2023, Vol.38, No.1

The Journal of Northeast Asia Research 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.75

pISSN : 2005-4432
https://journal.kci.go.kr/inas

This paper analyzes the changes in Koreans’ attitudes towards refugees and immigrants and in threat perceptions after the entrance of Yemeni asylum seekers in 2018 by using the 2015 and 2018 waves of Studies on Korea Multicultural Acceptability. A change in natives’ acceptability caused by an influx of asylum seekers can be attributed to increased economic and sociocultural threats perceived by the natives, which is related to ethnic competition hypothesis. On the other hand, decreased acceptability can also be attributed to increased socio-psychological threats perceived by the natives, known as sociotropic concerns. This study examines the changes in attitudes towards refugees and immigrants with respect to natives’ regions of residence, jobs, and income quintiles. Between 2015 and 2018, the attitudes towards refugees significantly decreased, and attitudes towards immigrants and job threat perceptions worsened among certain occupational groups. However, the changes were bigger in magnitude among natives with stable jobs, which implies that Koreans attitudes towards refugees and immigrants are influenced by sociotropic concerns.

Under China's permanent residency system, which began in 2004, only 9,000 green cards were issued by 2020, and disputes over related systems are also continuing to spread. In the debate, Chinese and related organizations are at odds with the general public in China, the former argues for the expansion of the system, and the latter argues that the green card is "super-national treatment" and reverse discrimination against the people. This study found that this controversy was related to the rigid family register problem in China, and analyzed the background and progress of the controversy, the interests of overseas-chinese residents and the problem. Since 1958, China has strictly controlled the freedom of residence and transfer of Chinese people based on the public purpose of managing population and distribution, maintaining social order, and controlling food supply and demand. However, according to the Chinese government's preferential policy, it was easy for overseas-chinese to acquire family registers in certain large cities, and in particular, foreign Chinese who were not "Chinese citizens" formed a "gray zone" where they could enjoy the rights of the people by expedient. Against this background, the expansion of green cards was understood as the legalization of gray areas, and the debate was bound to spread. The expansion of China's green card system presupposes the improvement of the Chinese family register system. Accordingly, the two systems are expected to operate as barometers to measure the intensity and level of each other's policies.

Exchange and cooperation between divided nation help maintain mutual peace, and in particular, exchange and cooperation in the human resource sector can have functional ripple effects while contributing to mutual economic and social development and stability. In this respect, China has achieved positive results through exchange and cooperation in the human resource field between the two sides, centering on Fujian Province, a local government. The results of such cross-strait cooperation can be seen as applicable or suggestive for Korea. The both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been working tirelessly toward reunification. As part of the efforts, exchange and cooperation in the field of human resources have been made. The starting point for cross-strait exchange was non-political fields, and today, it can be seen that great achievements have been achieved through strategic policies such as private-led and gradual approaches. In particular, there were support and cooperation at the central government level, but it is believed that the local government's approach to geographical, cultural, humanitarian, and historical levels and strategic approaches to pursuing mutual economic benefits were effective. This study concludes that the main success factors of the exchange and cooperation between the both side of the Strait are a gradual approach, a strategy to spread them from the private sector to the public sector, active support and cooperation from the central government, activism at the local government level, and policy strategy and scalability. These positive factors need to be actively used in exchange and cooperation in the human resource field between the two Koreas and refer to the activation of exchange and cooperation in the human resource field of our Korean people in the future.