“제국의 흔적 지우기: 패전 후 일본에서의 귀환자 검역 Jeguk’ui Heunjeok Jiugi: Paejeon Hu Ilboneseoui Gwihwanja Geomyeok” (Cleansing the Taint of the Empire: Quarantine in Post-War Japan)

When Japan accepted unconditional surrender in WWII, about 6.9 million Japanese nationals and 3.2 million Japanese imperial subjects were scattered in the Japanese empire. Immediately after Japan’s surrender, a mass movement between Japan and its former colonies and battlefields started, heralding dismantling of the Japanese empire. For the US military which became the main occupation force in post-war Japan, an unprecedented scale repatriation of these nationals was an urgent mission. Formerly, Japanese immigrants and soldiers were admired as frontiers men of the empire, but now were regarded as scars left by the defeat and as a burden to an impoverished country. During the war, many of them were exposed to diverse diseases and the situation was worsening as the war deteriorated further for Japan. At that time, the US occupation forces viewed Asia as being full of pathogens; Just as Japan tended to see its former colonies. Therefore, the US military and the Japanese authorities were concerned about the possibility of the spread of diseases by the movement of repatriates to Japan. It was deemed necessary to screen pathogens and remove them in order to protect US troops and dispel social unrest in Japan. The US military ordered the establishment of quarantine stations at repatriation ports and screened communicable diseases. This repatriation quarantine was different from ordinary maritime quarantine which considered where repatriates lived during the war time or left for Japan. Thus, not only quarantinable diseases but also other communicable diseases had to be screened. Under the US Navy’s supervision, Japanese officers performed quarantine procedures using closed examination to detect pathogens as if obliterating the taint of imperialism imprinted in their bodies. In other words, removal of pathogens mirrored and to some extent contributed to the erasure of Japan’s imperial past in the process of rebuilding Japan as a nation-state.