China, Japan Strenthening Single Nationality. By Hyong-jin KWON
China, Hong Kong
The Communist Party government enacted the current Nationality Law in 1980 to resolve 'diplomatic friction' and 'end the divided loyalty among Chinese nationals'.
President Xi Jinping of China presided over the 10th meeting of the Central Finance Committee on August 17, saying that it is necessary to emphasize the redistribution of wealth and strengthening norms and controls for high-income earners. Analysts well versed in China's issues observed that China could fall into the frenzy of the Second Cultural Revolution, the same act 'to overthrow the land and divide the fields' during the Communist Revolution. Experts say that China's ban on dual citizenship is a measure to ensure that its citizens are fully loyal to the government.
The Xi Jinping government encouraged the public to report those who secretly held two passports. Those caught may be restricted from using public services. The crackdown of dual citizenship is part of the government's anti-corruption efforts against 'dual nationals taking advantage of the gray area of the law, trying to evade legal sanctions as a foreign national ... fleeing abroad and transferring assets'..
During the COVID-19 pandemic, citizenship issues came to the fore. In the midst of a cross-border crisis, the government suddenly faced the question of which citizens it should protect, and whom it should protect. Because China does not recognize dual citizenship, many Chinese have been barred from returning to countries of second nationality, even if they were their place of birth or residence. Families were often separated. 92% of China is Han Chinese. One of the easiest ways for a country to control its ethnic composition is through the types of single citizenship it chooses to recognize. In Asia today, the majority of countries do not recognize birth citizenship.
For the Chinese passport holders arriving to San Francisco inter. airport, the Biden administration, following Trump, takes more severe immigration procedures. If you are a US passport holder or PR card holder, you must file global income or capital gains income tax even if you do not reside in the US after age 5 and your residence is overseas. Whether you are American or Chinese, your nationality has nothing to do with your will. Regardless of an individual's talents, education, or aspirations, it is cabsolutely governed by his fateful nationality. In addition, it cannot be changed without acquiring in advance another nationality that can be substituted.
Hong Kong took stronger measures in February banning dual nationals from obtaining consular protection.
Japan requires people holding multiple passports to choose one by age 22.
Japan is one of 50 countries of single nationality. According to the current regulations, Japanese citizens who have acquired other passports should renounce their Japanese citizenship.
In January, plaintiffs argued that the rules violated the constitutional right to pursue happiness and protect equality under the law. (six men who had already obtained Swiss or Liechtenstein citizenship and two Japanese men who wanted to obtain foreign nationality without losing their Japanese passports) However, the Tokyo District Court dismissed the claim, arguing that the government had no national interest in allowing multiple citizenships.
The matter has been in the spotlight as tennis star Naomi Osaka, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father but grew up in the United States, rose to fame. Osaka had dual citizenship, but Japanese law forced her to give up her American citizenship when she turned 22 and she had to choose one nationality. Mixed-race, having lived in both Japan and the United States, and speaking both languages, the single-national opt-in is as brutal as asking if she loves her mother more or her father more.
In other famous case, an American-born Japanese-American dual national worked in Japan for a company that oversees American prisoners of war. Returning to the United States after the war, he was sentenced to death on treason charges and finally pardoned and exiled to Japan, but for decades Japanese lawmakers have referred to the case as 'an example of conflicting duties imposed on dual nationals.' While dual citizenship was at a disadvantage during wartime, in peacetime there are many advantages, including visa-free travel to more countries with dual citizenship, international employment opportunities, and potentially cheaper college education.
Immediately after World War II, in which
many Japanese Americans were imprisoned
in US prisoner-of-war camps, Japan drafted the current Nationality Act. Today's Japanese Nationality Act insists on today's outdated system even if the country requires global talents through free movement.
Japanese 'pure' blood racism
1,569 Korean Angry in Japan
When a non-Japanese naturalized Japanese citizen gives birth, the child automatically becomes a Japanese citizen, but in reality social attitudes and norms continue to surround ethnicity. 600,000 Koreans residing in Japan (Zainichi-Josen) are not granted Japanese citizenship and remain Koreans or Stateless.
Zainichi-Josen, Korean Japanese people who were either migrants from the colonial era (1910-1945) or their descendants but literally meaning 'foreign resident staying in Japan,' which makes no sense since there are often third, fourth, and fifth surviving generations of Koreans in Japan.
The majority of Koreans in Japan were repatrated to Korea upon Korea’s liberation, but roughly 600,000 individuals remained by the late 1940s. While Koreans technically had Japanese (second-class) citizenship under the Japanese empire, the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952 stripped all former colonized subjects of their Japanese citizenship. Because Japan did not have diplomatic relations with either North Korea or South Korea at the time, Koreans in Japan were made stateless.
After South Korea and Japan signed a normalization treaty in 1965, some Koreans in Japan were able to obtain South Korean passports; however, there are still some who remain effectively stateless, as they do not possess a nationality recognized by the Japanese government. Representative Zainichi Koreans and naturalized ethnic groups are bullying their peers at school and social exclusion of mixed-race Japanese continues. As they claim pure Japanese blood, it is racism and xenophobia because they are not 'pure' Japanese.
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