Welsh Journals

JAPANESE IMPERIALISM AND KOREAN NATIONALITY. By F. A. McKenzie, War Correspondent 6aily Mail," Russo-Japanese- War, 1904-5. JAPAN has for centuries dreamed of herself as a great Imperial power. The military clans never faltered in their belief that they would establish their nation on the mainland of Asia and make it a governing power there. Hideyoshi tried to do this in the fifteenth century, and came within an ace of success. China barred the way. China was great, Japan small; China strong, Japan comparatively weak. Western civilisation, Western sanitation, and Western arms came to Japan in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Her population grew by leaps and bounds, more rapidly than that of any other nation in the world. Western arms, coupled with passionate patriotism, finally enabled Japan to overcome China, and to realise for the moment her dreams of mainland power. Russia and France shattered that dream once again. Then Japan set herself deliberately with all her strength to make herself supreme in Asia, the dominant power of the Eastern Pacific. Russia in turn was crushed in the Far East, leaving Japan supreme. The Japanese dreams of Asiatic expansion centred first on her neighbour, Korea. A glance at the map will show why. The Korean peninsula running out from North-eastern Asia comes at its peak within a night's journey of Japan. Held by an enemy it would be as serious a menace to the Island Empire as Ireland held by an enemy would be to Britain. Held by Japan, it gives her the control of the Yellow Sea, a firm hold on North-eastern Asia, and a stepping-off ground from which she can at any time hurl her forces on Peking or Mukden, on Vladivostock or into the interior of Asia. Japan wanted Korea. She had coveted it for cen- turies. When in the late seventies Korea opened her doors to outside nations, the idea of dominating this land became a national obsession. Korea was weak and poor; her cities and industries had been largely destroyed by Japanese invaders centuries before. She had no army and no fleet worth mention. Her Court was notoriously corrupt, even for Asia. Her people were divided into cliques, ill-governed, lacking enter- prise, poor. Japan saw her opportunity. And so there began in the early eighties, and con- tinued until the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, an amazing and complicated intrigue. Japan could not seize Korea outright; her statesmen knew that Europe would not permit it. Hotheads were ready enough to attempt it. and the Satsuma Rebellion was largely brought about because the hotheads could not have their way. For close on a quarter of a century Japan played with Korea like cat with mouse. She promised everything. She entered into solemn treaties, guaran- teeing Korean independence. She was to be Korea s protector. She played clique against clique. Regent against Queen, young reformers against Emperor, Emperor against reformers. Her plan was to keep the land in a ferment, to stir up revolts. She initiated, in short, the methods that in more recent years she has so successfully carried out on a larger scale in China. On more than one occasion her success was wrecked by the folly of her own militarists. Thus the murder of the Queen, planned by Japanese officials, caused a violent re-action against Japan. The Russo-Japanese War gave Japan a firm hold of her neighbour. In April, 1904, Korea, for all prac- tical purposes, passed under Japanese domination. Nominally the land still remained independent for another half-dozen years. Japan even made fresh treaties further guaranteeing her independence. But Korea became Japanese in fact on the day her troops landed at Chemulpho, the occupation being regularized in 1910. when the formal annexation took place. When Japan took over Korea she did so with the good will of almost every foreigner there. We-I was in Korea at the time-thought that she would bring to the country justice, liberty, and a liberal policy of commercial expansion. Here was no hasty task assumed bv her statesmen. They had studied the problem for generations ahead. They knew what they meant to do; they had made up their minds how they would do it. At the end of sixteen years we are entitled to say the Japanese colonial methods, as shewn in her govern- ment of the Korean people, present one of the most conspicuous failures of modern times. She has brought a certain measure of civilisation, better roads, more schools, bigger harbours, more railways, sumptuous hotels. But she has disappointed her old European friends, and has turned almost the entire people, many of whom at first welcomed her, into her bitter foes. She has failed to give justice. She has re-created a spirit of nationality among the Korean people, and by her very harshness, has tempered that spirit into a deadly weapon against herself. She has destroyed liberty. She has made the country one great prison. She has multiplied criminals year by year. The Japanese Governor General de- plored recently that every man capable of leading the people was in prison or in exile. Even the Japanese leaders of to-day admit the failure, and deplore the excesses of the militarist regime which prevailed until the autumn of last year. What are the causes of Japanese failure? The fundamental one is that they started out with a wrong idea. Many years ago one high official, discussing this matter with me, frankly outlined the nation's plans. He maintained that there are only two ways of govern- ing a subject race. One is to do as we do in India, to maintain their institutions and their language, and to rule them as a separate people. The other plan is to set out to assimilate the subject race, to make them part of your own stock, to wipe out by degrees their language, their institutions, their history, and to absorb them in the greater Power. This latter was, and is to this day, even under the reformed administration, the Japanese plan. They aim to make the Korean into a kind of lesser Japanese. Accordingly everything has been done to encourage