Korea has played an important role in the cultural development of Japan as records of the Heian period (8th to 12th century) and of the Nara period (7th century) show.

     It is said that in the 7th century, 1/3 of Japanese nobility were proud to claim Korean or Chinese ancestry. These Kikajin taught the Japanese about Indian and Chinese art as well as Buddhist and Confucian philosophical traditions.

     There are many archeological sites in Japan which reveal Korean cultural influences in the early periods. Interestingly, no archeological sites can be found in Korea that would tend to show Japanese influence in the cultural traditions of Korea. This is only to show that the Japanese claims of an older and more superior culture than that of Korea and China are baseless and historically unfounded.

      On the contrary, the aggressive role of Japan in the enslavement of Korea and China are well-established. Records of the Nara period show that the Yamato state (4th-6th century) waged war against several Korean kingdoms.

     Of a more recent vintage was the 7-year war of Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi as he occupied Korea on his way to conquer China. The period 1592-1598 is one where large areas of Korean civilization were left in ruins and which imbued the Koreans with an indelible early memory of Japanese brutality. In later centuries, Koreans would call new Japanese invaders as new "Hideyoshi warriors," which name carried a dreadful connotation.

     Koreans and Chinese captured during these wars were turned into slaves in Japan and stigmatized as outcastes. Thus marks the inauspicious beginnings of Korean discrimination in Japan. Together with Shinheimin and later the Burakumin, the Koreans were to be objects of Japanese racial and national discriminations.

      Again during the Meiji period (1868.19 12) Korea was to be invaded by Japanese. Initially, on the volition of the new industrialists eager to secure sources for natural resources for the burgeoning Japanese industries and as a ready market for Japanese goods, Japanese capitalists penetrated Korea. Korean nationalists promptly called the Meiji capitalists new "Hideyoshi warriors".

      The invasion of Korea was a project of some Japanese cliques who thought that like Western countries, Japan had a right to make Asia its own colonial possession. Fearing Western military reaction, however, the Japanese decided not to send military troops but investors to Korea.

      Towards the end of the shogunate and feudal reign Japan became aware of the fate of its neighbors, particularly China under the colonial yoke of Western powers, and were duly forewarned.

      Commercial treaties in 1858 and 1866 with the west opened Japan to foreign trade. The result of this almost unrestricted foreign trade was the flooding in of goods from the West to the ruin of growing Japanese handicrafts. The major source of revenues for Japan came primarily from land revenues to pay for ever increasing imports.

The Meiji period

      After the Meiji restoration in 1868, the new samurai class launched a radical re-structuring of the society to build a strong and prosperous Japan capable of renegotiating the unequal commercial treaties.

      Japan was now building the foundations of industrialisation. Western models were studied both in the areas of industry and defense. Industries were established to provide employment for the local population, provide markets for local producers and reduce imports. In the beginning, these industries were operated by the state but gradually these were transferred to private ownership.

      The other priority of Japan was to build a strong army. Firstly for internal control and later with designs to defend and expand its control beyond Japan. Under the slogan fukoku kyohei (rich country, strong army), the Meiji rulers launched an ambitious program of conscription. Conscription into the imperial army in the latter period was seen as a useful means to control internal uprisings from the impoverished peasants.

     It also allowed opportunities for indoctrinating conscripts of national values and racist attitudes towards Koreans and Chinese which gave justification for Japan to subsequently conquer Korea and other areas in Asia.

      Equality (not within but) with the Western imperialist powers pushed Japan to engage in two significant wars where she emerged victorious. First was the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 and then the Russo-Japanese War in 1909. It is interesting to note that in both wars, the Korean peninsula was one major bone of contention. In the words of Yamagata:

"our military preparedness up to this time has been used chiefly to maintain the line of sovereignty. . . Our present military strength is inadequate in maintaining our new line of sovereignty. It follows that it is inadequate for extending the line of advantage and being dominant in East Asia."

      In these two wars, interests of business, particularly those engaged in military munitions and shipbuilding profited heavily, under contract with government.

     In 1905, November, Korean foreign affairs matters were assumed by Japan and in August 1910 Korea was finally annexed to Japan. The attitude of the Western powers with this blatantly colonial action of Japan was one of silent consent with due consideration to her military capability and with hopes that the Western colonies remain untouched. For example, Manchuria for Russia and the Philippines for the USA.

Korea under Japan (1910-1931)

     Leaders of Japan believed that economic expansion to Asian markets and the capture of sources of raw materials were the pillars for domestic industrialisation and prosperity. This meant Japan had to "embrace" the adjacent territories of China, Manchuria, Korea and then later, the rest of Asia. It is not a new vision but an old dream that plunged it into the two previous wars.

     The shift from rural to industrial production in Japan resulted in massive migration of rural population to the urban industrial centers who hoped to find a better income and who sought to escape the oppressive rural situation existing at that period.

     Untold sufferings of Koreans in the hands of the Japanese aggressors earned the latter the title Bete Norie or number one enemy.

     At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Japan occupied Korea and several thousands of Korean peasants rebelled and were killed. Many thousands were also conscripted under the Japanese Imperial Army to fight in battlefronts in China. The forceful and brutal advances of the Japanese expansionists could not be repelled so that Korea was forced to enter an alliance with Japan in 1904.

     Tile succeeding agreements with Japan in 1905 signed by Korean officials under duress led to the usurpation of diplomatic prerogatives and then later on led to the setting up of a Japanese residency general in Korea thus, completing Japan’s political control over Korea. This was done with much bloodshed and resistance from the Koreans. About 17,000 "righteous army" volunteers of Korea were annihilated in the process.

     Japan then moved on to make Korea its protectorate and finally annexed it on August 29, 1910. The annexation integrated the Korean people as Japanese nationals in a forced ethnic conversion to make them "children of the emperor".

     The engagement of Japan in two expensive wars saddled her with food production problems and threats of rebellion from a large number of dissatisfied Japanese peasants who were pushed into poverty and oppression as a result of the war. This dissatisfied section of the Japanese populace were then made to share in the plunder of Korean people and resources by settling them in Korea itself. A land registration and investigation policy was implemented in Korea that dispossessed Korean farmers of their land which were in turn registered under the Japanese. The farmers were forced to go to the urban centers and to cities in Japan or to the frontiers in Manchuria and China to look for a livelihood.

      Forty five per cent of the productive lands of Korea were taken over by Japanese. Traditional lifestyles prevailing in many rural communities were destroyed while a feudal style of production was instituted. A policy of intensified rice production with a feudal style of rice allocations were imposed to feed the army and the population of Japan which was then engaged in war preparations and intensive industrial production.

      The increased rice production scheme (Sanmai Zoshoku) implemented by the Japanese regime was to maximize the extraction of rice produced in Korea. Under this scheme, rice production increased. However, the per capita consumption of rice of Koreans dropped greatly. At this period, 80% of the population in Koreas were farmers and 77% of them were tenants and were made to pay land rent of 50-70% of the harvest. Big landowners were mostly the Japanese.

      While the Korean peasants were made to produce large amounts of rice, these were shipped to Japan. This left the Korean people hungry and controlled. Korea’s economy was totally in shambles. Korea under the direct rule of the governor general and police forces enforced a system of military rule with impunity.

      This brutal regime of the Japanese was made possible with the tacit consent of the United States. In a peace treaty mediated by President Roosevelt between Japan and Russia, lie included the following principles:

     "Russia recognizes and admits Japan has noble interests in Korean political, military and economic fields and Russia will not interfere in Japanese control/supervision of Korea." In the same year, in a secret US-Japan memorandum, the conditions for Japan’s free hand in Korea were set out —"America will not oppose, and indeed recognizes Japanese domination over the Korean peninsula, but by way of compensation, Japan should give up any intention of invading the Philippines, leaving that country to American control."

                                                                         (from: Tempest in a Teapot - FEAT, Japan)

      Resistance from the Koreans continued. More and more Koreans were involved in a movement for independence. Militaristic rule of Japan brutalized the Korean people in physical, psychological and moral terms. It outlawed the use of the Korean language in public and forced the change of Korean names to Japanese. The idea was to erase any trace of Korean national culture and identity.

      The massacre of 7,645 Koreans in the March First Independence Movement in 1919 and the maiming of 45,562 others by Japanese police remains in the psyche of Koreans even today. Tens of thousands were rounded up and imprisoned.

      Meantime Japan pushed harder for industrialization in preparation for another war. By this time, the Korean population in Japan had risen from 3,989 in 1915 to 22,262 in 1918. The increase was due to the steady deterioration of the economy in Korea, the displacement of Korean farmers and the collapse of the rural economies of both Korea and Japan. This in turn was due to the relentless drive of Japan to become an industrial power.

     Koreans in Japan found themselves working mostly in coal and other mines, construction industries, steel mills and shipbuilding, performing the most hazardous tasks and suffering the most unsanitary working conditions, in areas as fan as Hokkaido and Sakhalin islands in the far north. Living and working conditions of the Koreans cannot be described in human terms. Numerous accidents that occured here victimized mostly Koreans and also Japanese workers of the lower class. Koreans provided the cheapest labour in Japan and to a large degree marginalized the conditions and opportunities of Japanese workers themselves. Enormous profits were realized by the Japanese new industrialists both in Korea and in Japan.

      Competition between the Korean and the Japanese workers in Japan did not help in the former’s situation. On the contrary, it abetted further discrimination and prejudice of Japanese against Koreans. So that another incident deeply carved in the memory of Koreans in Japan was the great Kanto Earthquake in the area around Tokyo on September 1, 1923. By this period Korean population in Japan had increased from 40,755 in 1920 to 59,865 in 1922. The fear of the Japanese authorities of civil disorder instigated them to spread rumours that Koreans were rioting against imperial authority, poisoning wells and starting fires. This rumour spread very rapidly and Japanese police and residents went into a frenzy of hunting down Koreans even merely on the basis of "accents in their language". About 6,660 Koreans (half of the Koreans in Tokyo at that time) were massacred either by police or by Japanese vigilantes. In fact, it was a period when Japanese authorities hunted down all oppositionists including the Japanese socialist leaders Oosugi Sakae and Kawai Yoshitura, who were murdered.

Korea as manpower pool for Japanese expansionism (1931-1945)

      The Manchurian Incident in 1931 was the turning point for both Japan and Korea. The end of the Sino-.Japanese War gave Japan territorial rights over Korea and Taiwan. Even at this early period Japan saw the imperialist logic of joining the Allied Forces in its expansionist scheme in Asia. In 1900 Japan had participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China and had joined the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1902. And in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the Allied Forces had conceded to Japan the former German territory of Shantung province in China. Japan was able to restrict the naval growth of the western powers while plotting to expand its interests in Manchuria where its Kwantung Army was stationed.

      On September 18, 1931, Japan expanded its territorial control and in March 1932 was able to establish a Japanese puppet state of Manchukou. This action put Japan under heavy attack by the League of Nations of the Allied Forces. This was followed by a series of assassinations of Japanese officials including Prime Minister Inukai by rightist elements, mostly young officers in the army. The vision of the early Meiji era was now coming into fruition.,

    The increasing military control by expansionist and militaristic factions in the Japanese government forebode serious problems on Korean people, in the 1930’s. Industrial expansion and the build-up of military installations in Japan paved the way for the large-scale conscription of labour power from Korea. The Korean population in Japan grew from 300,000 in 1930 to 960,000 in 1939, or an increase of more than 300%. When earlier, Koreans who came to Japan were single men and a few women, by 1939, 88% of Koreans in Japan lived in family units. Seasonal travel and work in Japan by Koreans became permanent residency.

      Korean labour was sent to the mines in Hokkaido, Fukuoka, Fukushima and Saga prefectures. They became "soldiers for industry". The Labour Mobilization Law was promulgated in August 1939, initially asking for Korean volunteers but later on conscripting them.

      The 1942 national mobilization plan included the more extensive use of Koreans especially in mining and stevedoring. Twenty two per cent of the miners in Hokkaido were Korean by March 1943. Military conscription was agreed upon in April 1942 and was to begin in 1944. The romusha (drafted labour) were used by Japanese navy from October 1942.

      Furthermore, the Japanese military carries the criminal record of having hunted down Korean women and forcing them at gunpoint to become "women volunteer corps" sent off as army prostitutes to ‘comfort’ Japanese soldiers in warfronts in China and later on in southeast Asia during the Second World War. Between 1938 and 1945, some 8,000 to 10,000 prostitutes were brought along by the Japanese Imperial army in their war. Eighty per cent (80%) of these women were Koreans. The Japanese drafted all Korean women 1 8 years and above as volunteers. About 200,000 of them were rounded up. The middle-aged were made to work in war supplies factories while the younger ones were forced to become prostitutes. Unable to bear the humiliation, many of them committed suicide. Japanese women were only for Japanese officers while the Korean women were fed to the common soldiers.

                                                                                     (from: an article by Yayori Matsui)

      According to statistics, the number of those drafted compulsorily from Korea to Japan reached 667,000 in 1939-1945. In addition, 724,787 Koreans were drafted to Sakhalin and to the Pacific islands and some 365,263 were conscripted as military personnel. On top of that there were 4,591,825 Koreans in Korea who were drafted into the military industries and public works bringing the total number to more than 5.6 million.

       By the end of the war there were 2.3 million Koreans in Japan. The testimony of one Korean conscript reveals the depredation Koreans received in Japan:

"Although I received notice of conscription seven times, I hid myself and avoided conscription everytime. But in February 1943, when I received the 8th notice, I was finally captured by a policeman and a village administration officer while I was in bed. I was handcuffed and taken to a provincial meeting place, and then brought forcibly to Japan. At the mines where I was conscripted, an accident had happened. The pit had filled with river water and about sixty Japanese workers had been killed. Since that accident, the mines had been closed down. Over 2,000 fellow Koreans had been forcibly taken to this mine. Our dormitory was surrounded by a four meter high wall; we were strictly watched to avoid escapes... . While I was in this mine, 12 fellow Koreans had been killed in accidents because of the roof (of the mine shaft) falling in, and because some workers had touched electric wires. I also heard that in neighboring mines fellow Koreans were being massacred. On April 15, 1945, Korea was liberated. Most of us went home to Korea without having received any payment from the Japanese companies we had worked in."

                                                                (from No Place In the Inn, CCA-URM)

Post-war rehabilitation and repatriation of Koreans (1946-1952)

      The end of World War II was both a liberating experience to Koreans in Japan as well as a dilemma following the geo-political re-arrangements that transpired in the Korean peninsula. When the victorious forces of the United States of America through the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) started to rehabilitate the Japanese economic and political system, it faced the formidable problem of the previously hidden situation of the Korean conscripts in Japan. The conflicting and ambivalent responses of the SCAP in regard to the "Korean" problem in Japan, reveals its almost total unfamiliarity with the historical development of the oppression of Koreans by Japan.

      Their inadequacy was aggravated by their own actions in Korea and their own interest in drawing a line of demarcation between itself and Soviet might, at the expense of the Korean people’s sovereign right to be unified. By dividing Korea and by imposing itself in the South, the United States became a party to the disenfranchisement of Koreans in Japan, who wished to go home to an independent and united Korea.

      Dictated by its own security interests, the U.S. made it extremely difficult for the Korean families of North Korea to subsequently join their Korean relatives in Japan.

Geo-politics

      The end of World War II saw the re-division of the world into "East and West". As the U.S. and Soviet armies sought to "liberate" Korea from Japanese control, their conflicting interests got in the way and led to the division of the peninsula. A foreign minister’s conference in December 1945 had agreed to "re-establish Korea as an independent state and develop the country on democratic principles." This was hailed by Koreans. But the reality of opposite interests forced the world powers to divide Korea. A bizarre account of the division of Korea was made by an American writer by the name of John Gunther. In "The Riddle of MacArthur"(London, 1951) Gunther quotes an eyewitness account of the Pentagon dilemma on Korea in August 1945:

"Several one-star generals hurried into the Pentagon shouting: ‘We have got to divide Korea. Where can we divide it?"

A colonel with experience in the Far East protested to his superiors saying: "You can’t do that. Korea is a social and economic unit. There is no place to divide it!"

The generals insisted it had to be done. Their answer was:

"We have got to divide Korea and it has to be done by four o’clock this afternoon!"

     And thus, Korea was divided. The U.S. and Soviet armies established 38 degrees North attitude (38th parallel) as a "temporary" demarcation line. The U.S. Army occupied south of the 38th parallel and acted as an occupation force, it blocked off traffic, cut-off transportation lines, communication and all travel to the North.

      Upon the overthrow of the Nationalist regime in China in 1949 and the growing conflict of U.S. policy in regard to the existence of "Communist China", the 38th parallel became a more "permanent line."

      The Korean war in 1950 ensued which ended in a stalemate whereby the 38th parallel became the boundaries of North and South Korea. The Korean people’s aspirations for a united Korea were thus dashed on the rocks of geo-political interests.

      In more recent years, Kim Dae Jung, a leading exponent of Korean unification commented: "Although countless patriots gave their lives to attain independence from Japanese colonialism, our liberation, in the final analysis was achieved apart from this struggle, by the U.S. victory over Japan."

Rehabilitation and Repatriation

      When the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers (SCAP) assumed direction of Japan in 1945, its main priority was the effective destruction of Japanese capacity to wage another war. This had to be done by redirecting the Japanese political system along a democratic road, rebuilding the war-torn economy and protecting the rights of the non-Japanese residents of Japan.

     On August 14, 1945, under emergency measures, SCAP "directed each police station to protect the lives and property of Koreans and to keep the Japanese and Koreans apart." Time objective to segregate the Koreans was apparently benevolent. On the other hand, it was to make easier the task of identifying the Koreans from the Japanese population and to effect the immediate repatriation of Koreans to their homeland. Thus, according to some records, up to 800,000 Koreans voluntarily left Japan from the period August 15 to November 30, 1945.

      The repatriation was a virtual exodus story where the ports of and near Shimonoseki and Hakata were crowded with Koreans expecting repatriation. Whole communities sprung up overnight while Koreans waited for ships that would take them back to Korea. Including those who had left by other ports, the expatriated population could total as much as 1 .7 million. In April 1946, a systematic transportation plan was established for Korean expatriates.

      The political and economic situation in Korea following the division of the country into North and South, however, abruptly stopped the flow of human traffic to Korea. In fact, many who had gone home to Korea found means to come back to Japan. Many of these Koreans were second and third generation Koreans who had found a hardy but sufficient livelihood in Japan. Although life in Japan was full of hardship, their economic livelihood there was nothing compared to the lack of prospects for a livelihood in both North and South, both having been devastated by war.

      It was against this problem that the Election Bill promulgated by SCAP on December 7, 1945, appears to be extremely prejudicial to those Koreans who had opted to stay and those who had decided to come back to Japan.

      Part of the political reforms that it intended to institutionalize, the SCAP-sponsored Election Bill provided:

"For the time-being, voting rights and the rights of being elected shall be terminated for those who do not come under the provisions of the Family Registration Law."

     The Bill was extremely prejudicial to the Koreans, Taiwanese and other non-Japanese nationals who had had a long-term residence in Japan. It must be remembered that under the rules attendant to the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910, and with the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese war in 1931, Koreans had been forced to take Japanese nationality. Such laws allowed Koreans some measure of formal political participation in affairs of Japanese society if not legal resident status in Japan. In practice, many Koreans had served in various capacities in lower government bodies during the colonial period.

     The Election Bill virtually cut off the Korean Japanese political voice and their political rights. More directives followed this bill.

     SCAP subsequently ordered all Koreans, Chinese, Ryukyuans and Taiwanese to register and provided March 18, 1946 as the deadline for the voluntary repatriation of aliens from Japan. Further, SCAP provided that all those who would fail to register forfeited their privilege for repatriation.

     On April 2, 1946, SCAP released a memorandum calling for the registration of all aliens who entered Japan after the end of the war.

     On November 20, 1946, SCAP clarified the status of Koreans. It provided that any Korean who had refused registration and voluntary repatriation, would fall under the jurisdiction of the Japanese law, henceforth.

     After the period of official repatriation was ended on December 31, 1946, there were still more than half a million Koreans in Japan.

     The Potsdam Decree No.270 (Imperial Edict) proclaimed the Alien Registration Ordinance on May 2, 1947 and in many ways reverted previous laws on alien registration. Article 11 states that Taiwanese and Koreans may be considered as aliens for the time being, under the discretion of the Ministry of Interior. The implication of this edict was that Taiwanese and Koreans living in Japan, having achieved Japanese nationality, could now be regarded as "aliens."

      With this new law, Koreans and Taiwanese stood to lose their rights to residency giving Japan sole discretion to accept or reject aliens, when the temporary period would have elapsed.

      Article 12 of the same edict stipulated that punishment of up to six months with hard labour or solitary confinement with up to $1,000 in fines will be meted to those who failed to register. The threat of mandatory repatriation forced many "aliens" to register.

      The apparent resentment of the Japanese in their ignominious defeat found expression in their attitudes and treatment of Koreans who were helplessly caught between the instability and poverty of their home country and the uncertainty of their status in Japan.

     These problems became more pronounced when Japan became independent from the SCAP. Without a third party mediating, Japan could now vent its full resentments on the non-Japanese Asian aliens in Japan.