Zainichi Korean people

comprise ethnic Koreans who have permanent residency status in Japan or who have become Japanese citizens, and whose immigration to Japan originated before 1945, or who are descendants of those immigrants. They are a group distinct from South Korean nationals who have emigrated to Japan after the end of World War II and the division of Korea.

They currently constitute the second largest ethnic minority group in Japan after Chinese immigrants, due to many Koreans assimilating into the general Japanese population. The majority of Koreans in Japan are , often known simply as , who are ethnic Korean permanent residents of Japan. The term Zainichi Korean refers only to long-term Korean residents of Japan who trace their roots to Korea under Japanese rule, distinguishing them from the later wave of Korean migrants who came mostly in the 1980s, and from pre-modern immigrants dating back to antiquity who may themselves be the ancestors of the Japanese people.

The Japanese word "Zainichi" itself means a foreign citizen "staying in Japan", and implies temporary residence. Nevertheless, the term "Zainichi Korean" is used to describe settled permanent residents of Japan, both those who have retained their Joseon or North Korean/South Korean nationalities, and, even, sometimes, but not always, includes Japanese citizens of Korean descent who acquired Japanese nationality by naturalization or by birth from one or both parents who have Japanese citizenship.

Statistics

In 2019, there were over 824,977 ethnic Koreans resident in Japan. According to the Ministry of Justice, 412,340 South Koreans and 25,871 (those "Koreans" do not necessarily have the North Korean nationality) are registered in 2022.

History

Overview

The modern flow of Koreans to Japan started with the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876 and increased dramatically after 1920. During World War II, a large number of Koreans were also conscripted by Japan. Another wave of migration started after South Korea was devastated by the Korean War in the 1950s. Also noteworthy was the large number of refugees from the massacres on Jeju Island by the South Korean government.

Statistics regarding Zainichi immigration are scarce. However, in 1988, a Mindan youth group called Zainihon Daikan Minkoku Seinendan (, ) published a report titled "Father, tell us about that day. Report to reclaim our history" () The report included a survey of first generation Koreans' reasons for immigration. The result was 13.3% for conscription, 39.6% for economics, 17.3% for marriage and family, 9.5% for study/academic, 20.2% for other reasons and 0.2% unknown. The survey excluded those who were under 12 when they arrived in Japan.

Pre-modern era

While some families today can ultimately trace their ancestry to Korean immigrants, they were absorbed into Japanese society and are not considered a distinct group. The same is applicable to those families descended from Koreans who entered Japan in subsequent pre-modern periods. Trade with Korea continued to modern times, with Japan also periodically receiving missions from Korea, though this activity was often limited to specific ports.

Yayoi period

In late prehistory, in the Iron Age Yayoi period (300 BC to 300 AD), Japanese culture some Korean influence, though whether this was accompanied by immigration from Korea is debated (see Origin of the Yayoi people).

Kofun period (250 to 538)

In the later Kofun (250–538) and Asuka (538–710) periods there was some flow of people from the Korean Peninsula, both as immigrants and long-term visitors, notably a number of clans in the Kofun period (see Kofun period#Korean migration). While some families today can ultimately trace their ancestry to the immigrants, they were absorbed into Japanese society and are not considered a distinct group.

Heian period (794 to 1185)

In the records from Nihon Kōki, in the year 814, six people, including a Silla man called Karanunofurui (Korean: 가라포고이, Japanese: 加羅布古伊; presumed to be of gaya descent) became naturalized in Japan's Minokuni (美濃國) region.

Sengoku period (1467 to 1615)

Some Koreans entered Japan in captivity as a result of pirate raids or during the 1592-1598 Japanese invasions of Korea.

Edo period (1603 to 1867)

In the Edo period, trade with Korea occurred through the Tsushima-Fuchū Domain in Kyūshū, near Nagasaki.

Before World War II

After the conclusion of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876, Korean students and asylum seekers started to come to Japan, including Bak Yeonghyo, Kim Ok-gyun, and Song Byeong-jun. There were about 800 Koreans living in Japan before Japan annexed Korea. In 1910, as the result of the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, Japan annexed Korea and all Korean people became part of the nation of the Empire of Japan by law and received Japanese citizenship.

In the 1920s, the demand for labor in Japan was high while Koreans had difficulty finding jobs in the Korean peninsula. Thousands of Koreans migrated or were recruited to work in industries like coal mining. A majority of the immigrants consisted of farmers from the southern part of Korea. The number of Koreans in Japan in 1930 was more than ten times greater than that of 1920, reaching 419,000. However, the jobs they could get on the mainland of Japan were curtailed by open discrimination and largely limited to physical labor due to their poor education; they usually worked alongside other groups of ethnic minorities subject to discrimination, such as burakumin.

Before World War II, the Japanese government tried to reduce the number of Koreans immigrating to Japan. To accomplish this, the Japanese government devoted resources to the Korean peninsula.

During World War II

In 1939, the Japanese government introduced the National Mobilization Law and conscripted Koreans to deal with labor shortages due to World War II. In 1944, the Japanese authorities extended the mobilization of Japanese civilians for labor on the Korean peninsula. Of the 5,400,000 Koreans conscripted, about 670,000 were taken to mainland Japan (including Karafuto Prefecture resent-day_Sakhalin,_now_part_of_Russia.html" ;"title="Sakhalin.html" ;"title="resent-day Sakhalin">resent-day Sakhalin, now part of Russia">Sakhalin.html" ;"title="resent-day Sakhalin">resent-day Sakhalin, now part of Russia]) for civilian labor. Those who were brought to Japan were forced to work in factories, in mines, and as laborers, often under appalling conditions. About 60,000 are estimated to have died between 1939 and 1945. Most of the wartime laborers returned home after the war, but some elected to remain in Japan. 43,000 of those in Karafuto, which had been occupied by the Soviet Union just prior to Japan's surrender, were refused repatriation to either mainland Japan or the Korean Peninsula, and were thus trapped in Sakhalin, stateless; they became the ancestors of the Sakhalin Koreans.

After World War II

Koreans entered Japan illegally post-World War II due to an unstable political and economic situation in Korea, with 20,000 to 40,000 Koreans fleeing Syngman Rhee's forces during the Jeju uprising in 1948. The Yeosu-Suncheon rebellion also increased the illegal immigration to Japan. It is estimated that between 1946 and 1949, 90% of illegal immigrants to Japan were Koreans. During the Korean War, Korean immigrants came to Japan to avoid torture or murder at the hands of dictator Syngman Rhee's forces (e.g. Bodo League massacre).

Fishers and brokers helped immigrants enter Japan through Tsushima Island. In the 1950s, Japan Coast Guard secured the border with Korea, but apprehending illegal immigrants was difficult because they were armed while Japan Coast Guard was not due to the terms of the surrender of Japan after World War II. During this period, one-fifth of the immigrants were arrested.

In Official Correspondence of 1949, Shigeru Yoshida, the prime minister of Japan, proposed the deportation of all Zainichi Koreans to Douglas MacArthur and said the Japanese government would pay all of the cost. Yoshida stated that it was unfair for Japan to purchase food for illegal Zainichi Koreans, claiming that they did not contribute to the Japanese economy and that they supposedly committed political crimes by cooperating with communists.

Loss of Japanese nationality

Immediately following the end of World War II, there were roughly 2.4 million Koreans in Japan; the majority repatriated to their ancestral homes in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, leaving only 650,000 in Japan by 1946.

Japan's defeat in the war and the end of its colonization of the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan left the nationality status of Koreans and Taiwanese in an ambiguous position in terms of law. The Alien Registration Ordinance (, ''Gaikokujin-tōroku-rei'') of 2 May 1947 ruled that Koreans and some Taiwanese were to be provisionally treated as foreign nationals. Given the lack of a single, unified government on the Korean Peninsula, Koreans were provisionally registered under the name of ''Joseon'' (Korean: , Japanese: ''Chōsen'', ), the old name of undivided Korea.

In 1948, the northern and southern parts of Korea declared independence individually, making ''Joseon'', or the old undivided Korea, a defunct nation. The new government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) made a request to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, then the occupying power of Japan, to change the nationality registration of Zainichi Koreans to ''Daehan Minguk'' (; Japanese: ''Daikan Minkoku'', ), the official name of the new nation. Following this, from 1950 onwards, Zainichi Koreans were allowed to voluntarily re-register their nationality as such.

The Allied occupation of Japan ended on 28 April 1952 with the San Francisco Peace Treaty, in which Japan formally abandoned its territorial claim to the Korean Peninsula, and as a result, Zainichi Koreans formally lost their Japanese nationality.

The division on the Korean Peninsula led to division among Koreans in Japan. Mindan, the Korean Residents Union in Japan, was set up in 1946 as a pro-South offshoot of (League of Koreans in Japan), the main Korean residents' organisation, which had a socialist ideology. Following the May Day riots of 1952, the pro-North organisation was made illegal, but it re-formed under various guises and went on to form the "General Association of Korean Residents in Japan", or Chongryon