NCNK Issue Brief DPRK-Japan Relations: An Historical Overview

Printer Friendly Version

An Overview of Relations Between

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Japan

Background: Japan and Korea share a history of exchange and conflict dating back about two millennia. Extensive contact between Japan and Korea began during the 6th century AD when the Japanese adopted and adapted the Chinese writing system, religions, and government model, which via exchanges with the Korean Peninsula where they had already been adapted to Korean society. In 1592 and 1597, Japan launched unsuccessful invasions into Korea as a preliminary step to conquering China. After over 200 years of isolation during the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan re-opened in 1854 at the demand of the US government. As Western powers colonized East Asia throughout the 19th century, Japan revived its expansionary ambitions. In 1876, Japan forced Korea to sign the Treaty of Kanghwa, which opened up the country to Japanese diplomatic and commercial relations.^[1]

Colonial Period in Korea: In 1905, Japan defeated the Russian Empire in a war that ultimately gave it control of Korea.[*] After formally annexing the peninsula in 1910, Japan quickly implemented policies to construct a colonial establishment in Korea by appointing a governor-general and introducing a Japanese-style centralized bureaucracy, education system, and ruling elite.^[2] In 1920, a growing independence movement across Korea culminated in 1,500 anti-Japanese demonstrations, during which nearly 23,000 protesters were either killed or injured.^[3] With a foothold on mainland Asia, Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, sparking the beginning of the Greater East Asian War.

The progression of the war in East Asia, colonial expansion and the defense of Manchuria absorbed considerable Japanese resources, which Japan replaced with Korean resources. For example, the Japanese implemented policies to industrialize parts of the peninsula resulting in the development of a manufacturing sector in Korea that by 1941 represented 29 percent of the colony's GDP;^[4] Korea supplied Japan with steel, tools, machines and chemicals. Most of the heavy industry was concentrated in the northern half of the Peninsula, which later became the industrial base of the DPRK in the post-liberation era.^[5] The occupying Japanese also shipped large amounts of grains, primarily rice, from Korea to replenish depleted food supplies. As a result, Korea's own grain supplies diminished. By 1944, consumption had dropped 35 percent to 1912 levels,^[6] despite a 38 percent increase in rice production.^[7]

With so many Japanese young men conscripted to serve in the military, Japan suffered a lack of manpower towards the end of the 1930's and began recruiting, sometimes coercively, Korean men to labor in mines, battlefields, the Japanese mainland, and other locations. There were approximately 2 million^[8] Koreans living in Japan in 1945, of whom between 560,000 and one million^[9] were doing compulsory labor. In addition, from the early 1930's to the end of World War II, Japan conscripted over 200,000 mostly Korean and Chinese young women, euphemistically called "comfort women," to serve its soldiers at military instillations across its empire.

Tokyo also enforced an assimilation policy guided by the doctrine of naisen ittai^{[^]}, which sought to assimilate the Koreans forcefully into Japanese culture. To achieve its goal, the Japanese government mandated strict measures such as assigning Japanese names, promoting the exclusive use of the Japanese language,^[10] and banning the teaching of Korea's language and history.^[11]

Following the annexation of Manchuria, various left-wing resistance groups formed during the 1930's among the Chinese and ethnic Korean communities in the region, one of which was led by Kim Il Sung^{.[12][^^]} As Kim gained a reputation for being "one of the most effective and dangerous guerillas," the Japanese military forced the militant leader into exile in 1941 after a series of counterinsurgency campaigns.^[13] On August 15, 1945, immediately after Japan's surrender the United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean Peninsula at the 38th Parallel, creating a boundary between the Soviet occupation force in the north and that of the United States in the south.^[14] After receiving training at a camp led by Chinese and Russian communists along the Sino-Russian border from about 1941-45, Kim Il Sung, along with guerrilla comrades and Soviet troops, arrived in Pyongyang in 1945.^{[^^^]} As the prospects for unification dimmed, the south, headed by President Syngman Rhee, proclaimed itself as the Republic of Korea (ROK) on August 15, 1948, while the north, led by Kim Il Sung, announced the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on September 9 of that same year. Each government claimed to be the legitimate government of the entire Korean Peninsula.^[15]

The Korean War: On June 25, 1950, war broke out between the ROK and the DPRK when the North Korean People's Army invaded the South after several years of increasingly bloody frontier skirmishes along the 38th parallel.[16] As the South Koreans failed to repel the sudden and overwhelming attack by the Northern forces, the United Nations intervened into the conflict by passing a resolution on July 7, 1950 which recommended that "the members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security to the area."^[**][17] The resolution gave power to the United States to command the UN troops in the Korean Peninsula and General Douglas MacArthur, who was at the time the commander of the Allied Occupation Force in Japan, was appointed as the supreme commander.^[18] During the war, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, many South Koreans who had served in the Imperial Japanese Army during the colonial period joined the newly established South Korean army, while a great number of soldiers in the DPRK's Korean People's Liberation Army in were former anti-Japanese guerilla fighters.^[19] The United States, which led the Allied Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952, used Japanese counterinsurgency specialists with experience from the colonial period to combat North Korea's Communist forces.^[20] The Japanese provided logistical and transportation support to the US military, transporting supplies and personnel to and from the Korea Peninsula. By the end of the Korean War, the DPRK had sustained heavy economic and structural losses and 520,000 casualties.^[21]

Cold War Era Issues: Koreans remaining in Japan after Japan's surrender lost their status as colonial subjects, and many opted to return to the Korean Peninsula.^[22] However, several hundred thousand Koreans decided to stay in Japan due to the severe economic condition in their homeland.^[23] The majority of these Koreans initially identified politically with North Korea, despite their southern Korean origin.^[24] In coordination with US foreign policy, the Japanese did not establish diplomatic relations with neighboring North Korea. In 1955, North Korea assisted in establishing the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon in Korean, which serves as an advocacy organization for ethnic Koreans who identify with the DPRK and as the de-facto North Korean embassy in Japan.^{[^^^^]} This organization also facilitates most of the trade between the DPRK and Japan, representing most of the 140 joint ventures between the two countries.^[25] Between 1959 and 1982, Chongryon facilitated the "repatriation" of Korean residents in Japan to North Korea. Most of the more than 93,000^[26] "returnees" were originally from the southern half of the peninsula.^[27] Migration ceased, however, as economic conditions worsened in the DPRK. Relations worsened between the DPRK and Japan when Pyongyang granted asylum to members of a Japanese Marxist organization, the Japanese Red Army, after they hijacked a Japanese airliner and defected to North Korea in 1970.^[28]

Post-Cold War: After nearly half a century of disengagement, Japan explored the possibility of opening diplomatic relations with North Korea in the late 1980's.^{[^^^^^]} Following the Olympic Games in South Korea, Japan issued a statement of "deep regret and reflection" for the past unhappy history of relations with the North.^[29] In 1990, Japan sent a delegation to North Korea where a declaration on normalization was adopted by Japan's Liberal Democrat Party, the Japanese Socialist Party, and the (North) Korean Worker's Party. In 1991, formal Japan-DPRK normalization talks began but stalled by May of 1992 due to suspicions of North Korea's nuclear programs and Japan's reluctance to pay reparations for colonial era atrocities.^[30] Moreover, the issue of Japan's suspicion that North Korea had been involved in the abduction of Japanese citizens, raised during 1991 talks, was not resolved.^[31] North Korea denied the allegations saying that the claims were "an insult to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and an act to destroy the bilateral talks."^[32] In addition, North Korean spy ship encroachments into Japanese waters and the Nuclear Crisis of 1993-94 diminished progress that had been made in Japan-DPRK normalization negotiations.^[33] However, relations were temporarily improved when in December 1994 Japan agreed to help finance the KEDO project resulting from the Agreed Framework.^[34] When famine struck North Korea in 1996, Japan donated $6 million to Pyongyang.^[35]

In April 1998, the DPRK's state-run media, KCNA, warned, "The. . .forces of the DPRK will never tolerate any Japanese invasion," following a joint ROK-Japan agreement to send minesweepers to the Korean Peninsula in the event of an emergency.^[36] After North Korea launched a three-stage Taepodong 1 missile over Japan in August 1998, which the DPRK claimed was to place a satellite into orbit, Japan issued sanctions on North Korea and temporarily froze its financing from KEDO.^[37] After the launch, Tokyo and the United States initiated a joint-ballistic missile defense program in Japan, which formally began in August 1999.^[38] In September 1999, North Korea agreed to a moratorium on long-range missile testing will in ongoing bilateral dialogue with the United States.^[39] As subsequent nuclear negotiations progressed in 1999, Japan's diet approved a bill to provide $1 billion to finance the construction of two light water reactors in accordance with the Agreed Framework.^[40]

Six Party Talks: As the nuclear talks continued, Japan and North Korea conducted a series of bilateral meetings. In December 1999, then-Prime Minister of Japan Tomiichi Murayama and Diet parliamentarians visited North Korea with the goal to reestablish bilateral talks between the two countries.^[41] Japan and North Korea also held talks moderated by the Red Cross later that month in Beijing, during which the North Korean side stated that it would request the relevant institutions to undertake a thorough investigation of the abductee issue and the Government of Japan agreed that it would examine the issue of food assistance.^[42]

In September 2002, Kim Jong Il acknowledged and apologized for the kidnappings of Japanese nationals during the 1970's and 1980's, saying that it was carried out by "misguided" people in the military to learn the Japanese language and assume the identities of the abductees.^[43] However, the admission did not improve Japanese-DPRK relations. Instead, the Japanese public responded with horror to Kim Jong Il's confirmation of what had previously only been a rumor. This issue remains of great importance in Japan, prompting the Japanese government to condition diplomatic normalization on a resolution of the abduction cases.^[44]

In December 2002, Japan froze oil shipments mandated under the Agreed Framework and imposed additional sanctions as DPRK-US tensions increased over a possible DPRK HEU program.^[45] When the Six Party Talks regime was established the following year, Japan made the abduction issue its main national concern.^[46] In February 2006, Japan stated that it would refuse aid to North Korea in the absence of a guarantee to solve the abduction issue even if the Six Party Talks progressed.^[47] While talks were stalled over the Banco Delta Asia incident, the DPRK test-launched several missiles into the Sea of Japan on July 5, 2006.^[48] Japan followed UN resolution 1695 condemning the launch by imposing new financial sanctions against the DPRK.^[49] On October 9, 2006, North Korea tested a plutonium-based nuclear device,^[50] which led Japan to issue sanctions banning all imports and North Korean ships from entering the country.^[51]

In September 2007, Japan and North Korea held unsuccessful talks at a Bilateral Working Group meeting, during which each country clarified its position: North Korea insisted that the abduction issue has been settled and demanded reparations for colonial era atrocities, while Japan stated that the talks would not achieve anything unless progress is made on the abduction issue.^[52] The next month Japan renewed sanctions it had imposed on North Korea after the nuclear test the previous October.^[53] In September 2007, rumors arose of a deal between the United States and the DPRK to condition North Korea's removal from the US State Department's List of State Sponsor's of Terror on its progress in denuclearization,^[54] sparking protest from Japan.^[55] The following month a Japanese official during an interview said, "If the US moves while completely ignoring the abduction issue, you can expect that relations between Japan and the United States will not improve."^[56] Despite discontent in Japan over the plan to remove North Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in November 2007 during a visit with President Bush said, "the United States and Japan need to maintain close coordination to achieve complete abandonment of all nuclear weapons and programs by North Korea through the six-party talks."^[57]

Last updated January 22, 2008

End Notes