Chongryon

The General association of the Koreans residing at Japan (in Korean Jae ilbon joseonin chongryeonhaphoe , shortened in Chongryon , in Japanese 在日本朝鮮人総連合会, Zai nihon chōsenjin sōrengōkai ) gathers 35% of some 613,791 Koreans residing at the Japan. Chongryon, currently chaired by So Man-sul, constitutes one of Community main associations of the Korean Diaspora.

History

Korean immigration with the Japan is resulting from three migratory flux:

migrants come from the time of the occupation of Korea by Japan (1910-1945)
forced workers brought during the Second world war
refugees of war come to the Release, in particular islanders of Jeju fleeing repression anticommunist.

A governmental report/ratio reports that 93% of the Zainchiri (Koreans of Japan) present at this date came from the southernmost part of the peninsula.

Until 1945, the Koreans had Japanese nationality as subjects of the empire. At the end of the Second world war, their statute became ambiguous since there did not exist true State in the Korean peninsula. One thus recorded them temporarily as a Joseon (Japanese Chōsen, 朝鮮, 조선) the old name of Korea as a whole.

The declaration of independence of South Korea and the North Korea returned old nationality obsolete Joseon and it was allowed to the Koreans of Japan to choose South Korean nationality but not nationality North-Korean, because Japan recognized only South Korea as an only legitimate government for the whole of Korea, which led the Zainichi pro-Communists to keep nationality Joseon .

The Koreans of Japan established an association of the Koreans of Japan and socialist inspiration in 1945. It was prohibited in 1949 at the request of the allied occupying forces.

In 1952, Kim It-sung the leader North-Korean invited the zainichi socialist obedience to collaborate with the North Korea not to export the Revolution in Japan but to work with the Korean reunification. Thereafter Chongryon was founded on May 25th, 1955 by Han Deok Su a trade unionist of extreme left residing at Japan. Association formed with the wire of time a true company parallel in Japan equipped with its own educational and financial network and maintaining close links with Pyongyang of which it makes de facto office of embassy in the absence of official relations between the two countries. This typical location was installation with the tacit agreement of the Japanese capacity which does not have, until a recent date, ever announced a will of integration of the Koreans of Japan.

After the Nuclear test North-Korean of October 9th, 2006, the Japanese government took measures restricting the activities of Chongryon and process to arrests of several of its members. In March 2007, Chongryon announced that it was going to seize the Conseil of the human rights of UNO to protest against these measurements of repression which it considers founded on a Racial discrimination.

Economic activity

Very powerful, Chongryon directs eighteen professional associations and educational (young people, women, industrialists, tradesmen, teachers, intellectuals, believers…), thirty-eight business enterprises (of which Kumgang and more than the thirty percent insurance company of the plays of vertical billiards, or Pachinko, of Japan, without counting many restaurants of Korean grills or Yakiniku) and a central bank (Choshin, which account 188 branches distributed on the whole of the Japanese archipelago). This one was born from made prohibition with the Koreans, with the Release, to borrow money from the Japanese banks.

Relation with the North Korea

Besides the members of Chongryon give an important political and financial support for the democratic Popular republic of Korea, it exists institutional links between the two entities, six seats of the Parliament North-Korean being reserved to the leaders of Chongryun.

Financial flows of the members of Chongryon to the democratic Popular republic of Korea would have culminated at the time of the financial euphoria of the years 1980 with, until reaching two billion euros per annum according to certain unverifiable and, according to other authors, strongly over-estimated Western sources in fact. “The obligatory contribution monthly of the members lies between two thousand and four thousand yens, which does not represent large thing compared to the individual gifts, very fermements encouraged by methods with the margins of the gangster racket”.

Moreover, this help can be also interpreted as the recognition by the Koreans of Japan of the important material support that brings to them and their brought the North Korea, especially in the years of post-war period.

In the years 1950, Chongryon led a campaign to encourage Zainichi to emigrate in North Korea, which was highly denounced by the Mindan which organized hunger strikes and blockings of trains. Nearly 87.000 Koreans to Japan and their 6.000 Japanese wives emigrated in North Korea. Some of them signed petitions to go back to Japan and 10.000 emigrants were imprisoned according to a Japanese researcher [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_2003_Nov_3/ai_109563584]. The Mangyeongbong-92 ship twice established a maritime relation per month between Japan and the North Korea, thus allowing important exchanges of goods and people between the two countries, and this until the Nuclear test North-Korean of October 9th, 2006. Since then all the sea links were crossed by Japan in retortion.

Relationships to the Japanese Communist party

The orientation eurocommunist of the Japanese Communist party involved difficult relations with Chongryon which maintained orientations more orthodoxe These relations are today in process of improvement. At the time of the 20th congress of Chongryon, open on May 28th, 2004, Japanese the Prime Minister Koizumi addressed congratulations messages to association.

Representatives of the Japanese Communist party addressed a congratulations message to Chongryon at the time of the ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth birthday of association, organized in Tokyo in May 2005.

Relations with Mindan

The Mindan is the South Korean alter ego of Chongryon, it gathers the South-Koreans of Japan (either 65% of the Korean diaspora in Japan). The relative representativeness of the two organizations not reflecting the share of the Koreans of Japan originating in the North and the South of the peninsula: the more patriotic speech of Chongryon having allowed him than Koreans originating in the South of the peninsula is affiliated there, following the example majority of the Koreans of Japan originating in the North of the Peninsula.

Whereas the two organizations maintained a long time conflict relations because of military and ideological confrontation their respective countries, they signed, on May 17th, 2006, a Joint Declaration which falls under the prolongation of the North-South bringing together operated since June 2000. At the time of this meeting which was held with the seat of Chongryon, the representatives of the two organizations signed a joint communiqué of 6 points. They engaged on the way from now on of the peaceful co-operation and to combine their efforts to link the Korean community in Japan.

Educational role

Chongryon set up a complete Korean education system for his members, based on the same methods of teaching as in North Korea, of the elementary school at the university the pupils are thus immersed in a pedagogy taking again the ideology North-Korean, in primary education the schoolboys study " the childhood of the Large Kim Leader It Sung" the schoolboys as for them work on " activities of the large Kim Leader It Sung" as of 16 years the teenagers make meetings of Autocritique.

Japanese, taught according to the Japanese handbooks before 1973, from now on is practiced starting from editions come from Pyongyang what makes it possible to the pupils to take note of the Dialectique North-Korean in Japanese, of which give an account of the formulas such as seungyangi mije (wolves American imperialists).

In addition Chongryon manages professional associations in the field of education, in particular a league of the professors and a league of the young pioneers.

Diffusion of the ideas of Perches

Association North-Korean publishes a daily newspaper, the Choson Shinbo and this in 5 languages, reproducing the articles of the Rodong Sinmun of Pyongyang, it also has triweekly in Japanese, Chosen Jiho and about thirty periodicals. It publishes also many works of Kim Jong-il and of his/her father Kim Il Sung in order to diffuse the ideas of the Juche

Everywhere with Japan.,
We have our Chongryon,
Under the spangled banner of Perches,
We have our schools, with the large ones and beautiful buildings,
On each roof the flag of the democratic Popular republic of Korea floats,
In each class,
Is hung to the portrait of the Large Leader our father,
To become workmen of our socialist fatherland,
We teach to our language Korean!
We decided at the bottom of our heart,
With firmness and engagement,
Generation after generation,
Koreans of overseas,
To remain honest with our father,
The Large Kim Il Sung Leader,
Respected and liked,
Like in our Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.

It has in addition an Internet site People' S Korea

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