Also, no one comes after you to choose. Perhaps when you renew your passport, but I do know some Japanese people who just never filled out the paperwork to select a nationality, and continued with both citizenships. Kind of Schroedinger's passport.
What's your thoughts on the people who have citizenship and hold passports for dozens of countries? Would you consider them "citizens" of your country?
There's nothing outdated about it. Dual/multi citizenship is the weird concept here, it's used solely to skirt laws and taxation.
Why do your friends need Japanese citizenship?
Countries with diasporas to the US or other wealthy countries often permit dual citizenship because they want some of that diaspora to return, at least to retire, and bring some of that wealth back, and letting them keep their old citizenship leaves the door open for that.
Would they do that if there wasn't monetary advantages? Absolutely nothing is stopping them sending a remittance like many of the world already do. There's significant differences between jurisdictions for company rates and capital gains, that world really opens up with a few different passports.
Having lived in quite a few countries, I don't buy it, these people pick and choose as they please while others not able to get 2,3 or 7 passports pay for those folks benefit to extract as much as possible.
I'm with the Asian countries on this one, it's a sham. Many of my friends make jokes about this stuff and illegally hold dual/tri citizenship in the west despite their own country not recognising it, getting caught for that is quite hard.
>that diaspora to return, at least to retire
Is this not an admission that it's used to take money from other countries they once put hand on heart to support in a pledge of allegiance and go retire with $2/hr maids plus an on-call chef only to return for healthcare and pension reasons in old age? That's not a hypothetical, I've seen this unashamedly happen with friends parents.
This is absolute nonsense. There are many, many scenarios where people end up with dual citizenship that are entirely valid. Forcibly disenfranchising someone of their oftentimes born Right to be a citizen of a country is the Crime here.
I know people with Italian citizenship simply because of their grandparent. They've never once been to Italy, can't speak the language nor have any plans to do so, they mock their own culture all the time.
Meanwhile having lived there for a year and can handle the language reasonably well after that time, my chances for naturalisation are basically nil.
"Born right" is a hilarious concept.
Conflating these two cases and acting like the latter is the norm is such a nonsensical thing to say that it makes it clear you're arguing in bad faith, so I'm not going to respond any further to what you've said. You don't actually want to talk about this, you just want people to have your opinion.
You really think that people with dual nationality don't use whichever one suits them most in all sorts of matters regarding taxation, diplomatic assistance and travel?
To pretend that people won't try to gain whatever edge they can in life with the tools available is the nonsensical thing here.
A dual Malaysian/Australian citizen, which passport do you think they are using heading into LAX? Which passport do you think they will use visiting Iran?
Dual citizenship is a furphy, I'm with the Asian countries on this one. Choose a side.