Japanese Colonialism in Korea, 1910–1945

Abstract

Wrenching Korea out of the Chinese world took two wars, the first already mentioned, the Sino-Japanese War of 1895–96, and the second, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Korea was in a position not unlike that of a newborn calf, defenseless before the Japanese imperial wolf. Japan was the first Eastern state to understand intellectually and culturally the strength of Western industrialization and the accompanying military technology. The Japanese at first embraced these facets of the West with regret, but in the Meiji era of 1876–1920, they threw themselves into remaking their own economic structure and military establishment. While they preferred their own ways, they did not, like China, agonize over the inevitable and resist industrialization under a version of the Chinese slogan, “Chinese spirit, western science,” or other diversions that got in the way of Western-style progress. One of the blessings of Japan’s awareness of the West was a modern army and navy and it soon turned these to its advantage over China and then Russia, both to the disadvantage of Korea.