The Forgotten Children of the Second Sino-Japanese War - Transcript

Recorded May 5 2022

Dr. Kanako Kuramitsu

The ‘Forgotten’ Children Born during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War

Opener (00:00:02)

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Satoko Naito (00:00:09)

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region.

My name is Satoko Naito from the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku in Finland. Today, it’s my great pleasure to welcome visiting scholar Dr. Kanako Kuramitsu, who has joined us to discuss her research on children born of Japanese fathers and Chinese mothers during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War, with a focus on those who migrated from China to Japan after the 1972 normalization of relations between the two countries. Thank you, Kanako, so much for being here.

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:00:44)

Thank you, Satoko.

Satoko Naito (00:00:46)

Thanks a lot. To begin, I understand that you were part of a network for research on Children Born of War, or CBOW. Could you talk about this organization?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:00:57)

Yes of course. I was part of a collaborative research network funded by the European Commission called Children Born of War Network. Since 2015, 15 PhD researchers have worked on the issue of children born of war in different locales and historical periods, and I was the only researcher working on the topic in the East Asian region.

The term ‘children born of war’ is commonly defined in academia as offspring of local women fathered by enemy soldiers, members of occupation or peacekeeping forces, or child soldiers. Some of those children are born as a result of rape and sexual slavery, while others are born following love affairs and consensual relationships formed based on practical needs. And previous studies have clearly shown that children born of war are not an exceptional phenomenon but are a global phenomenon of conflict.

As in the case of my study, the question of the absent father has been identified as the core issue for children born of war’s identity and belonging. Many children born of war had encountered so-called ‘walls of silence’ around their biological origin which is often regarded as taboo within and outside the family.

They also share a variety of adverse experiences, such as stigmatization and discrimination within and/or outside their family. These children born of war are often left to ask themselves questions like ‘who am I?’ and ‘where do I belong?’

And previous research has also found that children born of war who grow up in the absence of their biological father are more likely to idealise but also, in some cases, demonize the absent father. And they often strongly wish to search for the absent father as they see him as the ‘missing piece of the puzzle’ of their identity.

Satoko Naito (00:02:53)

I see. As you note, there’s been and continue to be many such children born of war globally, but your focus is on those born of consensual relationships between Chinese mothers and Japanese fathers. And this phrase “consensual relationships” seems rather tricky, but it’s a crucial component of your research, so could you explain how you define it?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:03:17)

This is a very good question. Thank you.

I would like to first mention that my focus on Sino-Japanese children born of consensual relationships was due to the fact that there was only one man who came forward as a child of a so-called comfort woman in China, and it is not a statement to undermine experiences of children born of exploitative and violent sexual relationships between comfort women and Japanese soldiers.

And as for the consensual relationships, I would like to first touch upon the context in which such relationships were formed. Were Japanese men and Chinese women allowed to have intimate relationships and get married during the Second Sino-Japanese War? The answer was yes. There were heated debates within Japan and Japan’s colonies at the time regarding marriage between Japanese and people from Japan’s colonies and China. In colonial Taiwan and Korea, promoting intermarriage between Japanese and colonial subjects was regarded as one of the key strategies to assimilate the colonial population.

But a small group of Japanese eugenicists increased their presence and gained certain political influence within the Ministry of Health and Welfare in wartime Japan, and they were fiercely against intermarriage and consequent childbirth as they believed that Japan won’t be able to maintain its racial superiority over other Asian populations if Japan promotes intermarriage.

They had some plans to prevent intermarriage and consequent birth of children of mixed heritage in China, but the war ended before the Japanese government fully implemented such a plan.

And another important factor that allowed Sino-Japanese intimate liaisons and marriage to occur during the war was that a big Japanese male population was present in large Chinese cities that were occupied by Japan. These cities had turned into battlefields at times, but these Japanese men had opportunities to meet local women in non-violent settings.

My study participants were children of Japanese men who came to China because of the war, but, although some of them were part of the war effort such as intelligence officers, generally, at the time of getting to know the participants’ mothers, they were not men in uniform, so they could have a kind of ‘normal’ family life that lasted from a few months to many years.

There were various kinds of consensual relationships between Japanese men and Chinese women during and after the war. Some had very romantic loving relationships, others had nuanced consensual relationships. And as for the latter, some Chinese women were second wife for some Japanese men who had already been married with another woman in Japan.

And the key factor that shaped various patterns of wartime and post-war consensual relationships was the male-female power imbalance due to strong patriarchal structures in both China and Japan at the time, which meant that Japanese men were always placed as the central figure of the household through patriarchal practices such as giving the father’s surname to the child and having a Japanese lifestyle at home.

Some of the mothers had difficulties in post-war China, not only financially but in their social life. For example, some were criticized and were labelled as a traitor during a series of political campaigns under Mao. But these mothers in this study, regardless of the nature of the intimate relationships with their Japanese partners, they selectively narrated good stories about the absent father to their children, and all my participants had some knowledge of the father’s good qualities and deeds such as his kindness, politeness, intelligence, work ethics and good looks.

So the fathers, although most were repatriated after the war, they were placed at the centre of the household, and this had a great impact on the formation of the children’s identity and sense of belonging.

Satoko Naito (00:07:28)

I see. Speaking of identity as well as the father’s repatriation, could you explain to us how the Japanese government came to officially grant nationality, Japanese nationality, to the children?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:07:41)

Definitely. The current Japanese nationality law says that both the father and the mother can pass on their nationality to their children. But until 1984, the Japanese nationality could only be passed on from the father to the child. Because of this patrilineal jus sanguinis principle, those Sino-Japanese children could acquire Japanese nationality but only if they could prove that their parents were married.

The actual procedure to prove the parents’ marriage was not easy at all. It took years, sometimes more than ten years, and the participants’ parents were all married in accord with the then Chinese marriage law and local custom, but most of their parents did not have a marriage certificate because marriage was regarded legitimate as long as a couple held an open wedding ceremony with at least two witnesses until the marriage registration became mandatory in 1950.

Also, what made things worse for my participants was that the father’s photos and other mementos were either confiscated by the Red Guards or had to be discarded or burnt to avoid political persecution during the Cultural Revolution.

So what Sino-Japanese children had to do was that they searched for the witnesses and the guests who participated in their parents’ wedding ceremony, asked them to write testimonies, and to go to a notary public office to have their testimonies stamped.

Because more than 30 years had passed since the parents’ wedding, it was extremely difficult to find these guests. Some of them had already passed away. Others had moved somewhere else or had health problems.

Sino-Japanese children sent all the information they could collect to Japanese law firms that helped them apply for a procedure to make a new family register in Japan through the family court. And after all these procedures, they could finally acquire Japanese nationality.

And Sino-Japanese children started to take action after the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations in 1972, but most of them could only migrate to Japan in the 1980s and the 1990s. So it took incredible patience and perseverance, and the fact that they didn’t give up showed that they were extremely determined to migrate to the father’s country.

Also, when I compare these Sino-Japanese children to many groups of children born of war who experienced absolute fatherlessness, these Sino-Japanese children came to have a wealth of information about the father due to this procedure to acquire Japanese nationality.

Satoko Naito (00:10:28)

Okay. Yes, this procedure sounds really truly daunting, but what I also imagine was difficult was to identify these individuals. So how did you go about doing that?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:10:38)

Yes, thank you for asking that question. It was really challenging and time-consuming to find these individuals because there is no official term for this group of Sino-Japanese children in Japanese or Chinese, and there is no association of their own.

These individuals have been ignored for more than 70 years after the war, and so the relevant information for this study group was very scarce and difficult to locate.

I first contacted about 120 associations for so-called Japanese stranded war orphans, who were left behind in Manchuria after the Soviet attack in August 1945. These stranded war orphans started to search for their Japanese kin and migrated to Japan after the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.

I contacted them in the hope of finding Sino-Japanese children who might have migrated to Japan around the same time in the 1980s and the 1990s as those stranded war orphans.

In the end, I could find 5 participants through these associations, and I also found 3 other participants through other means, including one participant in China.

I also tried all possible combinations of keywords on Japanese and Chinese databases to search for documents regarding these children, and eventually, I found out that they were called ‘Sino-Japanese mixed-blood orphans’, or nicchu konketsu koji, by Japanese newspaper journalists in the 1980s.

I must say that this term was not accurate as they were not orphans because they grew up with their mothers and other relatives in China while most of their Japanese fathers were absent.

In the end, I could identify about 230 Sino-Japanese children through archival research, and according to the Japanese media reports in the 1980s, about 2000 to 10,000 Sino-Japanese children resided in China at the time.

Satoko Naito (00:12:37)

I see, between 2000 and 10,000. So that’s quite a large range that’s been reported, and it just goes to show, actually, how difficult it has been to identify these individuals.

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:12:50)

Yes.

Satoko Naito (00:12:51)

You mention elsewhere in your research that participants refer to migrating to Japan as a “return to their homeland.” And this seems really meaningful. What do you make of their use of this phrase?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:13:04)

Yes, it really was intriguing when all my participants used the term ‘return’ when they talked about their migration to the father’s country, and they called Japan as their ‘homeland’. So this question became one of the driving forces for my research.

All my participants were born and raised in China, and Japan was like a foreign country for them when they migrated to Japan in their forties and fifties. But they still referred to their migration as ‘return to their homeland’.

And one of the reasons why they use this term ‘return’ is that they have been treated as foreigners or outsiders since their childhood in China. They were often called ‘Japanese’, or by derogatory terms such as ‘Japanese devils’ and ‘half-breed’.

During a series of political campaigns under Mao, some of them were ostracized, persecuted, sent to labor camps, even imprisoned for having an enemy father.

So they could not feel secure, accepted, valued, or respected in their country of birth and upbringing. This is actually very common experience among children born of war across time and space.

But what sets these Sino-Japanese children apart from many groups of children born of war is that they developed the idea that their homeland is their father’s country.

As mentioned earlier, these children did not experience absolute fatherlessness. Because they learned about positive aspects of the father from their mothers and relatives in their intimate sphere.

And their absent fathers were not just very present in their lives and memories but also they idealized the father and his country especially when they were stigmatized and discriminated.

And most participants had very little information about Japan throughout their lives in in China until they migrated to Japan in their 40s and 50s. They imagined Japan as a safe haven where they would be free from fear of being ostracized. And they also imagined it as a beautiful place where they can finally meet their absent father and be accepted and respected.

Also, some participants believed in the logic of patriarchy, that they belonged to Japan because their father is from Japan, and the father’s ancestors are from Japan. 

This study started as part of the research network on children born of war, but my study participants did not fit neatly into the definition of children born of war, because most fathers were not soldiers at the time of their marriage with their Chinese partners.

And these Sino-Japanese children and many groups of children born of war do share many things such as their adverse experiences and importance of the absent father and mother-child relationships.

But Sino-Japanese children’s life stories unfolded in a distinctively different way than the vast majority of Children born of war who never had any means to obtain information about the father, to search for their absent father, or to migrate to their father’s country.

Satoko Naito (00:16:16)

I see. Another fascinating, and I believe perhaps unique, aspect of your participants as children born of war, is that they often did not wish to find each other out, to get to know one another, and I found this rather surprising.

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:16:32)

It was indeed, one of the surprising things about this group of individuals. I have read and heard that various groups of children born of war in different historical and geopolitical settings have formed their own support groups and networks in recent decades.

But in the case of Sino-Japanese children whom I interviewed, none of them expressed their interest in learning about other participants and forming a group. One significant reason is because they have already achieved their important life goals, namely, their search for the absent father as well as their migration to the father’s country. They learned a great deal about their father from their mothers, relatives in the process of acquiring Japanese nationality and a few participants could successfully meet their long-lost father before the father passed away.

And another reason is that participants did not have a common need for financial, legal and psycho-social support. And, while participants were eager to share their life stories with me, they did not yearn to be recognized and remembered as a collective. Interviewees regarded their experiences as something inherently unique and deeply personal.

And these Sino-Japanese children have remained socially invisible in both China and Japan for several reasons, such as the lack of specific policies towards this group of individuals. And after they acquired Japanese nationality and migrated to Japan, they were demographically absorbed into the majority group as ‘Japanese’. 

But I argue that it is also the way Sino-Japanese children have constructed their identity and belonging had led to their social invisibility. Some participants simply called themselves as ‘Japanese’ not just because of the lack of a specific group name for themselves, but also because they have fostered a strong sense of national belonging to Japan.

Also, most participants did not want to be reduced to the label of ‘war victims’. For example, one participant did not find any advantage in forming a group as she thought that being part of a minority group could bring about unwelcome attention which prevents her from narrating her own life story freely.

And all participants encountered adversities one way or another due to their biological origin, but most of them chose to emphasize their stories of familial love, resilience, and accomplishment in their interviews.

And as a result of being socially invisible to date, the participants were indeed free from the constraints of a particular collective narrative when I interviewed them. But I think the dilemma is that by remaining invisible, their voices will inevitably be lost, and those who are currently in need of specific legal or psychosocial support may be overlooked and be isolated. 

Satoko Naito (00:19:36)

I see. That’s a really good point. You just mentioned earlier that your participants, they have a strong desire to emphasize stories of familial love, and that I think is really wonderfully, beautifully expressed in “Michiko”, which is a short animation film that you co-produced. And what moved me in particular was that, despite all of the hardships in her life, and there were many, including, or especially during the Cultural Revolution, what dominates Michiko’s narrative is love, between her parents especially. Can you tell us about how this film came about?

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:20:11)

Thank you for mentioning this animation film. All my participants had incredible stories of not just difficulties but of love and resilience, and I really wanted their stories to be told beyond academia and reach the general public in an accessible manner.

Each story was unique, and it was really difficult to choose just one story. But in the end, I chose the story of one participant called Michiko, and she happened to be born of love relationship, and she participated very actively in the making of the film. I assume that she felt that her life story was appreciated through the interviews, and hopefully the process of making the film also contributed to her empowerment.

I would like those who watch this film to simply learn about one of the incredible life stories of Sino-Japanese children born during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War. And most people still don’t know that they exist.

Unfortunately there are ongoing wars and conflicts, and I think their life stories remind us of far-reaching consequences of wars and of the fact that children are born of various relationships formed between local women and men from foreign countries during wars and conflicts.

And her story also reminds us that narratives of certain groups of war-affected people are heard and remembered, while other narratives remain ignored and unremembered in societies.

This film is just 6 minutes and a half, and I really hope many people can watch it.

Satoko Naito (00:21:45)

Certainly, it’s really worth watching, and I too hope that many listeners can. We will provide a link to this film in the description to the episode.

Well, thank you so much, Kanako. Your research has really been eye-opening for me. As you say it highlights individuals whose very existence remains unknown to many.

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us.

Kanako Kuramitsu (00:22:07)

Thank you.

Satoko Naito (00:22:08)

Thank you again to Dr. Kanako Kuramitsu, visiting scholar at the Centre for East Asian studies at the University of Turku.

And to our listeners, thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast, showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia.

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