Chongryon to go belly up?

by Robert Koehler on June 19, 2007

in Asides, East and Central Asia, Japan, Korean Diaspora, North Korea

The Chosun Ilbo (English) gloats over the impending death of Chongryon, the pro-Pyongyang association of Koreans in Japan. Joshua at OFK has more commentary, while Ampontan examines why Japan was in a position to put the “full-court press” on the North Koreans.

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Liberal Japan » Blog Archive » Chongryon issue, Ampontan and One Free Korea chime in!
June 20, 2007 at 7:42 am

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ut videam June 20, 2007 at 8:43 am

You’d think Ye Olde Chosun would be a little grateful to Japan for putting the screws to these guys, but they can’t resist getting their digs in:

Central headquarters is located in Chiyoda District, right in the center of Tokyo near the Imperial Palace and only 50 m from the militarist Yasukuni Shrine. (emphasis added)

2 hoju_saram June 20, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Good riddance to them.

3 SomeguyinKorea June 20, 2007 at 5:05 pm

Why are they gloating? Do they hope that they’ll catch a piece of the pie if and when Koreans in Japan turn to South Korea for help in creating a non-North-Korea-aligned replacement?

4 Uri Onara June 20, 2007 at 8:02 pm

The talk about their numbers dropping from 200,000 to 50,000 or so is misleading. These people haven’t gone anywhere. More are naturalizing and some have even changed over to South Korean nationality, while increasing numbers are distancing themselves from the org as well as pulling kids out of schools. But they are not leaving Japan (as much as Hoju Saram apparantly wishes). You can take the person out of Chongryun, but can you take Chongryun out of the person? Yet the whole “fifth column” rhetoric is sooo Park Chung-hee…

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