For the past two weeks of class, me and my learning partner looked at the history of Korea, specifically during the Japanese Colonial Period. The official Japanese Colonial Period was between 1910 and 1945, but some historians would argue that colonization had begun at the 1905 Eulsa Treaty between the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire, that deprived Korea of its diplomatic sovereignty and made Korea a protectorate of Imperial Japan.
The Japanese rule, though only lasted for 35 years yet left an indelible legacy. The Japanese colonial government improved the infrastructures through building new railways, telephone lines and schools, but at the same time the Korean people were exploited as workers and many starved as the majority amount of food production were forcefully exported to Japan. In the 1930s, the colonial government established policies that removed the Korean of people of their national identity, banning the teaching of Korean language in schools, and requiring all Koreans to take on Japanese names. Linguists have identified that in the Korean language, there are many loan words from Japanese, which could be traced back to the colonial period as the Korean culture was significantly affected by the Japanese presence in Korea. The Korean people were integrated into the Japanese society as a lower class of people after 1939, and many Japanese people have immigrated to the Korean Peninsula, where the Japanese population was 850,000 by 1945, with about 240,000 working in the Colonial government.
Though form the surface it may seem like a “normal” colonial move on the Japanese side, following the footsteps of the British, French, and Portuguese Empires to establish colonial governments in underdeveloped countries, the Japan-Korea Treaty was, in fact, acquiesced by the American government. The Taft-Katsura Agreement of 1905 gave U.S.’ tacit approval to Japanese Colonialism of the peninsula in exchange for Japanese recognition of U.S. influence over the Philippines. The agreement, which was essentially a memorandum, stated that the U.S., Japan and Great Britain had control over East Asian Affairs to “keep peace,” and Katsura felt the urgency to colonize the Peninsula due to “national security,” as Korea was the direct cause of the “Russo-Japanese War.” It has been an consensus among historians that this agreement of 1905 was just an excuse for these imperial states to extend their control over to other countries, and justifying their actions with each other.
For our next class, Brenda will go more into the history of Japanese Colonialism during the Second World War, and the role of the Korean Peninsula as protectorate of Japan during the war. This topic is of tremendous interest to me. I have taken History 341 with Dr. Loo in the History Department on the Memories of the WWII in East Asia, and we have identified controversial issues that we will discuss further next class, including Military Sexual Slavery (Comfort Women) in Korea, and the complications behind their sufferings. Next week’s discussions will also help me prep for my Japanese Colonialism Class (HIST299) next semester, and I am really excited to learn more about it.
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