浪花直播

As this past June marked 70 years since the outbreak of the Korean War, the Japanese newspaper Kyoto Shimbun spotlighted untold stories of the Korean War experienced in US-occupied Japan. The story of 87-year-old Japanese man named Nishida Kiyoshi is heartbreaking. In September 1951, Nishida was arrested by the Japanese police for distributing 鈥渁ntiwar leaflets鈥� to US soldiers outside a US military camp in Otsu City. The leaflet鈥檚 message telling US soldiers not to go to Korea became an 鈥渙ffense prejudicial to the security of the Occupation Forces,鈥� and the Occupation鈥檚 provost court sentenced him to three years of confinement with hard labor. His affiliation with the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) apparently brought him more misfortune. After being arrested by the Japanese police, Nishida was handed over to the Occupation鈥檚 intelligence agency, and according to him, US military personnel 鈥� a White officer, a Black soldier, and a Nisei interpreter 鈥� interrogated and 鈥渢ortured鈥� him for the names of his Communist comrades.[1]

Image Credit

National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, Maryland, Record Group 331, Box 2294, Folder: Korean Incidents.

It was not only Japanese citizens that participated in 鈥渁ntiwar鈥� movements. Leftist groups of Koreans in Japan (known as zainichi Koreans) also fought against Japan鈥檚 collaboration with the UN/US war effort in Korea. Robert Murphy, the first postwar US Ambassador to Japan, wrote in his memoir that the Japanese government transformed the country into 鈥渙ne huge supply depot鈥� without which 鈥渢he Korean War could not have been fought.鈥�^[2] Zainichi Korean leftist activists organized themselves with the support of the JCP 鈥� and often under its instruction 鈥� and took to the streets to stop Japan from producing and sending arms to UN/US forces in Korea.

Image Credit

National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, Maryland, Record Group 331, Box 2275BB, Folder: Anti Occupation Activities.

As Nishida鈥檚 story informs us, leftist activists often had to pay a heavy price for pushing forward their 鈥渁ntiwar鈥� movements. Those arrested were sent to the Occupation鈥檚 provost court for trial, where a severe punishment often awaited them. While Japanese activists like Nishida were sentenced to multiple years of confinement with hard labor, zainichi Koreans often faced the additional punishment of 鈥渄eportation.鈥� For instance, the Asahi Shimbun reported on July 27, 1950, that two Korean college students who had been arrested for distributing 鈥渁nti-American leaflets鈥� were sentenced to deportation to South Korea, in addition to three years of confinement with hard labor. But, what happened to zainichi Korean leftist activists if they were deported to South Korea?   

From early to mid-1951, the Occupation authorities (SCAP) and the Japanese government discussed the possibility of deporting a group of a few hundred zainichi Korean leftists to South Korea. Colonel Jack Napier from the Government Section of SCAP commented:  

[A]t one time the [South Korean] Rhee Government expressed a willingness to take on all whom SCAP wished to send there, but it was generally understood that this would be sending the deportees to certain death.[3]

Indeed, severe punishment certainly awaited zainichi Korean leftist activists after their deportation to South Korea. The previously unknown story of four zainichi Korean deportees, which I have examined , illuminates how the practice of Cold War containment was mutually linked on the ground between US-occupied Japan and South Korea.[4]

On October 21, 1948, the Japanese police arrested leaders of a zainichi Korean leftist association named the 鈥淜orean Democratic Youth Alliance in Japan鈥� for displaying the North Korean national flag at their political rally in Osaka Prefecture. Previously, SCAP had banned the use of the North Korean national flag, and these zainichi Korean leaders were indicted for an 鈥渁ct prejudicial to the objectives of the Allied Occupation Forces.鈥� On October 25, a provost court in Osaka sentenced two leaders, Yi Y艔ngmun and An Minsik, to eight years of confinement with hard labor, followed by deportation.

On March 30, 1950, the zainichi Korean newspaper Haebang Sinmun reported that Yi and An, in prison garb, had suddenly been taken out of jail with two other zainichi Korean activists and transferred to a deportation camp in Nagasaki Prefecture on March 24. Concerned about what would happen to Yi Y艔ngmun after his deportation to South Korea, his elder brother Yi Py艔ngho travelled to Pusan, where deportation ships landed, and tried to find Yi Y艔ngmun鈥檚 whereabouts. According to Yi Py艔ngho, he found Yi Y艔ngmun incarcerated in Pusan Prison. A declassified list, over 1,000 pages long, of inmates who had been incarcerated in Pusan Prison in 1950 shows the names of Yi Y艔ngmun and the other three zainichi Korean deportees, along with the date of their incarceration (May 26) and a criminal charge of 鈥渢reason鈥� (naeranjoe) 鈥� a crime punishable by death.

Here, one sees how the Japanese government, US occupation forces, and the South Korean government collaborated on anti-communist countermeasures beyond their national borders. The story of the four zainichi Korean political deportees shows how deeply US-occupied Japan became intertwined with Cold War politics on the Korean peninsula before and during the Korean War.

---

[1] Kyoto Shimbun, June 28, 2020.

[2] Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 347.

[3] Committee on Countermeasures against Communism in the Far East, 鈥淢inutes of Fourth Meeting of Committee on Counter Measures Against Communism in the Far East鈥� (June 15, 1951), Folder: Committee on Counter Measures against Communism in the Far East, Box 2223, RG 331, NARA.

[4] Deokhyo Choi, 鈥淔ighting the Korean War in Pacifist Japan: Korean and Japanese Leftist Solidarity and American Cold War Containment,鈥� Critical Asian Studies, 49, 4 (December 2017): 546-568.