Fewer Korean Residents Seek Japanese Citizenship

englishnews@chosun.com / Nov. 19, 2009 10:33 KST

Four out of five Koreans in Japan have no desire to become naturalized Japanese citizens, a straw poll suggests. The Korea University Center for Japanese Studies on Wednesday released a survey of 502 Korean residents in Japan.

The last survey of the kind was when the Korean Residents Union in Japan or Mindan surveyed around 1,300 people in 2000.

In the new poll, 21.7 percent of respondents said they wished to become naturalized Japanese citizens, much the same as the 24.9 percent who said so in the Mindan survey in 2000 but down significantly from 37 percent in a 1995 survey conducted by the Korean Embassy.

The most common reason respondents gave for wanting to keep their Korean passport was a sense of national identity, with 42.6 percent, followed by a lack of practical need for Japanese citizenship with 36.4 percent of them. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, around 62,000 North Koreans and around 486,000 South Koreans have settled in Japan with permanent residency status as of July 2009. Another estimated 30,000 Korean residents did not choose either North or South Korean citizenship when the peninsula was divided.

Japanese Justice Ministry statistics show around 10,000 Koreans became naturalized between 2003 and 2009. "More and more North Korean and undecided citizenship holders became naturalized Japanese citizens but a decreasing number of South Koreans made the move," said Chung Chang-won, who directed the latest survey by the Korea University Center for Japanese Studies. "This is due to North Korea's notoriety as an impoverished country, while South Korea's international status has risen."

According to Mindan, the number of Koreans in Japan with undecided citizenship decreased from around 100,000 in 2000 to around 30,000 in 2009.

The survey shows a rise in the number of Koreans in Japan who used their Korean names instead of Japanese ones. In the 2000 survey by Mindan, only 13.4 percent of Korean residents said they used their Korean names only or most of the time. But in the latest survey, 25.4 percent said they used only their Korean names. "Following the easing of travel restrictions in 1988, many new Koreans moved to Japan, and this has had an influence," Chung said.

Kwon Ik-ho of Chung-Ang University, said, "It appears that the development of the Korean economy and the popularity of Korean culture and movies in Japan strengthened the pride felt among Korean residents there."