The Korean Diaspora in Postwar Japan ─ Geopolitics, Identity and Nation-Building

The Korean diaspora living in Japan - the Zainichi - represent the only Korean migrant group that has not been granted citizenship by its host state. Yet despite being Korean nationals, with legal rights of abode in Korea, the Zainichi are culturally Japanese and have no intention of returning to their now divided homeland. The indistinct status of the Zainichi has meant that, since the late 1940s, two ethnic Korean associations, the Chongryun (pro-North) and the Mindan (pro-South) have been vying for political loyalty from the Zainichi, with both groups initially opposing their assimilation in Japan. Unlike the Korean diasporas living in Russia, China or the US, the Zainichi have become sharply divided along political lines as a result. Myung Ja Kim examines Japan's changing national policies towards the Zainichi in order to understand why this group has not been fully integrated into Japan. Through the prism of this ethnically Korean community, the book reveals the dynamics of alliances and alignments in East Asia, including the rise of China as an economic superpower, the security threat posed by North Korea and the diminishing alliance between Japan and the US. Taking a post-war historical perspective, the research reveals why the Zainichi are vital to Japan's state policy revisionist aims to increase its power internationally and how they were used to increase the country's geopolitical leverage. With a focus on International Relations, this book provides an important analysis of the mechanisms that lie behind nation-building policy, showing the conditions controlling a host state's treatment of diasporic groups.

Myung Ja Kim is currently a Teaching Fellow in Northeast Asian Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She completed her PhD at the Politics Department at SOAS where she received the Meiji Jingu Scholarship Award. Her MA in International Affairs was completed at the School of International Service, American University in Washington DC. She has been a guest lecturer in Korean Studies at Tubingen University and has published in the Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs. She founded and was President of the NGO, World Tonpo Network, Tokyo, an organization that seeks the peaceful unification of North and South Korea.