초록
영어
Six million Japanese, equivalent to one-tenth of the total domestic population, returned to the homeland from the colonies after the Second World War. About half of them were civilians and a quarter of these civilian repatriates were from Korea. Characteristically, these Japanese had lived in the colony for a long time, but they rushed back to Japan as soon as the war ended, and took a long time in settling down. In this paper, I will examine the reverse impact of Japanese colonialism by looking at the process of repatriation of Japanese entrepreneurs and their resettlement in post-war Japan. Specifically, I will investigate the activities and the logic of the Association for the Repatriate Entrepreneurs, which aimed to recover the lost overseas assets of repatriate businessmen. I will show how the Association initially sought to achieve this goal by demanding war reparations from the government. The Association criticized the government for being unfair and unequal in allocating war reparation payments to repatriate entrepreneurs vis-a-vis domestic entrepreneurs. However, pressed by the policy outlined by the GHQ and the shortage of financial resources, the government could not help but ignore their complaint. I will examine how the repatriate businessmen changed their tactics and asserted their distinct identity from the domestic firms by restarting their business activities based on their unique overseas experience.