ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical and social significance of the zanryu koji in relation to the nexus between nationality and the koseki. In 1932 the Japanese government established the puppet state of 'Manchukuo' in the north-eastern region of China and as part of state policy dispatched large numbers of Japanese peasant migrants to this de facto colony. Japan, on the other hand, did not recognize the PRC as a state during the Cold War and considered the zanryu koji to be Japanese nationals. The Chinese and the Japanese governments recognized that the zanryu koji represented a distinctive group of 'potential Japanese' people whose lives were altered by the war and colonial policy. However, the stipulation that Japanese nationality required proof of bloodline at the level of the individual family constituted an enormous barrier for the zanryu koji in search of their relatives, their permanent return and their acquisition of Japanese nationality.
