Korea and her neighbors / A narrative of travel, with an account of the recent vicissitudes and present position of the country

by Isabella L. Bird

Hitherto I have written exclusively on Korean internal affairs, her actual condition, and the prospects of the social and commercial advancement of the people. I conclude with a few remarks on the political possibilities of the Korean future, and the relations of Korea with certain other powers.

The geographical position of Korea, with a frontier conterminous with those of China and Russia, and divided from Japan by only a narrow sea, has done much to determine her political relationships. The ascendency of China grew naturally out of territorial connection, and its duration for many centuries was at once the cause and effect of a community in philosophy, customs, and to a great extent in language and religion. But Chinese control is at an end, and China can scarcely be regarded as a factor in the Korean situation.

Japan having skilfully asserted her claim to an equality of rights in Korea, after several diplomatic triumphs and marked success in obtaining fiscal and commercial ascendency, eventually, by the overthrow of her rival in the late war, secured political ascendency likewise; and the long strife between the two empires, of which Korea had been the unhappy stage, came to an end.

The nominal reason for the war, to which the Japanese Government has been careful to adhere, was the absolute necessity for the reform of the internal administration of a State too near the shores of Japan to be suffered to sink annually deeper into an abyss of misgovernment and ruin. It is needless to speculate upon the ultimate object which Japan had in view in undertaking this unusual task. It is enough to say that she entered upon it with great energy; and that, while the suggestions she enforced introduced a new régime, struck at the heart of privilege and prerogative, revolutionized social order, and reduced the Sovereign to the position of a “salaried automaton,” the remarkable ability with which her demands were formulated gave them the appearance of simple and natural administrative reforms.

I believe that Japan was thoroughly honest in her efforts; and though she lacked experience, and was ofttimes rough and tactless, and aroused hostile feeling needlessly, that she had no intention to subjugate, but rather to play the rôle of the protector of Korea and the guarantor of her independence.

For more than a year, in spite of certain mistakes, she made fair headway, accomplished some useful and important reforms, and initiated others; and it is only just to her to repeat that those which are now being carried out are on the lines which she laid down. Then came Viscount Miura’s savage coup, which discredited Japan and her diplomacy in the eyes of the civilized world. This was followed by the withdrawal of her garrisons, and of her numerous advisers, controllers, and drill instructors, and the substitution of an apparently laissez-faire policy for an active dictatorship. I write “apparently,” because it cannot for a moment be supposed that this sagacious and ambitious Empire recognized the unfortunate circumstances in Korea as a finality, and retired in despair!

The landing of Japanese armies in Korea, and the subsequent declaration of war with China, while they gave the world the shock of a surprise, were, as I endeavored to point out briefly in chapter xiii., neither the result of a sudden impulse, nor of the shakiness of a Ministry which had to choose between its own downfall and a foreign war. The latter view could only occur to the most superficial student of Far Eastern history and politics.

Japan for several centuries has regarded herself as possessing vested rights to commercial ascendency in Korea. The harvest of the Korean seas has been reaped by her fishermen, and for 300 years her colonies have sustained a more or less prosperous existence at Fusan. Her resentment of the pretensions of China in Korea, though debarred for a considerable time from active exercise, first by the policy of seclusion pursued by the Tokugawa House, and next by the necessity of consolidating her own internal polity after the restoration, has never slumbered.

To deprive China of a suzerainty which, it must be admitted, was not exercised for the advantage of Korea; to consolidate her own commercial supremacy; to ensure for herself free access and special privileges; to establish a virtual protectorate under which no foreign dictation would be tolerated; to reform Korea on Japanese lines, and to substitute her own liberal and enlightened civilization for the antique Oriental conservatism of the Peninsula, are aims which have been kept steadily in view for forty years, replacing in part the designs which had existed for several previous centuries.

In order to judge correctly of the action or inaction of Japan during 1896 and 1897, it must be borne in mind not only that her diplomacy is secret and reticent, but that it is steady; that it has not hitherto been affected by any great political cataclysms at home; that it has less of opportunism than that of almost any other nation, and that the Japanese have as much tenacity and fixity of purpose as any other race. Also, Japanese policy in Korea is still shaped by the same remarkable statesmen, who from the day that Japan emerged upon the international arena have been recognized by the people as their natural leaders, and who have guided the country through the manifold complications which beset the path of her enlightened progress with a celerity and freedom from disaster which have compelled the admiration of the world.