Published on August 16, 2019.
This essay examines the relationship between Haemaru, the South Korean law firm involved in the wartime labor lawsuit, and liberal forces within Japan.
Through connections with Hantongryon, VAWW-NET Japan, Mizuho Fukushima, the Japanese Communist Party, and Chairman Shii, it considers how South Korean leftist and pro-North organizations have cooperated with Japanese political forces and activist groups.

August 16, 2019.
Hantongryon, created with Korean residents in Japan as its main axis, is a “pro-North organization” that was determined by South Korea’s Supreme Court to be an “anti-state organization” and was banned from entering South Korea for many years.
This is a chapter I published on December 20, 2018, under the title, “Hantongryon, an organization of Koreans and Korean residents in Japan, has a cooperative relationship with the aforementioned Violence Against Women in War Japan Network, or VAWW-NET Japan.”
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
When speaking about the pipeline with Japan, one person who cannot be omitted is Lim Jong-in, one of the representative lawyers who created Haemaru.
He is not directly involved in the current wartime labor lawsuit, but if one looks at his achievements, an interesting pipeline with Japan becomes visible.
The organization in Japan with which he has contact is Hantongryon, the Korean Democratic Unification Alliance in Japan.
Hantongryon, created with Korean residents in Japan as its main axis, is a “pro-North organization” that was determined by South Korea’s Supreme Court to be an “anti-state organization” and was banned from entering South Korea for many years.
Those who defend Hantongryon claim that its entry ban was a fabrication and labeling from the era of South Korea’s military governments, from 1961 to 1987.
However, it was in 1990, after democratization in 1987, that Hantongryon was recognized as an anti-state organization.
Furthermore, even during the Kim Dae-jung administration, from 1998 to 2003, when left-wing people who had been suppressed under the military governments were being rehabilitated and restored one after another, their ban on entering South Korea continued.
This was despite the fact that Kim Dae-jung himself had been the first chairman of Hanmintong, the predecessor of Hantongryon, which changed its name from Hanmintong to Hantongryon in 1989.
The person who worked to lift this ban on Hantongryon entering South Korea was Haemaru lawyer Lim Jong-in.
From around 2002, he visited Japan many times, participated in Hantongryon gatherings, and repeatedly held meetings with people connected to Hantongryon.
Then, in 2003, after the administration shifted to the Roh Moo-hyun government, Hantongryon was finally permitted to enter South Korea, and he was one of the key figures behind it.
Hantongryon is an organization of Koreans and Korean residents in Japan, but it has a cooperative relationship with the aforementioned Violence Against Women in War Japan Network, or VAWW-NET Japan.
For example, according to an article in Hantongryon’s organ, Minzoku Jiho, dated April 1, 2007, Hantongryon took action by delivering to the Cabinet Office a joint statement addressed to Prime Minister Abe titled “Joint Statement Calling for the Cessation of Sanctions Against North Korea and Human Rights Violations Against Koreans in Japan, and for the Realization of a Peaceful Northeast Asia Without War or Nuclear Weapons Through Dialogue.”
VAWW-NET Japan participated together in this joint statement, and it is also interesting that the person who mediated this petition was Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima.
The two organizations are comrades in “joint struggle.”
Considering this together, it can be inferred that Haemaru and Japan’s liberal forces have a deep relationship.
The reason for visiting the Japanese Communist Party.
On November 12, after the conclusion of the current Nippon Steel trial, young lawyers from Haemaru came to Japan and visited Nippon Steel’s headquarters in Tokyo, but the Nippon Steel side refused to meet with them.
From there, they went to visit the Japanese Communist Party, met with Chairman Shii, and requested cooperation.
In response to the request, Chairman Shii expressed active cooperation, saying, “Could we not value this point of agreement and achieve a forward-looking solution? I would like to work on the Japanese government as well,” and this scene was reported by multiple media outlets with photographs.
It was a good picture, showing those who are fighting and those who are trying to support them together.
Seeing this report, some people may have tilted their heads and wondered why Haemaru’s lawyers visited the Japanese Communist Party.
Or some may have thought simply that Haemaru’s lawyers visited a Japanese opposition party that might cooperate with them, and that the Japanese Communist Party, having received the request, decided to support and endorse the South Korean side’s activities.
But at the very least, this was no coincidence.
That is because the relationship between the Japanese Communist Party and Haemaru had begun at least more than ten years earlier.