VZCZCXRO5621
OO RUEHFK RUEHGH RUEHKSO RUEHNAG RUEHNH
DE RUEHOK #0033/01 0430727
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 120727Z FEB 08
FM AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1010
INFO RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO IMMEDIATE 8150
RUEHKSO/AMCONSUL SAPPORO PRIORITY 0216
RUEHNAG/AMCONSUL NAGOYA PRIORITY 2330
RUEHFK/AMCONSUL FUKUOKA PRIORITY 0205
RUEHNH/AMCONSUL NAHA PRIORITY 0228
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0420
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 1125
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 0053
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 0022
RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 0111

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OSAKA KOBE 000033 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS PREL KN KS JA
SUBJECT: GREEN PASSPORTS, RED HEARTS?  KOREANS IN JAPAN 
 
REF: A) 1989 STATE 403761 B) 06 OSAKA 00238 C) 06 TOKYO 
00841 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary.  Ethnic Korean permanent residents in 
Japan are increasingly switching from GOJ-issued travel 
documents to ROK passports.  The ease with which ethnic 
Koreans can change nationality makes it difficult to 
assess ties to the DPRK and apply visa clearance 
requirements.  As this trend continues, it may become 
nearly impossible to assess these ties, particularly as 
the ROK no longer requires ethnic Koreans in Japan to 
renounce membership in pro-North Korean organizations 
to obtain a passport.  End Summary. 
 
Ethnic Koreans at Home in Osaka 
------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) Japanese permanent residents of Korean descent 
account for 16.9 percent of Post's third-country 
national visa applicants and pose unique issues for 
interviewing officers. The Osaka-Kobe consular district 
is home to about half of JapanQs ethnic Korean minority, 
which totals between 515,000 and 900,000 people, 
depending on how the group is defined.  Descended from 
Koreans who arrived during the colonial period and 
earlier, the 650,000 Koreans who remained after the 
second World War lost their claim to Japanese 
citizenship and were officially registered as nationals 
of "Chosen," (Korean: phonetic Cho-sen) the Japanese 
name for the Korean peninsular kingdom before 
annexation.  When the North and South divided in 1948, 
Chosen nationals were allowed to voluntarily re- 
register as nationals of the newly created Republic of 
Korea, but those on the political left typically chose 
to maintain Chosen registration, the choice being 
mainly a reflection of ideology rather than of a 
familyQs place of origin on the Korean peninsula.  An 
estimated 50,000 Chosen nationals currently live in 
Japan, 40,000 of whom are in PostQs consular district. 
 
¶3. (SBU) How to classify nationality Q as ROK, DPRK or 
something else - is the main issue the Chosen group 
presents in the context of visa adjudication, with 
implications for visa validity and whether special 
processing is required.  While the term "Chosen" has 
gradually become associated with North Korea, this was 
not a choice actively made by the Chosen population 
itself or often even by their parents' generation. 
The travel document they most often carry is one 
issued by the Japanese Ministry of Justice that 
classifies the bearer as nationals of Chosen Q a 
country that does not exist.  PostQs current practice 
is to classify bearers of these documents as XXX 
"Stateless," as this best fits the historical reality 
and distinguishes them from the relatively few holders 
of actual DPRK passports that we see (ref A). 
 
The Lure of ROK Nationality 
--------------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Complicating the picture, the Chosen community 
has been steadily shifting from GOJ-issued travel 
documents to South Korean passports since the beginning 
of this decade, with the trend accelerating in recent 
years.  In 2002, nationwide nearly 12,000 ethnic Korean 
permanent residents of Japan changed to ROK passports 
following DPRK's admission of involvement in abductions 
of Japanese citizens (ref B), and a representative of 
the Chosen community in Post's district reports that 
the figure has been around 4000 a year since that peak. 
Post's experience on the visa line tracks with this 
trend: whereas in 1998 Post issued approximately 1,700 
visas to holders of GOJ-issued travel documents, Post 
issued only 55 to this group in 2006, and the figure 
fell further to 31 last year.  Correspondingly, the 
Mission has noted an increase in applicants who have 
recently switched to ROK passports (ref C). 
 
¶5. (U) Line officers have found that ease of travel is 
the reason ethnic Korean applicants most often cite for 
switching from one travel document to another.  GOJ- 
 
OSAKA KOBE 00000033  002 OF 002 
 
 
issued Chosen travel document holders were largely 
barred from travel outside Japan until the early 1980s, 
and the travel documents still do not afford the same 
ease of travel as ROK passports.  Schengen visas, for 
example, may only be issued to passport holders. 
Manifesting the barriers this group has to surmount in 
order to travel internationally, it is not uncommon to 
find applicants who hold multiple types of travel 
documents.  Typically these will be a DPRK passport and 
a GOJ-issued travel document, but Post has also 
encountered applicants in possession of both a DPRK and 
an ROK passport.  These applicants rarely present any 
evidence of allegiance to either the ROK or DPRK and do 
not appear to view holding both passports as 
contradictory. 
 
Shifting Identities: The New "Ko-ri-ans" 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) In addition to ease of travel, the shift in 
travel document preference accompanies a relatively 
recent evolution in how ethnic Korean permanent 
residents choose to self-identify.  Whereas in the past 
the term "Chosen" was popular, members are now much 
more likely to call themselves "Ko-ri-an," using the 
Japanese pronunciation of the English word.  This 
change reflects a recognition that has become more 
conscious in recent years of a collective identity 
separate from that of both Japan and the two Koreas.  A 
backlash against DPRK misconduct, particularly the 
abductions issue, is also a major source of this change 
(ref B). 
 
Assessing DPRK Ties 
------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) The shift to ROK passports has made assessing 
ties to the DPRK much more difficult.  Before the shift 
away from GOJ-issued Chosen travel documents reached 
its current extreme, line officers could rely on 
possession of an ROK passport as an indicator of a lack 
of DPRK ties.  Now officers must be more discerning in 
evaluating ROK passport holders for clearance purposes. 
Good indicators of potential ties to the DPRK include a 
recent switch to an ROK passport, graduation from 
Chosen schools, self-employment, lack of a Japanese 
alias, and travel to China (often an indicator of 
transit to DPRK).  Active participation in Chosen 
membership groups such as the "Chosen Soren" (General 
Association of Korean Residents in Japan) and the 
"Chosen Shoko Kaigisho" (Korean Resident Business 
Association) is also considered a good indicator of 
potential DPRK ties. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Comment.  As the ethnic Korean applicant pool 
continues to exhibit changes in national identity, the 
need for an interview in order to determine how to 
apply visa clearance requirements has become ever more 
apparent.  Only just over one percent of PostQs ethnic 
Korean visa applicants was found to require clearances 
in 2007, yet within this one percent the ROK passport 
holders actually outnumbered the travel document 
holders.  According to Post contacts, even leaders of 
the Chosen membership groups are switching to ROK 
passports since they are no longer required by the 
Korean consulate to renounce Chosen membership to do so. 
As the day approaches when ROK nationals no longer need 
a visa interview, it may become impossible to determine 
the necessity for a clearance at all.  End Comment. 
 
RUSSEL