The Nativist Backlash Exploring The Roots of The Action Conservative Movement - Tom Gill 2018

Social Science Japan Journal Vol. 21, No. 2, pp 213–233 2018 doi: 10.
1093/ssjj/jyy022
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Responding to Hate in Contemporary Japan:
Fragmenting Factors Obstructing Effective Ethnic
Advocacy
Youngmi LIM*
Zainichi Koreans, whose ancestral migration resulted from Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula (1910–
1945), are a culturally assimilated minority group now showing accelerated structural assimilation through
naturalization and intermarriage with the Japanese majority. Nonetheless, since the mid-2000s, internet-mobilized
right-wing activists have deployed hate campaigns against Zainichi Koreans or institutions they label as ‘anti-
Japanese’. Conventional Zainichi Korean organizations, the pro-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Chongryon and the pro-Republic of Korea (ROK) Mindan, have never formally collaborated to respond. Drawing
on fieldwork (2011–2016) and secondary sources, this article explores factors that maintain fragmented ethnic
advocacy. Focusing on Zainichi organizational responses to three hate incidents in Kyoto and Tokyo, I examine
four dimensions: (a) preceding inter-organizational relationship, (b) bureaucratic inertia, (c) discordant framing
strategies, and (d) external socio-political conditions. Organizational stances differ not just by pledged allegiance to
different Korean nation-states, but also by organizational response to Japanese policy-making and the legislature.
While both organizations adopt framing strategies based on the universal norm of human rights, Chongryon
emphasizes minority education rights and Mindan problematizes hate speech per se. I argue that the contrasting
strategies reflect broader socio-political factors more than organizational characteristics. Heavy reliance on the
Japanese majority as the target audience maintains a fragmented Zainichi Korean advocacy.
Keywords: zainichi koreans; ethnic organizations; coalition work; hate speech; framing
1. Introduction: Zainichi Koreans and Hate Campaigns since the

Late 2000s
No social category, be it race, ethnicity, nation, gender, class, or sexual orientation, automatically
consolidates and mobilizes people. Social scientists have grown increasingly skeptical about any sim-
plified ‘equation of ethnicity with closely-knit communities, clear-cut cultures, and commonly-shared
categories of identity’ (Wimmer 2013: 204). As Rogers Brubaker (2004) points out, the analytical
conflation of ethnicity (race or nation) with a ‘group’ that is internally homogeneous and externally
Youngmi LIM is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Musashi University, 1-26-1 Toyotama-
kami, Nerima-ku, Tokyo 176-8533, Japan. Professor Lim can be contacted at ymlim@gradcenter.cuny.edu.
* I would like to thank all the interviewees who shared time and thoughts in July 2011, June and July 2012, and January
2016. I also appreciate Tom Gill, Tomomi Yamaguchi, Sonia Ryang, Masami Saito, and two anonymous reviewers as well
as the editorial board for comments on earlier versions, Haeng-ja Chung for stimulating exchanges during our team field
trip of July 2011, and Myungsoo Kim, Naoto Higuchi, Yasuko Morooka, Tong-hyon Han, Miyuki Hashimoto, Chikako
Kashiwazaki, and Hiroshi Tanaka for invaluable support during the January 2016 field trip. The argument of this art-
icle reflects my own limitations, not of any individual whom I acknowledged here. An earlier version of the paper was
presented in Japanese at the Musashi Sociological Society Annual Meeting, June 2017. I appreciate all the questions and
comments from the Musashi University sociology faculty and students. Generous support from the Toyota Foundation
(grant no. D10-R-0519) made the field trips to Japan possible. June–July 2016 trip was funded by Professional Staff
Congress-City University of New York (PSC-CUNY).
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press in conjunction with the University of Tokyo. All rights reserved.
214 Youngmi LIM
bounded calls for a more detailed examination of everyday constructions such as organizational
routines and resources, discursive frames, institutionalized forms, political projects, and contingent
events. It is not ethnic groups but organizations and their empowered and authorized members that
are the major players in ethnic conflict (Brubaker 2004: 15). Examining inter- and intra-group dynam-
ics, this article explores factors that maintain fragmented ethnic advocacy in contemporary Japan.
Japan-resident Koreans (Zainichi Koreans) have become the target of hate demonstrations by
Japan’s conservative grassroots activists, kōdō suru hoshu undō (Action Conservative Movement,
hereafter ACM; Yamaguchi 2013) since the late 2000s. Drawing on fieldwork intermittently con-
ducted between 2011 and 2016 and on secondary sources including Korean ethnic and Japanese
media reports, I will explore factors that maintain the fragmented state of ethnic advocacy. How do
the two major Zainichi Korean organizations respond to hate incidents? Although conventional the-
ories of reactive ethnic solidarity and panethnicity as well as social movement theories emphasize the
significance of coalition-building among different groups and organizations in order to maximize the
effects of advocacy on policy outcomes, why do major Zainichi Korean organizations adopt discord-
ant strategies and maintain parallel stances in response to hate? Focusing on Zainichi Korean organ-
izational responses to three hate incidents between 2008 and 2011 in Kyoto and Tokyo, I examine
four dimensions (three pertaining to the organizational characteristics and one to a broader context):
(a) preceding inter-organizational relationship, (b) bureaucratic inertia, (c) discordant framing strate-
gies, and (d) external socio-political conditions. To conclude, I will discuss how broader social and
political conditions within Japanese society influence the agenda and effective movement strategies
that maintain fragmented ethnic advocacy, even at the cost of dividing available resources.
If the fragmentation of ethnic advocacy were caused simply by the legacy of the Cold War and split
allegiance to the two Korean homeland regimes, each organization would have demonstrated con-
trasting yet consistent approaches at each incident. Varied responses illustrate different framing strat-
egies. However, this variation in both groups’ responses shows a notable convergence, in which both
organizations collaborate with overlapping pools of Japanese experts. The strategic choices can only
be understood in relation to their efforts to maximize the policy outcome, ie, how to reach Japanese
legal and political systems via the Japanese majority. The major audience of Zainichi Korean advocacy
is the Japanese majority, not fellow Zainichi Koreans. The pursuit of effective ethnic advocacy in an
increasingly inhospitable political environment often involves players in strategic distancing from any
unfavorable element, be it the homeland or even the advocacy organization itself.
1.1. Divided Advocacy: Exploring Intra-ethnic and External Factors

1.1.1. Rival Streams of Institutionalized Ethnic Advocacy and Intra-ethnic Diversity
‘Zainichi Koreans’ refers to resident Koreans in Japan whose ancestral migration to Japan took place
during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula (1910–1945) and its aftermath in the cha-
otic period of the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952). Zainichi Korean advocacy has been
institutionalized into two rival nationwide organizations to date. The immediate post-WWII period
overlaps with the intensified Cold War, the establishment in 1948 of two Korean nation-states—the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK; North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK;
South Korea)—and the resultant military conflict on the Korean Peninsula (1950–1953). While the
vast majority of Zainichi Koreans migrated from the southern provinces of contemporary South
Korea, the establishment of two Korean nation-states ideologically divided the leadership of Zainichi
Korean movements and resulted in the foundation of two nationwide Zainichi Korean organiza-
tions—the pro-DPRK Chongryon (Chaeilbon Chosŏnin Chong Ryŏnhaphoe, known as Zainihon
Chōsenjin Sōrengōkai or Sōren in Japanese; founded 1955) and the pro-ROK Mindan (Chaeilbon
Responding to Hate in Contemporary Japan 215
Hangukmindan, or Zainihon Kankokumindan in Japanese, known as Mindan in both Japanese and
Korean; founded 1948).1 These two nationwide Zainichi Korean organizations embrace both home-
land-nationalistic and pluralistic-ethnic causes.
While both Chongryon and Mindan provide similar local community services, what most sharply
differentiates the two is the scale of the operation of full-time Korean schools. Chongryon runs a
national network of Chōsengakkō (Korean Schools) system2 with an independent curriculum and
all classes taught in Korean (see Section 3.3. below), whereas there are only four Mindan-affiliated
Korean schools, of which two in Osaka and one in Kyoto have opted to become Japanese private
schools in which Korean is taught as a foreign language and only one school, in Tokyo, is run on
the ROK education system, being designed mostly for ROK expatriate children. Two Chōsengakkō
system schools became the target of hate demonstrations as I will discuss later.3
Contemporary Zainichi Koreans4 constitute a culturally assimilated minority group that has
attained significant upward mobility despite its exclusion from many mainstream Japanese economic
activities (M. Kim 2003). Structural assimilation through naturalization and intermarriage with the
Japanese is already far advanced: in 2015, 80.0% of married Koreans’ spouses were Japanese citizens.5
Zainichi Koreans are diverse in terms of consciousness about and connectedness with Zainichi Korean
heritage, not to mention their socio-economic status, generation, region of origin and residence, and
political orientation. Despite this diversity, they all must live with the legacy of the formalized eth-
nic order of the Japanese Empire in which ‘proper’ Japanese reigned on top and all other ‘Japanese’
of colonial origins were subjugated.6 Hate demonstrations are an immediate external threat to all
Zainichi Koreans regardless of affiliation.
1.1.2. External Factors: Relationship with the Japanese Public

The post-colonial system of the exclusion of Zainichi Koreans from many fields of public life as
a national security threat (Morris-Suzuki 2010; Higuchi 2014, 2016) significantly contributed to
the symbolic perpetuation of Zainichi Koreans as alien outsiders in Japanese society. Discrimination
1. Chongryon’s precursor, the Korean League, was founded in 1945, from which dissidents left and formed Mindan’s pre-
cursor in 1946 (Yamawaki 2001: 299). Although Chongryon is widely spelled Chongryun in English, I adopt the spelling
used in its official web site throughout this article.
2. There are 136 schools (one college) from kindergarten to college (Park 2012: 33). As for issues concerning the school
system’s credentials and resources, see Park 2011.
3. Mindan schools are not exempt from ACM activism. The Mindan-affiliated Tokyo Korean school recently had a deal to
rent a piece of land from the Tokyo metropolitan government. Newly elected conservative Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike
announced the cancellation of this deal at her very first regular press conference (Mainichi Shinbun, 5 August 2016). This
decision followed loud protests against renting Tokyo government property to Koreans (1,087 phone calls and 4,713
email in two weeks following the plan’s announcement, as well as multiple rallies in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government Complex). The protesters saw the plan as prioritizing diplomacy rather than Tokyo residents’ needs (Sankei
Shinbun, 3 April 2016).
4. As of December 2016, 330,537 Koreans maintain special permanent residency, out of which 90.6% (299,488) hold ROK
nationality and 9.4% (31,049) are stateless Koreans (MOJ 2017b). Mindan’s official membership count is based on the
number of ROK nationality-holders, described by Lee (1980: 245) as a kind of ‘wishful thinking’. While the exact number
of active membership in either organization is not officially published, both organizations have branches in all 47 prefec-
tures. Local branches of both organizations are concerned with overall life-support, ranging from legal consultations to
matchmaking.
5. Computed from Tables 9–18 (Trends in marriage by nationality of bride and groom: Japan) and 1 (Foreigners: Marriages
by nationality of bride and groom, 2015) of Vital Statistics in Fiscal Year 2015, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
(MHLW 2017); 16.6% of Koreans marry a Korean and 3.4% marry a partner who is neither Japanese nor Korean. The
accumulated number of cases of naturalization by Koreans between 1952 and 2016 is 365,530 (MOJ 2017a).
6. Koreans had Japanese nationality during the colonial period, although their Japanese nationality was distinguished from
Japanese proper in family registration documents.
216 Youngmi LIM
against Zainichi Koreans and anti-Korean sentiment are nothing new. Nonetheless, anti-Korean sen-
timent had never been manifested in publicly announced street demonstrations involving seemingly
ordinary citizens until the mid-2000s. Since the mid-2000s, internet-mobilized grassroots conserva-
tive activists have deployed hate campaigns in virtual and real public space against Zainichi Koreans,
other resident foreigners, and individuals or institutions they label as ‘anti-Japanese’ (Yasuda 2012;
Higuchi 2014, 2016).
The reincarnation of anti-Korean sentiment during the 2000s (Itagaki 2008) in expressions of
hate in public spaces symbolizes a critical moment of backlash, challenging the gradual improvement
of Zainichi Korean legal status and access to social resources. Special permanent residency (toku-
betsu eijū shikaku)7 is one such gain. When Japan regained its full sovereignty in 1952, it revoked
the Japanese nationality of the migrants and their descendants from former colonies of the col-
lapsed Japanese Empire. It took nearly four decades to settle former colonial subjects’ legal limbo
through the establishment of special permanent residency in 1991.8 Special permanent residency is
certainly the most stable form of foreigners’ residency under the present Japanese border control
system (shutsunyūkoku kanri taisei), grounded on the historical fact that special permanent resi-
dents themselves or their ancestors were legally Japanese prior to 1952. One of the most prominent
hate campaign groups targets those who hold this category of residency—mostly Zainichi Koreans.
Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Nihon Shimin no Kai (hereafter, Zaitokukai; Citizens’ Association
Against Special Privileges for Japan-resident Foreigners) has campaigned since 2007 against Zainichi
Koreans in particular. In fact, special permanent residency is not a ‘privilege’ as Zaitokukai claims, but
just a belated yet incomplete solution to the colonial legacy. Fueled by the upsurge of conservative
opinions and historical revisionism in the 1990s and 2000s (Nomura et al. 2006), Zainichi Koreans
are being virulently attacked for ‘abusing’ their status as victims of colonization and Japan’s wartime
aggression (Higuchi 2014, 2016). Zaitokukai and its sympathizers intensified their aggressive hate
street campaigns from around 2008. Uploaded video images of their campaigns, rallies, and demon-
strations contributed to connecting like-minded Internet users (Yasuda 2012; Higuchi 2014, 2016).
According to a report commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, between 2012 and 2015, 1,152
hate demonstrations were held [Jinken Kyōiku Keihatsu Suishin Sentā (JKSS) 2016: 33] and most
demonstrations were against Zainichi Koreans (JKSS 2016: 144). Despite their extremist image,
Zaitokukai and other ACM groups share strikingly similar views to those of some prominent Japanese
lawmakers on issues related to Japan’s war responsibilities (Higuchi 2014, 2016).
Several counter-hate/racism action groups have emerged, their membership consisting of a mix
of Japanese and Zainichi Koreans with a wide range of ideological or political stances (Akedo 2015;
Cho 2015). The commitment to anti-hate causes of Japanese citizens with diverse political motiva-
tions shows that hate demonstrations and anti-hate counter-demonstrations are not simply conflicts
between the Zainichi Korean minority and the Japanese majority or between the right and the left.
Examining the relationship between Zainichi Korean advocacy and the Japanese public, what
Higuchi (2014, 2016) identified in the ACM’s claim-making process is relevant. The structural
problem of Japanese East Asian diplomacy lies precisely in the inadequacy of war redress to neigh-
boring countries. Zainichi Koreans are a constant reminder of a ‘disgraceful history’ for Japan
7. Note this is not a ‘right’ to residency.

8. Those who declared allegiance with the ROK became eligible for treaty-based permanent residency in 1965 for two
descending generations and another negotiation was scheduled in 1991. Those who did not declare allegiance to the
ROK maintained their stateless Korean status, though their permanent residency was redefined in a slightly more stable
direction in 1981 through the establishment of exceptional permanent residency (tokurei eijū shikaku). The 1991 creation
of special permanent residency unified treaty-based permanent residency, exceptional permanent residency, and other less
stable residency statuses of Zainichi Koreans.
(Higuchi 2016: 212), and Zainichi Koreans are seen as a threat to Japanese social order and security
in Japanese nativist sentiment, which extends far beyond the ACM.
1.2. Effective Ethnic Advocacy: Advantages and Costs of Coalition

Coalition across different ethnic groups has been an effective way of making minority voices audible
(Okamoto 2006). The classic three-stream model outlined by John W. Kingdon (1995) shows that
when all three streams—the problem recognition stream, the policy proposal stream, and the polit-
ical stream—converge, action is generally taken by the government. This model is not easily applic-
able to Zainichi Koreans, who lack the right to vote and make up just one percent of the Japanese
population. Nonetheless, if different organizations work on issues where their interests overlap with
different foci, even fragmented advocacy can have some effect. However, none of the hate incidents
against Zainichi Koreans have ignited intra-ethnic solidarity sufficiently to coalesce actions across
different Zainichi Korean organizations. Although members of Zainichi Korean organizations do
participate in a range of counter-hate actions, the participation is on an individual basis, without any
officially declared organizational endorsement. Meanwhile, both organizations have suffered declin-
ing membership and support, especially since the late 1980s (Kim 2004a: 190–192).
Mindan’s recent publication of its history over seven decades outlines its beginnings as an
anti-communist organization, except for several incidents in which a left-leaning fraction attempted
to gain control of the organization in the early 1960s, 1970s, and most recently in 2006 (Mindan
Chūō Honbu 2017). One Mindan youth group organizer snapped, ‘Do you know the history [of the
organization]?’ when I asked about the potential for a coalition with Chongryon in anti-hate strug-
gles.9 Any attempt to collaborate with Chongryon stirs anxiety in the Mindan leadership. Mindan’s
official history bitterly recalls the 17 May 2006 incident, when part of the leadership one-sidedly
announced a reconciliation between Mindan and Chongryon, with the two organizations issuing a
mutual reconciliation statement. Mindan withdrew the statement one month later, protesting the
DPRK’s trial missile launch and the incident led to the resignation of the leadership (Mindan Chūō
Honbu 2017: 169–170).
Mindan had started tentative moves towards cooperation with Chongryon during the progressive
Kim Dae-Jung administration in the ROK (1998–2003) but the these moves foundered in 2002,
when the DPRK admitted that their agents had abducted Japanese citizens, drastically alienating
Japanese public sentiment. Mindan then shifted to a harsher tone, sharply criticizing Chongryon
in its official paper, Mindan Shinbun. Hence the 2006 incident was a major shock to the Mindan
mainstream.
Such a long-term historical legacy certainly fragments Zainichi Korean advocacy. However, I will
argue that the relationship between Japan and the two Koreas creates a dilemma for Mindan. Any
collaboration with Chongryon now undermines Mindan’s advocacy, which requires broader sup-
port from the mainstream Japanese public. This relational factor with Japanese public opinion even
prompts Mindan to distance itself from the ROK government, which is also unpopular in Japanese
public opinion due to problems over the comfort women issue, the Dokdo/Takeshima territorial
dispute, etc.
Facing unprecedented collective expressions of hate, how have major Zainichi Korean organi-
zations reacted? How did each organization frame the hate crises when determining their respec-
tive strategic decisions? While both Mindan and Chongryon have experienced hate incidents, their
9. Personal interview, 28 January 2016.

218 Youngmi LIM
responses have been scattershot and uncoordinated. Based on fieldwork data10 and secondary sources,
this paper reevaluates the strategies Zainichi Korean organizations have adopted in contemporary
Japanese society and explores factors fragmenting Zainichi Korean advocacy.
Responses among Zainichi Korean organizations to hate incidents instigated by Zaitokukai-type
demonstrators have been ranged across direct counter protest, litigation, filing of complaints, publi-
cations, public and private discussion, and sheer silence. Extending the previous social-constructivist
literature on social movements and ethnic conflicts, this paper explores the implications of the con-
tinuous lack of intra-ethnic coalition between the two main Zainichi Korean organizations in facing
hate crises.
In the following section, I will first outline three hate incidents committed by Zaitokukai and
its sympathizers and the responses of Zainichi Korean organizations: (a) the Kyoto incident and
its litigation struggle (2009–2014); (b) a series of annual ‘protest’ demonstrations against Korea
University in Tokyo (2008–2011); and (c) a cancelled public lecture in Kyoto (2011).
It is not uncommon to observe rivalry among social movement organizations (including ethnic
organizations), even if they share common goals. This paper aims at illustrating the ways in which the
relationship with the majority shapes the strategic choices of minority ethnic organizations. I argue
that it is because ethnic minority organizations operate in the shadow of a massive Japanese majority
that the Zainichi Korean organizational cleavage remains so intractable. While the Japanese public
varies considerably in political stances, contentious international relations often affect the tone of
public opinion.
2. The Korean Community’s Response to Hate:Three Case Studies

2.1. The Kyoto School Incident and its Litigation Struggle: 2009–2014
The first two hate incidents involve two schools within the Chongryon-affiliated Chōsengakkō
(Korean school)11 system. Among the most noteworthy incidents of the ACM-organized hate cam-
paigns were three ‘protest’ actions against the Kyoto Korean First Elementary School (Kyoto Chōsen
Daiichi Shokyū Gakkō, or First Elementary)12 in 2009–2010. Despite the lack of directly relevant
statutes in Japan, this Kyoto school’s civil litigation created legal precedents concerning racist hate
speech and minority education rights through the finalized ruling handed down by the Supreme
Court in 2014 (Nakamura 2014).
The school community’s firm stance against hate incidents indicates effective resource mobiliza-
tion, which is attributable to the following conditions. First, Chōsengakkō parents are committed to
Korean minority education and are well connected with each other as alumni of the Chōsengakkō
system. A school community informant, whose children attended First Elementary at the time of
the incident, is a criminal law specialist—a coincidence that changed the entire course of the school
10. Fieldtrips to Japan were part of a joint research project ‘The Internet and Changing Civil Society’, conducted in July 2011,
July 2012, and January, June, and July 2016. Informants included ten Zainichi Koreans targeted by hate demonstrations,
three legal team members (Zainichi Korean and Japanese), eight Zainichi Korean activists of mainstream Zainichi Korean
organizations and alternative grassroots movements, five organizationally detached Zainichi Koreans, and six Japanese
activists who work closely with Zainichi Korean causes.
11. In Japanese, the Chongryon community calls these schools uri hakkyo, literally ‘our schools’. To distinguish them from
Japan’s four pro-ROK Korean schools, I describe Chongryon-affiliated schools here as the Chōsengakkō system.
12. First Elementary is one of approximately 50 primary schools indirectly affiliated with Chongryon and is directly managed
by Kyoto Chōsen Gakuen, a regional school administrative body approved by Kyoto Prefecture (Itagaki 2013: 162).
community’s action. This parent played a pivotal role in clarifying legal matters to other parents as
well as integrating the core legal team who are all Japanese except for two female Zainichi Korean
lawyers who are alumni of the Chōsengakkō system. The prospect of challenging mainstream Japanese
society was daunting, but ‘I simply had no choice but to get involved with this struggle’:
This incident stirred my anger, sadness, and I must say, fear. Speaking of fear, this is not fear of violence,
but fear of being excluded from Japanese society. If I did something about it, if I spoke up, then I might
be excluded. If I kept silent, then I would never do anything special and my everyday life would continue
undisrupted. […] Never speaking up against the Japanese majority is definitely one possible way of life.
I would be lying if I said there was no hesitation in taking a firm stance. Perhaps about 10 percent of me was
wondering if I could refrain from speaking up and just try to forget about it in silence. Rage and courage
alone pulled me through the challenges—that’s not the exact story, but I couldn’t accept this threat to the
continuity of the school community. What if our children and grandchildren opt out of the Chōsengakkō
system from the beginning because of this traumatic experience? I can’t accept that…13
His words illustrate how important it is for Zainichi Koreans to maintain a good relationship with
Japanese society. Ethnic resources were significant in the litigation struggle. Other parents heavily
involved in the school community included eloquent, energetic, and entrepreneurial business own-
ers. A financially successful parent contributed a substantial initial fee for the legal team, although
many lawyers volunteered their time and service. However, the critical juncture of this litigation was
the formation of a mostly Japanese legal team and the presence of Japanese supporters.
Second, the case was an unprecedented act of litigation over hate speech, which attracted the atten-
tion of the media as well as law practitioners. According to a lawyer who worked as one of the core
members of the legal team, many lawyers did not know much about the plight of the Chōsengakkō
system.14 Nonetheless, the relative novelty of hate incident litigation, as well as the victimization of
innocent school-age children, made the plaintiff’s claims clear and appealing.
Third, Kyoto, governed by a progressive administration for decades, is the home of various streams
of labor, student, and community-based minority empowerment movements. Prominent universi-
ties in Kyoto are known for lively student activism—by both Japanese and Zainichi Koreans—which
include a group working to lower the barriers to Chōsengakkō graduates using their credentials to
obtain Japanese college admission, for example. Each court hearing mobilized supportive observers
beyond the immediate school community. Both Zainichi Koreans and Japanese labor and community
activists who had been supporting Chōsengakkō causes for many years before the incident.
Last but not least, Chongryon’s full-time activists were an invaluable resource. Chongryon Kyoto-
based activists coordinated mundane operations such as contacting people involved with the litiga-
tion and keeping track of meetings among the lawyers, supporting citizens’ groups, and the school
community. Chongryon retains impressive organizational effectiveness. A Chongryon liaison full-
timer coordinated my fieldwork team’s visit to First Elementary in July 2011, where two adminis-
trators and three parents appeared for interviews, and a meeting with the former principal of First
Elementary was also arranged. However, this hard-working officer clarified that Chongryon was
not involved with the litigation per se, just providing administrative support. He explained, ‘The
teachers and school administrators are very busy, because they have to teach and do paperwork and
other routine jobs, while the phone rings constantly. So, I am just taking up a coordinator’s role’.15
13. Personal interview 1, Kyoto, 9 July 2011.

14. Personal interview 2, Kyoto, 9 July 2011.
15. Personal interview, Kyoto, 5 July 2011.
220 Youngmi LIM
In retrospect, downplaying the presence of Chongryon was in line with litigation strategies to estab-
lish the Chōsengakkō system as legitimate minority education protected by international covenants,
rather than as an overseas national educational enterprise of the DPRK run through Chongryon.
Despite the historical fact that the Chōsengakkō system has been the core project and mechanism of
Chongryon’s organizational legitimacy and reproduction (Song 2012), conscious efforts were made
throughout the litigation struggle to play down Chongryon’s involvement in First Elementary’s
management and everyday operation.
On the one hand, the coalition between the well-connected Zainichi Korean school community and
its Japanese supporters made First Elementary’s litigation struggle successful. On the other hand, liti-
gation appealing to the Japanese judiciary system implies the need to appeal to the Japanese public.
Multiple informants emphasized that the target audience was the majority Japanese via the Japanese
court system, not fellow Zainichi Koreans. Therefore, expert opinions were submitted by a Japanese
intellectual, and one of the key pieces of supporting evidence submitted was a book written by a Japanese
journalist. A long-term Japanese supporter of regional Chōsengakkō explained that approximately 80%
of subscribers to the newsletter issued by the litigation support group were Japanese. According to this
informant, however, membership in the support group was not open to just anyone, for two reasons.
First, the ongoing litigation was a delicate matter and any potentially disruptive moves that might affect
the impression of the judges should be avoided. The group needed to keep a distance from elements will-
ing to resort to violent countermeasures to block hate demonstrations. Second, the administrative office
felt the need to protect the victimized school community members; the small, close-knit group provided
an atmosphere in which everyone could speak their mind.16 The effective coalition builds not on sheer
quantity but on quality—to what extent strategic decisions overlap, especially for litigation struggles that
call for careful impression management as well as consideration for the victimized children and families.
Mindan remained curiously silent throughout the incident and most of the litigation process.
Mindan’s official paper, Mindan Shinbun, never provided any updates on this incident or the related
litigation. A Kyoto-based Mindan activist told me, ‘there were many local (Mindan-affiliated) resi-
dents who were enraged at Zaitokukai’s attack against First Elementary. But those are all personal
reactions and somehow nobody considered any formal action like issuing a statement and the like’.17
Mindan headquarters eventually launched its own anti-hate campaign in 2013, when hate and coun-
ter-hate demonstrations in Korean commercial areas in Osaka and Tokyo intensified. Until then,
sporadic hate incidents elicited no formal response from Mindan.
2.2. Korea University Annual Demonstrations and MOJ Recommendation: 2008–2011, 2015

Zaitokukai and its sympathizers held deafening hate demonstrations in front of the Chongryon-
affiliated Korea University (Kodaira City, Tokyo) with shocking racial slurs against Zainichi Koreans
in 2008, 2009, and 2011.18 In July 2012, when I interviewed a faculty member about Zaitokukai
demonstrations and the school’s response, Zaitokukai and its ACM allies had been rallying in front
of Korea University once a year, targeting Korea University’s annual cultural festival or foundation
day in the fall. Although Korea University and Chongryon headquarters have been targeted by con-
ventional right-wingers broadcasting hostile propaganda from their sound trucks since the 1970s,
16. This Japanese supporter devotes so much time to supporting Chōsengakkō, because he considers that ‘the problems sur-
rounding Chōsengakkō is a Japanese social problem in which Japanese should be more responsible and involved’. Personal
interview, Kyoto, 27 June 2016.
18. See Sakurai (2008).
this faculty member saw a clear difference between Zaitokukai demonstrations and conventional
right-wingers. Zaitokukai demonstrations had many more participants (about 50–80 people, com-
pared with 8–10 for the conventional right), and they ‘appear very ordinary, unlike a small group of
conventional right-wingers dressed up in uniform’,19 he explained. The reasons for the ‘protest’ dem-
onstrations were DPRK-related issues—DPRK agents’ abduction of Japanese citizens in the past and
its military ambitions (which were also themes of the second and third demonstrations against First
Elementary). The university faculty informant told me that after 2002, when the DPRK admitted
that its agents had abducted Japanese citizens, consultations with the police over right-wing intimi-
dation increased, at the same time that Korea University itself continued to be under surveillance by
the Japanese police for its connection with Chongryon. In response to these annual demonstrations,
Korea University worked on the police through a local assembly member. The university was able
to block permission for the Zaitokukai to use an adjacent park for demonstrations after the 2011
demonstration. This terminated Zaitokukai’s annual demonstrations in front of Korea University.
Although the university finally took action against hate, this was done only after a long delay,
unlike in the Kyoto Incident, for several reasons. Korea University is in a suburban location, with
a spacious campus protected by a private path, enabling the university to deny access to unwanted
outsiders. Zaitokukai demonstrations always targeted an organized university event, taking place far
away from the main entrance so that even highly amplified hate speech is faint enough to be ignored,
except by university staff charged with monitoring the demonstrations. The faculty member I inter-
viewed expressed his overall confidence, stressing the anti-racist resilience of Zainichi Koreans who
grew up in the Chōsengakkō system:
Unlike Mindan people who attended Japanese schools, hiding the fact that they are Koreans, we are tough
and resilient. Kids fight against any harassment. The Chōsengakkō system instills Zainichi Korean children
with a strong sprit against Japanese racism towards Koreans. Especially here (Korea University), students
are tough, street-smart and resilient, spirited—very tough young people (kukkyō no wakamonotachi). (…)
And who are those demonstrators? They are basically frustrated thugs. It is the weak that gather and yelp.
Zaitokukai’s noisy hate demos are disturbing, but it’s a waste of time and not a fight worth picking.20
The chosen strategy was to ignore hate demonstrations and to make sure none of the students get
involved in potentially violent encounters. If students reported hate demonstrators to the police, it
would give the police another excuse to scrutinize the university. Because of Japanese police scrutiny of
Chongryon’s connection with the DPRK, minor legal offenses typically result in major police investiga-
tions (Nakamura 2014: 95–98). Summarizing the explanation I heard in 2012, the university’s infra-
structure, older students’ tough culture, and the limitation of demonstrations to annual special events
held at weekends minimized the urgency that Korea University sensed about the hate demonstrations.
In December 2015, four years after the last demonstration, however, Zaitokukai’s former leader,
Sakurai Makoto, received a formal warning (kankoku, literally ‘recommendation’) from the Ministry
of Justice not to repeat acts that violate human rights, based on a complaint filed over violation of
human rights (jinken shingai mōshitate) (NHK News, 22 December 2015). The Ministry of Justice
also reported actual examples of hate speech that threatened individuals’ lives and bodies. So I revis-
ited my Korea University informant in January 2016. The faculty informant was very careful in
discussing how the decision was taken to file a complaint, because the filing was made by individual
students and there was concern about possible retaliation if these students’ identities were exposed.
Contrary to his previous remarks, he pointed out that one of the university’s dormitories stood right
19. Personal interview, Tokyo, 9 July 2012.

20. Ibid.
222 Youngmi LIM
by the gate and that some students who were in their rooms felt severely threatened as they looked
out of the windows. In July 2015, concerned Japanese lawyers noticed that the statute of limitations
was to expire the following month and asked if the university was really not going to file any charges
against Zaitokukai. Both lawyers and university faculty felt that some legal measures should be taken.
Nonetheless, time limits in preparation restricted litigation options. Following advice from Japanese
lawyers and coordination with victimized students, it was decided that individuals would file the
complaints.21 Neither the university nor Chongryon took direct countermeasures as an organization.
2.3. Mindan Kyoto’s Cancelled Lecture: 2011

Mindan Kyoto scheduled a lecture about ‘the Utoro problem’ on 2 July 2011, as the third of five
lectures, called Kyoto Korian Minzoku Bunka Daigaku (Kyoto College for Korean Ethnic Culture,
hereafter Minzoku Daigaku). The lecture series was in the third year since its introduction to Mindan
Kyoto’s event calendar and covered topics ranging from literature to current events and history. Utoro
is a Korean neighborhood in Uji City, Kyoto prefecture, where Koreans who had been mobilized to
construct an airport for the Japanese air force congregated in jerry-built housing in the early 1940s.
The area had complex usufruct problems in the wake of a series of landownership transactions after
WWII. The ownership issues had just been resolved in 2011 with the help of financial aid from the
ROK government (Kyoto Shinbun, 7 December 2007 and 28 February 2011). The scheduled speaker
was a Japanese community organizer from Utoro. Protesting the allocation of Uji City’s public fund-
ing for redevelopment of the area specifically for the Korean minority, Zaitokukai had already held
a series of ‘expeditions’ to Utoro, loudly claiming that Zainichi Korean ‘privileges’ had resulted in
unjust encroachment on the rights and lands of Japanese people, and cost precious Japanese tax-payers’
money. A week before the lecture, Zaitokukai announced plans for a demonstration in front of Kyoto’s
Mindan regional headquarters to coincide with it, as a result of which the top official of Mindan Kyoto
decided to cancel the lecture. Initially, the executive committee had planned to go ahead with the event,
maintaining that they should not surrender to this kind of threat. But as the day approached, the com-
mittee discovered that the Mindan women’s group would not attend because they were terrified about
the expected Zaitokukai demonstration, which would significantly reduce the turnout. Attendance was
expected to fall below 30, and this was the reason given by the top official for the cancellation.
A former Mindan youth group activist I interviewed expressed disappointment at this cancellation,
recalling:
The entire story is embarrassing. The most radical Zaitokukai demonstrators had already been found guilty
and given suspended sentences this year so they could not do anything drastic, as I told one of the execu-
tive committee members. I insisted we just go ahead and have the lecture as planned inside, and just ignore
what would be happening outside. We would lose face as an organization if we cancelled the talk simply
to avoid trouble. But once the top decides they won’t do something, they won’t. Many Mindan activists
have a ‘salaryman’ (white-collar male corporate employee) mentality, merely following top-down decisions.
Besides, the women’s group and other top executives probably had their own prejudice against the Utoro
problem. It may be perceived mostly as a problem in a local area where Chongryon’s influence has been
much stronger than ours, so that it’s Chongryon’s problem, not Mindan’s. I’m not sure. But in combin-
ation with the instinct to avoid trouble and confrontation, the lack of interest in the topic lead to the lead-
ership’s decision to cancel. Anyways, it’s upsetting to hear a stance like, ‘if Zaitokukai comes, things will be
complicated and troublesome, so let’s just cancel’.22
21. Personal interview, Tokyo, 23 January 2016.

Zaitokukai did in fact hold a rally that consisted of approximately 15 demonstrators on the day that
the lecture was supposed to be held.23 None of the three Mindan Headquarters activists I inter-
viewed in Tokyo in 2016 had even heard of this earlier significant encounter with hate campaigners
and the consequent event cancellation, in spite of these outcomes’ prescient implications.
3. The Missing Chongryon-Mindan Coalition: Implications beyond the

Obvious
Increasing focus among researchers on social movements’ ‘coalition work’ (Bernstein 1997; Miceli
2005; Rohlinger and Quadagno 2009) helps identify factors impeding formation of a coalition
between Chongryon and Mindan. Social movements as ongoing processes require a historically
grounded analysis of framing strategies to reach the media, the public, and policy-makers. Strategic
choices shape the dynamics within an organization and across different organizations. Neither at
national nor local levels have Chongryon or Mindan sought to collaborate, despite the fact that both
organizations have been subjected to Zaitokukai demonstrations and threats on several occasions.
Following the third demonstration against First Elementary in March 2010, neighborhood activ-
ists, including Chongryon, Mindan, and independent Zainichi Korean activists, as well as Japanese
activists, promptly held a neighborhood resident assembly to share information regarding Zaitokukai
hate demonstrations and decided to work on the local administration and the police in April 2010.
Approximately 100 residents, across organizational and ethnic boundaries, gathered. But the assem-
bly was organized through personal connections and neither Chongryon nor Mindan was involved
as an endorsing organization. This assembly did not formally merge with First Elementary’s litigation
support group; and the urgency in the neighborhood tapered off as soon as Zaitokukai-type dem-
onstrations ceased. The neighborhood-based informal coalition bridging different organizations also
failed to reach those tackling hate crises in other areas, precisely because of strictly local concerns.
At the national level, more recently, Chongryon and Mindan have demonstrated overlapping inter-
ests in addressing hate issues, often sharing the same Japanese legal and academic experts. After 2013,
Mindan held several lecture events to examine hate crises and effective countermeasures (Mindan
Chūō Honbu 2015). In January 2016, the Japanese Bar Association sponsored a lecture by a com-
mittee member of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Protection of Human Rights. Both
Chongryon and Mindan activists, as well as other grassroots counter-hate group members, attended,
but without engaging in any exchanges. Attendance at the same event indicates each organization’s
keen interest. Both organizations’ activists were separately connected with a prominent Japanese
lawyer who works on the need for anti-hate and broader anti-discrimination legislation. Nonetheless,
each organization moves in parallel to the other. When Japanese NGOs went to Geneva in 2014,
to appeal over Japan’s human rights issues at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), Chongryon and Mindan attended separately.24 Although First Elementary’s
Zainichi Korean parents are often invited to talk sessions on hate speech by concerned citizens’
groups across the nation as speakers, they have never been asked to participate as panelists or speak-
ers at any Mindan-coordinated events. When Mindan held an invited lecture series on hate speech
23. I attempted to interview a Mindan activist who was dealing with this demonstration. I was not able to meet him. The reply
I received was: ‘I really do not want to even recall that kind of savage behavior. Just thinking about those intruders is a
waste of time’ (personal correspondence, 11 July 2011).
24. Both Mindan Shinbun and Choson Shinbo (the newspapers published by Mindan and Chongryon, respectively) covered the
CERD lobbying, without mentioning the other organization’s participation.
224 Youngmi LIM
in 2013, culminating in a major symposium, the speakers were all Japanese except for one Zainichi
Korean representing a counter-racist movement who had never previously been part of any organ-
ized Zainichi Korean activism (Mindan Chūō Honbu 2014). Each organization works in parallel with
overlapping Japanese experts—lawyers, journalists, and scholars.
Now, let us assess several factors impeding formation of a coordinated front in dealing with hate
crises among the major Zainichi Korean organizations.
3.1. Preceding Inter-organizational Relations: The Entrenched Legacy of Cold-War Politics

From the onset, Chongryon and Mindan’s organizational missions and legitimacy as representatives
of overseas nationals rested on formal recognition by each homeland state authority.25 Chongryon
and Mindan adhere to each respective homeland’s diplomatic position. The organizational relation-
ship correspondingly turns sour when the DPRK–ROK relationship deteriorates, except for regional
cooperation in cultural exchange projects without politically contentious elements. At present, both
Chongryon and Mindan state their goals in a strikingly similar way on their official websites, naming
several primary missions: as an ethnic organization that strives for the well-being of Zainichi Koreans
and as an overseas national organization for the promotion of a peaceful and amicable relationship
between homeland nation, Zainichi Koreans, and Japanese people, while simultaneously working
towards the unification of Korea.
From 2012 on, however, Mindan added ‘contribution to Japanese society’ to its causes, which is
not on the list of causes espoused by Chongryon. More generally, organizational stances differ not
just by pledged allegiance to different Korean nation-states, but also in the way in which each organ-
ization responds to Japanese policy-making and the legislature. Chongryon was critical of Mindan’s
opposition movement against the Japanese alien registration system’s fingerprinting requirement
during the 1980s and resident foreigners’ local suffrage campaign of the 1990s and 2000s, which
Chongryon sees as obvious cases of interference in Japanese domestic affairs. Since its 1955 reorgan-
ization, non-interference with Japanese domestic affairs has been Chongryon’s fundamental prin-
ciple, reflecting its ideological insistence on ‘self-reliance’ (Chongryon, n.d.).26
This historical context continues to be a fundamental obstacle to Zainichi Korean collaboration.
Whenever tension between the DPRK and ROK increases, it simultaneously affects both organiza-
tions and aborts any budding local coalition between them. As the tension eases, local collaborations
25. Although both Mindan and the League of Koreans (the forerunner of Chongryon) were established before the founda-
tions of the ROK and DPRK, Mindan’s endorsement by the ROK followed promptly (Lee 1980: 33), while the League
identified itself as part of international communism (Lee 1980: 3–4). The DPRK’s direct intervention in Chongryon’s
operations allegedly started in exchange for the repatriation of many Zainichi Koreans to the DPRK, which peaked in
1959–1961 (Lee 1980: 110). See also Lie (2008: Ch. 2), Chapman (2008: Ch. 2), and Yun (2015) for the earlier phases
of the politics of conventional Zainichi Korean organizations in the 1960s and the 1970s. Both Mindan and Chongryon
went through several organizational crises resulting in political purges, the formation of alternative organizations, or the
expulsion of branch organizations (Lee 1980).
26. Sonia Ryang (2016: 4) explains that the backdrop of this principle is ‘to avoid the violent suppression suffered by its pre-
decessor at the hands of the authorities in 1948/49’. According to separate interviews with spokespeople representing
Chongryon and Mindan in 1998, O Gyu-sang of Chongryon-affiliated Korea University explains that local suffrage ‘inev-
itably involves Zainichi Koreans in the conflicting interests of Japanese party politics, which undermines Korean ethnic
solidarity and the connection to the homeland’, and that ‘it accelerates irreversible assimilation and the end result will only
be an uprooted mass’ (Ronza 1998: 25). Bae Yong-chol of Mindan Headquarters emphasizes Mindan’s organizational
independence from the ROK government and its organizational agenda as a representative of Zainichi Koreans’ real and
everyday concerns (not ideological concerns). Bae snaps that Chongryon’s groundless criticism stems from its blindly fol-
lowing whatever the DPRK leadership determines and points out that many Zainichi Koreans naturalize because of their
restricted rights in Japanese society (Ronza 1998: 31–32).
in cultural exchange venues increase. Especially during the ROK’s two consecutive progressive
administrations under Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Mu-Hyun (1998–2008), closer exchanges between
Chongryon and Mindan were celebrated, but even then, these were mostly symbolic cultural ges-
tures in regional and apolitical projects.
The list of tensions between Chongryon and Mindan is inexhaustible. The antagonism between
Chongryon’s forerunner, Choryon/Chōren (the Korean League) and Mindan in the late 1940s and
early 1950s was fierce and often violent (Lee 1980: 16–21). The repatriation rush to the DPRK
(1959–1960) was strongly opposed by Mindan, which tried to obstruct it. The Japan–ROK diplo-
matic negotiations were vehemently protested by Chongryon. Chongryon was a bystander during
Mindan’s anti-fingerprinting movement in the 1980s. Chongryon also opposes Mindan’s ongoing
local franchise campaigns. Since the ROK’s termination of military dictatorship in 1993, Mindan has
had a louder voice, accusing the DPRK’s totalitarian regime of violating human rights. Following the
DPRK’s admission of the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s, Mindan has constantly main-
tained a distance from Chongryon and the Chōsengakkō system, although progressive non-profit
organizations from the ROK financially supported the Chōsengakkō system schools following the
2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (about which Mindan’s official newspaper expressed concern in
an editorial; Mindan Shinbun, 27 April 2011).
The democratization and student movements in the ROK gave some momentum to exchanges
between Chongryon and Mindan aimed at fostering Korean unification (1960–1961; 1972) (Lee
1980: 33; Yun 2015: 27). These tension-easing moments also coincided with a more progressive
Mindan leadership.
However, this legacy of Cold-War politics is not as significant as each organization’s relationship
with Japanese public opinion, at least when the issue is not one of abstract ideological politics or
Korean unification, in which case hegemonic tensions always arise (Y. Kim 2003: 52).
3.2. Intra-organizational Dynamics: Bureaucratic Inertia

Organizations often stubbornly persist even after their initial goals are reached or rendered obsolete.
Such bureaucratic inertia may shackle social movements. Innovation beyond an existing ‘package’ of
practice and relationships calls for injection of resources, be it time or effort (Becker 1995). Substantial
changes, like creation of a major coalition that breaks with long-standing organizational practices,
are rare; more often existing organizational cleavages are routinely replicated. Both Chongryon and
Mindan are organizationally complex bureaucracies with their own organizational dynamics.
According to a local part-time Mindan activist, Mindan has now recruited former students and
grassroots activists in some regions, and there are considerable regional variations in the style of
activism. A Mindan headquarters activist describes Mindan’s strength and weakness as lying in its
members’ diversity in ideology, style of activism, and commitment. In general, however, Mindan’s
priorities are determined by the top executives at the Tokyo headquarters, as many Mindan and non-
Mindan informants observe. While Mindan’s indifference to the Kyoto School incident and its litiga-
tion struggles derive from its distant take on the DPRK-Chongryon-Chōsengakkō trinity, there are
some red-tape issues too. Mindan headquarter activists acknowledge that their priorities are deter-
mined according to each year’s annual planning and that the organization lacks flexibility. A Mindan
Shinbun editor acknowledges that its Tokyo-centered coverage, partly due to deadline schedules, was
at least a minor factor helping to explain the overall lack of coverage of the Kyoto school incident and
other local encounters with hate.27

226 Youngmi LIM
Chongryon and the Chōsengakkō community embrace an even more top-down decision-making
process. A First Elementary parent points out this tendency:
I’m not sure to what extent there was a true consensus about the criminal and civil litigation. You know,
I’m not saying this to criticize anyone, or the organization, but there was always an atmosphere like, ‘So,
what’s the leadership (ue no hito) saying?’ ‘Well, if the leadership says so’.28
The Chongryon community and the overlapping Chōsengakkō system school community are diverse.
A First Elementary alumna, a long-term acquaintance of the author, expressed her wonder as to
why I was following up on the Kyoto school incident. Even though this extreme hate incident had
been committed against the very school she attended as a child decades earlier, it never occurred
to her to do anything about the litigation and she was not familiar with any court decisions or the
school’s eventual relocation. The tendency of Zainichi Koreans with different ideas to simply leave
the Chongryon community (Kim 2004b) stymies any progressive moves.
3.3. Discordant Frames: Long-standing Chōsengakkō Issues versus Recent Hate Speech

The two organizations framed their approaches to the hate demonstration crises in distinctively dif-
ferent ways. The Kyoto school incident provides an example of discordant frames. For Chongryon,
it represents the long-lasting Japanese societal oppression of Zainichi Koreans, their legitimate rep-
resenting organization, and its main enterprise, the Chōsengakkō system. The civil litigation strategy
for the Kyoto incident highlighted the violation of the right to minority education as well as the fact
that children were the ‘blameless victims’: innocent children’s victimization trumps any competing
‘claim-making’ (Best 1987: 110). The need to appeal to the Japanese public in order to establish
the Chōsengakkō system’s legitimacy as a purveyor of minority education prompted Chongryon
to reduce its own visibility in framing the issue. In order to draw broader support, Chongryon
never took a prominent role in the litigation, as indicated by the Chongryon activist informant’s
emphasis on his role as a mere administrative hand. In contrast, Mindan and Mindan Kyoto’s organ-
izational indifference to the Kyoto school incident can be well understood in relation to Mindan’s
anti-Chōsengakkō campaigns that present the Chōsengakkō system as ‘exaggeratedly pro-North
Korea educational institutions run by an anti-state organization’ (Mindan Shinbun, 10 June 2015).
Ironically, this is the very same stereotype of the Chōsengakkō system found in the Japanese conser-
vative media, the public, and administrators.
The major issue for Chongryon invoked by the Kyoto school incident was not just hate speech
but how Chōsengakkō could survive in adverse conditions, including the potential denial of Japanese
high school tuition waivers.29 Hate speech was presented as an epiphenomenon of a deeper-rooted
cause—Japan’s institutionalized exclusion and oppression of the Chōsengakkō system. Connection
with a longer-term struggle maintains the intra-organizational momentum of advocacy, but without
the inter-organizational reach becoming extendable to the point of engaging Mindan. Mindan’s
organizational behavior is in sync with Japanese public opinion about the Chōsengakkō system, which
sees it as synonymous with Chongryon and the DPRK, which have constituted a major geopolitical

29. The 2009–2010 demonstrations against First Elementary coincided with the introduction and pending approval of a high
school tuition waiver program by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration that had come to power in 2009.
The waiver system itself officially started in 2010, and at present, approximately 30 international schools, including 2 pro-
Seoul Korean schools, are eligible [Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEXT), n.d.]. In February 2013,
the government finalized a decision denying eligibility to all ten Chōsengakkō high schools (Ito 2013).
risk factor in Japan for decades. The Kyoto school incident litigation appeals to another side of
Japanese public opinion, which values fundamental human rights and educational opportunities for
minority children. Echoing Melinda Miceli’s (2005) observations on how opposing organizations
may frame the same issue differently to reach different audiences, Chongryon and Mindan’s lack of
coalition is the result of each organization’s attempt to reach ideologically and politically different
groups of the Japanese majority.
The Mindan talk cancellation, which was never formally problematized beyond a regional branch
of the organization, and Korea University’s time-lagged filing of complaints by individual students
to the Ministry of Justice, also involve a contradictory framing that challenges conventional Zainichi
Korean movement strategies. Any Zainichi Korean organizational front has had to affirm a strong
and proud collective identity (Lie 2008). Open and collective acknowledgment of shock, terror, fear,
sadness, and despair invoked by hate demonstrations contains a dilemma for nationalistic and male-
centered Zainichi Korean advocacy. The need to handle unprecedented hate crises called for a careful
assessment of the hate encounters. A Mindan youth group activist characterized the cancellation of
the event because of Zaitokukai’s threat as ‘embarrassing’. It is not surprising that this incident was
not shared across Mindan’s organizational hierarchy. Pride in the resilience of its members makes
it difficult also for Chongryon to admit that Zaitokukai hate demonstrations are, in fact, terrifying.
3.4. External Conditions: The Relationship with Japanese Society

Zainichi Korean movements represented by Chongryon and Mindan are movements whose mem-
bers lack the right to participate in formal politics in Japan. In order to overcome this fundamental
institutional hurdle as resident foreigners, their target audience is the Japanese majority with which
each organization tries to establish the legitimacy of its claims. Chongryon used to lobby mainly
politicians from the Japan Socialist Party (now reduced to a tiny rump, the Social Democratic Party
or Shamintō; Mun 2003: 144; Yun 2015: 2).30 Mindan lobbies politicians of the Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP; Jimintō) and Democratic Party (formerly DPJ; since 2016 Minshintō). Both Chongryon
and Mindan also work with local and national Kōmeitō politicians. Both organizations have been
working closely with sympathetic progressive Japanese grassroots activists for a long time. Japanese
labor movements have provided long-lasting support for the Chōsengakkō system. In addition, both
organizations maintain a relationship with the Japanese mass media.
Mun (2007: 189) attributes the advancement of Zainichi Korean causes in regional communities
since the 1970s to the popularity of progressive local administrations across Japan, which once cov-
ered 40% of the entire Japanese population. More recently, however, we have seen a steady decline in
progressive grassroots activism and parties, as illustrated by the near-demise of the Japanese Socialist
Party in the course of the 1990s, and the swift demise of the DPJ administration in (2009–2012).
The second Abe Shinzō administration (LDP; 2012–) has a strong coalition with Kōmeitō as well as
ultra-conservative populist parties, and is fully capable of passing legislation with its overwhelming
majority. With this ultra-conservative current of formal politics, the need for Korean organizations to
appeal to a much broader Japanese audience is all the more pressing.
The consolidation of intra-Zainichi Korean solidarity has been increasingly bypassed in favor of
pressing demands on the Japanese legislature through the voices of the majority Japanese and the
international community. Each organization responds to hate in concert with all available insiders in
30. While the Japanese Communist Party and left-leaning Zainichi Koreans used to struggle jointly, the Japanese Communist
Party excluded Koreans in 1955 (Mun 2003: 144).
228 Youngmi LIM
the Japanese formal political system, the Japanese mass media, Japanese legal and scholastic experts,
and Japanese grassroots activists. Mindan and Chongryon are not competing against each other for
these human and social capitals, just sharing overlapping networks. Chongryon has also appealed
through the UN, since the DPRK joined the UN in 1991. Similarly, Mindan places demands through
the ROK, but it appealed directly to the UN’s CERD over hate issues for the first time in 2014.
It is not DPRK–ROK relations so much as DPRK–Japan relations that shape Mindan’s organiza-
tional stance. How the Japanese majority views these relations influences Mindan’s official stance. In
January 2016, as the Japanese mass media reported on DPRK nuclear testing, Mindan’s Tokyo-based
activists conducted a protest action in front of Chongryon’s headquarters, which the Asahi Shinbun
reported (7 January 2016a). Such protests are part of Mindan’s routine performance each time the
DPRK conducts a nuclear experiment or a missile launch. I asked one of my Mindan informants who
the target audience of their January protest action was. The informant unhesitatingly stated, ‘It’s
the media. The Japanese mass media’.31 This is part of organizational impression management, to
enhance Mindan’s organizational legitimacy within Japanese society.
Chongryon’s insistence on indirect involvement in the Chōsengakkō issues parallels Mindan’s
campaign for local suffrage and responses to hate crises: the target audience is the Japanese pub-
lic. For Chongryon activist informants, how to curtail hate demonstrations and hate speech is an
important social problem in contemporary Japan. This makes the Japanese public’s support for
the Chōsengakkō system is all the more important, when the schools are always sanctioned by the
Japanese government each time Japan–DPRK relations worsen. The school community and students
filed law suits over the termination of some local governments’ supplementary funding as well as the
exclusion of Chōsengakkō from the high school tuition waiver program. On 13 September 2017, the
Tokyo District Court ruled that the exclusion of the Tokyo Chōsen High School from tuition waivers
was lawful. A rally held to protest the verdict attracted nearly 1,000 people. One of the speakers was
a prominent Japanese lawyer who has been working on the Chōsengakkō issues for years. The rep-
resentative of the litigation support network bridging litigations across the nation was also Japanese.
The Chōsengakkō system across Japan has Japanese local supporters’ groups, many drawn from
labor activism. Each time Japan–DPRK tension rises, Japanese and Zainichi Korean volunteers stand
guard on the streets connecting the local railway station and the school. The Chōsengakkō system
schools make the school as open as possible to the Japanese public, even accepting security risks (Kim
2012). The framing strategy of the plight of the Chōsengakkō system continues, involving both
Japanese and Zainichi Koreans, appealing the universal educational rights of children to the Japanese
mainstream, intermediated by their progressive Japanese allies. A staff member of a Chongryon-
affiliated Zainichi Korean Human Rights Association also appealed against the violation of minority
rights to education at the 10th UN Forum on Minority Issues (Choson Shinbo, 15 December 2017).
The envoy reported positively on the impact of their appeal, ascribing it to experience of international
lobbying accumulated since the 1990s. Litigation and international appeals do not address hate crises
directly, focusing rather on minority education rights.
The entire advocacy associated with the Kyoto school incident had to be detached from Chongryon
as much as possible. Likewise, continuing struggles over high school vouchers as well as supplemen-
tary funding from local governments minimize Chongryon presence. Chongryon’s Choson Shinbo
provides detailed coverage of these litigation struggles and related international efforts, while restrict-
ing its own role to that of backstage administrator. The schools are run not directly by Chongryon,
not to mention the DPRK government: such, at least, is the framing. The firm response to hate on

the part of the school community simultaneously reveals how dependent Chongryon’s advocacy is
on Japanese and international public opinion. To maximize political gains, the organization has to be
invisible. The DPRK’s socio-political circumstances do not affect Chongryon’s advocacy as much as
Japan–DPRK relations and Japanese attitudes towards the DPRK.
As for Mindan, the impact of external factors is signaled by more recent Japanese political debates
on immigration policies and on resident foreigner suffrage in particular (Higuchi 2014, 2016). By
the beginning of the 2000s, the Japanese government was developing patchwork solutions for inte-
grating migrant workers and their descendants, regardless of their origins—former colonies, neigh-
boring Asian nations, or return migrants from Latin America. The gradual integration of minority
members into the formal political sphere continues to be permitted only through naturalization of
carefully screened members. This clearly demarcates the limits to what Zainichi Korean movements
can ask for. Local franchise campaigning remains an unrealistic goal because of Japan’s treatment of
resident foreigners as a security threat due to their connections with their homeland (Higuchi 2014,
2016). Naturalization and intermarriage inevitably weaken a specific Zainichi Korean advocacy that
presses the demand for resident foreigners’ local suffrage.
Both Mindan’s local suffrage campaign, which challenges the boundaries of Japanese political
decision-making, and Chongryon’s maintenance of the Chōsengakkō system, which embraces com-
ponents of DPRK overseas national education, are equally unyielding demands in the contemporary
Japanese political milieu. Campaigns for resident foreigners’ local suffrage keep being aborted as
many mainstream Japanese question the loyalty of foreign residents to the Japanese state. Minority
education is subsidized only for nations that have a favorable relationship with the Japanese state.
4. Conclusion: Japanese Civil Society at a Crossroads

On 24 May 2016, the House of Representatives passed the anti-hate speech law (The Act on the
Promotion of Efforts to Eliminate Unfair Discriminatory Speech and Behavior against Persons
Originating from Outside Japan, MOJ 2016), and it took effect on 3 June 2016. According to the
law, hate speech is ‘unforgivable’ but equally unsanctioned (Osaki 2016). The passage of the legisla-
tion took approximately eight years from when Zaitokukai-type hate speech demonstrations in public
space first gained notoriety, around 2008. In July 2016, when Sakurai Makoto, the former leader
of Zaitokukai, ran for governor of Tokyo, his election campaigns contained hate speech. Sakurai
harassed Zainichi Koreans in public without being interrupted or penalized.32 Mindan, in the name
of its representative, filed a complaint with the Ministry of Justice regarding Sakurai’s electioneer-
ing in front of Mindan headquarters (Asahi Shinbun, 21 September 2016b; Mindan Shinbun, 28
September 2016). The legal process requires an individual victim’s name and address (MOJ 2004),
and it cannot be represented by any organization.33 While the current anti-hate-speech law is a step-
ping stone towards comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, and establishes a new norm against
hate speech, compartmentalized solutions by individual hate victims diffuse voices of concern that
could otherwise coalesce into a firmer, larger-scale, and organized opposition. This report system
32. Although Mindan and Chongryon activists have no voting rights, Sakurai made hateful speeches as part of his election
campaign in front of Mindan and Chongryon headquarters.
33. Sakurai counter-filed a complaint against Mindan and its representative O Gong-tae for a Mindan Shinbun article that
Sakurai argued could possibly be taken as a death threat against him (Sakurai 2016). The Tokyo Bureau of Justice turned
down both filings (Asahi Shinbun , 6 January 2017).
230 Youngmi LIM
using individual names systematically undermine the presence of Zainichi Korean advocacy groups
be it Mindan or Chongryon.
The lack of coalition-building among the two main Zainichi Korean organizations in response
to hate crises suggests that the socio-political conditions in contemporary Japan segment Zainichi
Korean advocacy more than intra- and inter-organizational dynamics do. Both Chongryon’s delib-
erate low profile in the Kyoto school incident’s litigation struggle, which was a strategy designed to
enhance the movement’s appeal to the Japanese public, and Mindan’s symbiotic relationship with
conservative Japanese media in the frenzy about the DPRK-Chongryon-Chōsengakkō trinity, were
associated with each organization’s impression management. How each movement’s major claims
are framed rests on the Japanese majority audience, which includes diverse political, ideological, and
moral standpoints.
Each conventional Zainichi Korean organization, despite its bureaucratic inertia, partially fulfills its
objectives in dealing with hate crises, not by appealing to intra-ethnic solidarity, but rather through col-
laborating with and appealing to Japanese citizens and to international organizations such as the UN.34
In January 2017, Mindan leader O Gong-Tae criticized South Korean civic groups for putting up
comfort women statues in various cities in South Korea and other countries, remarking that Zainichi
Koreans suffer the most from worsening Japan–ROK relations (Takeda 2017). A group of Zainichi
Koreans, all in an individual capacity, issued a counter-statement on 18 January 2017, supporting the
comfort women statues.35 O’s statement signals another moment in Zainichi Korean organizations’
ever-weakening force in identity politics, be it ‘for empowerment’ or ‘for critique’ (Bernstein 1997).
In response to decades-long criticism of both Zainichi organizations (Lee 1980: 35–36),
Chongryon and Mindan have reframed their organizational missions to emphasize everyday concerns
of Zainichi Koreans. Both organizations, however, bypass each other’s presence at the very moment
in which the label of being a Zainichi Korean, regardless of ideology and politics, has been residually
yet clearly defined by exclusion from Japanese society as targets of hate. Puzzling approaches on the
part of both organizations can only be understood in relation to their strategic efforts to connect
with important parts of mainstream Japanese society, even as the Japanese political environment
grows increasingly inhospitable to Zainichi Korean concerns. The overall implications of hate crises
for diverse Zainichi Koreans outside of any organizational influence and their identities call for fur-
ther inquiry, as does the impact of the relationship between progressive Japanese, majority Japanese,
and ACM sympathizers on Zainichi Korean advocacy.
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Social Science Japan Journal Vol. 21, No. 2, pp 213–233 2018 doi: 10.

1. Introduction: Zainichi Koreans and Hate Campaigns since the

1.1. Divided Advocacy: Exploring Intra-ethnic and External Factors

Hangukmindan, or Zainihon Kankokumindan in Japanese, known as Mindan in both Japanese and

1.1.2. External Factors: Relationship with the Japanese Public

7. Note this is not a ‘right’ to residency.

1.2. Effective Ethnic Advocacy: Advantages and Costs of Coalition

9. Personal interview, 28 January 2016.

2. The Korean Community’s Response to Hate:Three Case Studies

13. Personal interview 1, Kyoto, 9 July 2011.

2.2. Korea University Annual Demonstrations and MOJ Recommendation: 2008–2011, 2015

19. Personal interview, Tokyo, 9 July 2012.

2.3. Mindan Kyoto’s Cancelled Lecture: 2011

21. Personal interview, Tokyo, 23 January 2016.

3. The Missing Chongryon-Mindan Coalition: Implications beyond the

3.1. Preceding Inter-organizational Relations: The Entrenched Legacy of Cold-War Politics

3.2. Intra-organizational Dynamics: Bureaucratic Inertia

27. Personal interview, Tokyo, 25 January 2016.

3.3. Discordant Frames: Long-standing Chōsengakkō Issues versus Recent Hate Speech

28. Personal interview, Kyoto, 11 July 2011.

3.4. External Conditions: The Relationship with Japanese Society

31. Personal interview, Tokyo, 29 January 2016.

4. Conclusion: Japanese Civil Society at a Crossroads

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