Lee Jae-myung "Xie Xie" Rekindles Controversy Over 'Chinese Voting Rights' [News Explanation]

⑪Recurring Controversy Over Foreigners' Voting Rights During Election Season
Foreigners Can Only Participate in Local Elections... Not Presidential or General Elections
Foreign Voters Account for About 0.3% of Total Electorate
But Number Has Increased 19-Fold Over 14 Years

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Ahead of the April 10 general election, the ruling and opposition parties clashed over the issue of 'reciprocity in voting rights.' When Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized the government's diplomatic stance toward China by saying, "Why bother China? Just say xie xie (謝謝, thank you)," Han Dong-hoon, emergency committee chairman of the People Power Party, countered by accusing the Moon Jae-in administration and Lee Jae-myung of pursuing submissive, China-biased diplomacy and raised the issue of voting rights for permanent residents. This was interpreted as pointing out that Koreans living in China do not have voting rights in local elections there, while Chinese residents in Korea do have voting rights in local elections.

The controversy over restricting voting rights for foreigners recurs every election. Han, during his tenure as Minister of Justice in 2022, also brought up discussions about limiting foreign voting rights. Within the People Power Party, lawmakers Kim Eun-hye and Kwon Seong-dong have argued that the voting rights held by Chinese nationals are unfair based on the principle of reciprocity. During the Moon Jae-in administration in 2020, a petition demanding the revocation of voting rights for Chinese nationals was posted on the Blue House's public petition board, garnering 210,000 signatures, but it was rejected by the government.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

◆ Targeting Chinese Votes in the General Election? 'False'... Foreigners Can Only Participate in Local Elections

The core argument for revoking foreign voting rights is 'diplomatic reciprocity.' Since Koreans are not granted voting rights in other countries, foreigners in Korea should also be denied voting rights. China does not guarantee voting rights to foreigners, while in the United States, only some cities like California grant local election voting rights to non-citizens. Countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark grant local election voting rights to foreigners regardless of nationality, whereas Germany, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic grant voting rights only to citizens of European Union (EU) member states.

The ruling party singled out Chinese voting rights because 80% of foreign voters are Chinese. The National Assembly Budget Office estimated that 79% of foreign voters eligible to participate in the 8th local elections in 2022 were Chinese.

However, it cannot be said that the opposition showed a pro-China stance in this general election out of concern for Chinese votes. Foreign voters are only guaranteed voting rights in local elections, so they cannot participate in this general election. This is why Han's raising of the Chinese voting rights issue in this general election is criticized as a political attack. Voting rights in local elections are granted under Article 15 of the Public Official Election Act to foreigners aged 18 or older who have held permanent residency for more than three years. In other words, foreign voters can only elect local council members and heads of local governments.

◆ Do Foreign Votes Decide Elections? 'False'... But Increased 19-Fold in 14 Years

Is it true that foreign votes have a significant impact on election results?

Foreign voters make up only 0.3% of the total electorate, so their influence is minimal. In the 8th local elections, the total number of voters including domestic voters, overseas Koreans, and foreign voters was 44,303,449, of which only 0.29% (127,623) were foreign voters. The turnout rate among foreign voters is also low. In the 5th local elections in 2010, the foreign voter turnout was relatively high at 35.2%, but it sharply declined in subsequent elections to 17.6% in the 6th and 13.5% in the 7th. The overall turnout rates were 54.5% in the 5th, 56.8% in the 6th, and 60.2% in the 7th elections.

However, the number of permanent residents eligible to vote in local elections is rapidly increasing. When voting rights were first granted to permanent residents in the 4th local elections in 2006, there were only 6,726 foreign voters, but this number increased to 127,623 in the most recent 8th local elections. This represents about a 19-fold increase over 14 years. Considering that elections can be decided by a few votes, the number of foreign voters can be considered significant.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's voter registry, 78% (100,008) of foreign voters (127,623) in the 8th local elections resided in the Seoul metropolitan area: 38,032 in Seoul, 51,243 in Gyeonggi Province, and 10,733 in Incheon.