The political calculation behind Kim Jong-un’s support for Chongryon
From 1959 to 1984, approximately 93,000 ethnic Koreans in Japan moved to North Korea. (Image: International Committee of the Red Cross Archives)
Kim Jong Un has reportedly sent over ¥287 million (approximately KRW 2.8 billion) to the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon, in the form of educational aid and scholarships.
Schools in Japan continue to receive such sums each year, even though in North Korea itself, students pass around secondhand textbooks and teachers run short of blackboard chalk. To date, North Korea has provided Chongryon children with ¥49.988 billion (KRW 495.6 billion) in 171 separate payments.
Why does the regime continue to pour billions into these schools? Why does Pyongyang still so steadfastly support the aging diaspora organization that runs them?
Chongryon is not merely an overseas community group. For North Korea, it is a propaganda base, a source of foreign currency, and, most importantly, a way to demonstrate support for the regime from abroad. Kim’s funding is not evidence of benevolence towards overseas Koreans. It is a political investment to sustain a loyal generation abroad that will carry forward the Juche ideology.
I feel some connection to this story. My hometown in Kyongsong County in North Hamgyong Province may be best known for the dictator’s villa and the Kim Jong-suk sanatorium, named after his grandmother, and also as a resettlement area for political offenders exiled from Pyongyang and others who were Korean War prisoners of war. But another unique feature of this region is the large number of returnees from Japan who liver there. These are ethnic Koreans who lived in Japan, or Jae-Po, in North Korean terminology.
People in our area primarily work in the mining, forestry, and steel industries. So many of them have these backgrounds that are deemed undesirable.
I grew up hearing that the returnees from Japan were people who “came home because they loved North Korea.” I remember a classmate in primary school whose grandmother had returned from Japan. He wasn’t particularly good at studying and was rather short, but he stood out because he wore Japanese-made clothes sent by relatives in Japan. Thanks to their support, his family lived relatively well.
An old lady who helped my busy mother raise me was also a returnee, but her family was extremely poor. According to my parents, her relatives had stopped sending money. The thing this lady said most often was that she wanted to eat “anko mochi” (sweet red bean rice cakes) from Japan. Her cheeks were sunken, and her house was terrifyingly poor. She and her eldest son passed away within a month of each other.
Neighbors whispered that they had likely starved to death but were too proud to admit it. They said it was a pity that they had died without knowing what had happened to their family in Japan. That image of the poor returnee struck me every time I passed their house.
Another place where many returnees were sent was Tanchon, the port city in South Hamgyong Province. The place is known for its cobalt, magnesite and iron ore mines, as well as chemical production, smelting and textiles. When I was young, I visited with my mother. The apartment complex we went to was home to many returnees. It was the first time I saw a washing machine that could rinse and spin-dry clothes.
We went because my mother used to illegally sell tiles from the ceramics factory in Kyongsong to the returnee families in Tanchon. People who had no cash would barter with Japanese made clothes.
When I told her I was envious of Jae-Po, my mother suddenly mentioned how the lady’s favorite song was Spring in My Hometown. Due to her undesirable background, her kids weren’t allowed to have full time work, and she was always under surveillance, but it was at least a relief that her family in Japan still sent money. Growing up, I always wondered, “Why did the Jae-Po choose to come here rather than stay in the wealthier country of Japan?”
Only after coming to South Korea did I learn the full truth. The Jae-Po who returned were victims of a repatriation drive that took place between 1959 and 1984. During that time, North Korea used Chongryon to promote false propaganda about being a paradise on earth and promised that returnees could freely go back and forth to Japan. That lie led 93,340 Koreans in Japan to migrate.
Once they arrived, of course, they were forbidden from ever leaving. What awaited them was surveillance, discrimination, and forced labor. The hoped-for paradise became a prison of no release. The returnees were stripped of freedom of movement and assigned homes and jobs. Their letters to family in Japan were subject to censorship.
In 2003, the family of one of my high school friends reportedly wrote in a letter to their relatives in Japan that they wanted to return. After the letter was intercepted, all communication with their Japanese family was severed. Unlike some, they were not sent to a prison camp. However, they did become much poorer.
One returnee who recently escaped said he used to write in letters to his family in Japan saying that North Korea was a good place to live, but he would secretly scribble on the back of the postage stamp, “Hyung-nim (Older Brother), we don’t even have the freedom to go outside. Never come here.”
“I saw returnees joining the Workers’ Party and becoming security agents,” said Lee Geum-hee, a former railway worker in North Korea. “I had issues with that. Looking back, I can see there was discrimination against them. They had been deceived by Chongryon and North Korea, ripped apart from their families, and forced to live a life they never chose. I feel sorry that we used to mock them and call them half-bloods. At least we defected by choice and knew we’d be separated from our parents. They were tricked, and never saw their families again. I can’t even imagine the guilt and torment they must have carried.”
Kim Sun-kyung, a former medical student in North Korea, said in an interview that when she saw news that some returnees had filed a human rights suit against Kim Jong-un, and that for the first time, the South Korean government had acknowledged the abuse, she wondered if Chongryon should also be held accountable.
“Reading that Kim sent money to Chongryon made me furious,” she said. “People in North Korean hospitals are dying because they don’t even have penicillin. That money could buy syringes and save lives. Why is he sending it to well-fed children in Japanese schools? It’s clearly propaganda. What shocks me even more is that Chongryon, which practically functions as North Korea’s embassy in Japan, still exists.”
Kang Ho-dong (alias), who worked in Russia before defecting to South Korea, said, “I worked for five years in Russia and earned $2,000. When I heard they sent money to Chongryon, I felt mental despair just having been born in North Korea.”
“In my next life, I just don’t want to be North Korean,” he said. “Knowing there’s a group like Chongryon in Japan that praises North Korea under the guise of freedom makes me really question the foundations of democracy. Organizations like Chongryon that worship North Korea despite the human rights abuses are no different from cults.”
The reason North Korea strategically supports Chongryon is not about nostalgia or past solidarity. Chongryon remains a living symbol of loyalty abroad, and an ideology and propaganda outpost justifying Kim’s regime in the heart of democratic Japan. It is also a channel through which North Korea, despite its isolation, acquires foreign currency, goods, and political leverage under the guise of overseas compatriot support.
“Chongryon’s loyalty to North Korea is nothing more than an illusion built from a safe distance,” Kang said. “It’s a luxurious kind of loyalty only possible in an environment of freedom and comfort, a delusion born from ignorance of reality.”
Jia defected from North Korea in search of basic freedoms, including the right to travel and freely express herself. Her identity as a North Korean has given her a sense of responsibility to represent the voices of her family and hometown friends and is also the reason she has chosen to work as a journalist.
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