Korea in the Age of Migration (1997)

The Republic of Korea is becoming a land of immigration and must prepare to manage population movements. Globally, industrial democracies have endeavored to better regulate migration but with mixed success. Regionally, the East Asia area is virtually certain to produce more international migrants than in the past. Local government responses are also examined along with two critical cases-German and Israeli absorption of sudden migrant influxes. A number of recommendations are made towards the end of Korea adopting a more comprehensive approach to management of population movement. In the Age of Migration (Castles and Miller, 1993), the Korean Peninsula remains largely terra incognita. Public policies pertaining to migrant and refugee flows have not figured centrally on domestic and foreign policy agendas. It is only quite recently that scenarios involving possible mass movement of people have appeared in debates over security. Nevertheless, Korea's trajectory is quite familiar to students of international migration. It is undergoing the transformation from a land of emigration to becoming a land of immigration. In addition to traffic jams and pollution, a major consequence of the Republic of Korea's(ROK) recent emergence as a democratic industrial power is the magnet-effect that relative prosperity and political stability exerts upon the less prosperous of the region. While the financial and political turmoil of 1997 may attenuate the process of Korea becoming a beckoning place for aspiring migrants in the region, indeed from throughout the world, the time has come for Koreans to think hard about how population movements ought to be regulated. The choices made by Koreans in coming years will significantly affect core Korean concerns: national security, reunification, the quality of Korean democracy and its bilateral and regional relations. The key feature in international migration to and from ROK is the pattern of declining emigration. The ratio of emigres to repatriating Koreans went from 19 to 1 in the mid-1970s to about 2 to 1 in 1994. Meanwhile, the ROK has experienced a significant influx of foreign workers, many of whom are illegally employed in the least desirable jobs. By 1990, there were an estimated 100,000 unauthorized foreign workers in the ROK. Some 55,000 such foreign workers reported to authorities during the amnesty of 1993 (Young-bun Park, 1994, 152). Moreover, the Korean diaspora, which refers to the millions of Korean citizens and ethnic Koreans residing outside of the Korean Peninsula, is in flux. Ethnic Koreans of People's Republic of China Citizenship, the so-called Chosun Koreans, already comprise about one-third of ROK's noncitizen population. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the cautious liberalization of the People's Republic of China's economy have helped shed light on the existence of large ethnically Korean minorities in Soviet successor states like Kazakhstan or in Chinese provinces across the Yalu River (Miller & Martin, 1996, 180-181). The possible migratory consequences of governmental collapse north of the thirty-eighth parallel are of the utmost national security concern to Koreans, their neighbors and allies. The post-Cold War period has been marked by sudden mass movements of populations to escape violence, oppression, starvation or unbearable living conditions. The Korean Peninsula may soon witness events similar to those experienced elsewhere when communist regimes collapsed. The parallels between Germany in 1989 and Korea are striking. Koreans therefore face multifaceted migration-related challenges as they approach the next millennium. They have passed a turning point and must now fashion public policies and strategies to regulate or cope with migration. Like other sovereign states, its policies and prerogatives should be contemplated in the global context in which they will take place, in their regional context and for how they will affect local governance. Two key comparative cases-Germany and Israel-merit particular scrutiny. Like so many others, Koreans must now grapple with unfamiliar questions. Who is a Korean? Who is entitled to enter Korean territory to take up residency? What rights should aliens in Korea possess? How should authorities balance employee complaints that they need foreign labor against concerns for maintenance of equitable labor standards and wages for Korean workers? How should authorities prepare for a possible mass humanitarian emergency in the north? What key trends and developments might usefully inform Korean policy making in the realm of migration so they can avoid the errors of others and promote the well-being of Koreans and migrants?