Korea under Japanese rule
From 1910 to 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan under the name Chōsen (朝鮮), the Japanese reading of Joseon.[a]
Korea朝鮮
Chōsen
조선
Chosŏn
Chōsen
조선
Chosŏn
Part of the Empire of Japan (colony)
Keijō (Gyeongseong)a
(now Seoul, South Korea)
17 November 1905
22 August 1910
29 August 1910
1 March 1919
10 November 1939
2 September 1945
28 April 1952
Japan first took Korea into its sphere of influence during the late 1800s. Both Korea (Joseon) and Japan had been under policies of isolationism, with Joseon being a tributary state of Qing China. However, in 1854, Japan was forcefully opened by the United States in the Perry Expedition. It then rapidly modernized under the Meiji Restoration, while Joseon continued to resist foreign attempts to open it up. Japan eventually succeeded in opening Joseon with the unequal Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876.
Afterwards, Japan embarked on a decades-long process of defeating its local rivals, securing alliances with Western powers, and asserting its influence in Korea. Japan assassinated the defiant Korean queen and intervened in the Donghak Peasant Revolution.[10][11] After Japan defeated China in the 1894–1895 First Sino–Japanese War, Joseon became nominally independent and declared the short-lived Korean Empire. Japan then defeated Russia in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, making it the sole regional power. It then moved quickly to fully absorb Korea. It first made Korea a protectorate with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, and then ruled the country indirectly through the Japanese Resident-General of Korea. After forcing the Korean Emperor Gojong to abdicate in 1907, Japan then formally colonized Korea with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. The territory was then administered by the Governor-General of Chōsen, based in Keijō (Seoul), until the end of the colonial period.
Japan made sweeping changes in Korea. It began a process of Japanization, eventually functionally banning the use of Korean names and the Korean language altogether. Tens of thousands of cultural artifacts were looted and taken to Japan, and hundreds of historic buildings like the royal palaces Gyeongbokgung and Deoksugung were either partially or completely demolished. Japan also created infrastructure and industry. Railroads, ports, and roads were constructed, although in numerous cases workers were subjected to extremely poor working circumstances and discriminatory pay. While Korea's economy grew under Japan, many argue that many of the infrastructure projects were designed to extract resources from the peninsula, and not to benefit its people.[12][13]
These conditions led to the birth of the Korean independence movement, which acted both politically and militantly sometimes within the Japanese Empire, but mostly from outside of it. Koreans were also subjected to a number of mass murders, including the Gando Massacre, Kantō Massacre, Jeamni massacre, and Shinano River incident. While the international consensus is that these incidents all occurred, various Japanese scholars and politicians, including Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, either deny completely, attempt to justify, or downplay incidents such as these.
Beginning in 1939 and during World War II, Japan mobilized around 5.4 million Koreans to support its war effort. Many were moved forcefully from their homes, and set to work in generally extremely poor working conditions, although there was a range in what people experienced. Some Japanese politicians and scholars, including now Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, deny that Koreans were forced laborers, and instead claim that they were "requisitioned against their will" to work.[14][15][16] Women and girls aged 12–17 were infamously recruited, according to the international consensus, forcefully by Japan into functional sexual slavery. They are now euphemistically referred to as "comfort women", and are a continuing source of controversy. A number of modern Japanese scholars and politicians, notably from the far-right nationalist group Nippon Kaigi, of which Fumio Kishida and 57% of his cabinet are members,[17][18][19] deny that they were forced to work at all, and claim that even the pubescent girls consented to sex work and were compensated reasonably. After the surrender of Japan at the end of the war, Korea was liberated, although it was immediately divided under the rule of the Soviet Union and the United States.
The legacy of Japanese colonization was hotly contested even just after its end, and is still extremely controversial. There is a significant range of opinions in both South Korea and Japan, and historical topics continue to cause regular controversy. Within South Korea, a particular focus is the role of the numerous ethnic Korean collaborators ("chinilpa") with Japan, who have been variously punished or left alone. This controversy is exemplified in the legacy of Park Chung Hee, South Korea's most influential and controversial president, who collaborated with the Japanese military and continued to praise it even after the colonial period. Until 1964, South Korea and Japan had no functional diplomatic relations, until they signed the Treaty on Basic Relations, which declared "already null and void"[20] the past unequal treaties, especially those of 1905 and 1910.[21] Despite this, relations between Japan and South Korea have oscillated between warmer and colder periods, often due to conflicts over the historiography of this era.
Terminology[edit]
During the period of Japanese colonial rule, Korea was officially known as Chōsen (朝鮮),[7][8][9] although the former name continued to be used internationally.[22][23]
In South Korea, the period is usually described as the "Imperial Japanese compulsive occupation period" (Korean: 일제강점기; Hanja: 日帝强占期; RR: Ilje Gangjeom-gi).[24] Other terms, although often considered obsolete, include "Japanese Imperial Period" (일제시대; 日帝時代; Ilje Sidae),[25] "The dark Japanese Imperial Period" (일제암흑기; 日帝暗黑期; Ilje Amheuk-gi),[26] and "Wae (Japanese) administration period" (왜정시대; 倭政時代; Wae-jeong Sidae).[27]
In Japan, the term "Chōsen of the Japanese-Governed Period" (日本統治時代の朝鮮, Nippon Tōchi-jidai no Chōsen) has been used.
In May 1910, the Minister of War of Japan, Terauchi Masatake, was given a mission to finalize Japanese control over Korea after the previous treaties (the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1904 and the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1907) had made Korea a protectorate of Japan and had established Japanese hegemony over Korean domestic politics. On 22 August 1910, Japan effectively annexed Korea with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 signed by Ye Wanyong, Prime Minister of Korea, and Terauchi Masatake, who became the first Governor-General of Chōsen.
The treaty became effective the same day and was published one week later. The treaty stipulated:
Both the protectorate and the annexation treaties were declared already void in the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea.
This period is also known as Military Police Reign Era (1910–19) in which Police had the authority to rule the entire country. Japan was in control of the media, law as well as government by physical power and regulations.
In March 2010, 109 Korean intellectuals and 105 Japanese intellectuals met in the 100th anniversary of Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and they declared this annexation treaty null and void. They declared these statements in each of their capital cities (Seoul and Tōkyō) with a simultaneous press conference. They announced the "Japanese empire pressured the outcry of the Korean Empire and people and forced by Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and full text of a treaty was false and text of the agreement was also false". They also declared the "Process and formality of "Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910" had huge deficiencies and therefore the treaty was null and void. This implied the March 1st Movement was not an illegal movement.[51][52][53]
Early years and expansion (1910–1941)[edit]
Japanese migration and land ownership[edit]
From around the time of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Japanese merchants started settling in towns and cities in Korea seeking economic opportunity. By 1908 the number of Japanese settlers in Korea was somewhere below the figure of 500,000,[54] comprising one of the nikkei communities in the world at the time.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the . Country Studies. Federal Research Division.
