Chongryon opposes the use of the Japanese word "Kita-Chosen" ("North Korea") as an abbreviation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It refers to the country as "Kyōwakoku" ("The Republic") or "Sokoku" ("The Fatherland"). In 1972 Chongryon campaigned to get the Japanese media to stop referring to North Korea as "Kita-Chosen". This effort was not successful, but as a compromise, most media companies agreed to refer to the DPRK with its full official title at least once in every article. By January 2003, this policy started to be abandoned by most newspapers, starting with "Tokyo Shimbun", which announced that it would no longer write out the full name, followed by "Asahi", "Mainichi" and "Nikkei".