Sayaka Chatani: How pro-North Korea communities took root in Japan

NK News Correspondent Jooheon Kim kicks off the podcast this week by discussing North Korea-Japan relations, focusing on lingering tensions over the abductions issue, recent trilateral naval cooperation with Seoul and Washington, and Pyongyang’s criticism of Japan’s latest diplomatic Blue Book. In the second half, the scholar Sayaka Chatani joins the podcast to explore the development of pro-North Korean communities in Japan and how they came to align themselves with Pyongyang’s national project. She explains the origins of Chongryon and its role as a quasi-state institution for ethnic Koreans in postwar Japan, as well as the evolution of its school system and how identity, language and community ties shaped long-term ideological connections to North Korea. Sayaka Chatani is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. She is the author of the new book “A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Post-Imperial Japan.” About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.