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The politics of exclusion and acceptance concerning the return of the Koreans in Sakhalin -Focused on the return movement of Koreans in Sakhalin after Liberation until the mid 1970s-

  • The Review of Korean History
  • 2011, (102), pp.157-198
  • Publisher : The Historical Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Hyein Han 1

1상명대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this writing is to identify the logic and policies of Korea, Japan, Russia, and North Korea concerning the return of Koreans in Sakhalin immediately after Liberation from Japan until the mid 1790s. Koreans in Sakhalin were forced to move by the Japanese imperial policies during the colonial era. Starting from 1920s immigration to Sakhalin was enacted by force under the purpose of the development of Sakhalin, a policy of Japanese Imperialism. Or they were drafted by force to work as laborers to support the Japanese military at war. However they were abandoned in Sakhalin. The Russians who won Sakhalin after the war implemented policies for the Koreans in Sakhalin to be returned to North Korea at first. But because of the lack of labor force North Korea changed the policies for Koreans in Sakhalin to force them to reside there giving them citizenship and nationality. North Korea also had to take precautions against returning Koreans in Sakhalin regarding the political consideration to Russia. North Korea enforced the policy to encourage Koreans in Sakhalin to settle there by giving them North Korean nationality or to send the new labor force to Sakhalin. Both Russia and North Korea accepted the Koreans in Sakhalin as ‘citizens’ in order to share the labor force as well as to take the initiative at the ideological war against America, Japan, and South Korea. After WWII and the defeat of Japan the Japanese government reorganized its national identity and boundary. Enacting the policy of returning Japanese people in Sakhalin, the Koreans in Sakhalin were excluded because they were not ‘Japanese people’ though certain Koreans who were married to Japanese woman were accepted with the name of ‘companion’. However this act, which was composed to accept the Japanese women who had married Koreans as ‘Japanese people’, was definitely based on ‘Japan nationalism’. In case of South Korea, President Lee Seong-man’s government did not take the issue of the Koreans in Sakhalin as one of the matters coming from the Japanese colonial rules. Only in the throes of political competitive system with North Korea, South Korea requested the return of Koreans in Sakhalin, blaming North Korea’s ‘repatriation of Korean residents in Japan’. However this attitude gave Japan an excuse to abandon its compensational responsibilities after the war keeping its indifference and insincerity in the issue of Koreans in Sakhalin so that the Koreans in Sakhalin were consequently abandoned. It was 1966, immediately after the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea when the issue of returning Koreans in Sakhalin was dealt with earnestly. This was the Korean government’s countenance to the civil movement on the issue rather than a serious response to questions about Japan’s post-war responsibilities. This was also a way of reacting to the issue of Japan’s ‘repatriation of Korean residents in Japan’ to North Korea. Also it was used as a way to justify the government’s authority which had decreased due to the struggle against the Treaty. The Korean government tried to stay in power characterizing the issue as a problem between Russia and Japan and encouraging the public to have feelings of anti-communism as well as anti-Japanese sentiment. With this attitude the Korean government neglected the historicity of the Koreans in Sakhalin, which resulted in downsizing the number of Koreans to be returned to the compulsory mobilized (immigrated) Koreans just under the Japanese general mobilization order. The Korean government did not unanimously accept the Koreans in Sakhalin as its people. The Korean government regarded the Koreans in Sakhalin as being somewhere on the margin of ‘Korean’ identity, continuously checking and controlling their ideology, and recognizing them as ‘the other’ for securing its legitimacy and political system.

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