According to Kim (2013), in attempts to solve South Korea’s declining birth rate and to be more economically competitive, President Park proposed more lenient immigration rules. Such changes will make movement into Korea for foreigner talents more accessible. Korea’s immigrants have increased significantly over the years which includes not only foreign talents but also foreign brides. Foreign brides acts as a form of remedy to the delay in marriage and the declining birth rate. However, this has also pose social challenges. Koreans are less accepting towards foreigners where “89% of Korean adults responded that Korean blood ancestry was important to be recognised as a Korean” The descendants of a mixed marriage was viewed as not pure Koreans who received discriminations. Moreover, with the loophole in Korean law with regard to foreigners, they receive little or no protection. Such resistance towards foreigners may lead to a more serious ageing population just like japan and eventually economic contraction.
I agree with Kim (2013) to a large extent. In the article, he mentioned that there is a 5 years immigration plan that allow more liberal immigration. Such policies will help in in easier accessibility for foreigners to come into Korea. Though such policy is definitely the fastest way to get foreigners into Korea but it is a short term solution. Quoted from Kim, “you can’t reap the full benefits of immigration if you don’t integrate immigrants effectively”. Foreigners are the potential solution to the decline in birthrate and bringing in revenue, job opportunities and transfer skill set through their investments in the country. In the long term, with Korean’s resistive attitude and little protection for foreigners this will make foreigners feel difficult to integrate into the Korean society due to their elite mindset. Foreigners are not able to feel a sense of belonging and will still eventually leave as long as there are better opportunities elsewhere. This may in turn create more economic instability as investments can be pulled out anytime due to global competition which may result in massive unemployment if that were to occur. Moreover, with doors closed against foreigners, it may act as a deference for potential investors to even start up their company there.
Suggestions such as monitoring of and transparency in marriage-broker market are propose as solutions for falsehood among marriage for which brokers failed to absolutely authenticate. This helps in solving problematic marriages due to fraud right at the beginning. However, I feel that though this may help to minimise the impact it doesn’t solve the root of the problem. The reason why foreigners are vulnerable is ultimately due to the lack of protection by Korea’s law which result in issues like domestic violence and deportation.
Yet again, I understand there is difficulties to impose such laws in Korea. The resistance against foreigners are deeply rooted in the Koreans due to their idea of foreigners being more inferior compared to the locals. As such, I feel that the government should first start to bridge the gaps between the local and foreigners by language. As Koreans are proud of their culture and heritage, government could offers start up courses to new immigrants to teach them about Korea’s culture and heritage. At the same time, they could also offer Korean lessons to immigrants and english lessons to Koreans at a highly subsidised price so that this could minimise the language barrier between the two. Once they are able to at least communicate, through day to day interactions, any prejudice could at least be lessen. With prejudice reduced, there will be a better chance that the government could come up some sort of law that at least give foreigners some form of protection at the minimum even though it may receive discontentment among the locals.
Also, perhaps Korea government could learn some tips from Singapore which is a multi-racial community yet with such diverse culture we are all able to live in peace and harmony. Korea could adapt how Singapore make sure there are strict laws impose on racial insensitive comments made. This will help to reduce hatred, discontentment remarks made towards foreigners be less well-spreaded and make Koreans be more mindful of their words used against foreigners. The government could also make documentary about how foreigners are beneficial to the country such as taking up jobs that locals are not keen in and how they have contributed to Korea’s economy to make the locals more appreciative of them.
Of course, I understand that such strong prejudge against foreigners are not able to be completely eliminated within a day or two. In fact, it might take up a really long time, to even make locals be accepting of them. However, I feel that it is through the government’s conscious effort to kick start the acceptance, and after on passing on to the local level. If government does’t even care about the integration of the foreigners, who will be?
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