Formation of Chongryun

The 17th Congress of Chongryun held at the Tokyo Korean Cultural Hall on September 13-15, 1995. The Congress, held once in three years, discusses new policy platform and reshuffles bureaus and officials.

The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun) was formed on May 25, 1955 as the only organization of overseas nationals of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The formation of Chongryun was a historic event which led to a fundamental change in the lives of Korean nationals resident in Japan.

After Korea was liberated from Japan on Aug. 15, 1945, many Korean residents in Japan, who were forcibly taken to Japan by the Japanese authorities as forced laborers, returned to their homeland, but about 600,000 stayed on for various reasons. They founded the League of Koreans Residing in Japan (Joryun) on October 15, 1945, but this organization was banned by Japanese authorities on September 8, 1949. During the Korean War, anxious about the destiny of Korea, Korean nationals in Japan organized the United Democratic Front of Koreans in Japan (Minjon) on January 9, 1951. This organization was dissolved on May 24, 1955.

Those Korean organizations which had existed before Chongryun's appearance, however, failed to properly reflect the will and demands of resident Koreans and function as a true organization of DPRK citizens as they lacked a right guiding thought and an independent action platform.

When the movement of Koreans in Japan faced difficulties, DPRK President Kim Il Sung made a clear-cut answer for a solution, calling for a turnabout in the overseas movement. The Juche-oriented guidance with which President Kim Il Sung tided the movement over its difficulties and steered the patriotic undertaking along the right track was that Korean nationals, even though they might live in Japan, should; engage in helping the economic construction of their fatherland; never interfere in the internal affairs of Japan, and engage in defending their democratic national rights and promoting national reintegration. In addition, the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued on August 30, 1954 a statement, saying that a guarantee of the justifiable rights of Koreans in Japan was the immovable policy of the DPRK, and that the government of the DPRK demanded the Japanese authorities recognize Korean residents in Japan as overseas citizens of the DPRK.

Under the care of the DPRK, Chongryun emerged as an authoritative organization of the DPRK, serving Korean residents in Japan on the basis of Juche thought. With Chongryun came a good opportunity for resident Korean nationals in Japan to perform splendidly their noble mission assumed before the country and the nation and join a worthwhile cause of safeguarding world peace, holding as their sole guide the Juche idea fathered by President Kim Il Sung.

The last 42 years have witnessed Chongryun doing what it could in order to rally resident Koreans closely behind the DPRK Government, defend their democratic national rights, promote the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea and deepen friendship and goodwill with the world's peace-loving peoples including the Japanese, with all the disadvantages it had in an alien country. Chongryun maintains throughout all its activities a firm principle of noninterference in Japan's domestic affairs and advocates mutual respect, reciprocity and equality.