Korea and Taiwan Under Japanese rule

1. Koreaand TaiwanUnder Japanese rule • March 4, 2014

2. Review • What is a zaibatsu? • How does democracy deal with conflicts of interest? • Can you have a democracy without a real possibility of a peaceful transfer of power? • Was Japan a democracy before 1945? • Who was Mishima Yukio?

3. Resisting Modernity • The rise of agrarianism and bushido (p. 398) • the growing popularity of new religions, such as Tenri-kyō, Ōmoto-kyō, and Sōka Gakkai. (p. 398) • In times of rapid modernization, there will always be some who look back to an idealized past, and there will also be some who seek to shelter traditional values from the winds of change by protecting them with a modern religious organization.

4. Fascism • Fascism is a non-democratic and non-communist political ideology that views society as like a family, with no real internal conflicts of interest. Fascism is an attempt to contain the tensions of modernization by slowing social change so that the traditional social hierarchy doesn’t undergo a rapid and therefore destabilizing transformation. It often used traditional rhetoric to legitimize its unprecedented heavy-fisted control of society. • Fascism is often racist, militaristic and aggressive, and extols authoritarian leaders as fatherly figures.

5. Japan under Fascism p. 459 • The end of party government in 1932 (p. 387) • the slow creation of a “national defence state” in which the perceived needs of the military were given top priority. In 1938, the government gave itself the power to control “production, transportation, exports, imports, and the use of important buildings and land.” • In 1940 the political parties were forced to merge • In 1941, even religious groups were forced to merge. • Was 1930s Japan fascist?

6. Fascism, Japanese-style • glorified violence and engaged in aggressive behavior overseas. However, no Brown Shirts or ethnic cleansing. • promoted a vision of the Japanese community as a family, with loyalty to the emperor compared to filial piety toward a parent. • Denied any real conflicts of interest within the Japanese community--any conflict that emerged was believed to be caused by outsiders. Saw no need for democracy • Idealized the perceived traditional values of rural life. • Anti-capitalist and anti-socialist.

7. Korea, 1910-1945 • 4 stages of Japanese control (pp. 403-04) • 1905-10 Japanese protectorate, some armed resistance • 1910-1919 Japanese impose total control and forced modernization, leading to March 1 demonstrations against Japanese rule. (Signalling the birth of mass nationalism.) • Photo on p. 405 is mislabeled. There were no such mass public executions in 1919. The photo is from 1907. • 1920-1931 cultural policy-allowing some cultural freedom but no political freedom • 1931-45 period of attempted Japanization, combined with industrialization of the economy

8. Why did Korea lose its independence? • Korea lacked the financial resources to modernize (arm a modern army, build an industrial economy, etc.) • Reforms efforts at the end of the 19th century lacked popular support. (There was more culturalism than nationalism, and the nationalists were elitists.) • After Japan defeated Russia, Korea couldn’t find any country willing to help it resist a takeover by Japan. • Some Koreans actually wanted Japan to take over Korea, thinking that would give Korea access to Japan’s wealth. (Such pro-Japanese Koreans were in a group called the Unity and Progress Society, Iljinhoe, p. 403.)

9. The 1st decade • What did the Japanese do the first decade? • created a modern bureaucratic government, one with officials trained in administration and one which could reach into villages, and they built a modern police force and a modern legal system • regularized land ownership--more Koreans took advantage of this than Japanese did to acquire more land. (p. 405) • began opening public schools in which Japanese became the language of instruction (p. 407) • promoted modern financial business institutions, which gave an advantage to Japanese businessmen. • Koreans were angered by many “modernizing” measures, such as outlawing the slaughtering of pigs and chickens at home, creating public cemeteries (challenging belief in geomancy [fengsui], controlling doctors of Oriental medicine, taxing wine and tobacco, etc.

10. Colonial Development (p. 414) • Growth in agricultural productivity, along with a decline in the quantity and quality of what Koreans were eating. (The surplus they produced was exported to Japan.) • Why is agricultural growth important in the long run? Provides a surplus for investment. • Creating an infrastructure for development: • Banking • Railroads • Communication: the telegraph, radios, newspapers • Schools--Korea’s first mass public education for males and females.

11. Modernizing Society • A public health system • A failed attempt to move from Oriental medicine to nothing but Western-style medicine • Industrialization and the creation of Korea’s first modern labour force. (pp. 406-07) • From animate to inanimate power (electricity): another sign of modernization

12. Varieties of Korean reactions pp. 408-10 • collaboration-Japan could not have controlled Korea without Korean help. Why did many Koreans cooperate with the Japanese? • religious resistance: Christianity (especially Protestant Christianity) and new religions, including Cheondogyo (Donghak),Daejonggyo, and Jeungsan’gyo (p.403) • diplomatic pressure on Japan (Syngman Rhee), focus on education (An Ch’ang-ho and other cultural nationalists), and focus on violent resistance (Kim Gu, Yi Donghwi and Kim Il Sung-see p. 410-12). Korean Communists led the armed resistance, but there were non-Communists such as An Junggeun (p. 404) and Kim Gu who also favoured violence against the Japanese.

13. Japan’s Taiwan • 1895-1915 overcoming resistance • 1915-1930 integration into the Japanese political, economic, and cultural sphere (civilian rather than military rulers) • 1931-1945 “Imperialization” Even stopped publication of Chinese-language newspapers. • The people of Taiwan were not completely Chinese in 1895, nor were they completely Japanese in 1945. The landed and urban elite tended to be more “Japanized” than were the peasantry.

14. Taiwanese reactions • Not a very strong movement for restoration of Qing control • Not a very strong Communist movement (People in Taiwan were cut off from developments on the mainland, especially when mainlanders started writing in the vernacular, which was not the same as the vernacular language of Taiwan.) • At first, Taiwanese demanded an independent Taiwan Republic. Later they asked for home rule within the Japanese empire.

15. Creating Imperial Subjects • In the 1930s Japan tried to turn both Koreans and Taiwanese into “imperial subjects,” people who were loyal to the Japanese emperor. They used four tools to do so: • promoting Shinto at the expense of local religions (and, in Korea, Christianity) • promoting Japanese over the local language • encouraging Taiwanese, and requiring Koreans, to change their names to Japanese names • Encouraging Taiwanese and Koreans to enlist in the Japanese military.

16. What is modernity? • Economic modernization: • from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy • peasants become farmers • faster means of transportation and communication • move from animate to inanimate power • Social modernization: • from hereditary occupations to occupational mobility • women gain more autonomy, at home and in public • mass education and mass media arrives. • individual horizons expand

17. Colonial modernity • The Japanese created public education and public health systems in their colonies, along with modern transportation and communication systems. This led to greater literacy as well as rapidly growing populations. In addition, Japan began industrializing the economies of its colonies. • colonial rule gave birth to modern national identities, and modern nationalism, in both colonies, though the nationalist movement was weakest in Taiwan. Koreans especially being treated as inferior by people they had regarded as inferior for millennia. • For colonial modernity in Korea, see 405-08)

18. Industrialization • Both Korea and Taiwan were originally intended to provide rice and other agricultural products to Japan so Japanese farmers could become factory workers. • Industrialization began in both colonies in the 2nd decade of the 20th century, stimulated by demand created by World War I. In both places, hydroelectric plants were built for the first time. • However, full-scale industrialization did not begin until the 1930s. Korea, in particular, began to be used to provide war materials for the Japanese campaign in China. (p. 407)

19. The legacy of colonial development • Provided infrastructure for industrialization • created an experienced modern work force, including experienced factory workers. • Provided public education and a modern public health system • Provided a more efficient bureaucracy • Provided a more productive agriculture • Inadvertently created nationalism, especially in Korea

20. Other long-term effects of Japanese colonial rule • Enshrined a pivotal role for the state in economic development. • Provided a model of concentrated economic power: in zaibatsu, seen in the Chaebol in Korea • Promoted an export-oriented economy • And a dependent economy • Provided a model of what a modern government could look like: it could be authoritarian and militaristic, as long as it promoted economic development and governed in an intrusive, impersonal manner. (All the governors-general of Korea were military men. Only the first governors-general in Taiwan were from the military)