재일한인의 국적

The Nationality Problem of Koreans in Japan

Koreans in Japan are the ethnic Korean residents of Japan in the largest sense. But this expression in this article means those who have resided in Japan from before 1945 when Korea was set free from Imperial Japanese rule. Many of them were recruited to work in mainland Japan by forced mobilization during 1939-1945. When They were forcedly recruited, they were treated as subjects of the Empire of Japan, .as the result of the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910. But following the end of World War II, they were treated as “liberated people” or “enemy nationals” by the SCAP, and treated as Japanese nationals as they had been, or foreigners by the Japanese Government. Afterward according to the Alien Registration Ordinance of 1947, Koreans were provisionally registered under the name of Joseon, the old name of undivided Korea. In 1948, the Republic of Korea(South Korea) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(North Korea) declared independence individually, and the new government of South Korea made a request to the SCAP, the occupying power of Japan then, to change the nationality registration of Koreans in Japan to “Daehan Minguk”, the official name of South Korea. Following this, from 1950 onwards, Koreans in Japan were allowed to voluntarily re-register their nationality as .“Daehan Minguk” or “Hanguk”, the shortened name of “Daehan Minguk”. In other hand the Japanese government officially deprived their Japanese nationality in 1952 by way of excuse of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and discriminated them through the nationality clause of various legal acts to lead them to naturalize into Japan. As a consequence, Koreans in Japan may be divided into three groups; Japanese Nationals, those who naturalized into Japan and their descendants, “Hanguk” Koreans and “Joseon” Koreans according to the Alien Registration. “Hanguk” Koreans and “Joseon” Koreans are granted the right of permanent residence in Japan by the 1965 treaty of normalization of Korea-Japan relations. “Hanguk” Koreans are evidently South Korean nationals residing in Japan but“Joseon” Koreans are de facto statelessness. Some of them are pro-North Korean, but the others neither pro-South Korean nor pro-North Korean even though they registered in the name of “Joseon” which is the shortened name of North Korea. Because of the status as statelessness of “Joseon” Koreans, they are still discriminated by the Japanese Government. When the normalization of North Korea-Japan relations is realized, pro-North Korean “Joseon” Koreans should be evidently approved as North Korean nationals but the other “Joseon” Koreans who are neither pro-South Korean nor pro-North Korean would get into a new but more complicated trouble as statelessness among tree countries. This is one of the unsolved problem in cleaning up past incidents between Korea and Japan as a post World War II settlement.