Chances are you hadn't heard of Han Duk-su. The long-time chairman of Chongryun, the pro-North association of Koreans living in Japan, died of pneumonia in Tokyo on February 21 at the ripe old age of 94. Marking his passing, a little belatedly, is also an opportunity to look at his people. North Koreans in Japan are a fascinating and misunderstood group - and like their late chairman, arguably moribund.
Han Duk-su's long life encapsulates much of his community's history. For a start, like most members of Chongryun - also called Chochongryon in South Korea, or Chosen Soren in Japanese - being North Korean was a political choice. Geographically, he was a Southerner: from Kyongsang, in the southeast of a Korea not yet divided - but occupied soon after his birth by Japan. In 1927, the young Han went to study in Japan but soon got jailed for agitating for the rights of fellow Koreans working as slave labor.
At the peak, more than 2 million Koreans came to Japan: some freely, many forced. Most hastened home after liberation in 1945, but about 700,000 stayed on - only to face a new dilemma. In a now sundered homeland, two rival regimes fought for their loyalty. And guess what? Despite being geographically Southerners, the vast majority chose the North. (So, in a history long hidden, did many in South Korea, where the late 1940s were full of uprisings. On Cheju island, now the South's top holiday resort, up to 50,000 people - 20 percent of the population - were killed in a savagely suppressed peasant insurrection.)
In Japan, siding with Kim Il-sung wasn't fatal - but it made life even harder than being Korean in racist Japan had always been. You couldn't go home to South Korea. In fact you couldn't go anywhere. For decades Chongryun members were in effect stateless. But the one place you could go was North Korea, on a one-way ticket. In the early years 100,000 (and 6,000 Japanese wives) took the plunge - and suffered for it, being met not with thanks for their sacrifice but suspicion and discrimination for being foreign.
Their wiser brethren stayed in Japan, and often prospered. Barred by racism from most careers, many went into business, especially pachinko parlors. So in a further irony, these North Koreans of Southern origin became communist capitalists. Their profits helped Chongryun build an entire Korean education system, even a university. They also aided, traded with, and invested in North Korea. A decade ago, cheap men's suits from Chongryun joint ventures in the DPRK had a quarter of the Japanese market. Politically, unity plus language-based nationalism gave Chongryun the upper hand against its pro-ROK rival, Mindan, which in the bad old days was usually split into pro-government and dissident camps.
But that was then. Today Chongryun faces difficult challenges. Younger Koreans born in Japan speak mainly Japanese. Most would rather integrate than be the nail that stands out: up to 10,000 a year seek naturalization. Chongryun schools face falling rolls: its university teaches less "Kimilsungism" and more computing. Japan's long recession has hit pachinko profits and other businesses. Chongryun's banks are in trouble, and may even be bailed out by Tokyo. But a nicer Japan is seen as a threat. Thus while the ROK is pushing Tokyo to give Koreans the vote, the DPRK and Chongryun resist such integration.
Dilemmas like this cause tension within Chongryun. Han Duk-su's unwavering loyalty to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il is not universally shared. Many resent having to praise and subsidize a patently failed state. Lingering loyalty, plus fear for relatives in the DPRK, keeps most quiet. But desertion in droves by third- and fourth-generation Koreans - of some 670,000 Koreans in Japan, at most 150,000 now have any link to Chongryun - in 1999 sparked some self-criticism. Vice chairman So Man-sul blamed too much stress on politics and ideology, and called for more focus on the daily lives of ethnic Koreans.
Or is there more to this than meets the eye? In January a Japanese monthly published the alleged text of a 1999 talk between So and none other than Kim Jong-il. The latter criticized Chongryun for being inflexible and out of touch, and gave orders for a "charade of revisionism" to keep the young on board. Not that the dear leader has a high opinion of modern youth, remarking that "in the past the old smoked opium, but nowadays [it is] mainly the young". (He didn't add: and guess who grows the poppies?)
Typically, the conservative Seoul daily Chosun Ilbo slanted its report of this to echo Japanese smears that Chongryun is just a fifth column for Pyongyang. I find that unfair. Chongryun has done much that all Koreans should be proud of: in its schools, and in helping open up North Korea. Yet as it struggles to balance old loyalties with new realities, one must wonder how long it can now survive. Charade or no, Han Duk-su's likely successor Ho Chong-man, who has been de facto in charge for some time, will have his work cut out to keep Chongryun alive in a new century where most of what it used to stand for no longer has any real purchase. In 1945, misguidedly as it turned out, many Koreans in Japan viewed Kim Il-sung as embodying their future. Today their grandchildren have no illusions about Kim Jong-il.
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Booyeon Lee, "For Parents, Students, Heritage Trumps a Fading Ideology": <http://www.asahi.com/english/national/K2002110800247.html> -- Yoshie
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