In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

As before intimated, the Japanese Government was anxious that the Treaty of 1876 should be followed by like Treaties between Korea and other Powers. It cordially tendered its good offices when Commodore Shufeldt visited Japan previous to the negotiation of the treaty concluded by him, and on subsequent occasions did what was possible to facilitate the conclusion of other treaties with Korea. Its policy in that regard was illustrated in an interesting way by the statement of Count Inouye, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to Mr. Bingham in 1882, with reference to the appointment of General Foote, the first American Minister to Korea. He said to Mr. Bingham, as the latter reported to Secretary Frelinghuysen, that the action of the American Government “in ratifying so promptly its treaty with Korea and accrediting a minister to that kingdom gave great satisfaction to His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Government, and was accepted as another evidence of the policy of justice so often manifested by the United States toward the states of Asia.” He also said that it was considered an act of friendship toward Japan as well as Korea.

In considering all the subsequent relations of Japan and Korea two things should be kept distinctly in view as determining questions of justice and injustice, of wisdom or unwisdom, in the policy of both countries. In the first place: In order to conclude “a treaty of commerce and amity which recognized the independence of Korea,” Japan rather than engage in a punitive war, had encountered in its own territory a rebellion which cost the Government of the Restoration no less than 60,000 men and 416,000,000 yen. And second, in allowing this treaty to go through in the form which it actually took, China had been convicted of the duplicity and wholly untenable character of its claims to exercise the rights of suzerainty over Korea. On the latter point Minister Rockhill[16] affirms that the conclusion in 1876 of the treaty of Kang-wha between Japan and Korea “marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the latter country, its entry into the family of nations.” “Prior to the Kang-wha treaty,” this authority goes on to say: “The nature of Korea’s relation to China was a puzzle to Western nations. They were told, at one and the same time, that Korea, though a vassal and tributary state of China, was entirely independent so far as her government, religion, and intercourse with foreign states were concerned—a condition of things hardly compatible with our ideas of either absolute dependence or complete independence.”

“In 1871 the Chinese Foreign Office wrote the United States Minister in Peking, Mr. Frederick F. Low, who had informed it of his recent appointment by his Government as special envoy to Korea, and was about proceeding there, that: ‘Korea is regarded as a country subordinate to China, yet is wholly independent in everything that relates to her government, her religion, her prohibitions, and her laws; in none of these things has China hitherto interfered.’”[17] But the first Article of the treaty signed in 1876 with Japan reads as follows: “Chosen, being an independent state, enjoys the same sovereign rights as does Japan”; and in 1882 the King of Korea wrote to the President of the United States, when the two countries were about to enter into treaty relations, pledging his Government that the terms of the treaty should be “carried into effect according to the laws of independent states.”

It was this not merely theoretical suzerainty, but a pernicious practice of interference and dictation on the part of China over Korea, joined to the utterly corrupt and weak government of the latter country, which led inevitably to the war between the former and Japan. Similar claims of the Government of Peking, under existing political and social conditions, over the weaker states which were alleged to be dependencies of this Government, the civilized nations of the world have repeatedly found themselves compelled to disregard; and this, in the interests of the dependent people themselves.

The mental attitude and practical treatment which the Korean Court and Yang-ban class in general have accorded to the treaties with Japan and other foreign nations have been essentially unchanged from the beginning. All depends upon the apparent immediate effect of foreign intercourse on their ancient rights and privileges of office-bearing and official “squeezing.” The Mins, the family of the late Queen, have always been notoriously corrupt; and, if the Queen herself was ever sincerely opposed to the anti-foreign policy, it is likely that the opposition had its source in the selfish interests of her own family and in her hatred of the King’s father, the Tai Won Kun. The latter was always consistently and energetically opposed to all foreign intercourse.

The condition of affairs in Korea preceding the troubles of 1882 and 1884 is graphically and truthfully described by the report of Ensign George C. Foulk, of the United States Navy, in which he submitted to his Government information relative to the revolutionary attempt of the latter date. With regard to the Government of Korea, Ensign Foulk says that “it has been for an indefinite period under the practical control of the Min Family, of which the Queen of Korea is at present the highest representative. The blood of this family is largely Chinese, and it has been always, and remains, the desire and aim of this family to subject, and retain in subjection, their country to the suzerainty of China. Members of this family are accorded special privileges by China, and are, to the exclusion of other Korean noble families, on comparatively social terms with the Court of China, which they visit frequently. The family is very large, and includes the highest number of great nobles, with the greatest landed estates, of all the families of the nobility in Korea.... The great body of Korean people know little or nothing of the politics of their Government, nor do they dare to use any information they may by chance possess on Government affairs.”

Ensign Foulk then goes on to draw attention to the remarkable phenomenon that, while the Chinese “are detested for their appearance, conduct and customs,” nothing by way of cruelty and fraud that they may do awakens practical resentment; but the Japanese, on the contrary, while “even admired by Koreans of the present day for their appearance, customs, and conduct,” are so hated that the “Koreans are always ready for the license when they may vent this feeling in shedding Japanese blood.” With regard to the real attitude of the Queen’s family, he further affirms: “This energy of the Mins [namely, in conducting negotiations for a treaty with the United States] has given them the mistaken reputation of being members of the progressive party in Korea; in fact, they only acted in obedience to their hereditary lord, China, without a thought patriotic to Korea, beyond that they, in common with all Koreans at that time, felt the danger of the seizure of a part of Korea by Russia.”

Now, however, the Tai Won Kun, the bitter enemy of the Queen, had his turn at the wheel on which the fate of this unfortunate country was revolving, first in one direction and then in the other. In July, 1882, taking advantage of disaffection among the soldiers of the capital, occasioned by short rations issued by the Mins (a “steal in army contracts”), he directed their revolt against that family, and, having disposed of its members, seized the Government for himself. Many Mins were killed; Min Tai-ho (father of Min Yong-ik) was left, supposed to be fatally wounded, in a ditch; poison was to be administered to the Queen, but a maid, personating her in disguise, took the poison and died while the Queen escaped. Min Yong-ik shaved his head, and, after hiding in the mountains three days, walked to Fusan whence he escaped to Japan in the guise of a Buddhist priest. For his disobedience to its command and his attempt to annihilate its royal servants, the Mins, the Chinese Government sent its troops to Korea and carried off into banishment the Tai Won Kun; but the power of the Mins in China’s behalf having been greatly cut down by the revolt, Chinese troops were placed in Seoul to strengthen the remainder, and continued there after the revolt was suppressed.

It was, then, in connection with the armed interference of China in a domestic quarrel between the wife and the father of the Emperor,—China, which had repeatedly disclaimed all responsibility for Korean internal affairs and which had permitted Korea to make a foreign treaty on terms of equality,—that the Korean Court offered again, in 1882, another affront to Japan. This time, also, the insult was written in blood. For through no fault or offence on their part, a number of Japanese were killed in the course of a domestic riot, and the Japanese Minister was obliged to flee from the capital and to put to sea in a fishing boat, whence he was rescued by an English vessel. The provocation was greater than that for which western nations have frequently exacted exemplary vengeance, much greater than the offence given by the rebellious Daimyo of Choshin, for which the Treaty Powers had held Japan herself so strictly to account. Nevertheless, Japan made due allowance for the irresponsibility and weakness of the Korean Government. An apology, an indemnity of 550,000 yen (50,000 being for private sufferers), and a Convention of two articles defining treaty limits, etc. (signed August 30, 1882), were the sum of her demands. The payment of 400,000 yen of the indemnity was afterward remitted. The instructions of the Emperor of Japan commanding this to be done contained the following declaration:

We hereby remit four hundred thousand yen of the indemnity of five hundred thousand yen due from Korea, which sum we sincerely trust will be employed to supplement the funds already devoted to the introduction of civilization into the country.