This chapter examines the rise of resident Koreans in postwar Japan as what the author calls “beneficiaries of defeat.”
Through accounts of black markets, illegal occupation of land, unequal tax enforcement, and the extraordinary claim of being “citizens of a victorious nation,” it denounces the distortions of postwar governance in Japan.
It also criticizes postwar falsehoods by pointing out that some Koreans had even volunteered for the Japanese military and joined special attack units.

2019-05-28
On the contrary, some among them even joined the Japanese military’s special attack units, and when the Japanese military was in its prosperous phase, there were so many volunteers that the competition rate was dozens of times over.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Resident Koreans Who Called Themselves Citizens of a Victorious Nation.
In this way, those who continue to make Japan’s politics difficult today are the beneficiaries of defeat.
As another group of such beneficiaries, there was the rise of resident Koreans.
Among ordinary Koreans who came to Japan before the war, there was not a single rich person.
Yet after the war, every one of them became wealthy.
Some later became poor, but those people then lied by saying they had been forcibly brought over.
They settled in the burnt-out ruins after the war, claimed that the land was theirs, and became rich.
That is why pachinko parlors and yakiniku restaurants are located in convenient places near train stations.
Originally, there is no way that land could have belonged to them.
In many cases, they simply remained on land where, because of the war, the owners had died or gone missing.
One reason they were able to do such things was that at the time Japan had no penalties against real-estate theft.
That is because ordinarily people do not steal real estate.
In the Japan that had become a burned wasteland, the first things to appear near stations were black markets, and in those places the groups the police could not control had an overwhelming advantage.
These were the so-called “third-country nationals.”
The term “third-country nationals” was not a slur.
It merely referred to people from countries that had not been belligerent parties in the war against Japan.
In Kobe, there was even a time when the police were occupied by third-country nationals.
It is said that what rescued the situation was the Yamaguchi-gumi gang, and for that reason the police could not hold their heads high before the Yamaguchi-gumi for a long time afterward.
After the war, resident Koreans pushed through their demands as if they were justice itself.
Moreover, they called themselves citizens of a victorious nation.
Especially in the case of pro-North Korean organizations, the tax authorities never entered for a very long time.
Only after the Bush administration designated North Korea a terrorist state, and the Koizumi administration responded with economic sanctions linked to the abduction issue, were tax inspections finally carried out on them like they were on ordinary Japanese people.
The difference in profit between those who were not properly taxed for sixty years after the war and those who were taxed harshly was tremendous.
For example, one can see it by walking through Akasaka: one traditional high-class Japanese restaurant after another went out of business, and in their place Korean establishments appeared.
One gets the impression that after Japanese high-class restaurants collapsed under proper inheritance taxation, groups beyond the reach of the tax authorities moved in.
A philosopher named Kida Gen had been evacuated to my hometown.
He was a student at the Naval Academy when Japan was defeated, and he also saw the atomic bomb with his own eyes from offshore Kure.
Then, until his father returned from demobilization, he worked as a porter of black-market goods in order to feed his mother and sisters.
Speaking of his experiences at the time, he said the following.
Immediately after the defeat, trains were unbelievably crowded.
However, the cars occupied by Koreans were completely empty, because they would not allow Japanese people to enter.
When Mr. Kida tried to go into one, he was beaten.
Even so, he said he forced his way in.
Japan had no power to deal with such a state of affairs.
We must not forget that vicious Koreans were allowed to run rampant as they pleased.
What angers me most is that Koreans called themselves citizens of a victorious nation.
Even though Japan had not fought a war against Korea, they began saying such things.
On the contrary, some among them had even joined the Japanese military’s special attack units, and when the Japanese military was in its prosperous phase, there were so many volunteers that the competition rate rose to dozens of times over.