Nation or Colony? The Political Belonging of the Japanese in Karafuto

This article charts the process of policy formulation regarding the political status of Japanese settlers in Karafuto, a Japanese colony in southern Sakhalin from 1905 to 1945. With a focus on the voices of colonists themselves, I analyze the ups and downs of their political movement to obtain the franchise to vote from 1924 to 1945. From the early 1920s, Japanese residents in Karafuto demanded representation in the National Assembly (Diet). They claimed that since the island's majority population was Japanese, settler-colonists possessed the full rights of Japanese citizens (unlike Karafuto's Indigenous Peoples, the Taiwanese or the Koreans). However, before granting the franchise, the central government stipulated a change in Karafuto's administrative status, from colony to unit of local administration. This condition prompted Japanese settler-colonists to resist full political integration with the mother country due to economic dependence on the Karafuto Colonial Government's development and public works projects.