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The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan[1] (Chae Ilbon Chosŏnin Ch'ongryŏnhaphoe in Korean or Zai-Nihon Chōsenjin Sōrengōkai in Japanese), abbreviated to Chongryon[1] (Korean: 총련, Hanja: 總聯) or Chōsen Sōren (Japanese: 朝鮮総連), is one of two main organisations for Zainichi (or Jaeil) Koreans (long term Korean residents in Japan), and has close ties to North Korea (DPRK). As there are no diplomatic relations between the two states, it has functioned as North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan.[2][3]
Chongryon members primarily consist of those who have retained their nationality registration of Joseon (Japanese: Chōsen), as opposed to those who have chosen to take up either Japanese or South Korean nationality. Joseon nationality was a legal definition that the Japanese government developed in the aftermath of World War II, when the government of Korean peninsula was in an undetermined state. Prior to the end of World War II, Korea was administered by the Japanese government as being part of Japan, thus the legal nationality of Koreans, both in Japan and in Korea, was Japanese.
The other main organization is called Mindan, the Korean Residents Union In Japan, and consists of Zainichi Koreans who have adopted South Korean nationality. Currently, among 610,000 Korean residents in Japan who have not adopted Japanese nationality, 25 percent are members of Chongryon, and 65 percent are members of Mindan. Chongryon's strong links to North Korea, its allegiance to the North Korean ideology and its opposition to integration of Koreans into Japanese society have made it the more controversial of the two organisations in Japan.
Chongryon's headquarters are in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and there are prefectural and regional head offices and branches throughout Japan.
There are numerous organisations affiliated with Chongryon, including eighteen mass propaganda bodies and twenty-three business enterprises. One of the most important business sectors is pachinko. It also operates about 60 Korean schools and a Korean university, as well as banks and other facilities in Japan.
Its current Chairman, Seo Man-sul, and five other senior Chongryon officials are also members of the Supreme People's Assembly (North Korea's parliament).
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Long term ethnic Korean residents in Japan primarily consist of those, and descendants of, ethnic Koreans who settled in Japan as:
A 1953 government survey revealed that 93% were from the southern half of the Korean peninsula.
Until 1945, ethnic Koreans were Japanese nationals. The end of the Second World War left the nationality status of Koreans in an ambiguous position, as no functional nation existed on the Korean Peninsula. Their nationality was provisionally registered under the name of Joseon (Chōsen in Japanese, 朝鮮, 조선), the old name of undivided Korea.
The 1948 declaration of independence by both South and North Korea made Joseon a defunct nation. Those with Joseon nationality were allowed to re-register their nationality to a South Korean one; however the same did not apply to North Korea due to the fact that Japan only recognises South Korea as the legitimate government of Korea, so supporters of the North retained their Joseon nationality.
Ethnic Koreans in Japan established the Association of Koreans in Japan in 1945, which followed a socialist ideology, and was banned in 1949 by the order of Allied occupation army. The United Democratic Front of Korea in Japan was established in 1951, which was banned due to suspected involvement in the 1952 May Day riots.
In 1952, the North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung called on the socialist zainichi Korean movement to be coordinated in close contact with the North Korean government, and to fight, not for a socialist revolution in Japan, but for the socialist reunification of the Korean peninsula.
Chongryon was established on May 25, 1955 by Han Deok Su, who was an activist for leftist labor movements in Japan. (The pro-South Mindan had already branched off from the main organisation in 1946).
In the late 1950s, Chongryon conducted a campaign to persuade Zainichi Koreans to migrate to North Korea, which it hailed as a socialist "Paradise on Earth". The campaign was vehemently opposed by Mindan which organised hunger strikes and train obstructions. Some 87,000 Zainichi Koreans and about 6000 Japanese spouses moved to the North. This experience was detailed in Kang Chol-Hwan's autobiography Aquariums of Pyongyang. According to a defector, himself a former returnee, many petitioned to be returned to Japan and in response were sent to prison camps. Japanese research puts the number of Zainichi Korean returnees condemned to prison camps at around 10,000.[4][5] In 1990 Su-to Ha, former vice chief of organization for Chongryon who was expelled in 1972 for demanding democratic reforms, led a rally in Tokyo of 500 to protest against North Korea's human rights violations, in which protesters accused North Korea of holding the ex-Zainichi returnees captive in order to siphon money off remittances from their relatives in Japan.
The South Korean National Election Commission has considered to prevent Chongryon residents from voting in the 2012 South Korean Presidential Election.[6]
On their website, Chongryon claims that all their activities are based around the concept of Juche, the official state ideology of North Korea.[7]
Chongryon says it is committed to a peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula under North Korean Juche, and it does not recognise the Republic of Korea (South Korea). It refers to South Korea as Minami Chosen (Namjosŏn - "Southern Joseon"), as opposed to the usual term used in Japanese to refer to it: Kankoku (hanguk). (See Names of Korea).
Chongryon opposes the use of the Japanese word Kita-Chosen ("North Korea") as an abbreviation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It refers to the country as "kyowakoku" ("The Republic") or "sokoku" ("The Fatherland"). In 1972 Chongryon campaigned to get the Japanese media to stop referring to North Korea as Kita-Chosen. This effort was not successful, but as a compromise most media companies agreed to refer to the DPRK with its full official title at least once in every article. This policy was recently abandoned by most newspapers and TV stations, on the basis that other nations with naming issues such as South Korea (ROK) and Taiwan (ROC) aren't necessarily referred to by their official names.
Chongryon claims to be a representative body of overseas North Korean citizens living in Japan, and reject the notion that they are a mere ethnic minority.[8]
Out of the two main Korean organisations in Japan, Chongryon has been the more militant in terms of advocating retention of Korean ethnic identity. It is generally opposed to Korean-Japanese integration into Japanese society; for example it discourages its members from naturalising as Japanese citizens, or marrying Japanese (which it calls an "international marriage"). It even goes as far as rejecting zainichi Koreans' right to vote or participate in Japanese regional elections, which it sees as an unacceptable attempt at assimilation into Japanese society.[9] This is in contrast to Mindan, which is campaigning for wider zainichi Korean participation in Japanese politics.
Chongryon runs various support and advisory services for members, such as legal and marriage advice and employment help. It is also responsible for issuing North Korean passports.
Chongryon-affiliated organisations operate businesses and banks to provide the necessary jobs, services and social networks for Zainichi Koreans outside of mainstream society. Chongryon supporters are thought to control as much as one third of the pachinko industry in Japan. An important function of these enterprises is earning hard currency to be remitted to Pyongyang. These remittances have been estimated at between $600 million and $1.9 billion each year, but are probably much lower.[10] Chongryong also announced plans on March 17, 2010 to open three restaurants in Pyongyang; each restaurant will be managed by the main headquarter in Tokyo, the Kantō regional chapter, and the Kinki-Tōkai regional chapter.[11]
Chongryon publishes a newspaper (Chosen Shinpo) as well as various magazines and other publications. Websites run by Chongryon-affiliated organisations include the English language People's Korea. Chongryon also runs various cultural activities and sports teams representing its members.
Chongryon organises trips by members to North Korea, usually to visit relatives, as well as educational visits for students of Korean schools. They operate Mangyongbong-92, a passenger and cargo ferry which links Niigata in Japan to Wonsan in North Korea, which serves as the only direct link between the two countries, and is a subject of much controversy. The ferry was barred from entering the Japanese port for 6 months in response to North Korea's July 2006 missile tests and was banned indefinitely following the 2006 North Korean nuclear test.[12]
The Congress, the highest legislative organ of Chongryon, has met every three years since 1961 to discuss its agenda, the election of key leaders and its budget.
Chongryon operates 140[13] ethnic Korean schools (chosen gakko 朝鮮学校 or chosǒn hakkyo 조선학교) across Japan, including kindergartens and one university, Korea University, initially partly funded by the North Korean government. All lessons, and all conversations within the school are conducted in Korean. They teach a strong pro-North Korean ideology and allegiance to Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.[14] They are not classified as regular schools under Japanese law as they do not follow the national curriculum.[15]
Their militant stance is increasingly coming under criticism from pupils, parents and the public alike. The number of pupils receiving ethnic education from Chongryon-affiliated schools has declined sharply in recent years, down to about 15,000 in 2004 from a high of 46,000 in the early 1970s, with many, if not most, Zainichi now opting to send their children to mainstream Japanese schools. As of March 2010, there were 12 Chosen high schools with an enrollment of about 2,000 students.[16]
The schools were initially funded by North Korea, but this money has now dried up. Today funding comes partly from local Japanese authorities, but many schools are facing financial difficulties. The Japanese government has refused Chongryon's requests that it fund Korean schools, citing Article 89 of the Japanese Constitution, according to which use of public funds for education by "schemes not under public control" is prohibited. Chongryon calls this an act of racial discrimination. Funding from local authorities usually takes place in the form of special benefits paid to the families of pupils, as opposed to paying the schools directly, in order to avoid a blatant breach of Article 89. Mindan has also traditionally operated a school system for the children of its members, although it has been always been less widespread and organized compared to its Chongryon counterpart, and is said to be nearly defunct at the present time.
Another issue is an examination called the High School Equivalency Test, or daiken, which qualifies those who have not graduated from a regular high school to apply for a place in a state university and take an entrance exam. Until recently, only those who had completed compulsory education (i.e. up to junior high school) were entitled to take the daiken; this meant pupils of ethnic schools had to do extra courses before being allowed to take the exam. In 1999 the requirement was amended so that anyone over a certain age is qualified. Campaigners were not satisfied because this still meant graduates of non-Japanese high schools had to take the daiken. In 2003, the Education Ministry removed the requirement to take the Equivalency Test from graduates of Chinese schools, Mindan-run Korean schools and international schools affiliated with Western nations and accredited by American and British organisations. However this did not apply to graduates of Chongryon schools, saying it could not approve their curricula. The decision was left up to individual universities, 70% of which allowed Chongryon school graduates to apply directly.[17]
The North Korean government sponsored Chongryon schools for 50 years with "funds for educational support" and "scholarships" totaling around 46 billion yen.[18] The Japanese government has proposed covering the tuition for all private high schools in Japan, with the exception of the Chosen schools.[16][19] As the Chosen high schools are not being covered by the tuition support, there have been conflicts within the Chongryon whether to make amends of school policies or keep them as is.[20]
The Zaitokukai received criticism from the District Court for harassing Chongryon-affiliated schoolchildren.[21]
Until well into at least the 1970s, Chongryon was the dominant Zainichi group, and in some ways remains more politically significant today in Japan. However, the widening disparity between the political and economic conditions of the two Koreas has since made Mindan, the pro-South Korean group, the larger and less politically controversial faction.
In general, Chongryon is a declining organization primarily maintained by older Zainichi Chosenjin who appreciate the contributions the organization and the North Korean government has made to their lives, regardless of present political conditions. In comparison, third- and fourth-generation Zainichi Chosenjin have largely given up active participation or loyalty to the Chongryon ideology. Reasons stated for this increased disassociation include widespread mainstream tolerance of Koreans by Japanese in recent years, greatly reducing the need to rely on Chongryon, and the increasing unpopularity of Kim Jong Il even among loyal members of Chongryon. Many Zainichi Chosenjin also felt deeply betrayed by the North Korean government's recent admission that it had kidnapped at least 13 Japanese citizens over the years, because Chongryon had been categorically and fiercely denying for many years that the abductions had ever taken place. Whether the officials of Chongryon knew of the kidnappings or not, ordinary members of Chongryon who had believed the party line felt deeply humiliated and disillusioned upon discovering that they had been used as mouthpieces to deny serious wrongdoing by North Korea.
For a long time, Chongryon enjoyed unofficial immunity from searches and investigations, partly out of respect for its role as North Korea's de facto embassy, and partly due to its power as a political pressure group. However, escalating tensions between Japan and North Korea over a number of issues, namely its nuclear weapons programme and its abduction of Japanese nationals has led to a resurgence of public animosity against Chongryon due to its active support of the Pyongyang regime. Acts which Chongryon officials are suspected of include illicit transfer of funds to North Korea, espionage, and smuggling of technology and missile parts.
Since allegations of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme first surfaced in the early 1990s, Chongryon has frequently reported being targeted by hate mail, malicious phone calls, and numerous incidents. Chongryon facilities have also frequently been sites of protests by Japanese right-wing groups.
The Japanese authorities have recently started to crack down on Chongryon activities, moves usually criticised by Chongryon as acts of political suppression.[22]