Official investigations reveal that only 245 registered Koreans in Japan were wartime conscripted laborers. Postwar Japan allowed free repatriation, disproving claims of forced detention and clarifying the true nature of national conscription.

2017-05-03
The following is a continuation of the previous section.
Third, although the total number of Koreans currently registered in Japan is approximately 610,000, a recent investigation conducted by the relevant ministries into individual alien registration records revealed that among them, only 245 persons came to Japan as conscripted laborers during the war.
As stated above, after the end of the war, the Japanese government continuously kept open avenues for repatriation for those Koreans who wished to return, and in fact, a large number did return.
Those currently residing in Japan, including the aforementioned 245 individuals, are all persons who remained in Japan by their own free will, or those who were born in Japan.
Therefore, there is not a single Korean person whom the Japanese government is currently forcing to remain in Japan against his or her will, except for criminals.
The “national conscription” that became the basis for South Korea’s claims of forced mobilization and forced labor was not imposed solely on Koreans or the peoples of other Asian countries.
It was first imposed on the entire Japanese population, a system that had existed even before the war.
Only in the final stages of the war was it extended to people in Korea and other Asian regions.
Furthermore, conscription involved the proper payment of wages, and it did not subject Asian peoples to forced labor resembling the colonial practices of white nations, which treated them like livestock.