A History of Korea

by Professor Kyung Moon Hwang

  Declaring the 1905 treaty invalid and illegal was not a simple matter, however, and neither was the Japanese takeover of Korea that began in 1904. This process in turn reflected the complexities of Korea’s modern history itself. The way one views the Japanese takeover and the nearly four decades of Japanese rule invariably dictates one’s perspective on Korea’s modern experience as a whole, in particular the immense influence exerted by the outside world. Seen from this angle, the Hague incident showed Koreans taking matters into their own hands despite becoming swamped by overwhelming historical forces, including those that would rob them of their political independence.

  AUTONOMY AND MODERN HISTORY

  The Japanese conquest of Korea, which led to a period of colonial rule that lasted until 1945, constituted the first time since the era of Mongol suzerainty in the fourteenth century that Korea was directly controlled by a foreign power. Understandably, most historical perspectives have tended to focus on the political rupture and to treat the loss of Korean autonomy primarily as a matter of domination, collaboration, resistance, and victimization. They also extend this inquiry to raise questions about the nature and even historical validity of the period under foreign rule, so large was the imprint of the Japanese takeover on the rest of Korea’s twentieth century: how did this happen, and why? In addition to imperialism, historians have cited numerous internal factors, some going as far back as the early nineteenth century (Chapter 13), and including a series of “missed opportunities” by the state and elites to avert the oncoming disaster: the reactionary responses to Western contact in the 1860s; the tepid changes of the 1870s and 1880s; the Chinese domination of the 1880s and 1890s; the incomplete reform movements of the 1890s; and the unsuccessful efforts, hampered by corruption and carelessness, to improve Korea’s diplomatic, military, and economic conditions in the opening years of the twentieth century. Social and cultural factors cited include the stifling effect of a recalcitrant social hierarchy, the weakness of Koreans’ sense of sacrifice and national collectivity, even the Korean customs in marriage, hygiene, and labor. Undeniably, many if not all of these factors did indeed ultimately contribute to the end result, but it is difficult to determine their relative significance, especially of those events that took place long before the first decade of the twentieth century.

  On the other hand, one must also not overestimate the significance of the immediate circumstances, namely the 1905–10 Japanese protectorate period leading to outright annexation in 1910. First, such an approach would inflate the impact of two treaties—the 1905 treaty installing the Protectorate and the 1910 Treaty of Annexation—as the boundaries for the takeover process. In fact, one could even argue that these did not even constitute the most important treaties, as those in 1904 and 1907 can be considered more consequential (see below). Second, one must be careful not to exaggerate the historical rupture of 1910, as if the annexation acts as a conceptual black hole that sucks in all historical perspective. Such a fixation also leads to a preoccupation with the issue of the “legality” of the Japanese conquest, which, while not unimportant, is moot given the larger historical forces at work. The takeover did not rely on a treaty, and it could not have been legal in any sense but the most absurdly legalistic. And certainly one cannot believe that in 1910 everything changed; indeed, it took another decade for the colonial regime to implant foreign rule securely. The colonial period itself subsequently developed in different ways at different times, and we must situate the colonial experience, as well as the takeover process itself, within the longer processes of modern change.

  In the end, the most decisive factor was Japanese imperialism, and the series of events that led to Korea’s loss of political autonomy began in 1904 with the onset of the Russo-Japanese War. The rivalry between these two powers for dominance in northeast Asia had been brewing for some time, and the eruption of hostilities in early 1904 off the west coast of Korea provided the Japanese the justification for taking control of the peninsula. Without the Japanese ambition to first coerce Korea and then to control it directly, Koreans would not have lost their sovereignty—at least not to the Japanese and not at that time, and possibly not at all.

  Having said this, it is imperative to maintain the centrality of Koreans in Korean history, an obvious point that often gets lost when revealing the multiple means by which a foreign power imposed its rule over the country. Koreans not only challenged and resisted this effort, but in many ways also aided it, both willingly and not. The path leading to the loss of Korean autonomy, then, was paved by the interaction of imperialism and Korean consent. And one can further divide these factors into the “soft” and the “hard,” with the latter in reference to the mechanisms of suppression engendering various means of resistance.

  FORCE AND PUSHBACK

  Until recently a historical narrative of domination and resistance prevailed in the common understanding of this period. Even with the emergence of a refreshingly more complex historical picture over the past two decades, it still bears reiterating that the loss of Korean sovereignty depended ultimately on force. The thousands of Japanese soldiers and policemen who entered the peninsula beginning with the Russo-Japanese War established the coercive framework for foreign domination, including the intimidation of Korean officials into signing, without royal consent, cooperative treaties. The first such pact in February 1904, immediately after the outbreak of the war, allowed Japanese soldiers to be stationed on Korean soil. Later, in August, another treaty stipulated a strong role for Japanese advisors in the financial, military, and diplomatic sectors of the Korean government. This served as prelude to the Protectorate Treaty of November 1905, which followed a peace agreement between the warring sides, brokered by the US, that recognized Japan’s pre-eminent interests on the peninsula (in return, apparently, for Japanese recognition of American imperial interests in the Philippines). This notorious “1905 Treaty,” signed by Korean ministers under coercion, established the Japanese protectorate government, the Residency General. The Residency General controlled the Korean government’s foreign and financial affairs and put in place regional consulates around the country overseeing the Japanese migrant population and military presence. Ito Hirobumi, the venerable “senior official” at the center of Meiji Japan’s modern transformation since the 1860s, arrived in Korea in early 1906 to serve as the first Resident General.

  At first, Ito appears not to have envisioned a complete takeover of Korea, but rather a civilizing mission that would curb Korea’s potentially dangerous decay. This outlook took a dramatic turn in the summer of 1907, however, with news of the secret mission to The Hague. Emperor Kojong, who had been a thorn in the Japanese side throughout this period, was forced to abdicate the throne in place of his meek son, who became crowned as Korea’s new emperor. A treaty to accompany this move put in place the framework for total Japanese control over the Korean government by allowing the foreigners to determine appointments to the highest government posts. The disbandment of the Korean army quickly followed, along with the swelling of the combined Japanese–Korean military police force under Japanese control. The assassination of Ito in October of 1909, just a few months after he stepped down as the Resident General, appears to have accelerated the move toward outright annexation, which took place within a year thereafter. But, for all intents and purposes, the 1910 annexation treaty merely formalized the Japanese political control over Korea that had been completed in 1907.

  An Chunggn, Ito’s assassin, has long stood as the heroic representative in Korea of the combative resistance to the Japanese takeover. An gunned down Ito in plain sight at a train station in Harbin, Manchuria, and, following a legendary interrogation in which he laid out the principles behind his actions, he was executed. Prior to this An had led some bands of “Righteous Army” guerillas who were operating throughout Korea and beyond, targeting Japanese soldiers as well as Korean collaborators—from officials and policemen down to villagers. Active sporadically after 1894, the Righteous Army g
uerillas had risen up spontaneously in force following the 1905 Protectorate Treaty. Some of these groups were led by prominent elites, including the Confucian scholar Ch’oe Ikhyn, whose anti-foreign activism dated back to the 1860s (Chapter 13). It was the disbandment of the Korean army in the summer of 1907, however, that truly triggered an explosion in Righteous Army activities, as thousands of disaffected former soldiers entered the ranks of anti-Japanese guerillas. Battles raged throughout the peninsula, with one dramatic showdown taking place on the outskirts of Seoul in late 1907 involving upwards of 10,000 Korean resistors. Though they would never again be so well organized, they quickly formed the most serious obstacle to the Japanese takeover, and the full thrust of Japan’s imperial might was directed at suppressing them. Pacification would not come until well after the 1910 annexation, and the bitter memories of the brutality deployed to hunt down the guerillas would continue to fuel anti-Japanese activities indefinitely.

  Notwithstanding his military deeds, An Chunggn also belonged to the wave of resistance leaders who, after 1904, had pursued their activities through education and publishing. The onset of the Russo-Japanese War and the growing awareness of Japanese designs instilled a sense of crisis that the nation’s autonomy and even its future as a civilization were at stake. Sin Ch’aeho, who like An Chunggn would later engage in militant activities, was representative of those sounding the alarm. As a writer for a stubbornly critical newspaper during the protectorate period, the Korea Daily News, he, like many others, connected the country’s imminent danger to the people’s lack of nationalistic consciousness. His solution was to raise awareness of the nation’s plight through the publication of works on the glories of ancient history, on the often tragic trajectory of national historical development thereafter, and on the pressing need to apply these historical lessons to asserting independence. Other historian-activists included Pak nsik and Hyn Ch’ae, who wrote long treatises on both recent and distant Korean history that sought to instill a sense of urgency. Still other educators, scholars, and journalists appealed for direct action. The most notable example of this was Chang Chiyn, who penned a resounding “Lament of Wailing” in a leading newspaper immediately following the signing of the 1905 Protectorate Treaty. The newspapers and journals of the protectorate period stood often as the desperately final means, short of violence, to arouse Koreans and to appeal for international attention.

  Little wonder, then, that one of the first steps taken by the colonial government in 1910 was to shut down all private newspapers and publication activities. The first decade of the colonial period, in fact, was marked by a general suppression of unauthorized activity, including in business, and became known as the era of “military rule” in reference to the heavy hand of colonial suppression. The primary aims of the colonial administration were to ferret out and pacify the remaining sources of armed resistance, and to stifle any plots seeking restoration of Korean autonomy. For the latter concern, the colonial authorities directed much of their attention and resources to mollifying the Yi royal house, for, as the secret mission to The Hague had proven in 1907, the long-standing monarch, Kojong, would not go quietly.

  In the spring of that year, Kojong, unable to break out of the confines in which the Protectorate had placed him, dispatched three advisors to the Second World Peace Conference in The Hague. They met first in St Petersburg, where they joined up with a former Korean ambassador to the Russian Empire to plead their case for assistance to the Tsar himself. The Russian government, now more interested in allying with Japan, rebuffed them, and they proceeded to the Netherlands on their own. While they were denied a formal audience there, the three emissaries did manage to create a scene of protest, which caught the attention of the press. Indeed, according to the official proceedings of the Conference, one of the Korean delegates, Yi Wijong, pleaded simply for “a judgement on the legitimacy of the 1905 treaty.” Later, at a speech he gave, in French, at the foreign press club in The Hague, he was more explicit: the

  Japanese have unjustly forced their way onto Korea against the wishes of the Korean people and their monarch; the 1905 treaty was signed at the point of a gun and sword, and hence is illegal according to the standards of international law; and the Korean people are determined to resist this injustice. Much of the press coverage of the Koreans came to sympathize with them, and this only furthered the resolve of the Japanese officials to take more decisive action.

  THE DEFT HAND OF CONQUEST

  The summer of 1907, which included the forced abdication of Emperor Kojong, represented the culmination of gradual changes in the Korean government that the Japanese had promoted since 1904, the year the Japanese military made its way into the capital to stay for good. Thereafter, the military and police, though not deployed specifically for struggles over control of government, stood as the undeniably powerful presence looming over the developments leading to and securing the Japanese takeover. Under the cause of “reform” the Japanese Residency General, which formally held responsibility only for Korea’s diplomatic and financial affairs, pushed many of the most consequential changes. This process witnessed sweeping amendments to the organization and manner by which the Korean government operated, all geared toward a more efficient means of mobilizing human and material resources as well as greater state control and surveillance. Notable targets of this project included the household registration and legal systems, both of which included an explicitly expanded role for, and the implicit threat of, the police. The reorganization of the cabinet and, more importantly, the shift in appointment power to the Residency General took place immediately after Kojong’s abdication in 1907. Thereafter the highest posts in the central government, the provincial governorships, and most of the county magistracies were filled by Koreans with reliable ties to Japan.

  The formal annexation of the summer of 1910, then, required few major changes to the structure or personnel of the government. The first Governor General, or head of the colonial Government General of Korea, had been in fact the last Resident General of the Protectorate. He presided over an ambitious colonial state that more or less combined the pre-annexation Korean government and Residency General. One major change in state organization did materialize, however, to oversee the execution of the nationwide colonial land survey. By the time of its conclusion in 1918, this enormous project would record and standardize the ownership of all parcels of land, consolidate large holdings of both public and private owners, and employ thousands of new officials, mostly Korean, in the process.

  The cultivation of Korean officials became perhaps the most overlooked major ingredient in the Japanese takeover. Upon annexation, the royal family and prominent elites were eased into submission through lavish monetary sums, nobility titles, and sinecures. The more reliably friendly Koreans were appointed to high positions in the colonial government, continuing a pattern that had begun in 1907, as noted above. The top Korean appointees after 1907, especially those to the provincial governor positions, had in fact spent most of the previous decade in Japan, having fled Korea following the collapse of the Kabo Reform government in early 1896. Their time in exile had only served to harden their belief that the only hope for their country lay in accepting Japanese direction, and upon their return to their homeland they facilitated this effort. One did not need this formative experience in Japan to concur, however, as demonstrated repeatedly by the top Korean cabinet officials in the 1904–10 period—those who had signed the 1904 and 1905 treaties, colluded to transfer appointment power to the Residency General in 1907, and formally handed over the government in 1910. The central Korean figure in the latter two steps was Prime Minister Yi Wanyong, still reviled today as Korea’s Benedict Arnold.

  Yi Wanyong, however, represented only the tip of the collaborationist iceberg, for thousands of Koreans in all spheres of life acceded to the takeover process. Yi was actually related to Korea’s royal family; he could count Emperor Kojong as a brother-in-law. While a tragic irony at one level, this was emblemat
ic of the messy ties and blurry line between the two sides of resistance and acceptance, and of the less than clear-cut choices that many Koreans faced. While many prominent public figures, such as the historians and educators noted above, dedicated themselves to enlightening people in the ways of the modern world for the cause of preserving autonomy, others believed that saving the nation required the relinquishment of political independence. In addition to the maneuverings of Yi and other elites, there were also popular movements promoting the idea of joining the Japanese empire during this period. The most conspicuous of these groups was the Ilchinhoe, or “Advance in Unity Society,” which counted tens of thousands of members from a wide range of backgrounds, with many formerly belonging to the Tonghak religion and social movement. Originally stirred into organizational activity in the midst of the Japanese entrance into Korea for the 1904–5 war, the Advance in Unity Society’s primary goal was to agitate for a greater popular voice in government affairs, especially regarding taxation. To accomplish this, the leadership, led by a curious figure named Song Pyngjun, embraced the annexationist cause in very public campaigns. It hence benefited from and contributed to the ongoing flowering of publishing for educational and political purposes. Although Song himself gained high office, however, the Advance in Unity Society ultimately failed to exert any lasting influence, even after annexation, for the very state power that it tried to curtail became the necessary instrument for implementing foreign rule.