Analysis
NORTH KOREA AND JAPAN: REGIONAL DIPLOMACY AND HUMAN
TRAGEDY
by Tessa Morris-Suzuki tessa.morris-suzuki@anu.edu.au,
Convenor and Professor of Japanese History, Division of Pacific and
Asian History, Australian National University
As Northeast Asia moves cautiously towards a resolution of
the North Korean nuclear issue, one group of people is watching the negotiations
quietly but with intense personal interest. Over the past two years, I have
been in touch with some of them. There is the woman who has been campaigning
for years to obtain permission for her sister, now living in North Korea,
to travel to Japan for one final meeting with their frail and dying mother.
Then there is the middle-aged woman who lived for decades in North Korea but
is now back in Japan, where she was born, desperately worrying about the fate
of the children and siblings she has left behind.
These stories are part of a forgotten history still haunting Northeast Asian
politics. Between 1959 and 1984 – the years of Japan’s “economic
miracle” – over 90,000 people migrated from Japan in search, ironically,
of better lives in North Korea. Most were ethnic Koreans, the vast majority
originating from the south of the Korean peninsula, but also included some
6,000 Japanese spouses.
In 2004 I encountered a cache of newly-declassified documents
which cast a disturbing light on this history. These reveal that the mass
migration to North Korea, presented to the world as a “humanitarian
repatriation”, was actually the result of a complex web of political
dealings involving both Koreas, Japan, and the international Red Cross movement,
with the Soviet Union providing support and the United States sometimes acting
as intermediary.
In the 1950s, around 600,000 Koreans lived in Japan, where
they faced severe discrimination. From 1955, some influential Japanese politicians
and bureaucrats developed a secret policy pushing for a mass migration of
ethnic Koreans from Japan to North Korea.
Knowing that this was a potentially explosive issue, they
sought to ensure that the exodus was carried out under the auspices of the
Red Cross. The North Korean government was contacted through its national
Red Cross society. Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare
began slashing the limited welfare to which ethnic Koreans had access, thus
making their lives in Japan more uncertain than ever.
At first, North Korea had little interest in accepting an
influx of Koreans from Japan. However, in 1958, its government – in
the midst of a development plan for which labour was needed – issued
a public welcome to “returnees” from Japan, who were promised
housing, jobs, and welfare. A massive propaganda campaign swept through Japan’s
Korean community. It was run by a pro-North Korean organisation, ably assisted
by the Japanese media and members of Japan’s political elite.
For most of the migrants, North Korea proved to be a place
of great material hardship. For some, it was also a place of persecution and
death. From the mid-1960s, North Korea began political repression of the “returnees”,
who were regarded as “politically unreliable”. Unknown numbers,
but certainly thousands, disappeared into prison camps.The recent Six-Party
Talks between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have
highlighted the plight of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the
1970s and 1980s; but the tragedy of the “returnees” to North Korea
– this strange story which spans both sides of the Cold War divide –
is still almost unknown. The current negotiations may enable the story of
the “returnees” to be heard, and may even offer hope that families
divided by this tragedy can someday be reunited.
Links:
'OTHER HISTORIES' AND CROSS-CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT IN ASIAN
MUSEUMS
Chinese Australian artist Guan Wei’s art installation
Other Histories, curated by Claire Roberts for tPowerhouse Museum, Sydneyhe
, poses an alternative Australian history, which some visitors may find challenging.
Inspired by what the museum calls one of their most ‘mysterious
objects’, a figure of the Chinese god of longevity found in Northern
Australia, Guan Wei suggests the possibility of a pre-European Chinese discovery
of Australia by Admiral Zheng He.
Guan Wei’s ‘fable for a contemporary world’ echoes themes
in his powerful series ‘Looking for enemies’ about the world since
9/11. His message: ‘It is imperative that we find a shared set of values
to ensure our survival’.
Museums have a key role in preserving history. Today they
are also expected to engage with issues critical to the present and even the
hypotheses of ‘alternative history’, as evoked so compellingly
by Guan Wei.
Western museums have found exhibitions of alternative histories may arouse
controversy. An important development for the region is an expanding openness
in Asian museums related to the presentation of multiple or alternative histories
and inclusion of the culture of minorities.
A particularly emotional issue has been Japan’s invasions
of neighbouring countries in the 20th century. The Japanese National Museum
of History still does not deal with the war, but recently held conferences
on introducing the subject into displays and does treat the massacre of Koreans
after the great Kanto earthquake of 1923.
The National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka was a
pioneer in recognising the Ainu Indigenous people of Hokkaido as owners of
the Ainu objects in their collections and as a living separate culture (many
years before the Japanese Government did so).The curators have a continuing
program to help establish Ainu museums in Hokkaido. The focus is on the revival
of culture. The Osaka Government has supported the local community in creating
the Liberty Museum dedicated to the history and human rights concerns of minorities,
in particular the Buraku, ethnic Japanese descended from the lowest social
group under the old feudal system. Tessa Morris –Suzuki has written
eloquently on this Museum.
In China the Shanghai Museum has become a leading museum
in Asia for discussions about future museological directions. It hosted a
major International Council of Museums (ICOM) international conference in
2002 on the subject of ‘intangible heritage’, meaning how to introduce
the lives, customs, traditions, values and histories of the people who made
exhibits, including the living histories of those who are the inheritors of
that history.
The conference also considered ways of approaching cultural
diversity and minorities within societies in a museum context with recommendations
set out in the ‘Shanghai Charter’ adopted by ICOM. ICOM Asia-Pacific
is thus setting a new agenda for museological practice in the region, heralding
perhaps a new approach to how the region understands its many histories and
a step towards a shared set of values for museums in Asia.
Links:
Profile
This month we profile Graeme Dobell, Foreign
Affairs/Defence correspondent in Canberra for Radio Australia, the international
service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. www.abc.net.au/ra/
Q: When did you become interested in studying Asia
and why?
A: The Vietnam War, I think, had a certain focussing effect
on those of us who up grew up during the 1960s and came of conscriptable age
during that era. Vietnam was where geopolitics collided with my generation
and it certainly gave a personal point to an interest in the region.
I started work in as a journalist in 1971 on the Melbourne
broadsheet afternoon paper, The Herald (moving from copy boy, to cadet to
graded journalist). The key shift for me was moving to Radio Australia (RA)
as a current affairs reporter in 1975, just after Saigon fell, just before
Indonesia invaded East Timor (and before Gough fell as well). It was quite
a year, and I’ve been studying Asia pretty well full time ever since.
Radio Australia’s target audiences are East Asia and
the South Pacific and that has been my focus. I’m a tribute to lack
of career progression really. I first came to Canberra to be RA’s correspondent
in 1978 and I keep coming back to this position from various overseas postings.
Q: What are your current preoccupations?
A: Working in radio, my preoccupations can change from hour
to hour – crisis, coups and the colour and movement of politics direct
a journalist’s daily agenda. Some of the time, the immediate can push
aside the important. But to put it at its broadest, I suppose what I do is
write about power and the way it is used in the Asia Pacific - from an Australian
perspective. One of the changes since I first did this job in the ‘70s
is that it’s now possible to talk about Canberra as part of ‘the
region’ – whether you’re talking about East Asia or the
South Pacific. What I write about here in Canberra is often very similar to
the stuff I was covering when I was based in Singapore as the ABC’s
Southeast Asia correspondent.
Q: How do these fit into the contemporary scene?
A: When I sat down to write a book about Australian foreign
policy at the end of the ‘90s, I grappled with how to find some theme
or unifying image for our set of relationships in the Asia Pacific –
to push issues of power, region, convergence and economic change inside one
set of covers. The answer I came up with was a title with a lot of wriggle
room – Australia Finds Home: the choices and chances of an Asia
Pacific journey (ABC Books, 2000).
I decided ‘Finds Home’ was less plaintive than ‘Looks for
Home’. It talked about a series of ‘homes’ where Australia
must play and reside: as a superpower in the South Pacific, as an equal in
Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and one of the middle players in East
Asia amidst the dance of giants. There was a strong ‘regionalist’
flavour running through much of it, with a lot of discussion of the various
experiences of APEC, ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum. In the end it was
a
400-page book that helped clarify a lot of my own thoughts, and allowed me
to throw out a couple of decades of old files. It was written following the
dictum of James Reston, of the New York Times: ‘How do I know
what I think until I see what I write?’ A good line for any reporter.
Links:
Student of the month
Rebecca Livermore rl2@postoffice.utas.edu.au
, an undergraduate at the University of Tasmania, is spending this semester
at the Universitas Islam Indonesia (Indonesian Islamic University) in Yogyakarta,
as part of the ACICIS www.acicis.murdoch.edu.au Indonesian in-country program.
Rebecca received a $2000 scholarship from the Australian government to help
her with her travels and study.
Her first experience in Asia, indeed anywhere outside Australia,
was a family holiday to Bali when she was 12. The family travelled around
Bali for five weeks, to Kuta, Ubud, Padangbai, Gili Meno, Lombok and some
very secluded villages. Rebecca was fascinated by the culture, especially
the role of Hinduism and Islam in people’s lives. The Indonesian people,
especially in the smaller villages, were very friendly and caring, always
smiling and joking, and the families who hosted the Livermores were as interested
in hearing about Australia as they were to learn about Indonesia.
That time in Bali made a lasting impression. When Rebecca
started uni she decided to study Indonesian. After completing her first year
of a Bachelor of Arts, she spent a month in Yogyakarta studying at Realia,
an Indonesian language school, which gave her credit towards her degree. At
the end of her second year she applied to take part in the first course offered
in English to foreign students by the Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII).
Rebecca is entering her sixth week of study at UII. At first
it was a bit daunting being the only female student not wearing a ‘jilbab’
(headscarf) but the students and staff have made her feel very welcome and
she’s enjoying the experience immensely. Her subjects are Islamic Religious
Practice, Islamic Leadership, Indonesian Business Practice, Islamic Thought
and Civilisation and Islamic Macroeconomics. All are giving Rebecca an insight
into the way in which Islam influences the lifestyle and thinking of the Islamic
people in Indonesia. It is a unique experience to learn about Indonesian life
and religion first hand, something it is impossible to do out of a text book
or in a classroom in Australia. Rebecca aims to work on relations between
Indonesia and Australia in the future, hoping that her knowledge and friendships
will help to diminish the tensions between the two countries, most of which
she ascribes to suspicion and ignorance.
Website of the month
http://vlmy.geneva21.biz
The World Wide Web Virtual Library - Malaysia, is
a collection of links and other online resources related to Malaysia.
It has recently been revamped and now has an enlarged news section.
The website is part of a global collaborative project which provides
access to networked scholarly documents, resources and information systems
concerned with or relevant to Asian Studies.The Asian Legal Information
Institute is a gateway that allows simultaneous searching of more than
100 databases containing legislation, case-law, law reform reports and
legal journals from 27 countries including the Philippines, Indonesia,
Japan, Pakistan, Mongolia and East Timor.
Recent article of interest
History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia's
Past by Katharine McGregor. Under the New Order regime (1967–98),
the Indonesian military sought to monopolise the production of official history.
The goal was to validate the political role of the armed forces, condemn communism
and promote military values. In this detailed examination of the Indonesian
military’s image-making efforts, McGregor explores the formulation of
nationalist history under Suharto, and shows how this affected the Indonesian
people. NUS Press, February 2007, 288pp. See http://www.unireps.com.au.
Note: ASAA members can get a discount on this book. http://www.unireps.com.au/isbn/9971693607specd.htm
Did you know?
The Lowy Institute for International Policy has launched
its fifth program, the West Asia program, incorporating the Middle East and
South Asia. It is focused on seven key themes – the role of the US in
these regions, terrorism, energy security, the rise of new powers, notably
India, proliferation, Islam and democratisation. To coincide with the launch,
the West Asia Program Director Anthony Bubalo has published a new policy brief
which argues why the Middle East and South Asia should increasingly be viewed
as a single region in strategic terms, and explores the policy implications
of such a perspective for Australia. See http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=543
Diary dates
TIES THAT BIND: WEAVERS, CLOTH, AND SOCIETY IN FLORES,
INDONESIA 27 March 2007, Sydney. As part of the Australian Centre
for Asian Art and Archaeology Seminar Series at the University of Sydney,
Dr Roy Hamilton, Senior Museum Scientist (Curator, Asian & Pacific Collections),
Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, will discuss
the role of cloth on the Indonesian island of Flores. 4.00 pm – 5.30
pm, Room 202, R.C. Mills Building, Fisher Road, University of Sydney. See
http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/
building.stm?location=16I
For further information contact Gabrielle Ewington: acaaa@arts.usyd.edu.au
GLOBAL SECURITY ASIA 2007, 27-29 March 2007, Singapore.
Global Security Asia 2007 www.globalsecasia.com will be a forum for the international
homeland security industry to showcase their latest equipment, systems and
services in order to meet the current and future demands in the Asia Pacific
region. Austrade will coordinate an Australian National Stand at this exhibition
and offers a business and support services to participants. Contact Christopher
Soh, Senior Business Development Manager, Austrade Singapore, christopher.soh@austrade.gov.au
SHANGHAI ART FAIR 2007 - Free Information Seminars,
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, during April. The Shanghai
Art Fair is China’s largest art show. Austrade is offering Australian
art galleries, artists and representatives space in an exclusive Australian
Art Showcase in 2007. Register online http://www.austrade.gov.au/Shanghai-Art-Fair-Info-Seminars/default.aspx
or call Austrade Direct on 13 28 78 email: info@austrade.gov.au
DISSECTING DISSECTION IN LATE IMPERIAL AND EARLY
MODERN CHINA: LU XUN'S ANATOMICAL AESTHETICS, 24 April, Sydney. Dr
Larissa Heinrich, Lecturer in Chinese Studies, Department of Chinese and Indonesian
Studies, UNSW, presents this seminar in the Australian Centre for Asian Art
and Archaeology Seminar Series at the University of Sydney. For further information
contact Gabrielle Ewington: acaaa@arts.usyd.edu.au
SOUTH ASIA ENGAGED, 27-29 April 2007, Los Angeles.
The South Asian Studies Alliance is hosting its foundation conference with
a focus on how South Asia is being integrated into the world. The proposal
deadline is 18 February 2007. See http://sasia.org
CHINESE STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA, 10th Biennial
Conference, 27-29 June 2007, Brisbane. Griffith University, will
be hosting the conference at Southbank in Brisbane. Watch the website for
details: http://www.csaa.org.au/news.html
2ND ASIAN AUSTRALIAN IDENTITIES conference, 28-30
June 2007, Melbourne. The organisers welcome papers and presentations
exploring Asian Australian identities, histories, cultures and politics. All
presentations should be of 20 minutes duration. Abstracts (max 200 words)
and a short bio (max 200 words) should be sent to admin@asianaustralianstudies.org
or contact the convenors, tseen.khoo@arts.monash.edu.au
or jacqueline.lo@anu.edu.au
CHINA EAST ASIA MEDIA/NEW MEDIA CONFERENCE, 5-6 July,
Brisbane. China’s emergence as a manufacturing behemoth is
reshaping the global economy. However, China’s media and creative industries
have not achieved the same export oriented momentum as its low cost manufacturers.
With the Beijing Olympics moving closer China is mounting a claim for a leading
role in the global and regional cultural economy, drawing on its long tradition
as the centre of East Asian culture. Will this be vision ever be achieved?
The conference will be hosted by the Australian Research Council Centre of
Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation http://www.cci.edu.au
IN SEARCH OF RECONCILIATION AND PEACE IN INDONESIA,
workshop 19 and 20 July 2007, Singapore. The Indonesia Study Group,
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore is holding an interdisciplinary
workshop to examine approaches to reconciliation and peace in Indonesia. Its
aim is to provide insights into ways forward not only for Indonesia, but for
conflict situations much more broadly. http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg
or contact the convenor, Dr Birgit Bräuchler aribb@nus.edu.sg
CHINA: Conference on Migration and Social Protection,
25 to 26 September, Beijing. Monash University's Asian Business and
Economics Research Unit together with the Institute of Population and Labour
Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Renmin-Monash
Advanced Centre for Economic Studies are staging an international conference
to explore issues such as: labour market integration and social protection,
migrant participation in social security schemes, migrant alternatives to
state-sponsored social protection, migrant working conditions, salaries and
wage arrears, and responsibilities of government in the provision of social
protection. See www.buseco.monash.edu.au/units/aberu/Conference2007/index.php
or contact Dr Ingrid Nielsen Ingrid.Nielsen@buseco.monash.edu.au
You are welcome to advertise Asia-related events in this
space. Send details to: fbeddie@ozemail.com.au.
Feedback
What would be useful for you? Human interest stories, profiles
of successful graduates of Asian studies, more news about what's on, moderated
discussions on topical issues? Send your ideas to fbeddie@ozemail.com.au
About the ASAA
The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) promotes
the study of Asian languages, societies, cultures, and politics in Australia,
supports teaching and research in Asian studies and works towards an understanding
of Asia in the community at large. It publishes the Asian Studies Review
journal and holds a biennial conference. ASAA and the Centre for Language
Studies at National University of Singapore also co-publish an annual supplementary
issue of the Centre's fully peer-reviewed electronic Foreign Language Teaching
Journal (e-FLT). See http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg
The ASAA believes there is an urgent need to develop a strategy to preserve,
renew and extend Australian expertise about Asia. It has called on the government
to show national leadership in the promotion of Australia’s Asia knowledge
and skills. See Maximizing Australia's Asia Knowledge Repositioning and
Renewal of a National Asset http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAA/asia-knowledge-book-v70.pdf
Asian Currents is published by the
Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) http://coombs.anu.edu.au/ASAA/
thanks to a grant from the International Centre of Excellence for Asia Pacific
Studies (ICEAPS) http://iceaps.anu.edu.au.
It is edited by Francesca Beddie. The editorial board consists of Robert Cribb,
ASAA President, Michele Ford, ASAA Secretary, Mina Roces, ASAA Publications
officer, Tamara Jacka, ASAA Council member, and Ann Kumar, Director, ICEAPS.
