Colonial Korea

• Japanese: 朝鮮 (Chousen)

Korea was a Japanese protectorate from 1905 to 1910, and an annexed colony of Japan from 1910 until 1945. Under Japanese rule, Korea saw considerable industrial and economic development, but suffered "draconian and vindictive" military rule, which destroyed many native Korean political and social institutions and replaced them with Japanese ones, as well as oppressing the people, severely damaging Korean cultural traditions and setting the stage for profoundly negative Korean attitudes & views towards Japan down to the present day.

Background and Prologue

Samurai armies under Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea in the 1590s, and though they ultimately were unsuccessful and withdrew entirely from the peninsula, the damage they caused continues to be remembered today, and associated by some with the much later actions by a very different Japanese government in very different times and circumstances.

Though formal friendly relations between the Joseon Dynasty and Tokugawa shogunate were eventually established, and maintained throughout most of the Edo period, there were some Japanese intellectuals who advocated invading Korea as early as the early to mid-19th century. Citing the decline of Qing Dynasty China (especially after the Opium War of 1840-1842) and the threat of Russian encroachment (especially beginning around 1800), they argued for the invasion of Korea in order to help ensure the security of Japanese land, waters, and interests.

This discourse amplified in the Bakumatsu and very early Meiji periods, eventually culminating in the 1873 Seikanron, a major debate which split the leaders of the Meiji government; while some advocated invading Korea, for a variety of reasons including a desire to protect Japanese interests in Korea, and the feeling of a need, on the basis of national security, to ensure Korea not fall into the hands of Russia or any other Western power, others disagreed vehemently. In the end, the decision was made not to launch any such military expedition, and Saigô Takamori, among others, famously resigned from government, returning to his native Kagoshima prefecture, where he would several years later lead a major rebellion against the government.

The Japanese managed to secure modern diplomatic relations with Korea in the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa, which stipulated Korea's identity as an independent nation, free to engage in its own foreign affairs, and which opened three Korean ports to Japanese trade. This was all done without notifying or negotiating with Beijing, which had still seen Joseon Korea as a tributary state. This also placed the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, of the traditional relationship between the Korean Court and the Sô clan of Tsushima han, following the abolition of both the samurai class and of the han domains in the preceding years. A formal Japanese embassy in the modern mode was established in Seoul in 1880.

In the 1880s, a number of Japanese traveled to Korea in a variety of capacities, some as independent adventurers and the like, others as filibusters or activists, and others in more official capacities as diplomats or government officials. A great many of them, across all of these categories, aimed in one way or another to persuade Korea to distance itself from China, to pursue modernization reforms, and/or to allow for some considerable degree of Japanese involvement in Korean governance. None of these attempts were ultimately successful, but some spurred considerable Korean reaction, and in a few cases direct violence against Japanese individuals. Both China and Japan, on a number of occasions over the course of the decade, sent small military missions into Korea to suppress rebellions and uprisings, and after Japanese ambassador to Korea Takezoe Shin'ichirô was injured, and a number of Japanese killed, by Korean activists, Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru led a mission to Seoul in 1884 to discuss addressing these incidents. Tensions between China and Japan over influence in Korea nearly led to war during this decade, but negotiations between Mori Arinori and Li Hongzhang ultimately avoided (or delayed) violent conflict; both countries then agreed to inform the other if they were to send troops to Korea again.

However, in 1894, the Korean king requested Chinese and Japanese aid in suppressing the Tonghak Rebellion, and after the rebellion was ended, the Japanese troops remained, looting the royal palace and capturing the king and queen. Chinese forces responded, and the Sino-Japanese War broke out.

The Sino-Japanese War ended the following year with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which gave Japan control of Taiwan, among other spoils. Japanese and Russian influence in Korea continued to expand over the period from 1898 to 1904, eventually resulting in the outbreak of another full-on war. The Russo-Japanese War, like the Sino-Japanese War before it, was fought largely in and around, and over control of, Korea. It ended in 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth, and was shortly followed by a separate treaty with Korea which granted Japan control over the Korean peninsula as a "protectorate."

Protectorate (1905-1910)

Itô Hirobumi, who had some years before ended his term as Japan's first modern prime minister, became the first Resident General in Korea. Historian Mark Peattie describes Itô as having "attempted a series of well-intentioned reforms while at the same time systematically liquidating Korean political institutions and substituting Japanese ones."

Japanese rule in Korea continued to inspire Korean resistance, which led to open rebellion in 1908 to 1910. The assassination of Itô Hirobumi in 1909 by activist An Jung-geun spurred Japanese authorities to move forward with the culmination of plans already underway to formally annex Korea; this they did the following year, marking the end of Korea as "protectorate" and the beginning of Korea as "colony."

Colony (1910-1945)

Peattie describes the administration of the first Governor-General of Korea, Terauchi Masatake, as "iron-fisted," as the full power of the Japanese military was deployed to violently suppress further rebellions with "savage reprisal[s]."

References

• Mark Peattie and Ramon Myers (eds.), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, Princeton University Press (1984).