Published on July 29, 2019. Through a dialogue between Sakurai Yoshiko and Nishioka Tsutomu, this article examines how the term “forced mobilization” was popularized as a coined expression during the 1960s movement against the Japan–South Korea treaty. It reviews the realities of wartime labor, Japan’s immigration control white paper, the limited period of the National Requisition Ordinance, illegal crossings, unpaid wages, and the Japan–South Korea claims negotiations, while questioning the formation of anti-Japanese narratives surrounding the wartime labor issue.

July 29, 2019.
What Mr. Pak Kyong-sik and others tried to do in 1965 was to target Professor Morita, somehow defeat his work, and for that purpose they brought in the term “forced mobilization.”
It was a coined term.
It did not exist at the time.
This is a chapter I published on December 27, 2018, under the title: “From September 1944, it was carried out under the National Requisition Ordinance.
However, by the end of March, the ferry service between Shimonoseki and Busan had almost ceased, and recruitment travel was no longer carried out.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Nishioka.
There is a Korean resident scholar in Japan named Pak Kyong-sik.
At the time, he was a professor at Korea University, a so-called university run by Chongryon, legally a miscellaneous school.
In the midst of the movement against the Japan–South Korea treaty in the 1960s, he wrote the famous book Records of the Forced Mobilization of Koreans, and spread the coined term “forced mobilization” throughout the world.
Sakurai.
It is not impossible to see Pak Kyong-sik and Yoshida Seiji, who falsely claimed that he had carried out “comfort women hunting,” as having played in coordination with each other.
Yoshida Seiji borrowed Pak Kyong-sik’s expression and wrote it in his own book.
Nishioka.
Perhaps it was because he referred to it.
The first Immigration Control White Paper, issued in 1959, or Showa 34, was decided by the Cabinet, and in it, wartime laborers are described as follows.
“As the wartime system advanced and the national mobilization plan was promoted in the Japanese home islands, Korean laborers were also included.
From September 1939, in designated areas within Korea, business owners recruited laborers who wished to travel to Japan.
From February 1942, that recruitment was carried out through the mediation of the Government-General.
From September 1944, it was carried out under the National Requisition Ordinance.
However, by the end of March, the ferry service between Shimonoseki and Busan had almost ceased, and recruitment travel was no longer carried out.
Therefore, the period under the National Requisition Ordinance was only a little over six months.
From September 1939 onward, the number of laborers recruited to the Japanese home islands was more than 635,000, but among them were those who returned after their contract period expired, and those who left the workplace and moved elsewhere, and the number who were at those work sites at the time of the end of the war was more than 322,000.
In addition, at the end of the war, there were about 110,000 people in the Japanese home islands as military personnel and civilian employees of the military.
Moreover, during the above period as well, many ordinary Koreans came and went as before, and at the time of the end of the war, the total number of Koreans residing in Japan was about two million.”
This is the result of empirical research that made full use of the various statistics and materials held by the government.
What Mr. Pak Kyong-sik and others tried to do in 1965 was to target the empirical research of Japanese government offices at the time, which had been done by Professor Morita Yoshio, and somehow defeat it.
For that purpose, they brought in the term “forced mobilization.”
It was a coined term.
It did not exist at the time.
Sakurai.
So from there, the theory of forced mobilization began to be pushed to the forefront.
Nishioka.
They say that eight million people were forcibly mobilized and 200,000 were used as sex slaves.
Sakurai.
What is the basis for the outrageous figure of eight million?
Nishioka.
It includes not only people brought to Japan, but also people made to work in factories and at work sites within Korea.
If all of them are included, there are such figures, but it is simply that everyone cooperated in the war in the ordinary way.
It was not forced mobilization.
It was within Korea, after all.
Sakurai.
This concerns the period before so-called official mediation, when people from the Korean Peninsula came to Japan to work through recruitment, but there was a great deal of illegal travel, and records remain showing that 19,000 people were sent back.
When the war ended as well, amid Japan’s confusion, everyone temporarily returned to the Korean Peninsula, but there were far too many people who smuggled themselves back into Japan.
In American records, there are figures showing that this many people were sent back.
Nishioka.
If you look at the police records from that time included in Mr. Pak Kyong-sik’s collection of materials, there is a story about a person who was requisitioned in Showa 20, escaped from Osaka, and came to Tokyo.
When he went to a Korean foreman’s workers’ camp, they let him drink cloudy sake.
When he went to another workers’ camp, this time they were eating beef.
But Japanese scholars read such materials diligently and write in their papers only the parts inconvenient for Japan.
They are not wrong, but they are biased.
South Korea and North Korea are rather rough, so they sometimes say wrong things, but Japanese scholars are insidious.
Perhaps “insidious” is a little too strong.
They are carefully anti-Japanese.
Sakurai.
“Carefully anti-Japanese,” is it?
Do they have bad personalities?
In the wartime labor issue, Japanese companies deposited money in trust so that unpaid wages would not arise.
The Japanese government as well, in the Japan–South Korea claims negotiations, repeatedly had exchanges in which the Japanese side said it would properly pay compensation to each individual worker, or would pay unpaid wages, so let us compare the lists here, investigate who should be paid, and pay those who should be paid.
But this has been ignored.
Mr. Nishioka, looking back on the history of Japan and South Korea, Japanese companies worked very hard, and the Japanese government, though perhaps insufficiently, also did quite a lot, did it not?