The Korea Review, Vol. 5 No. 5, May 1905

by Various

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.