Hunchun under the surge of the “second class citizen” : Rise of Koreans’ social status during the Manchukuo period

Abstract

This paper on Koreans’ social status during the Manchukuo period tries to review previous Korean researches on the same topic. The previous researches covered the whole Manchukuo and highlighted the unfavorable situations of Koreans under the suppression of Japanese and Chinese peoples. This paper focuses on a small county, called Hunchun, a part of the Jiandao Province, in order to more deeply look into the Korean people’s social status. It examines the Hunchun Koreans’ positions and activities especially in the four specific areas, that is, education system, local governments, security organizations and self-governing associations.BR Before the Mukden incident, Koreans in Jiandao including Hunchun suffered the suppression of the Chinese government and the discrimination by the Chinese people. After the establishment of Manchukuo, in Hunchun more Korean people received school education and enjoyed more opportunities to enter into middle schools and even higher educational institutions. Koreans who had been restricted from local government positions, now occupied a majority number of positions in the county headquarter and a half of sub-county level government positions. The number of Koreans highly increased in the police. Koreans were quite active in the Japanese military police which overlooked the Manchukuo police. Dozens of Koreans worked for the Japanese military police and organized and administered its several outside organizations. Before the Manchukuo, self-governing associations such as the Hunchun Agricultural Association and the Hunchun Commercial Association hardly admitted Koreans. Under the Manchukuo, however, the members and governing boards of those associations were composed of not only the Chinese and the Japanese but also Koreans. These achievements of Hunchun Koreans were accomplished while Chinese people lost their dominant position they had once possessed before the Manchukuo.BR In the light of the experience of Hunchun Koreans, the “second class citizen”, the nickname of Koreans during the Manchukuo period means Korean people’s exalted social status only after the Japanese. It is supposed that Koreans could enjoy the rise of their social status not only in Hunchun but also in the broader Jiandao Province where Koreans consisted of a landslide majority of the inhabitants and so Japan needed their help in order to maintain social order.