm asking about the virtual lack of anyone but people of Japanese descent among the recurring East Asian officers depicted in Star Trek.

We have:

Hikaru Sulu: Japanese-American (b. San Francisco)
Alyssa Ogawa: presumably Japanese or Japanese-American (based on first name?)
Keiko (Ishikawa) O'Brien Japanese (b. Japan)
Hoshi Sato Japanese (b. Kyoto)

as well as Adm. Nakamura, appearances of the USS Yamato and the USS Kyushu, and the renowned Kobayashi Maru scenario training exercise.

Whereas, for other Southeast and East Asians, I cannot find any, really, except for:

Harry Kim (b. S. Carolina) has a typically Korean name and note this awesome clip of Garrett Wang, where he explains that apparently Kim was supposed to be Chinese, but even the actor himself didn't know he was Chinese until after the series ended.

And then in Discovery there's the beginnings of a slightly more diverse Asian contingent with merely:

Philippa Georgiou (b. Pulau Langkawi, Malaysia) but with a strangely non-Asian name and
USS Shenzhou presumably named after this Chinese spacecraft.

What are the in- and out-of-universe reasons Star Trek seems to lean Japanese compared to other parts of the region?

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^{I feel like I should also point out, that among those four starring/recurring Japanese roles, half of them are not even played by actors of Japanese ancestry. So the character traits seem to have been set independently of casting with a preference to stick with "Japanese" despite casting decisions, even though the Japanese-ness of these characters (vs. say Chinese or Korean) wasn't really very central to them, at least until later writing (e.g. the ink brush flashback in "Violations" and influence in the Keiko/O'Brien wedding)}

Answer 1

I have an out of universe explanation that is based on the fact that three of the five characters and both of the starships with Japanese names first appeared in The Next Generation.

In the 1980s (when TNG was created), Japan's economy and technology made it the major rival to the U.S. in Asia (if not the world). It is understandable that American writers of that time would expect Japanese people and their names to be well represented in the future Starfleet.

Of course times have changed; China and South Korea are both now major economic and high-tech powers, with China seen as the major rival to the U.S. So we see that by the time Firefly was produced, the Chinese language was assumed to be a major component of the future culture.

Answer 2

George Takei expressed his opinion about this at a talk I saw him give about 10 years ago. (I'm not sure if this was in response to a question, or if it was part of his prepared talk.)

He said that casting for Star Trek shows (and many television shows, really) had become extremely formulaic. There was almost a roster of required character types to be filled out: one emotionless character, a black character, an alien, etc. The makeup of this roster was heavily based on the highly successful cast of the original Star Trek.

Takei said that since he had been Japanese, that had made Japanese one of the default character types. The roster slot was not quite as rigid as some of the others, but it meant that when casting an East Asian character, there was a strong default tendency to make them Japanese. Overall, he said that Star Trek was wonderful for consistently using minority actors, but (and he phrased this very carefully; he was always positive about Star Trek) it would be wonderful if there were as many roles for people with other Asian backgrounds.

Answer 3

I haven't seen these ideas brought up, but they seem relatively obvious to me. I also realize it's going to be hard to express this tactfully. It would be nice if anyone could show any research or commentary from Hollywood that would back this up. This deals with casting decisions which can have all kinds of unsavory motivations. Please don't murder me. But in its present form, what follows is speculation:

Here, I'm comparing Japan and/or perception of Japan by the West to other local countries, in particular to China.

• Hollywood feels there should be an Asian representative in the cast so that the crew seems "plausibly representative of all of Earth"
• Japan is more Westernized, more orderly and more open to Americans.
• Japanese phonology is easier to transliterate and easier to pronounce compared especially with Chinese, which is tonal and difficult to approximate
• Japanese food is probably considered "classier" and healthier than Chinese
• Japan is respected for its accomplishments in electronics.
• Japan has a consistently high standard of living and literacy rate.
• Japan is democratic, free, and well-integrated into international society
• Japan generally embraces American and Western culture.

In other words, I'm claiming that Star Trek is assigning roles to Japanese characters because they are the "friendly", "relatable", "nice", "not-scary" people from Asia.

It seems to be more than a pattern so there must be something going into the decision.

Answer 4

In the real world ships tend to draw recruits from particular regions, where the ship is based. Even when recruits are taken from elsewhere they tend to feed to a particular place, I heard a story where the British army would take recruits from the highlands in Fiji and assume the best fit for them was the highland regiment in Scotland since the places share a name and all.

As star fleet would want a diverse crew they may have multiple home ports, one in the US and one in Japan.

Answer 5

One of the in-universe explanations I've come to regarding the number of relatively few Chinese cast members represented by the crews of Starfleet ships compared to the high percentage of the world population in reality is that one of the in-universe wars might have significantly reduced the population of East Asia, particularly the third world War.In a deleted line in First Contact, it was mentioned that China was the leader of the Eastern Coalition, which presumably included other 'Eastern' nations. We can also see a vaguely East Asian style to the trial Q initiates from the Post-Atomic Horror in Encounter at Farpoint. This matched with the relatively low number of non-Japanese East Asians in starfleet tells me that the populations of East Asia were decimated during the Third World War, and have not yet recovered in terms of percentage by the time of TOS or TNG.