After tracing the history of Korean residents in Japan, Mr. Ahn argues that the granting of local suffrage rights for permanent residents would begin to address the long-standing barriers against political participation of Koreans in Japanese society.

Deok Keun Matthew Ahn is a second year student at Harvard Law School. His interest in human rights work dates back to his year as a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia, where he conducted research on ethnic conflict and minority rights. Mr. Ahn remains active in the Human Rights Program at the law school and wrote this article while interning at the Japan Civil Liberties Union.

Author's Note: This document reflects my work as a person whose interest in his subject is unfortunately not matched by his knowledge of the language in which the vast majority of materials on the topic are written. Most of the background information was obtained through internet sites which did not contain the textual support required for more academic papers. Moreover, I conducted interviews through translators with varying degrees of English proficiency, and so I did my best to piece things together as seemed logical. To the best of my knowledge, the arguments presented herein are supported by fact, and the facts are accurate.

Choice, as certain philosophies dictate, is the cornerstone of a person's ability to give an accurate expression of her will. Without the ability to choose, a person is denied the self-affirmation that comes with being an active agent in deciding her own destiny, or perhaps less dramatically, at least the course of the next few days. When the National Diet defeated a bill last year that would have granted suffrage in local elections to permanent residents with foreign nationalities, the law makers of Japan made a bold statement, intended to or not, about certain people's right to choose.

Since the earliest modern political treatises of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the relationship between government and those under its sway has always been seen as a sort of agreement where each side surrenders something unto the other to create a workable society. The people, for example, give up part of their property in the form of taxes for the mutually advantageous goal of having the government guarantee the security of the rest of their property from the transgressions of others. Under Japanese law, all foreign nationals who reside in Japan must pay both national and local taxes, for which they receive certain benefits in exchange. While this situation fits the traditional standard model of the political relationship, the idea of government has evolved since the days of Locke and now accountability, transparency, and the notion of representing the constituents' interests have become key elements in the definition of a healthy, modern democracy. In Japan, foreign nationals can not vote in either local or national elections and consequently have no say in the policy-making decisions that control many aspects of their lives. There are strong policy reasons for this situation, which, despite certain shortcomings and perhaps a touch of xenophobia, make sense. However, the issue becomes extraordinarily complicated when it is extended to the sizable foreign permanent resident population in Japan.

The very existence of such a group in Japan invites controversy, and with good cause. Historically, the people in this category may be pitied, viewed as the victims of imperialism and the evils associated with colonization. Today, they are often viewed as nothing more than an inconvenient reminder that there are still some skeletons in the collective Japanese closet. To better appreciate the complexities of this issue, a little history is in order.

In the beginning of this century, vast numbers of people from Japan's former colonies (for the purposes of this article, I will focus on the ethnic Korean population) were either lured to Japan with promises of work, went there to escape the disastrous effects of colonization at home, were conscripted, or were forced to migrate to the Japanese isles in order to satisfy the needs of the imperial economic and military machine. As subjects of the emperor, those foreign nationals who lived in Japan were entitled to vote, be elected, and assume public office. These civil rights were shortlived, however, and came to an end with Japan's defeat in World War II. These immigrants eventually lost their Japanese nationality and found themselves to be foreigners in a country in which they had previously been citizens, had spent much of their lives in, and perhaps in which they had been born.

Though the better part of the estimated 2,300,000 Koreans who were in Japan at the close of the war chose to return to Korea, about 500,000 to 600,000 decided to remain in Japan. One might wonder why an ethnic Korean would have elected to remain in Japan following the conclusion of World War II. For those who left, the choice was simple - Japan was nothing more than the enemy they had been temporarily forced to serve. They wanted nothing more than to return home and start rebuilding their lives. The people who remained, however, were in large part Koreans who had come to Japan in their youth long before the war and who had set up their homes there in the hopes of starting anew. Their livelihood and now their families were based in Japan. Little, if anything, remained for them in Korea. Moreover, the instability in Korea and the coming storm that eventually divided the peninsula left them little choice but to remain in a land that looked down on them at best. Twice in less than fifty years, choice had given way to necessity for these people, and with the end of World War II, they were exiled into a state of metaphysical limbo where the principle of choice was suspended due to the harsh realities of life.

One question that is beyond the scope of this article, but would nonetheless be fascinating to explore, is how much reliance the Koreans who chose to stay placed on their continued status as Japanese nationals. The most likely answer is quite a lot, given that very few people would choose to live in a society where their civil rights and nationality could be stripped away in an instant. Since their loss of Japanese nationality happened with the effectuation of the San Francisco Peace Treaty of April 28, 1952, a full 7 years after the end of the war, the Koreans in Japan may have a moral, if not legal, claim for redress under the reliance theory of damages. (The author is told that this doctrine exists in Japanese law, and because it is most certainly an international legal principle, the Japanese government should embrace this argument wholeheartedly. The government has shown a certain predilection for citing international law to demonstrate that some of its acts during the war (i.e. sexual slavery) were not technically illegal at the time, and so the government should extend this fondness for international law to the immediate redress of resident Koreans' grievances concerning their suffrage.) Therefore, perhaps those who lost their Japanese nationality as a result of the treaty should press for the restoration of all the rights and privileges they had come to rely on both before and after the war. But that is a topic for another day.

Eventually, the government awarded special permanent residency status to those who had been stripped of their Japanese nationality as a result of the 1952 treaty, and their descendants. Slowly and reluctantly, the Japanese government started taking steps to reduce the official discrimination that it practiced against Korean permanent residents, such as eventually eliminating the finger-printing requirement associated with alien registration that was the cause of much controversy.

Still, stiff legal barriers bar the full and fair participation of Korean permanent residents in Japanese society, as evidenced by the refusal of the government to allow non-Japanese nationals to serve in most levels of the civil service, the absence of opportunities for Korean-language high school graduates to sit for Japanese university entrance exams, and the denial of voting rights for permanent residents with foreign nationalities.

The familiar American war cry of "No taxation without representation" may be somewhat simplistic in its logic, but nonetheless provides the proper backdrop to the Korean residents' struggle to obtain voting rights in Japan. Since the restrictions on voting rights placed on other foreign nationals in Japan derive from their relatively recent (and voluntary) arrival in the country, it is a travesty to place the same restrictions on people who have resided in the country for several generations. The bill that was defeated last year in the National Diet last year plagued by the same misconceptions that abound concerning the nationality status of Koreans in Japan. A common perception is that Korean residents are divided into two nationalities, North Koreans and South Koreans. However, under Japanese law, all residents of Korean descent are of one nationality - Korean. The confusion concerning Korean residents' affiliation with either North or South Korea extends in large part from the Japanese government's use of two separate markers on their Alien Registration Certificates. Originally, all Koreans were designated as affiliates of Chosen, or the Korean state before the Korean War. After relations with South Korea were normalized in 1965, the Japanese government allowed those who chose to do so to change their national affiliation to South Korea. In 1981, those Koreans who were still affiliated with the now-defunct Chosen state were also granted permanent resident status, but it would be a mistake to classify these people as North Korean nationals. Japan does not recognize the North Korean state and cannot issue Alien Registration Certificates in the name of a country that, at least for the Japanese government, does not exist. If anything, the perception that Chosen-affiliated Koreans are North Koreans may arise from some such Koreans' participation in political groups that support the North Korean regime. However, political activism should not be confused with nationality -- there is only one Korean nationality within Japan. Oddly, Korea is the only divided country that is treated as such. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the two Germanys were treated as one for the purpose of national identification of Germans in Japan. Even now, nationals of Taiwan and China are classified only as Chinese, so it is curious that the Japanese government would go to such lengths to list Koreans as nationals of two countries rather than one. It is important to note this disparity as we continue to examine the particular challenges in everyday life that confront Koreans as compared to people of other nationalities within Japan.

Though the exact figures on the percentage of Korean residents in favor of local suffrage differ according to the source, it appears that an overwhelming majority favor receiving voting rights for local elections. One characteristic that seems rather uniform throughout the Korean resident population is a strong identification with the community in which they grew up. Though individuals in the group have differing views about their attachment to Korea or Japan, they all seem to identify their community as their true 'motherland,' and would prefer to think of themselves as Osakans or Tokyoites, before as Japanese or Koreans. So, it comes as little surprise that first and foremost, most Koreans in Japan want a say in who governs them at the local level. To this end, on February 28, 1995, the Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court recognized Constitutional support for the suffrage of permanent foreign residents. It held that the issue of suffrage on a local government level is a matter to be left to the National Diet to legislate. Moreover, in finding suffrage for permanent residents consistent with the Constitution, the Court recognized the close relationship that has developed between such people and the communities in which they live. Seeing as how Korean residents are active in local affairs and pay the same taxes as Japanese nationals, it seems odd to deny them suffrage, especially where such suffrage is in line with the Constitution, and begs the question: is it fair to tax them without letting them voice their opinions at least to the local government?

Despite the general view among Korean residents that local suffrage would be desirable, there is a small but vocal minority that decries this idea as part of continuing attempts to assimilate them into Japanese society. These people regard any actions by the Japanese government concerning a change in their official status with suspicion, and perhaps justifiably so. We must remember that Koreans in Japan have undergone countless official attempts to eradicate their identity and cultural heritage, and so any governmental alteration in their status, no matter how small, might be seen as a justifiable reason for panic on their part. Even now, despite some changes in policy, the official government stance seems to be one of assimilation and elimination of any traces of cultural difference. This view is reflected by such actions as the encouragement by government officials for Korean residents to adopt Japanese names upon naturalization, even though such changes are not required.

In addition, granting local suffrage to permanent residents may simply be a hollow gesture on the government's part which will endear it to the international human rights community, but ultimately do more harm than good to those it is supposed to benefit. For example, as things stand now, most observers realize that Koreans in Japan have no say in local governmental matters, and so any issues that negatively or disproportionately affect them can be freely criticized and lobbied against. Conversely, once local suffrage is granted, we may find that such laws and ordinances will have attained legitimacy since, technically, the Koreans' voices were heard in their passage. Given the small percentage of Koreans within the Japanese population, they will, more often than not, make ineffective voting blocks. Allowing them the right to vote in local elections may do nothing more than legitimize legislation that might not otherwise see the light of day. Moreover, there are some who believe that the bill does not go far enough. Though permanent residents would be able to voice their opinions regarding who they want to represent them at the local level, they would not be able to run for those positions themselves. The logical corollary to allowing them to select their representatives would be to allow them to hold those same offices, for there is little theoretical difference between being allowed to vote and being allowed to hold office. In most democracies, the two ideas go hand in hand. Giving permanent residents local suffrage now could potentially block more progressive legislation that would give them greater civil rights in the future.

The current bills that have been proposed are also guilty of continuing to draw a false dichotomy between those Koreans classified as South Koreans and those who are affiliated with Chosen. Those affiliated with Chosen would be barred from voting under the proposed legislation, engendering ill will not only between them and the Japanese state, but also between them and South Korea-affiliated Koreans. Many Korean organizations oppose this legislation not because they do not favor local suffrage, but because it denies voting rights to a subgroup which is equally as deserving of those rights as any other group that is permanently residing in Japan.

As of October 1998, over 40% of all local governments had adopted resolutions requesting the suffrage of permanent residents for local elections. The Japanese people as a whole seem either indifferent towards this issue, or are nominally in favor of it. While this subject does not really concern them, the idea of national suffrage for permanent residents is an entirely different matter. On this issue, nationalist rhetoric about Japan being for 'real' Japanese takes center stage, and allowing anyone not 'truly' Japanese to have a say in the direction the nation should take is considered blasphemy. (But that is an issue for another day, and though it perhaps would make sense for permanent residents to be granted national suffrage, it is uncertain whether many would vote, given their apparent alienation from matters of national importance.) Suffice it to say that with regard to local suffrage for permanent residents, most Japanese would not mind it, or may even minimally support it.

Indeed, if the National Diet passes a subsequent version of last year's bill, one last point that should be considered would be the government's motivation in so doing. It appears that such an action on the part of the various political parties reveals a desire to press for the internationalization of Japan, and is more a gesture towards those who would become permanent residents than an apology to those who already are permanent residents. It is unfortunate when the government refuses to admit that its actions should be an acknowledgement of and atonement for past wrongs, and instead glosses over the passage of such a monumental bill with rhetoric about future globalization.

In the final calculation of whether or not suffrage for local elections should be granted to permanent residents, the government should consider all the following points. First of all, the involuntary nature of the arrival of most Koreans into Japan must be remembered, as must the subsequent reluctance of most Koreans to become Japanese nationals. Even those who seek to become naturalized face stiff barriers before being granted citizenship, and even then, they may continue to find it difficult to assimilate fully into Japanese society. Moreover, there are possible negative ramifications that could stem from the passage of this bill, including the adverse effect of believing that permanent residents' views are being represented where they are not, and the possible prevention of even greater civil rights legislation, such as the right to run for local office. In the end, however, the benefits that would accrue to both the permanent residents and to Japan itself outweigh the potential negative repercussions. Indeed, the granting of local suffrage would return an element of choice and dignity to a people whose history revolves around the curtailment of their freedom.