Korea and Japan.
The attitude of the Korean people toward Japan has undergone many changes during that past quarter of a century. The thing that we must always reckon with is the ancient feeling of enmity aroused, in the first place, by the devastating raids of Japanese freebooters during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. At that time the Koreans suffered so severely that the very name of Japanese became the synonym of all that was dreadful and to be hated. This was further intensified by the great invasion of 1592 when the Koreans suffered untold things at the hands of the temporary conquerors. The result of these things are clearly seen in Korean character today. It would be very hard to find a Korean child who does not drink in, almost with his mother’s milk, a feeling of dislike against the Japanese. On the other hand the Japanese seem to have imbibed as strong a feeling toward the Korean. This feeling is one of contempt, born of the less warlike character of the Korean and his strong conservatism.
These sentiments we firmly believe to be the real underlying ones and if so the only genuine rapprochement between the two people must be along the line of mutual self-interest. If it pays sufficiently to forget the old feud then forgotten it will be, but it is plain that the interest must be a mutual one.
From the days of the Great Invasion up to the year 1868 the difficulties between Korea and Japan were quiescent, though by no means dead. After the Manchu invasion of Korea the Japanese even offered Korea help in throwing off the Manchu yoke. As we look at conditions today we can almost say that it was a pity Korea did not accept the offer.
The late Regent, during the first decade of the present reign, conceived a fanatical hatred against all outsiders and, through a few unfortunate victories over them, conceived the idea of hermetically sealing the country against foreign intercourse. He adopted the one course which was sure to effect the opening of the country, namely by banning the Japanese commercial settlement at Fusan. This was just at the time of Japan’s great awakening and it is probable that she sincerely hoped and believed that Korea was capable of taking the same forward step which she herself was taking. When, therefore, Korea not only took no forward step even but attempted to retire more deeply into her political solitude she aroused a good deal of feeling in Japan, a feeling that was so intense that it resulted in a sanguinary civil war called the Satsuma Rebellion. The leaders of the people in the Southern island of Kiusiu, which lies nearest to Korea, earnestly desired that Japan should force upon Korea at the point of the sword what time has at last effected. If the leaders of that rebellion could have looked forward to the year 1905 they would have left their swords in their scabbards.
In opposition to these advocates of force the new government in Tokyo took the wholly reasonable and laudable ground that Korea should be treated as a coördinate and independent power and that she should be approached from the diplomatic rather than the military side. The rebellion which resulted caused a long delay in the carrying out of any plans that Japan may have formed relative to the opening up of Korea. At the same time the approaching majority of the King of Korea, and the consequent retirement of the Regent, was sure to cause important changes in the attitude of the peninsular government. This became all the more evident as the queen and her powerful faction developed a feeling of strong hostility to the person and the policy of the Regent.
Taking advantage of this rift in the Korean lute the Japanese sent a semi-official agent in the person of Hanabusa who found means to secure frequent access to the Queen and her party and who doubtless used every argument to widen the breach between the Queen and the Regent. When everything was ready the Japanese warship Unyo Kan appeared off the Korean coast near Chemulpo and got herself fired upon by a Korean fort. This was the last, the dying act of the Regent, but it formed an opening wedge for the negotiations which were immediately instituted and which resulted in the signing of the treaty between Korea and Japan at Kangwha in 1876. The Regent had already retired from public life in disgust, although his friends were constantly plotting to bring him back to Seoul and reinstate him in power.
The years 1876-1880 form one of the most important periods in the modern history of Korea, even though they were very quiet years. The king had entered upon his career and his course was to be determined upon. The court was in a plastic state ready to be moulded into any form which a strong mind might suggest. Chinese suzerainty had slept so long and was so nominal in character that no protest was forthcoming even when Korea and Japan signed a treaty as between wholly independent powers. The ruling faction had come into power through the help of the Japanese. The latter recognized to the fullest extent the independence of Korea. There was every reason in the world why Japan should use her powerful influence to direct the stream of Korean politics into safe and progressive channels. She had an unparalleled opportunity. Everything was in her favor. England never began to have such a favorable outlook in India as Japan had in Korea beginning with the year 1876.
What then, was the reason for the comparative failure that resulted? There can be but one answer. The Japanese failed to study the situation closely enough and to gauge the quality of the instrument by means of which Korea must be led. The king was young and physically strong and a long reign was to be expected. His will was led by the powerful Min faction. It was the province of statesmanship to study these factors and so gauge their qualities as to be able to mould them in the forms desired. The central figure was the Queen. The country and the court went with her. She was young and impressionable and favorably impressed by the Japanese. Behind her was the Min faction, strong, ambitious, selfish, tenacious of its prerogatives. That faction was itself impressionable. It recognized that a new era was opening, that the policy of the Regent had been cast aside. It felt the incentive of national independence and was ready and willing to undertake the responsible work of leading the nation into these new and untrodden paths; but first and most of all it held to its own prestige. The selfish element was preeminent. There was no love of country, detached and altruistic. It was their conviction that the progress of the country would enhance their own prestige. The motive was not a very high one but such as it was it should have received careful study from the Japanese before it was rejected. The latter strongly favored a radical change in Korean conditions, a change for which Korea had received no such preparation as Japan had received and for which it was not ready. There were two things which might cause such a radical change as that of the Japanese—education or the rise of an intense nationalistic spirit. It was the latter which worked in Japan, but in Korea there was neither education nor a national spirit to work upon. These things had yet to be evolved.
The Japanese saw with impatience the slowness of the Koreans to take advantage of their opportunity and it was this impatience which spoiled the whole thing. If the Japanese could have realized the mental and traditional standpoint of the Koreans at that time and could have exercised tact and large patience the outcome might have been very different, but the truth is that the Japanese were as unable to understand the Koreans as the Koreans were to understand them. There were a few Koreans who seem to have taken hold of the problem in the same spirit as the Japanese but they were in such a hopeless minority and they were so far ahead of their time that the Japanese made a damaging mistake in forsaking the ruling faction and pinning their faith to these few progressives. Of course the ideas of these progressives were excellent. What they proposed would have been for the good of the country, but they had no public sentiment behind them and their views were so radical as to bar them from the field of practical politics. It is not good statesmanship to attempt what is better than the best thing possible, and the mistake the Japanese made at that critical point was in supposing that the Korean people would fall in with a radical progressive policy.
The result was seen in 1884 when, throwing over diplomacy, they assisted the Korean radicals in a sanguinary emeute in which seven cold-blooded murders proved the quality of the would-be reformers. Here we see a second case in which a diplomatic failure was tided over by military force. But even so they did not succeed, for the Chinese, who were on the scene and who had been making high bids for the Queen’s favor by kidnapping the Regent and carrying him away to China, were in greater force than the Japanese and virtually forced their retirement.
Up to this time people had not greatly favored either the Chinese or Japanese influence but if anything were inclined toward the latter. But now the ruling faction turned wholly toward China and with it went the mass of the people. The common people did not understand nor appreciate the ideals of the progressives, and the death of seven government ministers effectually weaned away what little fealty they had given to the progressive cause.
A new phase of the situation now opened during which the high-handed acts of the Chinese Minister alarmed the better class of Koreans and made them think more kindly of the Japanese who had at least not tampered with the independence of the country. Japanese diplomacy did all it could during this period to stem the rising tide of Chinese influence, but the Queen was so constituted mentally that having once conceived a thorough dislike for any person or policy it was well-nigh impossible to change. From the time when the Japanese, in 1884, helped the progressives in their attempt to wrest the power from the hands of the Queen’s faction there was no peace between her and the Japanese. But she was the pivotal point in the whole situation, and this the Japanese failed to see, or, seeing, ignored.
As we have said, the Chinese were striving hard to make up for the mistake which they had made in allowing Korea to sign treaties on the basis of independence, and with such good results that Japanese diplomacy was again frustrated. Once more she had recourse to the arm of force to carry out her ideas. The war with China resulted in complete success for her arms and again Japanese influence became paramount; but it should be noted that this aroused little enthusiasm among the Koreans. To be sure they had been saved from the threatened Chinese supremacy but the Koreans had no confidence in the ability of the Japanese to handle the situation wisely. In this they were right, for Japan began by enforcing unnecessary sumptuary laws which did not strike at the root of the Korean difficulty but only wounded the pride of the Korean people. At that time Japan had a second opportunity to prove her ability to handle an alien people and again she failed. The assassination of the Queen and the enforced detention of the King in is palace, which resulted in his throwing himself into the arms of Russia, was the direct result.
This series of events convinced the Koreans that Japan was unable to effect the changes which were necessary in order to prepare for the real progress of the country, and they also demonstrated to the Western world that however capable Japan may have been in leading her own people toward civilization and enlightenment she lacked the peculiar power necessary to the handling of an alien people.
As time went on and Russian prestige increased in the peninsula it became evident that diplomacy would again fail to save the situation and Japan was again driven to arms. The result bids fair to be another Japanese success. So far as Korea is concerned the situation is much the same as it was at the close of the Japan-China war. Japan is in a position to do about as she pleases here. The question arises whether, during the years that have elapsed since her former failures to handle the Korean problem, she has gained the requisite ability to do so. At the beginning of the present war she concluded a special agreement with Korea by virtue of which the latter gave her the right of way through the peninsula for war purposes. Korea, on her side, received the solemn pledge of Japan to uphold her independence and to work for her welfare.
To review the successive steps of the policy which Japan has pursued in Korea since the ratification of that agreement is not a particularly agreeable task. It must always be borne in mind that the Japanese are working under a terrible strain. Hundreds of thousands of their people are perishing on the battle field and millions of treasure are being poured out to secure to the Japanese nation a guarantee of continued existence. It is a life and death struggle and when a man is in the midst of such a struggle we do not expect from him the niceties of courtesy which we should expect from him at other times. There have been many criticisms of Japan’s course in Korea during the past year. She is charged with having done little or nothing to stem the tide of official corruption, that she has not bent her energies to the bettering of the condition of the common people, that nothing has been effected in the line of currency reform. Whatever may be the reasons for this it must appear to the unprejudiced observer that the charges are substantially true. We do not dare to say that Japan has no intention of effecting these needed reforms and it may be that there are cogent reasons why they could not be. Leaving out of view what the intentions of the Japanese may be and holding ourselves strictly to what has been actually accomplished we are bound to admit that up to the present time the results have been disappointing.
But the fact that the needed reforms have not been instituted should not lead us to a wholesale condemnation of the Japanese regime. The problem is an extremely complicated one and those who expected that by a single wave of the hand a condition of official corruption that has been fostered and fed by centuries of precedent could be rectified were doomed to disappointment from the start.
But unfortunately both for Korea and for Japan the failure to carry out reforms is only one, and the lesser one at that, of the complaints that are heard. It is stated from various parts of the country that Koreans are being deprived of their property without receiving proper compensation. Doubtless some of these stories are exaggerations but enough of them have been witnessed by foreigners of unquestioned veracity to establish the general fact. What we wonder at is that in the midst of a great war, in which all her energies are absorbed, Japan should allow the already difficult Korean problem to become complicated to such a painful degree by an influx of the less desirable element of their people into the peninsula. We hear it repeatedly asserted that the reinforcement of Japan’s enormous army in Manchuria is gradually depleting the supply of labor in Japan itself. This must be so if something like a million young men have been taken away to the seat of war. But if it is so how does it come about that thousands upon thousands of Japanese are flocking into Korea? It must be because they consider their opportunities better here than in the home country. But just at the present crisis they are doing their own land a double injury, first by further depleting the supply of labor there and secondly by complicating the already sufficiently difficult Korean problem.
The Japanese authorities in Korea have repeatedly been heard to say that a very undesirable class of Japanese is pouring into this country. They are thoroughly aware of this and they feel very keenly the extreme difficulty of holding their nationals in check. What we wonder at is that the Japanese government, which has shown such consummate ability in holding its subjects in check in Japan should allow itself to become hampered by the lawless acts of its subjects in Korea. It seems to us, and in this we are simply voicing the general sentiment of foreign observers in Korea, that the obvious course would have been to prohibit promiscuous emigration from Japan to Korea until the war was over and adequate arrangements could be made for the management and jurisdiction of those who wished to come.
Whether we are reasonable in this may be seen from the following consideration. It is affirmed by the defenders of Japan’s policy in Korea that as soon as the war is over and things quiet down these acknowledged difficulties will be overcome and the common people of Korea will be protected in their rights. This sounds reasonable, but does not every undesirable Japanese who comes here before that time make that solution more difficult? What, for instance of all the Koreans who have been forced to sell their property for a mere fraction of its value? Will the justice which Japan’s advocates foresee be retroactive, and will those acts of injustice be rectified? The Korean government guaranteed to secure the land for the building of the great railway through the peninsula. Was it not the duty of the Japanese to see to it that this land was paid for by the Korean government before it was seized, or at least should not each Korean whose land was appropriated have received an official paper signifying the amount of land he surrendered, such paper constituting a claim on the government for payment at some future time? Unless something like this was done it is hard to see how any future action of the Japanese could right the manifest wrong. The evidence has been lost.
It seems to be an object of general surprise that Japan should estimate at such a small value the good will of the Korean people. It was not to be expected that the government could look with satisfaction upon a Japanese occupation, but at first the people were enthusiastic over it and hailed it as a sign that all abuses were to be done away. We confess to utter inability to understand how or why Japan should have sacrificed this heavy asset of good will. It is the province of diplomacy and statesmanship to make use of all such moral factors to the fullest extent. We hear on all sides the statement that the Koreans have brought the present state of things upon themselves, but what we would like to know is the reason why Japan has not only failed to carry out needed reforms but has rendered future work in this time almost impossible by allowing an army of adventurers to come in and exasperate the people. We can see only two possible answers, either the Japanese government has concluded that reforms will not pay or else they are not fully aware of the actual conditions that prevail in Korea.
A few weeks ago at a station on the Seoul-Fusan Railway a Korean stepped upon a path leading away from the station. There was no sign to indicate that this was forbidden. Instantly three or four Japanese rushed upon him, knocked him down and beat him into unconsciousness. He remained in that state two days but finally recovered. It was an utterly brutal and causeless assault, and this sort of thing is going on all over the country. The class of Japanese who for the most part are exploiting Korea seem to take delight in wantonly abusing the people, simply out of braggadocio. There is no use in multiplying examples of this. We think that the Japanese are injuring themselves in allowing this sort of thing to go on. We are sorry to see that Koreans have come to the conclusion that all Japanese are like this. Such is far from being the case. We believe the average Japanese would act very different from this. The daily press of Japan is constantly recording acts of generosity and kindness on the part of Japanese even toward Russian captives and we believe that if the more respectable class of Japanese should come to Korea the people would be treated justly and kindly.
We have consistently upheld Japan in her opposition to Russian intrigues in the Far East. Japan is doing a splendid work and is fitting herself to do a still greater work in this region. She probably aspires to be a leader of opinion in this part of the world and to bring her influence to bear upon China for the renovation of that enormous mass of humanity. That is a much larger work than the mere absorption of a little corner of the Far East like Korea; but if Japan breaks her solemn pledges to Korea and continues to treat this people as she is now doing she is sure to injure herself in the eyes of the world. Japan is fighting Russia because of the latter’s broken promises in Manchuria, but if Japan herself breaks the promises she has made to Korea, how can she gain the countenance and acquiescence of the Western powers in any plan for large work in the rehabilitation of China? The best thing for Japan from the merely selfish standpoint would be to clear her skirts of all suspicion of double dealing with Korea, to give this people even-handed justice, to visit swift and exemplary punishment on any Japanese subject who treats a Korean less justly than he would a fellow Japanese.
We would ask what Korea has done that her people should be despoiled of their property and debarred from ordinary justice. To be sure she has not responded to the appeal which Japan made so many years ago and still retains the forms of conservation, but this can hardly be called crime. If Korea had been leagued with Russia against Japan and had been conquered by the latter then Japan would have some semblance of right to absorb the territory of the peninsula, but this was not the case. Of her own accord Japan formed an alliance with Korea and engaged to preserve the interests of the country. A failure to carry out this agreement would throw suspicion upon all Japan’s policy regarding the territory she acquires during the present war and would make it difficult to believe any of her promises.
A man who is prominent in the Japanese regime told us flatly a few days ago that as soon as this war is over Japan would declare a protectorate over this country. The excuse seems to be that it has been found impossible to make anything out of the Korean government or to effect reforms. This is the merest subterfuge. No serious attempt has been made to effect reforms, no one stands in the way of reforms, the people have been waiting for them and hoping against hope that reforms would be instituted, but so far as reforming this government for the sake of the Korean people is concerned there are few signs of a desire or determination to do so. Russia was severely blamed for making use of corrupt officials to carry out her schemes in Korea but we find today that Japanese are doing the very same thing in some parts of the country. We do not believe the leading authorities in Japan are aware of all the facts in the case and we cannot believe that they would countenance such a close imitation of Russian methods. What is needed is that the facts should be known. If they are known there are those who will attempt to have the evils remedied.
Our attitude, and that of most foreigners in Korea, is one of admiration of Japan’s wonderful ability and of earnest desire for the real welfare of the people. We want to see Japan’s military and naval record equalled by a wise and broad-minded solution of the Korean problem, a solution that will secure to Japan all the legitimate fruits of victory and still ensure to Koreans immunity from unjust reprisals.