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The Republic of Korea (“South Korea”) requires male citizens to perform military service. U.S. citizens who also hold South Korean citizenship—those born in the United States to parents who are citizens of South Korea—are not immune from this requirement. Many dual citizens of the United States and South Korea, however, are not aware of their dual citizenship status, often because even their parents are ignorant of the fast-changing citizenship laws of South Korea. This Note proposes bilateral and unilateral solutions to provide better notification to U.S.-S.K. dual citizens who are unaware of their dual citizenship status to avoid scenarios in which a U.S. citizen is compelled to serve a foreign power with which the citizen has virtually no connection or allegiance.

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/volume-108-issue-4/2023/05/dual-citizenship-and-mandatory-military-service-republic-korea

Do foreigners who became South Korean citizens recently have to perform military service? It seems people who are dual-citizens are obligated to perform military service, but I am wondering if a foreigner who obtained citizenship is also obliged to perform military service. I tried to find an answer, but they come from websites like Quora and reddit, so they're not viable.

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  • The South Korean embassy redirects to this page, which contains info for second-generation citizens and multiple citizens. Perhaps, there is also something related to the case discussed in the Q.
    – Wag the mainstream media dog
    Commented May 29 at 13:08
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    According to Wikipedia "However, there currently is no law allowing non-ethnic Korean citizens conscription into the armed forces. All naturalized citizens and citizens not of partial Korean ethnicity have a choice of whether to enlist or not." So it might depend on whether you look "East Asian" or not.
    – James K
    Commented May 29 at 13:12
  • @JamesK - Military readiness is so important that they need everyone they can get to be ready to fight! Except, uh, women and people of foreign ancestry, obviously.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented May 29 at 16:27

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According to Wikipedia,

There currently is no law allowing non-ethnic Korean citizens' conscription into the armed forces. All naturalized citizens and citizens not of partial Korean ethnicity have a choice of whether to enlist or not.

It seems that until 2010, only those of at least partial Korean descent (including dual nationals) were permitted to join the military. An immigrant who was not ethnically Korean would not only not have been conscripted, he would not be permitted to volunteer.

The law was clarified then to allow Koreans of any ethnicity to serve in the military, but Wikipedia implies (without citation) that the conscription process is not applied to them. So it seems that, at least for "white" immigrants to Korea, they won't be conscripted. The situation may be different for (for example) the children of Chinese immigrants, who naturalised as Korean from a young age. The number of immigrants is small, and the processes for handling them may not have been developed.

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  • Any speculations about foreigners who are ethnically Korean? (e.g. born abroad from Korean emigrant parents) Also, Wikipedia has 60,757,657 pages, is there any reason not to share which page the "According to Wikipedia" comes from? That way we could check the page to see if "ethnically Korean" is defined, and check the source material upon which the Wikipedia article is quoted. I'm curious how "Korean ethnicity" is established, on whom lies the burden of proof - something feels slightly amiss here. Is there a Korean language version for this page, which might be clearer via google translate?
    – uhoh
    Commented May 30 at 22:12
  • The wikipedia source is weak. It discusses the change in the law to allow non-ethnic Koreans, but doesn't actually contain the answer to this question. I rather suspect that the numbers of immigrants is too low for the conscription people to have built systems for. So if Mike Smith moves to Korea, becomes a resident, and ultimately a citizen, he won't be consripted (even if his great great grandmother was Korean), simply because the systems for conscription don't anticipate it.
    – James K
    Commented May 30 at 22:41
  • On the other hand, if Mike's children (age 2 and 4) moved with him, and naturalised with him, they might be conscripted.... I've got no particular evidence for that, except some experience of how bureaucracies work
    – James K
    Commented May 30 at 22:42
  • An important cornerstone of Stack Exchange is that answers should draw from, and cite, authoritative supporting sources. Could you at the very minimum add a link to what you are block quoting in the "According to Wikipedia" section? Thanks!
    – uhoh
    Commented May 30 at 23:00

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