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Korea under Japanese rule
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Korea was under Japanese rule as part of the imperialist expansion of Japan during the first half of the 20th century, until the Japanese defeat in World War II in 1945.
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Korea was under Japanese rule as part of the imperialist expansion of Japan during the first half of the 20th century, until the Japanese defeat in World War II in 1945. Korea was occupied and declared a Japanese protectorate in 1905 (Eulsa Treaty), and officially annexed in 1910 through an annexation treaty. Japan's involvement had begun earlier with the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa during the Joseon Dynasty of Korea and increased with the subsequent assassination of Empress Myeongseong (also known as "Queen Min") in 1895. The 1905 and 1910 treaties were eventually declared "null and void" by both Japan and South Korea in 1965.
In Korea, the period is usually called a time of Japanese "forced occupation" (Hangul: ; Ilje gangjeomgi, Hanja: ?????); other terms used for it include "Japanese Imperial Period" (Hangul: , Ilje sidae, Hanja: ????) or "Japanese administration" (Hangul: , Wae jeong, ). In Japan, a more common description is .
Background
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, various Western countries were competing for influence, trade, and territory in East Asia while Japan sought to join the modern colonial powers. The newly modernised Meiji government of Japan turned to Korea, then in the sphere of influence of Qing Dynasty of China. The Japanese government initially sought to separate Korea from Qing and make Korea a Japanese satellite in order to further their security and national interests.
In January 1876, following the Meiji Restoration, Japan employed gunboat diplomacy to pressure Korea to sign the Treaty of Ganghwa, which was regarded as an unequal treaty, and grant extraterritorial rights and open three Korean ports to Japanese trade. The rights granted to Japan under the treaty were similar to those granted western powers in Japan following the visit of Commodore Perry.
Imo Incident
In 1882, followers of Daewongun, the de facto ruler of Korea who had been forced into retirement by the supporters of Empress Myeongseong, staged a coup against the Empress Myeongseong and their alleged Japanese allies. The old militaries killed Japanese officers in charge of training new Korean Army and attacked Japanese legation. Japanese diplomats, Japanese policemen, Japanese students and some of Min clans were also killed by the old military. Daewongun was
restored to power, only to be forcibly taken to China by Chinese troops that were dispatched Seoul to prevent further disorder. In August 1882, stipulating that the Korean government would send a mission to Japan, and agree to the stationing of Japanese troops to guard the legation in Seoul.
Gapsin Coup
The struggle for power in Korea between the followers of the Heungseon Daewongun and Empress Myeongseong was now joined by the independent faction and the conservatives, the former seeking Japan's support and the latter China's. On December 4, 1884, Korean independence group, assisted by the Japanese, attempted a coup and established a pro-Japanese government under the reigning king, dedicated to the independence of Korea from Chinese suzerainty. However, this proved short-lived, as conservative Korean officials requested the help of Chinese forces that had been stationed in Korea. The coup was collapsed by Chinese troops. Then Korean mob retaliated by killing Japanese officers and Japanese residents. Some leaders of the independence faction, including Kim Okgyun, fled to Japan, and others were executed.
Donghak Revolution and protests for democracy
The outbreak of the Donghak Peasant Revolution in 1894 changed Japanese policy toward Korea. Korea had negotiated with Russia to counterbalance Japan's growing influence. So Chae-pil and Protestant missionaries introduced Western political thought to Korea. Protesters took to the streets, demanding democratic reforms and an end to Japanese and Russian influence in Korean affairs. The Korean government asked for Chinese assistance in ending the revolt. The Meiji leaders decided upon military intervention to challenge China. When China sent troops into Korea, Japan sent its own troops to Korea. Japan won the First Sino-Japanese War, and China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Among its many stipulations, the treaty recognized "the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea," thus ending Korea's protectorate relationship with the Chinese Qing dynasty and led to the proclamation of Korean Empire in 1897.
Eulmi Incident
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On October 8, 1895, Empress Myeongseong (referred to as "Queen Min") was directly assassinated by Japanese agents. The Japanese minister to Korea, Miura Goro orchestrated the plot against her. As of 2001, Russian reports on the assassin was newly found in the archives of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation. The documents including testimonies of King Gojong and several witnesses of the assassination and Karl Ivanovich Weber're report (????? ? ? ) to Lobanov-Rostovsky (???????-?????????? ?.), the Foreign Minster of Russia. Weber was the chargé d'affaires at the Russian legation in Seoul at that time. According to a Russian eyewitness by Seredin-Sabatin (???????-C??????) who was a emplyee of Korean King, a group of Japanese agents along with Hullyeondae army entered the royal palace, killed Empress Myeongseong and then desecrated her body in the north wing of the palace. She was forty-three years old at the time of her assassination.
Reacting to the murder of the Queen/Empress, father of King Daewongun returned to the royal palace on the day. On February 11 1896, King Gojong and his crown prince moved from the Gyeongbokgung palace to the Russian legation in Seoul, from which they governed for about one year, an event known as Korea royal refuge at the Russian legation.
On the road to annexation
The strategic rivalry between Russia and Japan exploded in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, won by Japan. Under the peace treaty signed in September 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, Russia acknowledged Japan's "paramount political, military, and economic interest" in Korea.
A separate agreement was signed in secret between the United States and Japan at this time, and this subsequently aroused anti-American sentiment among Koreans decades later. The Taft-Katsura Agreement exchanged what amounted to a lack of interest and military capability in Korea on the part of the United States (Japan was given a free hand in Korea) for a lack of interest or capability in the Philippines on the part of Japan (Japanese imperialism was diverted from the Philippines). Given the diplomatic conventions of the times, however, the agreement was a much weaker endorsement of the Japanese presence in Korea than either the Russo-Japanese peace treaty or a separate Anglo-Japanese accord.
Two months later, Korea was obliged to become a Japanese protectorate. Thereafter, a large number of Koreans organized themselves in education and reform movements, but by then Japanese dominance in Korea was a reality.
In June 1907, the Second Peace Conference was held in The Hague. Emperor Gojong secretly sent three representatives, commissioned to bring the problems of Korea to the world's attention. The three envoys were refused access to the public debates by the international delegates who alleged the legality of the protectorate convention. Out of despair, one of the Korean representatives, Yi Jun, committed suicide at The Hague.
In response, the Japanese government took stronger measures. On July 19, Emperor Gojong was forced to relinquish his imperial authority and appoint the Crown Prince as the regent. The Japanese officials used this concession to force the accession of the new Emperor Sunjong following abdication, which was never agreed to by Gojong. Neither Gojong or Sunjong was present at the 'accession' ceremony. Sunjong was to be the last ruler of the Joseon Dynasty, which had been founded in 1392.
Annexation of Korea
Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty
In May 1910, the Minister of the Army of Japan, Terauchi Masatake, was given a mission to finalize Japanese control over Korea after previous treaties (Japan-Korea Protocol of 1904 and Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1907) had made Korea a protectorate of Japan and had established Japanese hegemony over Korean domestic politics. On August 22, 1910, Korea was effectively annexed by Japan with the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty signed by Lee Wan-Yong, Prime Minister of Korea, and Terauchi Masatake, who became the first Japanese Governor-General of Korea.
The text was published one week later and became effective the same day. The treaty stipulated:
- "Article 1: His Majesty the Emperor of Korea concedes completely and definitely his entire sovereignty over the whole Korean territory to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.
- Article 2: His Majesty the Emperor of Japan accepts the concession stated in the previous article and consents to the annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan."
Both the protectorate and the annexation treaties were declared void in the 1965 Basic Treaty between Korea and Japan since both were: 1) obtained under threat of force, and 2) the Korean Emperor, whose royal assent was required to validate and finalize any legislation or diplomatic agreement under Korean law of the period, refused to sign the document..
Liberation movement
Upon Emperor Gojong's death, anti-Japanese rallies took place nationwide, most notably the March 1st Movement of 1919. A declaration of independence was read in Seoul. It is estimated that 2 million people took part in these rallies. The protests were violently suppressed: according to Korean records, 46,948 were arrested, 7,509 killed and 15,961 wounded; according to Japanese figures, 8437 were arrested, 553 killed and 1409 wounded.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, about 7,000 people were killed by the Japanese police and soldiers during the 12 months of demonstrations.
After the suppression of the uprising, some of the aspects of Japanese rule considered most objectionable to Koreans were removed. The military police were replaced by a civilian force, and limited press freedom was permitted. Two of the three major Korean daily newspapers, the Dong-a Ilbo and the Chosun Ilbo, were established in 1920.
However, objection to Japanese rule over Korea continued, and the March 1st Movement was a catalyst for the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea by Korean émigrés in Shanghai on April 13, 1919. This Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea is considered by the modern South Korea government to be the de jure representation of the Korean people throughout the period of Japanese rule.
In military terms, although the Japanese occupation of Korea after annexation was largely uncontested by the numerically smaller, poor armed and poorly trained Korean army, many former soldiers and other volunteers left the Korean peninsula for Manchuria and Primorsky Krai in Russia. Koreans in Manchuria formed resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) which would travel in and out of the Korean-Chinese boundary, fighting with guerrilla warfare tactics against Japanese forces. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1932 and subsequent Pacification of Manchukuo deprived many of these groups of their bases of operation and supplies. Many were forced to either flee to China itself, or to join with the Communist-backed forces in eastern Russia.
Within Korea itself, anti-Japanese rallies continued on occasion, most notably the nationwide student uprising of November 1929, which led to the strengthening of military rule in 1931, after which freedom of the press and expression were curbed. Many witnesses, including Catholic priests, reported that Japanese authorities dealt with insurgency severely. When villagers were suspected of hiding rebels, entire villages are said to have been herded into public buildings (especially churches) and massacred when the buildings were set on fire. In the village of Cheam-Ni near Suwon, a group of 29 people were gathered inside a church which was then set afire to burn them alive. Such events deepened the hostility of many Korean civilians towards the Japanese government.
World War II
On December 9, 1941, shortly after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, under the presidency of Kim Gu, declared war on Japan and Nazi Germany. The Provisional Government banded together various Korean resistance guerilla groups as the Korean Liberation Army, which participated in combat on behalf of the Allies in various campaigns in China and parts of South East Asia. More tens of thousands of Koreans volunteered for the National Revolutionary Army and the Peoples Liberation Army. Outside of the control of the Provisional Government was the communist-backed Korean Volunteer Army (KVA), which was established in Yenan, China from a core of 1000 deserters from the Imperial Japanese Army. After Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, the KVA entered Manchuria, where it recruited from the ethnic Korean population and eventually became the Korean People's Army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
On the other hand, Togo Shigenori (Park Shigenori) who was the most prominent ethnic Korean served Imperial Japan as a Minister of Foreign Affairs and as a Minister of Greater East Asia during World War II. And Korean general Hong Sa-ik (Kou Shiyoku) served as a Imperial Japanese Army General.
Following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered to the Allied forces on 15 August 1945, ending 35 years of Japanese occupation. American forces under General John R. Hodge arrived at the southern part of Korea on 8 September. Colonel Dean Rusk proposed splitting Korea at the 38th parallel at an emergency meeting to determine postwar spheres of influence during this time.
However, as the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea lacked widespread international diplomatic recognition, its representatives were not allowed to participate in the San Francisco Peace Conference, nor was the Provisional Government a signatory to the Treaty of San Francisco.
Economy and exploitation
During the late Joseon period, Korea was largely an isolationist pre-industrial society, where foreign trade was prohibited and attempts for economic modernization were stifled by an extremely conservative Court and landed aristocracy.
During the early period of Japanese rule, the Japanese government created a system of colonial mercantilism which led to concentrating on building a significant transportation infrastructure on the Korean peninsula for the purpose of extracting and exploiting resources. Port facilities, an extensive railway system, including a main truck railway from the southern port city of Pusan through the capital of Seoul and north to the Chinese border were developed. This transportation infrastructure was intended not only to facilitate a colonial mercantilist, colonial economy for the extraction of raw materials (timber), foodstuff (mostly rice and fish), and mineral resources (coal and iron ore), but it was also viewed as a strategic necessity for the Japanese military to control Korea and to move large numbers of troops and materials to the China border at a short notice.
From the late 1920s and into the 1930s, particularly during the tenure of Japanese Governor-General Kazushige Ugaki, concentrated efforts were made to build up the industrial base in the Korean peninsula, especially in the areas of heavy industry, such as chemical plants and steel mills, and munitions production. The Japanese military felt that having production closer to the source of raw materials and closer to the potential front lines in a future war with China, would be of benefit to them.
However, by the early 1930s, Japanese investment was limited due to the worldwide economic depression, competition for investment opportunities from the potentially more lucrative Manchukuo and by Japan's own limited economic capacity.
As Imperial Japan began feeling the strains of World War II, Japan "siphoned off more and more of Korea's resources, including its people, to feed its war machine."
Japanese migration and land confiscation
Prior to the annexation of Korea, from around the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japanese merchants began settling in towns and cities around Korea seeking economic opportunities. After annexation, the Japanese government wanted more ethnic Japanese settlers to take root in Korea and encouraged further migration to help consolidate and expand Japanese influence. By 1910, the number of Japanese settlers in Korea reached over 170,000, creating the largest overseas Japanese community in the world at the time.
Many Japanese settlers were interested in acquiring agricultural land in Korea even before Japanese landownership was officially legalized in 1906. This was facilitated by a land reform introduced by Japanese Governor-General Terauchi Masatake which subsequently proved extremely unpopular with large segments of the Korean population. The Korean land ownership system was a complex system of absentee landlords, partial owner-tenants, and cultivators with traditional but without legal proof of ownership. Terauchi's new Land Survey Bureau conducted cadastral surveys that reestablished ownership by basis of written proof (deeds, titles, and similar documents). Ownership was denied to those who could not provide such written documentation (mostly lower class and partial owners, who had only traditional verbal "cultivator rights"). Although the plan succeeded in reforming land ownership/taxation structures, it added tremendously to the bitter and hostile environment of the time by enabling a huge amount of Korean land to be seized by the government and sold at subsidized costs to Japanese willing to settle in Korea as part of a larger effort at colonization..
Japanese landlords included both individuals and corporations, such as the Oriental Development Company. Many former Korean landowners as well as agricultural workers, became tenant farmers, having lost their entitlements almost overnight.
It is estimated that by 1910 perhaps 7 to 8 percent of all arable land was under Japanese control. This ratio increased steadily. During the years 1916, 1920, and 1932, during which the ratio of Japanese land ownership started at 36.8%, then rose to 39.8%, and finally jumped to 52.7%, while the ratio of Korean ownership began at 63.2%, decreased to 60.2%, and finally fell to 47.3%. This level of tenancy was very similar to that of farmers in Japan itself, but with the difference being that in Korea, the landowners were mostly Japanese, and the tenants were all Koreans. As was often the case in Japan itself, tenants were forced to pay over half their crop as rent, they were often forced to send wives and daughters to factories or to sell daughters into prostitution to pay for taxes.
On the other hand, Lee Yong Hoon, a professor at Seoul National University, and a leading critic of "New Right" Foundation, which is often called as "New Chinilpa", argues that less than 10% of arable land actually became under Japanese control and rice was normally traded, not robbed. He also insists that Koreans' knowledge about the era under Japanese rule is mostly made up by later education.
Korea lagged behind Japan proper in the rise of agricultural cooperatives and advances in cash crop and mechanized agriculture, and thus suffered from occasional famine through crop failure and over taxation.
By the 1930s, the growth of the urban economy and flight of farmers to the cities gradually weakened the hold of the landlords. With the growth of the wartime economy, the government recognized that landlordism was an impediment to increased agricultural productivity, and took steps to increase control over the rural sector through the formation of the Central Agricultural Association, which was a compulsory organization under the wartime command economy.
National Mobilization Law
From 1939, labor shortages as a result of over-drafting of Japanese males for the military World War II led to organized official recruitment of Koreans to work in mainland Japan, initially through civilian agents, and later directly, often involving elements of coercion. As the labor shortage increased, by 1942, the Japanese authorities extended the provisions of the National Mobilization Law to include the involuntary conscription of Korean workers for factories and mines on the Korean peninsula, Manchukuo and the involuntary relocation of workers to Japan itself as needed.
Of the 5,400,000 Koreans conscripted, about 670,000 were taken to mainland Japan (including Karafuto Prefecture (present-day Sakhalin, now part of Russia) for civilian labor. Those who were brought to Japan were often forced to work under appalling conditions. About 60,000 are estimated to have died between 1939 and 1945 from harsh treatment, inhumane working conditions and Allied bombings. The total deaths of Korean forced laborers in Korea and Manchuria is estimated to be between 270,000 and 810,000. The 43,000 ethnic Koreans in Karafuto, which had been occupied by the Soviet Union just prior to Japan's surrender, were refused repatriation to either mainland Japan or the Korean peninsula, and were thus trapped in Sakhalin, stateless; they became the ancestors of the Sakhalin Koreans.
In 1938, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Koreans were living in Japan as immigrants. The combination of immigrants and forced labor workers during World War II brought that total to over 2 million by the end of the war, according to estimates by the American occupation authorities. In 1946, some 1,340,000 ethnic Koreans were repatriated to Korea, with 650,000 choosing to remain in Japan ., where they now form the Zainichi Korean community. A 1982 survey by the Korean Youth Association showed that conscripted laborers accounts for 13.3% of first-generation Zainichi Koreans.
Politics and culture
Residents of the Korean peninsula, whether ethnic Korean or Japanese, did not have the right to vote or right to hold office in Japan's House of Representatives. The election law was amended in 1945 to allot 18 seats of the House of Representatives to the Korean peninsula, but this did not go into effect because of the end of the war later in the same year. Koreans in Japan were, however, eventually given the right to vote and to hold office. Pak Chun-geum(ja)(, ) was the first ethnic Korean to be elected into the House of Representatives in 1932, re-elected in 1938, and continued to serve throughout the Second World War. Several members of the Korean Royalty and aristocracy were appointed to the House of Peers including Pak Yeong-hyo(ja)(, ) in 1932. 38 Koreans were elected into local assemblies in 1942.
Assimilation of the royalty
Following the forced dissolution of the Korean Empire and the assassination of Empress Myeongseong at the hands of Korean Palace Guard Officers, Korean Army Officers, Korean employee of Japanese, Korean Mandarinates (including Military Minister of Korea) and Japanese agents, the Korean royalty was incorporated into the Japanese royalty. The Emperor of Japan Viscount Terauchi Masatake, Resident-General, and His Majesty the Emperor of Korea Yi Wan-Yong, Prime Minister, who upon mutual conference and deliberation have agreed to the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty, an effort was made to intermarry the royalty of the two houses in an attempt to validate the Annexation of Korea. Yi Eun, then the Imperial Crown Prince of Korea, married Masako of Nashimotonomiya. Pro-Japanese Koreans (or Chinilpa) who supported or helped the annexation were also given peerage titles under the Japanese kazoku system. Lee Wan-Yong, the last prime minister of the Korean Empire, was given the title of hakushaku (Count) (which was later raised to koshaku, or Duke). In total, 76 Koreans were given peerage titles. After Korean independence, all titles were invalidated, and receipents formally charged with treason.
‘Cultural genocide’
The Japanese colonization of Korea has been mentioned as the case in point of "cultural genocide" by a graduate student Ms. Matsumura at the Comparative Genocide Studies group at the University of Tokyo. The colonial government put into practice the suppression of Korean culture and language in an "attempt to root out all elements of Korean culture from society".
- "Focus was heavily and intentionally placed upon the psychological and cultural element in Japan 's colonial policy, and the unification strategies adopted in the fields of culture and education were designed to eradicate the individual ethnicity of the Korean race."
Initially, the Japanese sponsored several Korean language newspapers to counter the strong anti-Japanese message of the chief Korean publication Hwangson Sinmun (1898-1910), and in fact kept issuing the Korean language newspaper Maeil Sinbo (; ) until the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Other means of cultural suppression included the method of “altering” public monuments, including several well-known temples, palaces, scripts, memorials, and statues. Songs and poems originally dedicated to Korean Emperors were re-written to adore the Japanese Emperor. Carved monuments underwent alterations to the Chinese characters to delete or change part of their meaning. The Korean History Compilation Committee confiscated and burned Korean history books.
Two of the more notorious events included the Sungnyemun, a virtual symbol of Korea, which was altered by the addition of large, Shinto-style golden horns near the roofs (later removed by the South Korean government after independence), and the incident of Gyeongbokgung, a former Korean palace which was demolished and the Japanese General Government Building built in the exact location. In addition, many ancient Korean texts that were discovered mentioning Korean military and cultural exploits or Japan's historic inferiority and uncivilized behavior such as Wokou were deleted methodically; in general, the awareness of Korean history among Koreans declined during this period. Japan altered the history to rationalize the occupation of Korea to the international community and the Korean History Compilation Committee appeared to be an extension of that action.
This eventually led to a revival in Korean nationalism, including in-depth research projects into Hangul, the Korean alphabet, which resulted in the standardization of the Korean writing system by scholars such as Lee Hui-Seung and Choe Hyeon-bae in the 1930s, as well as underground publications of books about historical Korean figures. Historians, such as Shin Chae-ho, were active in trying to present a Koreanized version of ancient history using textual material.
Name changes
In 1911 a proclamation, “Case Concerning the Changing of Korean Names” (?????????????) was issued barring ethnic Koreans from taking Japanese names and to retroactively revert the names of Koreans that had already registered under Japanese names back to the original Korean ones in an attempt to better segregate individuals of Korean and Japanese ancestry. By 1939, however, the focus had shifted towards colonial assimilation, and Imperial Decree 19 on Korean Civil Affairs (; “”) went into effect, whereby ethnic Koreans were permitted to surrender their Korean family name and adopt Japanese surnames. Although officially this was to be on a voluntary basis, many argue that official compulsion and harassment existed against individuals who would not create a new Japanese-style name, but disagree whether this was the result of individual practises by low-level officials, the policy of some regional government organisations, or the overall intention of the colonial government. Others argue that Koreans felt compelled to adopt Japanese family names in order to avoid discrimination by Japanese. A country study conducted by the Library of Congress states that “the Korean culture was quashed, and Koreans were required to speak Japanese and take Japanese names.” This name change policy, called Changssi-gaemyeong (; ), was part of Japan's assimilation efforts. The policy was extremely unpopular, and only some 9.6% of Koreans changed their last name to a Japanese one during the colonial occupation. a number of prominent ethnic Koreans working for the Japanese government, including General Hong Sa-ik, insisted on keeping their Korean names. Another ethnic Korean, Park Chun-Gum (???, ???), was elected as a member of the Lower House from the Tokyo Third District in the general election in 1932 and served two terms without changing his Korean name, but has been registered as chinilpa by the current Republic of Korea government.
After the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule, the "Name Restoration Order" was issued on 23 October 1946 by the United States Army Military Government in Korea south of the 38th parallel, enabling Koreans to restore their Korean names if they wished to. However, many Zainichi Koreans chose to retain their Japanese names, either to avoid discrimination, or later, to meet the requirements for naturalization as Japanese citizens.
Education in Korea under Japanese rule
In Joseon Dynasty Korea, education was limited to private academies for the aristocracy. Following the annexation of Korea, the Japanese administration introduced universal education patterned after the Japanese school system, with a pyramidal hierarchy of elementary, middle and high schools, culminating at the Keijo Imperial University in Seoul. As in Japan itself, education was viewed primarily as an instrument of "Imperial Citizen Forming" (???; ???) with a heavy emphasis on moral and political indoctrination. Although the Japanese colonial government did provide educational material for Korean culture and Korean language to some degree, such as a textbook of Hangul and grammar to mix Hangul with Chinese characters (in the version designed by Kakugoro Inoue), classes focused mostly on teaching the history of the Japanese Empire as well as glorification of the Imperial House of Japan. The history of Korea was not part of the curriculum. As in Japan itself, students were made to worship at the school's Shinto shrine regardless of their religious beliefs, and bow before portraits of the Emperor and copy of the Imperial Rescript on Education. As the Japanese administrative policy shifted more strongly towards assimilation from the 1930s (; doka seisaku), all classes were taught in Japanese with Korean language becoming an elective. Later this policy was replaced by a “Penalty Point” system whereby students were academically penalized for the use of the Korean language during school time. Eventually the use of Korean language was “forbidden in all schools and business”. During colonial times, elementary schools were known as “Citizen Schools” (; ; gungmin hakgyo) as in Japan, as a means of forming proper “Imperial Citizens” (???; Hwanggungmin) since early childhood. Elementary schools in South Korea today are known by the name chodeung hakgyo (; ) (literally “Elementary School”) as the term “gungmin hakgyo” has recently become a politically incorrect term.
Military conscription
Korean military participation until 1943| Year | Applicants | # accepted | | 1938 | 2,946 | 406 | | 1939 | 12,348 | 613 | | 1940 | 84,443 | 3,060 | | 1941 | 144,743 | 3,208 | | 1942 | 254,273 | 4,077 | | 1943 | 303,294 | 6,300 |
Starting in 1938, Koreans both enlisted and were conscripted into the Japanese military and the first "Korean Voluntary" Unit was formed. Among notable Korean personnel in the Imperial Army was Crown Prince Euimin, who attained the rank of lieutenant general. Of those who survived, some later gained administrative posts in the government of South Korea; well-known examples include Park Chung Hee, who years later became president of South Korea, Chung Il-kwon (???,???), prime minister during 1964–1970, and Paik Sun-yup, South Korea's youngest general, famous for his defense of the Pusan Perimeter during the Korean War. The first 10 of the Chiefs of Army Staff of South Korea graduated the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and no one from the Korean Liberation Army.
Recruitment began as early as 1938, when the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria began accepting pro-Japanese Korean volunteers into the army of Manchukuo, and formed the Gando Special Force. Koreans in this unit specialized in counter-insurgency operations against communist guerillas in the region of Jiandao. The size of the unit grew considerably at an annual rate of 700 men, and included such notable Koreans as General Paik Sun-yup. Historian Philip Jowett noted that during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Gando Special Force had "earned a reputation for brutality and was reported to have laid waste to large areas which came under its rule."
During the Second World War, American soldiers frequently encountered Korean soldiers within the ranks of the Japanese army. Most notable is the Battle of Tarawa, which was considered during that time the be one of the bloodiest battles in US military history. A fifth of the Japanese garrison during this battle consisted of Korean laborers who were trained in combat roles. Like their Japanese counterparts, they put up a ferocious defense and fought to the death.
Starting in 1944, Japan started conscription of Koreans into the armed forces. All Korean males were drafted to either join the Imperial Japanese Army, as of April 1944, or work in the military industrial sector, as of September 1944. Before 1944, 18,000 Koreans passed the examination for induction into the army.
Koreans to provide workforces to mines and construction sites around the island nation. The discovery proved that the number of conscripted Koreans reached its peak in the year in preparation for the war in the Japanese mainland.
The application ratio was allegedly 48.3 to 1 in 1943. From 1944, about 200,000 Korean males were inducted into the army. The number of Korean military personnel was 242,341, and 22,182 of them died during World War II.
After the war, 148 Koreans were convicted of Class B and C war crimes, 23 of whom were sentenced to death(Compare : 920 Japanese sentenced to death, 26 ethnic Taiwanese sentenced to death), including Korean prison guards who were particularly notorious for their brutality during the war. Justice Bert Röling, who represented the Netherlands at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, noted that "many of the commanders and guards in POW camps were Koreans - the Japanese apparently did not trust them as soldiers - and it is said that they were sometimes far more cruel than the Japanese." In his memoirs, Colonel Eugene C. Jacobs also wrote that during the Bataan Death March, "the Korean guards were the most abusive. The Japs didn't trust them in battle, so used them as service troops; the Koreans were anxious to get blood on their bayonets; and then they thought they were veterans." Korean guards were even sent to the remote jungles of Burma, where Lt. Col. William A. (Bill) Henderson wrote from his own experience that some of the guards overlooking the construction of the Burma Railway "were moronic and at times almost bestial in their treatment of prisoners. This applied particularly to Korean private soldiers, conscripted only for guard and sentry duties in many parts of the Japanese empire. Regrettably, they were appointed as guards for the prisoners throughout the camps of Burma and Siam." The highest ranking Korean to be prosecuted after the war is Lieutenant General Hong Sa-ik, who was in command of all the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in the Philippines.
In 2002, South Korea started an investigation of Japanese collaborators. Part of the investigation was completed in 2006 and a list of names of individuals who profited from exploitation of fellow Koreans were posted.
Japanese war crimes
During Japanese Occupation of Korea, many Koreans became victims of Japanese war crimes. Korean villages found hiding resistance fighters were dealt with harshly, often with summary execution, rape, forced labour, preventable famine and looting.
Per Chosun Ilbo, to this day, valuable Korean artifacts can often be found in Japanese museums or among private collectors. According to the investigation of the South Korea government, There are 75,311 cultural assets that were taken from Korea. Japan has 34,369; the United States has 17,803. Today, Korea frequently demands the return of these artifacts to which Japan does not comply.
Koreans along with many other Asians were experimented on in Unit 731, a secret military medical experimentation units. The victims who died in the camp included at least 25 victims from the former Soviet Union, Mongolia and Korea. And the forced labor toll for Korea comes to 450,000 in Japanese proper.
During World War II, women who served in the Japanese military brothels were called Comfort women. Historians estimate the number of comfort women between 10,000 and 200,000, which include Japanese women. According to testimonies, there were cases that Japanese officials and local collaborators kidnapped or recruited under guise of factory employment poor, rural women from Korea (and other nations) for sexual slavery for Japanese military.
As investigations continue, more evidence continues to surface. There has been evidence of the Japanese government intentionally destroying official records regarding Comfort Women. Nonetheless, Japanese inventory logs and employee sheets on the battlefield show traces of documentation for government sponsored sexual slavery. In one instance, names of known Comfort Women were traced to Japanese employment records. One such woman was falsely classified as a nurse along with at least a dozen other verified comfort women who were not nurses or secretaries. Currently, the South Korean government is looking into the hundreds of other names on these lists.
Colonial Korea was subject to the same Leprosy Prevention Laws of 1907 and 1931 as the Japanese home islands. These laws permitted the segregation of patients in sanitariums where forced abortions and sterilization were common, even if the laws did not refer to it, and authorized punishment of patients "disturbing peace" as most Japanese leprologists believed that vulnerability to the disease was inheritable. In Korea, many patients were also subjected to hard labor
Atomic bomb casualties
In the case of Korean A-bomb victims in Japan during World War II, many Koreans were drafted for work at military industrial factories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There were a total of 70,000 Korean victims in both cities; 40,000 were killed and 30,000 were exposed to the A-bomb radiation.
Controversial statements regarding Japanese rule in Korea
The nature, legitimacy, and legacy of the Japanese annexation of Korea, especially its disputed role in contributing to the modernization of the Korean peninsula, is a topic of intense debate.
Nonetheless, controversial pro-Japanese statements of the occupation of Korea have been made by Korean academics:
- Professor Rhee Young Hoon of Seoul National University argued at a seminar hosted by the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford that despite human rights problems, the Korean economy had grown greatly under the Japanese rule and that the base of modern capitalism introduced by the Japanese to Korea later became a part of the foundation of the modern Korean economy.
- Professor Emeritus Ahn Byung Jik of Seoul National University rejects the prevailing view that the late Joseon Dynasty had a germination of capitalism and could have grown into a modern society on its own, and argues that the Japanese rule helped the economic development of Korea.
- Professor Emeritus Han Seung-Jo of Korea University wrote that "The colonial rule of Korea by Japan was actually a stroke of good fortune, and instead of hating them for it, they should be thanked. There is no reason to rebuke, denounce or make criminals of the pro-Japanese activities of 35 years of cooperation without opposition", and said in a later interview that "At the time, if Japan hadn't taken over Chosun, Russia would have, and if that had happened the Korean people would have been scattered under Joseph Stalin's racial dispersion policy", and that "I see the colonial rule by Japan as having been not a bad thing, but instead an opportunity for the strengthening of the Korean people's awareness."
- Ji Man-Won, a retired South Korean military officer and author caused controversy in Korea and further abroad with his view. Ji has praised Japan for "modernizing" Korea, and has said "only around 20 percent of the Korean women who sexually served the Japanese military personnel were forced, while the remaining 80 percent volunteered in order to make money".
1910 interpretations and arguments
Early views of Japanese colonialism before the start of World War II were mixed. T. Philip Terry predicted the following in his 1914 guidebook Terry's Japanese Empire, Including Korea and Formosa:
- "That intelligent Koreans will later be as grateful to Japan as the Japanese now are to the United States, there is but little doubt. With customary astuteness and good will, Japan has adopted the admirable British idea in colonization of giving every man, British or alien, friend or foe, the same chance...Japan is to-day repaying Korea for centuries of unjust invasion, by the introduction of civilization and enlightenment."
However, not all outside accounts before the start of the war were as favorable towards the Japanese occupation. F.A. McKenzie in his book Korea's Fight for Freedom wrote the following in 1920:
- "When Japan, in face of her repeated pledges, annexed Korea, her statesmen adopted an avowed policy of assimilation. They attempted to turn the people of Korea into Japanese--an inferior brand of Japanese, a serf race, speaking the language and following the customs of their overlords, and serving them....'The Koreans are a degenerate people, not fit for self-government', says the man whose mind has been poisoned by subtle Japanese propaganda. Korea has only been a very few years in contact with Western civilization, but it has already indicated that this charge is a lie. Its old Government was corrupt, and deserved to fall. But its people, wherever they have had a chance, have demonstrated their capacity. In Manchuria hundreds of thousands of them, mostly fled from Japanese oppression, are industrious and prosperous farmers. In the Hawaiian Islands, there are five thousand Koreans, mainly labourers, and their families, working on the sugar plantations."
Modern interpretations and arguments
Korea experienced a true modernization in post-World War II under the stewardship of the United States and the income from a highly export-oriented industrialization for several reasons:
- The Korean War (1950-1953), which followed the Japanese occupation, destroyed most of the peninsula (in total about 2,500,000 people were killed, more than 80% of the national infrastructure including industrial and public facilities and transportation works, as well as three-quarters of the government offices, and one-half of residential areas were destroyed. The Korean peninsula after the Korean War had an overall economy "comparable with levels in the poorer countries of Africa" (see CIA World Factbook).
- South Korea's economy grew mostly during the 1960s and 70's under the dictatorship era of General Park and the economic reforms under the Third and Fourth Republics. "From 1960/62 to 1973/75 the share of agriculture in GDP fell from 45 percent to 25 percent, while the share of manufacturing rose from 9 percent to 27 percent" The total GDP also grew in excess of 500% for this relatively short period. It was during this time of rapid economic growth that foreign observers first applied the term Economic Miracle of the Han River and that Korea earned itself the distinctive title of Economic Tiger.
- Most Korean companies, especially the large Chaebol at the heart of the South Korean economic oligarchy, were founded well after the end of the Japanese occupation. These include, but are not limited to: Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Group, LG Group, and KIA group (known as the "Big Four" in South Korea).
Japan's coverup efforts
Many argue that sensitive information about Japan's occupation of Korea is difficult to obtain, and that this is due to the fact that the Government of Japan has gone out of its way to cover up many incidents that would otherwise lead to severe international criticism. On their part, Koreans have often expressed their abhorrence of human experimentation carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army where people often became human test subjects in such macabre experiments as liquid nitrogen tests or biological weapons development programs (See articles: Unit 731 and Shiro Ishii). Though some vivid and disturbing testimonies have survived, they are largely denied by the Japanese Government even to this day.
A recent example of this behavior included the denial by the Japanese Government of the burial of non-Japanese test-subject bodies several dozen feet below buildings in Japanese urban areas (such as the bodies found under the Toyama No. 5 apartment blocks) in order to cover up these experiments. Flatly denied, even after the bodies are discovered as new developments are constantly being erected in Japan. The unmarked mass graves on the "west side of Tokyo is deeply troubling". The testimony of Toyo Ishii, a nurse involved in the coverup, are down played or ignored. "After more than 60 years of silence, the 84-year-old nurse's story is the latest twist in the legacy of Japan's rampage." In addition, as cited above, much of the statistics are skewed due to the fact that they included Japanese migrants in Korea, making the poverty analysis of true Koreans indiscernible. Also, as referenced above the inventory logs and employee sheets were falsified by the Japanese in order to cover up the comfort women issue. These coverups and falsification of data have made accurate assessment of Japan's impact on Korea very difficult.
See also
External links
- Isabella Lucy Bird (1898),
- Horace Newton Allen (1908),
- Hildi Kang (2001), Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945, Cornell University Press, ISBN 0-8014-7270-9
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