North Korea’s Propaganda for Repatriation of Ethnic Koreans in Japan and the Japanese Support for the Mass Emigration

After the end of the World War II, almost 1.4 million Koreans lived in Japan went back to Korea but there still were around 600 thousands ethnic Koreans living in Japan. From December 1959 to July 1984, about 93,000 Korean (including Japanese wives) repatriated to North Korea, while most of them originally came from southern part of South Korea. Studies of the ethnic Korean repatriation from Japan emphasize that economic, political and diplomatic benefits motivated North Korea to decide the repatriation, and underline active roles of the Japanese government, the Japanese Red Cross Society and International Committee of the Red Cross. Including these factors, propaganda of North Korean government and promotion by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon ) made ethnic Koreans in Japan decide to immigrate to North Korea. In addition, Japanese political parties, politicians, intellectuals, and mass media strongly affected ethnic Korean’s decision to repatriation to North Korea from Japan. This study explores contents of propaganda by North Korea and Chongryon , and news and images on North Korea delivered and created by Japanese politicians and media.