Naturalization in Japan
And other ways aliens have become Japanese
By William Wetherall
First posted 10 March 2006Last updated 1 April 2006
How people have become Japanese depends on what period of history we are talking about. Naturalization as a legal process did not begin the very end of the 19th century, though kika -- the word adopted in the 1899 Nationality Law for "naturalization" -- had been used for over 15 centuries to mean "change of allegiance" -- its basic meaning even now.
Japan's history is full of examples of various ways in which people have come to be affiliated with the country and thus qualify as Japanese. See the article called Nationality in Japan, 2006 for a fuller discussion of nationality before the enforcement of the 1899 Nationality Law. See also the article on Sugiyama v. Japan for more details on how the 1950 Nationality Law came to be revised as what I call the 1985 Nationality Law.
Here I will focus on changes in ways in which aliens have become Japanese over the past century.
Naturalization today
An alien who wishes to secure one's legal status in Japan has three choices:
1. Renew a renewable alien status indefinitely
a. Remains an alien and continues to need a sponsor
b. Must petition for permission to change occupation
c. Must obtain reentry permit to return2. Obtain status as a permanent resident
a. Remains an alien but no longer needs a sponsor
b. Is free to engage in any employment without permission
c. Has access to public housing some other services
d. Acquires right to vote in some local polities
e. Continues to require reentry permit to return3. Become Japanese
a. Gains Japanese nationality
b. May have to renounce other nationalities
c. Can fully participate in national life
d. Can even be a prime minister
Naturalization is arguably the easier way to go for aliens who have to qualms about giving up their original nationalities -- if they have any, for some people who naturalize are stateless.
An alien can apply for naturalization after being domiciled in Japan for five years -- which has been the global standard for over a century. This basic condition is relaxed or even waived for some applicants.
Permanent residence
Special permanent residence is easily obtained upon application by anyone who qualifies under peace treaties as (1) a former Japanese subject who was domiciled in Japan when World War II ended, and who lost their Japanese nationality because of the treaty, or (2) a Japan-born and domiciled descendant of such a person. Most special permanent residents are Republic of Korea (ROK) or legacy Chosen nationals, distantly followed by Republic of China (ROC) nationals, and even more distantly followed by nationals of several other states.
Most aliens who seek status as permanent residents today, including Koreans and Taiwanese who migrated to Japan after the war, will be candidates for general permanent residency. Obtaining general permanent residence status requires a little less legwork and paperwork than naturalization. Though some individuals are permitted to apply earlier, in principle one must have been domiciled in Japan for at least ten years.
Both special and general permanent residents enjoy many of the freedoms of activity and other advantages of nationality. However, neither kind of permanent status permits full (local and national) if even limited (local) suffrage. And many civil service jobs are restricted to Japanese.
However, naturalization conditions are somewhat relaxed for special permanent residents. And in other ways, too, special permanent residents are beginning to be more favorably treated than general permanent residents.
For futher discussion of the development of types of permanent residence status, and trends in permanent residence status, see the articles on permanent residence under Foreigners on the menu to the left.
Conditions of naturalization
The conditions for naturalizing in Japan have always been on a par with those of most other states. Since 1899, one has had to (1) have been domiciled in Japan (one's primary address has been in Japan) for five or more years consecutively, (2) be 20 years of age or older and be legally competent according to the laws of one's own country, (3) be of good conduct, (4) be able to support oneself and one's family, and (5) have no nationality or be able to lose one's nationality when acquiring Japanese nationality. Since 1950, one has also had to (6) be willing to avow that one has never advocated the overthrow of the Japanese Constitution or government.
The 1985 Nationality Law relaxes one or more of the six general conditions for an applicant (1) who is a child of a person who was a Japanese national, or (2) who was born in Japan, or (3) whose father or mother was born in Japan, or (4) who has resided in Japan (one's primary address has been elsewhere) consecutively for ten or more years. The conditions are further relaxed for a spouse of a Japanese national. They are relaxed even more for (1) a child (including an adopted child) of a Japanese national, (2) a former natural (not naturalized) Japanese national, and (3) a person who was born stateless in Japan.
Discretionary powers
The government has broad discretionary powers when it comes to naturalization. Paragraph 2 of Article 5 in present law expressly allows the Minister of Justice to permit an applicant to retain a foreign nationality and thereby become a dual national when (1) the applicant is unable to renounce the foreign nationality, and (2) special considerations are recognized in the applicant's family relationship with a Japanese national or in other circumstances.
Article 9 of the current law (Article 11 in the 1899 law) allow the Minister of Justice to outright grant nationality to virtually any "alien who has rendered especially meritorious service to Japan" [Nihon ni tokubetsu no koro no aru gaikokujin]. The present law requires approval of the national Diet.
By the numbers
Contrary to rumors, naturalization in Japan has been a comparatively uncomplicated, by-the-numbers bureaucratic procedure. Applications are handled by local legal affairs bureaus (homukyoku). The process begins with a personal interview. Most applicants can prepare the necessary documents within a few weeks or months. The total labor involved might come to only a week but be spread out over several months.
Once all documents have been filed, one simply waits. The whole process will typically take a year or so. Final permission to naturalize is granted by the Minister of Justice, who is legally obliged to announce the decision in Kanpo, the daily register of government business, published since 1883, and known in English as "Official Gazette".
Announcement in Official Gazette
Article 10 in the current Nationality Law, and Article 12 in the 1899 law, require that notice of permission to naturalize be announced in Kanpo or "Official Gazette". This daily register is the principle vehicle for making all manner of government announcement, including promulgations of laws.
Kanpo is published by the National Printing Bureau, and issues can be accessed on NPB's website. Practically every issue includes a page of fine print listing the addresses, legal names, and birth dates of aliens who have been permitted to naturalize.
The addresses come first -- making it easier for local officials to consult the list to confirm that someone residing in their locality has been permitted to be a member of a family register. Since members of families living at the same address typically naturalize together, their names and birth dates are listed together, in order of their dates, after their common address.
The same section of Kanpo includes announcements of foreign attorneys permitted to practice law in Japan, and lists of numbers and dates of Japanese passports which have been declared invalid -- among many other notices.
Kanpo is also the public bulletin board on which the government legally informs people who cannot be located, who risk losing their Japanese nationality, or have lost their Japanese nationality in absence.
As discussed in Naturalization since 1950 (see menu), there is more than one set of naturalization statistics. But the most authoritative data is based on Kanpo announcements, as they are considered final decisions.
It's not over until it's over
A successful applicant for naturalization receives a notice of permission to naturalize, as does the government of the locality in which the applicant resides. The notice authorizes the municipality (city, town, village) to record the applicant in a family register, at which point the applicant becomes Japanese.
In other words, neither the announcement in Kanpo, nor personal receipt of a notice of permission to naturalize, in and of themselves make one a Japanese national. One has to go to the local municipal hall and complete family registration procedures.
Each local government compiles statistics on the number of registered residents -- Japanese in family registers, and aliens in alien registers. When an alien becomes Japanese, there is a movement one group of registers to the other. The fact that the local population has changed -- one less foreigner, one additional Japanese -- is duly noted in the locality's annual reports to the prefectural government, which in turn are collated and submitted to the national government.
Hence Japanese resident register data shows numbers of people who have been added to registers through birth or naturalization, or have been removed from registers because of death, or because of renunciation or involuntary loss of nationality. See further details in Naturalization since 1950 (see menu).
Appropriate names
Much as been said about restrictions on names allowed people who naturalize (see also articles under section on "Names").
In the past, some applicants have been talked into adopting Yamatoesque names by civil servants who have taken extralegal Ministry of Justice administrative guidelines about post-naturalization names a bit too literally. In fact, no Japanese statute has ever prohibited the adoption of a putatively non-Yamato name, and several family court decisions have permitted the restoration of a Korean, Vietnamese, or other former name the petitioner claimed to have involuntarily lost when naturalizing. Katakana names have also long been acceptable.
However, Koreans and others who seek to naturalize are likely to have had personal, usually family, reasons to legally adopt a Yamatoesque name prior to naturalizing. And they are typically motivated to continue to use this name after becoming Japanese. Those who naturalize into an established family register, as typically happens when the naturalizing alien is married to a Japanese, have no choice but to adopt the family name associated with the register.
Naturalizers are in principle free to choose any name, so long as it consists of a family name followed by a personal name, and is written in standard Japanese script, meaning standard kanji (Sino-Japanese characters) and/or kana (Japanese syllabic script). No law has ever prohibited Chinese, Korean, or other names because of their implicit ethnicity. Standard kanji lists include most kanji that are used in Chinese and Korean surnames and personal names, but the kanji for some common names are not recognized.
While any name can be phonologically transliterated into kana, the non-recognition of certain kanji has forced some naturalizing Chinese and Koreans to adopt a new name. Japanese, however, are under the same kanji restrictions when naming their children, or when changing their names through a family court.
Who qualifies for naturalization?
Practically all general and special permanent residents and long-term residents -- and most aliens with visas that allow them to make their living in Japan -- who have shown a commitment to life in Japan -- could naturalize.
Koreans, Chinese, and other nationalities with special (peace-treaty related) permanent residence status would qualify for some degree of simplified (facilitated, eased) naturalization. The government has contemplated revising the Nationality Law to make it even easier for such aliens to become Japanese. There has also been some talk about adopting a provision, now common in European right-of-blood states, that would grant right-of-soil nationality at birth, or at a certain age, to children born in Japan to second generation alien parents. Those who think it important to maintain minority nationalities, however, see such measures as attempts to make Japan seem more homogeneous.
Opposition to easier Japanese nationality
The strongest opposition to unconditional Japanese nationality for special permanent residents, most of whom are Koreans, has come from Koreans. Some are opposed because they believe that former exterior [gaichi] subjects who stayed in Japan, and their descendants, deserve suffrage and other privileges of citizenship as a matter of course. Others feel that making it too easy for such foreigners to become Japanese would undermine the drive for civil rights for other foreigners. Those who equate nationality with race, and regard becoming Japanese as a racial betrayal, view the idea of offering instant nationality as a ploy to "terminate" the already withering "Korean race" in Japan.
Naturalization statistics
Naturalization has been possible in Japan since 1899, and statistics have been available since 1904. See tables on Naturalization until 1950 and Naturalization since 1950 for everything I've been able to compile.
As of 2004, about 400,000 aliens have become Japanese through naturalization. Between 10,000 and 20,000 people are now naturalizing every year.
There is even a growing industry of paralegal services to assist applicants in collecting the required documents and translating foreign language material into Japanese. Rates vary from 100,000 to one-million yen, depending on complications. Naturalization will increase as more aliens resolve their own ambivalence about race and nationality, and as they discover that the rumors about unusual difficulty and discrimination are mostly exaggerated or false.
Naturalization from 1899
Naturalization [kika] has been possible in Japan since the first Nationality Law came into effect in 1899. It is only one of several ways of acquiring nationality other than at time of birth -- i.e., naturally.
An application for naturalization is essentially a petition to convince the competent minister (once the Minister of Home Affairs, now the Minister of Justice) that one would be a worthy member of Japan's nationality. It differs from other means of post-natural acquisition in that, after all objective conditions have been satisfied, the final decision to permit naturalization will be based on a qualitative assessment of worthiness.
Since naturalization is not considered a legal right, one does not qualify simply by meeting a set of objective conditions. Meeting some conditions may result in waiving others, but meeting all applicable conditions does not in and of itself result in in approval of a petition for nationality.
The 1899 Nationality Law essentially required a minimum of five years of continuous residence in Japan, as does the current law. Five years was then, and is still, an international standard.
Terminology
"Naturalization" is an elastic term that needs clarification. Since the 1950 Nationality Law, "naturalization" conflates several means of gaining nationality unnaturally that were not, under the 1899 law, called "naturalization". For the sake of historical accuracy, a number of earlier means of post-natural acquisition need to be differentiated from "naturalization".
Article 5 The 1899 Nationality Law provided five means of post-natural acquisition, the last of which was naturalization.
1. When one [the applicant alien] becomes the wife [tsuma] of a Japanese. This condition was first provisioned in 1873 by a Great Council of State proclamation (No. 103) which permitted Japanese to marry foreigners and allowed changes in nationality.
2. When one becomes the nyufu [entering husband, i.e., adopted husband] of a Japanese. This condition was also first provisioned in the 1873 proclamation, which allowed foreign wives and husbands to become members of family registers and hence Japanese. The condition was again stipulated in a law promulgated on 11 July 1898 (Law No. 21), which gave the Minister of Home Affairs the authority to grant permission to adopt an alien man as a nyufu. The term "nyufu" has long been used in customary and statute family law in Japan to mean a man who has married a female head of household. Such a man is featured in Futabatei Shimei's novel "Sono omokage" [In his image] (1906), translated by Buhachiro Mitsui and Gregg Sinclair as "An Adopted Husband" (1916)
3. When one is recognized [ninchi] by one's father, or mother, who is a Japanese. [Further provisions stipulated in Article 6]
4. When one becomes the adopted child [yoshi] of a Japanese. [Further provisions stipulated in Family Register Law]
5. When one naturalizes [kika]. [Further provisions stipulated in Articles 7-12]
When acquired through marriage (1 and 2), recognition (3), or adoption (4), nationality is said to be "derivative" in the sense that it is derived through a relationship, rather than through naturalization as such. Nationality at time of birth, based on a parental relationship, is also essentially derivative.
Unlike nationality acquired through naturalization, derived nationality is gained upon providing proof of relationship. To the extent that one has to file notification, acquisition is not automatic. But permission is granted on the strength of self-operating provisions.
The 1899 Nationality Law also allowed one to become Japanese when one's spouse or a parent acquired Japanese nationality. These, too, were forms of derived nationality.
Articles 13-14 -- Nationality acquired by a wife through one's husband's naturalization. Article 13 provided that the wife of a man who acquires the nationality of Japan will acquire Japanese nationality together with him, so long as there are no contrary provisions in the laws of her home country. Article 14 provided that the wife of someone who has acquired Japanese nationality, but who has not become Japanese in accordance with Article 13, may naturalize under more lenient conditions.
Article 15 -- Nationality acquired by a child through the naturalization of a parent. This article, like Article 13, was not applicable if it provisions were contrary to the laws of the applicant's home country.
Finally, the 1899 law provided for the recover [kaifuku] of nationality.
Articles 25-26 made it possible for (1) women who had lost Japanese nationality through marriage, (2) women and children who had lost Japanese nationality when their husband or father lost Japanese nationality, and (3) persons who had lost Japanese nationality through voluntarily obtaining the nationality of another country, to regain their lost nationality.
These provisions applied only to persons who had formally been natural Japanese -- i.e., those who had once acquired Japanese nationality at time of birth. Those who had naturalized in Japan and then lost their nationality were excluded from the recovery provisions. Permission to regain Japanese nationality was granted if an otherwise qualified applicant was domiciled in Japan.
Participation in national life limited
Article 16 of the 1899 Nationality Law limited the extent that naturalized persons, and people who acquired nationality derived through marriage or adoption, or through the naturalization of a parent, could participate in government. Specifically, they were not allowed to become:
1. A Minister of State [kokumu daijin];
2. The President, Vice-president, or member of the Privy Council [sumitsuin no gicho, fukugicho, mata wa komonkan];
3. An official by imperial appointment within the imperial household [kunai chokunin kan];
4. An Envoy Extraordinary or Minister Plenipotentiary [tokumei zenken koshi];
5. A general officer in the Army or Navy [rikukaigun no shokan]
6. The President of the Supreme Court [daishin'in-cho], the President of the Board of Audit [kaikei-kensa-in cho], or the President of the Court of Administrative Litigation [gyosei saibansho chokan];
7. A member of the Imperial Diet [teikoku kokkai no giin].
End of extraterritoriality
Foreigners who had become Japanese under the 1873 proclamation, such as Lafcadio Hearn as Koizumi Yakumo (Haun), had become members of family registers before 1 April 1899 when the 1899 Nationality Law came into effect. As such they were part of the initial determination of Japanese nationality -- the aggregate of all members of prefectural family registers as of the start of fiscal 1899 -- the day and were so were native born as far as the new law was concerned. Technically they could have held any office in the land.
The 1899 Nationality Law fulfilled the requirements of Article 18 of the 1890 Meiji Constitution, which stipulated that "The conditions necessary for being a Japanese subject [Nihon shinmin] shall be determined by law." While it was only one brick in the construction of Japan's legal competency in the eyes of Europe and North America.
Japan accepted extraterritoriality when it signed treaties with the United States and several European countries in 1858. On 16 July 1894, it signed the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Britain in London. The last remnant of legal inequality ended when the treaty came into effect five years later. From 17 July 1899, Japan was at last a fully sovereign state -- in complete control of its territory as well as its nationality.
Naturalization between 1898 and 1950
People with family registers in Taiwan between 1895 and 1945, or in Korea between 1910 and 1945, could not naturalize because they were effectively Japanese. The 1895 Shimonoseki Treaty provided that, in principle everyone domiciled in Taiwan would be Japanese, but a three year period was provide during which those who wished to confirm an alien (including Chinese) status could do so. Japan facilitated nationalization by introducing a localized version of the prefectural family registration law, and by extending the Nationality Law to the territory.
The annexation of Korea was much simpler regarding nationality. Since the entire territory and population of the country was incorprated into Japan, and there was no other Korean state with which Koreans could legally affiliate, there was no need to provide the preservation of Korean nationality. A recently enacted Korean population registration law, and customary laws, continued to operate. Japan introduced a localized version of the prefectural family registration law and elements of prefectural family law to Korea. The Nationality Law, however, was never formally exteneded to Korea. Since Korea was now part of Japan, Korean family registers simply began to be treated like prefectural registers regarding their dual function as national registers.
Naturalization from 1950
The 1950 Nationality Law subsumed practically all means of post-natural acquisition of nationality under "naturalization". As a result, the law now provides only three means of post-natural acquisition:
Article 3 -- Acquisition of nationality by legitimation [junsei ni yoru kokuseki no shutoku]. Nationality through legitimation is available to any qualifying child, meaning an applicant under 20 years of age, who has never been a Japanese national. The article is self-operating, which means that the applicant (or guardian) need only file notification (proof) that one has acquired the status of a legitimate child by reason of the marriage of one's father and mother and their recognition. At least one of the recognizing parents, either the father or the mother, has to have been a Japanese national at the time of the applicant's birth, and either is presently a Japanese national or was a Japanese at the time of his or her death.
Articles 4-10 -- Naturalization [kika]. All persons who are unable to acquire nationality naturally (at time of birth), or through legitimation while still a minor child, must naturalize as adults.
Article 17 -- Reacquisition of nationality [kokuseki no saishutoku]. Paragraph 1 of this article allows a minor who was born abroad to reacquire a nationality the child qualified for at birth but lost through failure of a parent to file notification of desire to reserve Japanese nationality for later confirmation. Paragraph 2 allows any person who has lost Japanese nationality to reacquire nationality upon notification within one year of the time one learns one has lost Japanese nationality. The person must be domiciled in Japan, and either have no nationality or be able to lose one's nationalities.
Scope of "naturalization" now broader
Though the 1950 Nationality Law explicitly did away with forms of nationality acquisition occasioned directly (by self-operation of the law) through marriage (1 and 2), recognition (3), and adoption (4), as had many other states at the time, in fact marriage, recognition, and adoption became causes for easement of naturalization.
Marriage and nationality
"Nyufu" disappeared as a provision in the law, and alien wives no longer can gain nationality through marriage. However, being either the husband or the wife of a Japanese now gives an alien who wishes to become Japanese a slight advantage when applying for naturalization.
Recognition and nationality
Paternal recognition is now possible only in conjunction with the second provision of Article 2, which stipulates that a child becomes a Japanese national when:
1. at the time of its birth, the father or the mother is a Japanese national;
2. the father who died prior to the birth of the child was a Japanese national at the time of his death;
3. both parents are unknown or have no nationality in a case where the child is born in Japan.
The recognition issue today is very contentious. A number of parents whose petitions for recognition have been refused have gone to court, with mixed results. Though the media tend to characterize the issue as having to do with standards of acquiring nationality, it is really about criteria for determining paternity. See Nationality in Japan, 2006 for a fuller discussion of how some attempts by some Japanese men to recognize a child born to a non-Japanese woman have failed because, under present rules, their recognition was too late.
Adoption and nationality
The 1899 nationality law made it possible to adopt even an alien adult into a family register as a biological or fictive offspring. Nishiyama Sen, the simultaneous interpretor, became Japanese in the 1930s by being adopted into his own mother's family register.
Nishiyama was born in the United States to parents who had immigrated from Japan. Under racist US nationality laws at the time, his parents were unable to naturalize. Though they still had family registers in Japan, they did not register Nishiyama's birth, he had no right to later activate what would have been a dormant Japanese nationality (as former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori did). When later in life Nishiyama went to Japan and decided to become Japanese, as a condition of employment, he did so by having his mother adopt him as a "yoshi" or "foster child".
Two hypothetical situations can be illustrated by considering alternatives to Nishiyama's case.
1. Had Nishiyama's mother somehow lost her Japanese nationality, then under the prewar (1899) law he would have had to naturalize. But conditions would have been mitigated by the fact that his mother had been Japanese.
2. Whereas if the postwar (1950) law had been in effect at the time, he would have had to naturalize even if both his parents had still been Japanese. But conditions would have been relaxed by this fact.
Naturalized persons now equal
The 1950 law did away with all limitations on the participation of such nationals in national life. Hence, since 1950, there has been no legal distinction been natural and naturalized Japanese -- except when nationality is lost. Naturalization is somewhat eased for former natural nationals.
In the United States, naturalized Americans are constitutionally barred from becoming president, whereas in Japan no laws would prevent a naturalized Japanese from becoming prime minister.