page_title: Koreans in Japan
section_title: Repatriation to Korea
hierarchical_section_title: Koreans in Japan / Repatriation to Korea
caption_attribution_description: English: Repatriation of Koreans from Japan日本語: 在日朝鮮人の帰還事業
context_page_description: Koreans in Japan 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 distinct group 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 Zainichi Koreans, often known simply as Zainichi, who are the permanent ethnic Korean 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.
context_section_description: Repatriation of Zainichi Koreans from Japan conducted under the auspices of the Japanese Red Cross began to receive official support from the Japanese government as early as 1956. A North Korean-sponsored repatriation programme with support of the Chōsen Sōren (The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) officially began in 1959. In April 1959, Gorō Terao (寺尾 五郎 Terao Gorō), a political activist of the Japanese Communist Party, published a book North of the 38th Parallel (38度線の北), in which he praised North Korea for its rapid development and humanitarianism; numbers of returnees skyrocketed. The Japanese government was in favour of repatriation as a way to rid the country of ethnic minority residents that were discriminated against and regarded as incompatible with Japanese culture. Though the United States government was initially unaware of Tokyo's cooperation with the repatriation programme, they offered no objection after they were informed of it; the US ambassador to Japan was quoted by his Australian counterpart as describing the Koreans in Japan as "a poor lot including many Communists and many criminals".
  Despite the fact that 97% of the Zainichi Koreans originated from the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, the North was initially a far more popular destination for repatriation than the South. Approximately 70,000 Zainichi repatriated to North Korea during a two-year period from 1960 through 1961. However, as word came back of difficult conditions in the North and with the 1965 normalization of Japan-South Korea relations, the popularity of repatriation to the North dropped sharply, though the trickle of returnees to the North continued as late as 1984. In total, 93,340 people migrated from Japan to North Korea under the repatriation programme; an estimated 6,000 were Japanese migrating with Korean spouses. Around one hundred such repatriates are believed to have later escaped from North Korea; the most famous is Kang Chol-Hwan, who published a book about his experience, The Aquariums of Pyongyang. One returnee who later defected back to Japan, known only by his Japanese pseudonym Kenki Aoyama, worked for North Korean intelligence as a spy in Beijing.
  The repatriations have been the subject of numerous creative works in Japan, due to the influence they had on the Zainichi Korean community; One documentary film about a family whose sons repatriated while the parents and daughter remained in Japan, Dear Pyongyang, won a special jury prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
  Some Zainichi Koreans have gone to South Korea to study or to settle. For example, author Lee Yangji studied at Seoul National University in the early 1980s.
caption: Repatriation of Koreans from Japan, January 1960
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