The was a violent confrontation which occurred in between rival gangs near the
Shibuya Station
is a railway station in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, operated jointly by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Keio Corporation, Tokyu Corporation, and Tokyo Metro. With 2.4 million passengers on an average weekday in 2004, it is the fourth-busiest c ...
in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, Japan. The years after World War II saw Japan as a defeated nation and the Japanese people had to improvise in many aspects of daily life. In the chaos of the post-war recovery large and very lucrative
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
s opened throughout Japan. Various gangs fought for control over them. There were also many non-Japanese "third nationals" in post-war Japan. These
"third nationals" or "third-country people" were former subjects of the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
whose citizenship then transferred to other countries like
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
. The Shibuya incident involved former Japanese citizens from the Japanese province of
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
fighting against native Japanese
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...
gangs. After the fight, the
Chinese nationalist government stepped forward to defend the Taiwanese.
Background
Post-war Japan
The
air raids left millions displaced in urban centers, and food shortages, created by bad harvests and the demands of the war, worsened when the importation of food from Korea, Taiwan, and China ceased.
Repatriation of Japanese living in other parts of Asia only aggravated the problems in Japan as these displaced people put more strain on already scarce resources. Over 5.1 million Japanese returned to Japan during the fifteen months following October 1, 1945.
Alcohol and drug abuse became major problems. Deep exhaustion, declining morale, and despair was so widespread that it was termed the .
Inflation was rampant and many people turned to the black market for even the most basic goods.
Black markets
The black markets were among the first economic entities to spring up after the defeat of Japan. People who were desperate for food and basic necessities turned to the black market with its inflated prices as the official lines of supply and stores had either been destroyed or had nothing to sell. Four days after the
surrender of Japan
The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...
on August 14, 1945, the Ozu gang placed an ad in newspapers asking for factory owners, who up to that point only sold to the military, to come to gang headquarters and discuss distribution of their products.
In
Shinjuku
is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...
, Tokyo, the Ozu gang then created a large market near the station and by had an enormous sign with 117 hundred-watt bulbs advertising its location; it was so bright that it could be seen from several miles away.
Profits were huge, and the vendors – who were known as "peanuts" – earned as much as 50 yen a day (by comparison, teachers were paid a monthly salary of 300 yen).
Other gangs followed suit and all over Japan open-air markets sprang up. About 30% of those working in the markets were "third-country people".
Third-country people
After the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
's surrender, the territories it had controlled (often for decades) were broken up to form new countries, like
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
and
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, or
occupied by Allied Powers. In response, the Japanese government regarded peoples of these places as foreigners, though they still had Japanese citizenship. Many thousands of these people had decided to emigrate to Japan. They were called "third-country people" or "third-national people" (''daisan-kokujin'' in
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
).
With no work for even the Japanese and with thousands of refugees returning from the former colonies every day, there was little chance for third-country people to find work and so they turned ''en masse'' to the black markets and other underworld activities.
Turf war
With vast amounts of money to be made and simmering racist undercurrents, fights for control of the markets were probably inevitable. In fights broke out between Taiwanese gangs and a Japanese
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...
group,
Matsuba-kai
The , meaning "Pine Needle Society," is a yakuza organization based in Tokyo, Japan. The Matsuba-kai is a designated yakuza group with an estimated 360 active members as of 2020. . Outside the Shibuya police station over a thousand Matsuba members fought hundreds of Taiwanese gang members with clubs, metal pipes and some small firearms. Seven Taiwanese were killed and thirty-four wounded. The Japanese police suffered casualties too: one policeman was killed and another injured.
The Japanese public were outraged by the chaos and blamed the non-Japanese Asians and the incompetence of the Japanese police.
Tensions between the Korean and Taiwanese communities mounted.
More than forty Taiwanese men were arrested in connection with the incident, but their cases were quickly taken up by the Chinese component of Allied command in Tokyo.
The men were given a very public trial and the Japanese government was also forced to put the Tokyo policemen who were involved in the incident on trial, something that was unheard of in Japan.
The trial resulted in thirty-five convictions; sentences were either hard labor or deportation. The trial put a spotlight on the Chinese population in Japan; the Chinese used their influence in Allied command to grant special status to ethnic Chinese, and gave them special rights including extra rations, a privilege that was not granted to ethnic Koreans.
In media
*In the killer,
Yoshio Kodaira
was a Japanese serial killer, serial rapist, and war criminal who murdered at least 8 people in the Tokyo and Tochigi Prefecture areas between 1932 and 1946.
Kodaira killed his father-in-law in 1932 and later raped and murdered at least 7 wom ...
, in ''Tokyo Year Zero'', by
David Peace
David Peace (born 1967) is an English writer. Best known for his UK-set novels Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002), '' GB84'' (2004), ''The Damned Utd'' (2006), and '' Red or Dead'' (2013), Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novel ...
, the book describes the fight and the police reaction to it.
References
Sources
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751 pp.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shibuya incident
Conflicts in 1946
1946 in Japan
June 1946 events in Asia
1940s in Tokyo
Occupied Japan
Postwar Japan
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
American military occupations
History of Tokyo
Organized crime conflicts in Japan
Yakuza