Koreans in Japan fear backlash after Pyongyang’s nuclear test

OSAKA: Ethnic Koreans living in Japan are nervously watching growing tensions over North Korea and are wary of a possible backlash against their community as Pyongyang ramps up its sabre-rattling.

While public antipathy towards Koreans does not appear to have escalated in reaction to the North’s latest nuclear test and missile launches, the community has been the target of abuse by Japanese nationalists after similar incidents in the past.

The North recently conducted its most powerful nuclear test ever, and in late August fired a ballistic missile over Hokkaido in northern Japan in a new show of force.

In the western Japanese city of Osaka – home to the country’s largest population of ethnic Koreans – few are willing to talk publicly about North Korea, and those who do have mixed views on Pyongyang’s actions. Pu Kyon Ja, owner of a store selling Korean traditional clothes and a second-generation Korean resident in Japan, said she felt the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was a natural reaction against threats from the US.

“I can’t say this loudly but I secretly think ‘well done’” (on North Korea’s development of missile and nuclear capabilities), she said. North Korea is “under great pressure (from the international society), which I believe should end.”

On the other hand, Chung Kap-su, another second-generation Korean in the town, said he hopes North Korea stops further provocations and pursues a peaceful path by seeking dialogue with South Korea.

“North Korea can’t defeat the US, so I hope it changes its way.”

More than 450 000 South Koreans and over 32 000 North Koreans lived in Japan last year.