Koreans in Japan would become permanent foreigners

Tei Taikin / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun

Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa has said he plans to have a bill submitted to the Diet this year that would grant non-Japanese permanent residents the right to vote in local elections. Here, I would like to present two reasons why I oppose this idea.

The bill is generally understood as a positive response by Japan's political world to ethnic Korean residents' demands for local suffrage.

But this is a misunderstanding.

Many ethnic Korean residents in Japan intend to continue living in this nation for many years to come, if not permanently, and to obtain Japanese nationality when the opportunity arises.

The number of ethnic Koreans registered as special permanent residents in Japan had long been said to be around 600,000. However, their number has actually dropped to 400,000 now as nearly 10,000 each year obtain Japanese nationality. And most of them who are married to Japanese do not have their children take South Korean nationality or be registered as "Korean" residents in Japan.

These Koreans, most of whom were born in Japan, lack both a sense of belonging to their home country and an awareness that they are foreigners despite the fact that they have South Korean nationality or are registered as Korean residents.

If such a group of people is granted the right to vote in local elections, their identity will remain ambiguous permanently.

Indeed, they are Koreans and foreigners only on paper, thereby making it difficult to describe their identity.

So the bill Ozawa plans is something that would try to preserve such Korean residents as permanent foreigners.

Secondly, we should oppose the bill precisely because it could pave the way for foreign governments to intervene in Japan's domestic politics. This is not a matter that concerns only the Korean residents.

According to statistics as of the end of 2008, there were 490,000 general permanent residents in Japan and 420,000 special permanent residents who came to Japan before or during World War II from the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule and their offspring. Many of the general permanent residents are from China, Brazil and the Philippines. The number of Chinese, in particular, is expected to increase further.

Some people argue that the bill would not threaten Japan's sovereignty, which rests with its people, because the bill as it stands would only grant local suffrage to them.

But I don't have to go at length to explain that the border between national politics and local politics is unclear. It is possible that foreign residents' voting behavior would cause a conflict of interest with Japan's diplomatic and security policies over such issues related to the Self-Defense Forces, U.S. bases in Japan, nuclear power plants and territorial disputes over the Takeshima islets and Senkaku Islands, all of which are closely linked to national policies.

Would the Chinese government keep at arm's length from Chinese expatriates in Japan? Just as the South and North Korean governments have done, the Chinese government could try to use Chinese permanent residents as a political tool to fulfill its objectives. Emigrating to another country used to mean bidding farewell to one's mother country. But now it is globally observed that those emigrating to a country maintain not only a cultural, but also a political connection with their country of origin.

People who think the Japanese archipelago is not only for Japanese can be found not only in Japan, but also outside the country.

It is interesting to note that the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan) systematically lobbied people in Japan's political circles before the 2009 House of Representatives election. It invited candidates of major political parties to exchange opinions on the issue of local suffrage for permanent foreign residents and urged them to support the extension of such a franchise. I've always predicted that Mindan would eventually demand that permanent residents have the right to vote in national elections. Its behavior before that election can be taken as a preliminary move for that purpose.

Meanwhile, the public offices election law in South Korea has been revised to allow its expatriates to vote in national elections from 2012. The law enables South Korean permanent residents in Japan to exercise their right to vote in South Korea's presidential and general elections.

Such a development would make it difficult for them to avoid the charge that they would thus be doubly privileged.

Tei, 61, is a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University specializing in Japanese-South Korean relations. He is the author of "Kankoku no Image" (The Images of Korea: How Postwar Japanese View a Neighboring Country), "Zainichi Kankokujin no Shuen" (The End of Koreans in Japan) and several other books. He also goes by the name Chung Daekyun.