Aye Chan (ayechan@kanda.kuis.ac.jp) A few weeks ago, it was announced on a broadcast of BBC Burmese program that a Burmese national of the Rohingya ethnic group had been granted political asylum in Japan. We should be pleased with this sign of the Japanese government’s humanitarian attitude towards people who could face various kinds of dangers in their homeland, including death, regardless of their race, religion or nationality. However what concerns me in this case, as a native historian of Burma, is the ethnicity of the so-called Rohingyas. Who are the Rohingyas? This issue has been a problem for Burma since it gained independence from Great Britain.