"Comfort Women Are Prostitutes," Harvard Professor Now Justifies Discrimination Against Zainichi Koreans

Described Zainichi Koreans as Menial Workers in Last Year's Paper
Also Claimed Japanese Discrimination Against Zainichi Koreans Is Justified

▲Mark Ramseyer, Professor at Harvard Law School

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Mark Ramseyer, a Harvard Law School professor who defined comfort women as 'prostitutes,' is now causing controversy by justifying discrimination against Zainichi Koreans.

According to Ramseyer's paper published last October, titled "Social Capital and the Problem of Opportunistic Leadership: The Case of Zainichi Koreans," the claim is made that the discrimination by Japanese against Zainichi Koreans is the fault of the Zainichi Koreans themselves.

In this paper, Professor Ramseyer described Koreans who migrated to Japan during the Japanese colonial period as inferior laborers who could neither read nor perform addition and subtraction.

He also argued that they did not try to assimilate into Japanese society because they intended to earn money for a few years and then return to their hometown in Korea, which led to conflicts with Japanese people.

Ramseyer stated, "Japanese landlords avoided Korean tenants," citing reasons such as Koreans' unsanitary living habits, excessive drinking, fighting, and noise.

He also repeatedly cited arbitrary statistics from his earlier paper on the Great Kanto Earthquake, which claimed that Koreans had a high crime rate in the 1920s, thereby generalizing all Koreans as a criminal group.

He introduced statistics claiming, "In 2015, the number of criminals per 100,000 Japanese nationals was 63.6, but for Zainichi Koreans, it was 608 per 100,000."

This statistic was quoted from Mitsuhiro Suganuma, a Japanese far-right figure, in his book titled "The Republic of Korea Created by Yakuza and Prostitutes," which is not an academic work but a commercial project reproducing Suganuma's interviews. The choice to cite statistics from a book with questionable reliability is problematic.

Furthermore, Ramseyer raised a color-based theory about the entire Zainichi Korean community.

He claimed that during the Jeju 4.3 incident in 1948, communist forces fled government repression and illegally immigrated to Japan in large numbers, becoming the mainstream of the Zainichi Korean community.

As communists became leaders, they pushed political agendas to the forefront of the Zainichi Korean society, which, according to Ramseyer, provoked hostility from the Japanese.

He argued, "Koreans living in Japan themselves caused greater suspicion, hostility, and discrimination."

The logic is that far-left forces manipulated the Zainichi Korean community for their political purposes, which escalated ethnic conflicts with Japanese society to the extreme, resulting in discrimination against Zainichi Koreans.

Ramseyer also cited a 2017 Sankei Shimbun report claiming that schools operated by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) conduct espionage education for students.

He further claimed that capable Zainichi Koreans change their nationality to Japanese.

Ramseyer said, "Koreans who are educated and economically capable realized that assimilating into Japanese society by leaving the Zainichi Korean community was simple," adding, "Only the most socially vulnerable groups retained Korean nationality."

He concluded his paper with the statement, "The history of Koreans residing in Japan brings to mind the adage that 'the greatest enemy of a dysfunctional group is its internal leaders.'"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.