ABSTRACT
Northeast Asia (especially Japan and South Korea) is a key part of the East Asian migration system. Not only do Japan and South Korea supply many of the well-educated foreigners now found in most of the largest cities in Southeast Asia and China plus, but they are the origin of many of the foreign students and highly skilled workers in the high-income countries of North America, Europe and Australasia. Above all, the global reach of Japanese and South Korean professional, technical and managerial employees reflects the global scale of those countries’ companies – the Toyotas, Hyundais, Hitachis, Sonys and Samsungs of this world. Yet at the same time, Japan and South Korea are two of the most important
destinations for migrants from other East Asian countries. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the countries of Southeast Asia (plus Korea in the case of Japan) represent the main source countries of foreign permanent residents. This is so despite the fact that both countries’ governments have, over the whole post-war period and despite very low birth rates, set themselves firmly against large-scale immigration. The other two countries in Northeast Asia could hardly be more different.
North Korea remains a country of essentially zero immigration, and of escapees rather than emigrants (since permission to leave is not normally given). The Soviet Union between 1945 and 1990 was almost equally closed to migration in and out, but since its collapse and the end of the Cold War, migration across the borders of Russia has returned, and some of these movements have become highly politically controversial.
