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I
KOREA : FORGOTTEN NATION
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Forgotten Nation
BY ROBERT T. OLIVER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY SYNGMAN RHEE
First President f Korean Republic
CPu^£ic (z/f-ffabu.
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DEDICATED TO THE UNCONQUERABLE KOREAN PEOPLE
COPYRIGHT, 1944, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS
M. B. SCHNAPPER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY AND EDITOR
PUBLISHED AT 2153 FLORIDA AVE., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C.
PRINTED BY THE MONUMENTAL PRINTING COMPANY
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“With the restoration of Korean independence } one of the
great crimes of the twentieth century will have been rectified,
and (mother stabilizing factor will have been added to the
new international system which must be constructed in the
Pacific — Sumner Welles.
F/O-T! %
i ' ' v*.'' '■> ^ •*
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INTRODUCTION
America is the hope of Korea. My thirty million country¬
men have long considered the American people as their only
friends. They know that America, like Korea, is a peace-
loving nation that does not harbor any imperialistic ambi¬
tions. Although they remember that America has failed and
disappointed them so far, they still believe, with all their
hearts, that they can count upon the American people if they
^but come to know the unhappy story of Korea. This excel¬
lent book, written by an American for Americans, will do
much to make that possible. Its appearance at this time,
twenty-five years after the Korean Declaration of Indepen¬
dence, is particularly appropriate.
Although the American people have not realized it, they,
as well as the people of the other democracies, are in a very
real sense responsible for Korea’s plight. They are responsi¬
ble because they, have ignored, for the most part unwittingly,
Japanese treachery toward Korea. They are responsible, too,
because they have permitted their governments to pursue
policies that have directly and indirectly facilitated Japan’s
exploitation of Korea. And they are responsible because they
have assumed that the fate of Korea did not concern them.
Not until December 7, 1941—the day of reckoning—did
the demotratic peoples begin to fully comprehend that Japan
was not merely the enemy of Korea, but, rather, the enemy
of the entire civilized world. With each new tragic report
of losses of the lives of Allied troops in the Pacific, it has be¬
come increasingly clear that Japan should have been dealt
with firmly—and not appeased—when its designs upon Korea
7
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KOREA
clearly evidenced the beginning of a plan to dominate the
world.
While the Korean people are, of course, profoundly heart¬
ened by the Cairo declaration because it promises them free¬
dom and independence, they are nevertheless deeply dis¬
turbed by the silence which has followed that great document.
They cannot help but feel that the Cairo declaration in itself
is not enough and that their cause deserves more concrete
support.
For fifty years now 1 have been endeavoring to forewarn
the world of Japanese aggression. In my own country, my
warnings went unheeded—until it was too late. The con¬
servative government and the peace-minded people refused
to be disturbed and, as a result of my activities in this connec¬
tion, I was kept in prison for seven years. When I was re¬
leased, Korea was already undergoing Japanese domination.
In the United States and other democratic nations, iny warn¬
ings also went unheeded—until it was too late. And I regret
to say that the full lesson of Pearl Harbor has not yet been
learned.
Korea continues to be treated, for all practical purposes, as
a forgotten nation. Although it is the only nation that has
defeated Japan in the past, although it was the first victim
of Japanese aggression, although it has suffered under enemy
rule more and longer than any other occupied country, and
although it has been fighting Japan single-handed and un¬
aided ever since 1905, Korea has not been allowed its proper
place among the United Nations. The American people must
not and cannot permit this situation to continue. Without
Korean cooperation the war against Japan may well be pro¬
longed unnecessarily and many American lives lost need¬
lessly.
Syngman Rhee
First President of the Republic of
Korea and Chairman of the Korean
Commission to the United States.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is pleasant to acknowledge help graciously and gener¬
ously extended. In the gathering of factual materials for this
book, the author is deeply indebted for the access to original
documents freely granted by Dr. Syngman Rhee; for help
in locating and securing materials to Mrs. Rhee, Dr. Henry
Chung, and Mr. Chungnim C. Han; for assistance in pre¬
paring the typescript an dfor other help to Ruth Hong and
Mrs. Anne P. Manuel; for editorial reading of the manu¬
script to Dr. and Mrs. George Beauchamp and Dr. Homer
Hulbert, one-time adviser to .the Emperor of Korea; for first
hand accounts of conditions in Korea to the Reverend Edward
Junkin, who grew up there; to certain Koreans who have left
there within recent years; to various missionaries, newspaper
men, business men, and diplomats who have written accounts
of their experiences in and observations about Korea.
For encouragement in undertaking and persevering in the
task of telling the story of Korea under Japanese dominance,
I owe thanks to the patient victim of my irregular hours and
unsociable behavior while engaged in the work—my wife.
Robert T. Oliver
Washington , D. C.
9
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CONTENTS
PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND
I
Forgotten Nation _ 15
ii
The Setting__ 24
iii
Early History_ 32
IV
Modern History_ 40
PART TWO: JAPANESE YOKE
v
“Co-Prosperity?” _ 57
VI
Freedom of Speech? _ 60
VII
Freedom of Religion? _ 67
VII i
Freedom from Want? _ 77
IX
Freedom from Fear?_..... 87
PART THREE: RESURRECTION
x
The Present_ 99
XI
The Future__ 105
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Bibli
PART FOUR: .APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
>gr2r.1v
Geographical \
APPENDIX E
De-ChrAr'Enizst; on
L rntcd Support
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX D
Cc-.'nir.uniit Si
APPENDIX E
UDDOrt_
] ] 7
\ 2 ')
122
129
133
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PART ONE
The Background
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1
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Chapter I
FORGOTTEN NATION
The Cairo declaration of November, 1943, issued by Presi¬
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, asserted the
intent of the United Nations that “Korea shall, in due
course, become free and independent.” Issuance of that
document marked the end of a long period during which
Korea had been forgotten. It is significant that in the first
joint meeting ever held by the national leaders of the East
and the West, in all their 5,000 years of recorded history,
Korea at last was remembered.
i
Comparatively few Americans have ever known Korea—
or, for that matter, know of it now. A handful of tourists
remember it as Chosen, “the Switzerland of Asia.” Some
missionary groups describe it as the country in all the Orient
most receptive to Christianity. A few businessmen refer to
it as a land rich in mineral, hydro-electric, and manufactur¬
ing resources, but in which investment possibilities have been
sharply restricted by Japanese colonial exploitation policies.
American diplomats have known Korea as “the Hermit
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KOREA
Kingdom” whose isolationism was ended at our invitation in
r* 1882j as a buffer state that for centuries limited the expan¬
sion possibilities of Russia, China, and Japan} and as the sac¬
rificial victim ceded to Japan’s “protection” in 1905 to ap¬
pease the Nipponese militarists. It seemed then a cheap
means of satisfying Japan’s expansive urge. It took time to
reveal that this cession was in fact the essential prerequisite
to Japan’s aggressive designs on the Asiatic mainland. With¬
out those mainland bastions to protect her back door, Pearl
Harbor and all that followed it would have been impossible.
This is a part of the Korean story that diplomats know. ^
A few more Americans—most of them specialists in Orien¬
tal history—have known Korea as the only country that has
defeated Japan in war, thus thwarting her previous most de¬
termined effort to gain a foothold on the continent of Asia;
as the first victim of Japan’s present program of aggression;
as a “land of silent people” which has fought for its freedom
with every resource of a weaponless, voiceless people; and
which has been able for a quarter of a century to maintain a
Provisional Government, the oldest of the Republics-in-exile.
But not many Americans have more than a fragmentary
knowledge of Korea’s long history of homogeneous nation¬
ality, of her cultural attainments, or of the long struggle of
her leaders to re-establish their country’s independence. To
many, Korea is only another province of Japan. Where it is,
what its people are like, how they have fared under Japanese
rule, and what role they should play in the future are ques¬
tions with which this book is concerned.
ii
Korea has been one of the most heroic examples in modern
history of a country determined to be free. Every type of
exploitation the Japanese could devise it has suffered. For
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FORGOTTEN NATION
17
years it has undergone deprivation and terror of the sort
Germany visited on its Central European victims after 1939.
It has suffered its own Nankings, and Hong Kongs and
Bataans. Through it all the Korean people have resisted
every threat and every bribe to become Japanized. After a
full generation of struggle and suffering they are tenaciously
Korean still.
*
Here are some of the basic facts behind the Korean story:
Korea was arbitrarily awarded to Japan as a means of set¬
tling the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. The United States,
in supervising the Treaty of Portsmouth, gave its blessing to
that award—despite the treaty of mutual assistance we had
signed with Korea when we opened its “closed doors” in
1882. In the latter document we had agreed that “If other
powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either govern¬
ment, the other will exert their good offices, on being in¬
formed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement,
thus showing their friendly feelings.”
^ In annexing Korea in 1910, the Japanese violated their re¬
peated promises and pledges of non-agression.
In the Treaty of Shimonoseki with China (signed in 1895, -
after the Sino-Japanese War), Japan had declared in the
^ very first provision: “The two High Contracting Parties
hereby recognize and confirm the complete independence of
Korea.”
In its agreement of 1898 with Russia, Japan approved this
^ opening clause: “Russia and Japan hereby confirm the recog¬
nition of Korea’s sovereign rights and her complete indepen¬
dence.”
In the treaty of alliance with Great Britain, Japan stated:
“The High Contracting Parties, having mutually recognized
the independence of China and Korea, declare themselves to
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KOREA
be entirely uninfluenced by an aggressive tendency in either
country.”
In 1904 Japan concluded a Treaty of Defensive and Of¬
fensive Alliance with Korea, a document expressly designed
to “confirm and uphold the independence of Korea.” And
in the same year the Emperor of Japan stated in an Imperial
Edict: “The independence of Korea is our Empire’s real and
unfaltering aim and necessity.”
In 1905 Korea began to learn how little meaning Japan
attached to its pledged word.
Since then the Korean people have fought Japanese con¬
trol by every means in their power—by revolutionary upris-
" ings in 1905-15, 1919, and 1929; by non-cooperation, sabo¬
tage, and guerrilla warfare; and by voluntarily taxing them¬
selves to support an independent Government-in-exile of
their own.
Despite their abandonment by almost all the world (China
alone excepted), the Korean people have maintained an ef¬
fective national spirit and force which make them of great
potential value in winning the Pacific war and which prom¬
ise eventual fruition of their plans to rebuild the 4,000-year-
old traditions of their native land.
hi
The essential facts concerning Korea’s background of in¬
dependent nationality may be simply stated.
Koreans are as different from the Japanese or Chinese
racially as Italians are different from Germans or the French.
Their language is distinct from that of any other country—
far simpler and more manageable than the languages of
China and Japan. Their alphabet of 25 letters is one of the
simplest in the world.
The customs, traditions, and civilization of the Korean peo-
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FORGOTTEN NATION
19
pie are their ownj they have influenced their neighbors at
least as much as they have been influenced themselves. The
development of Japan in pre-Commodore Perry times began
with its importation of Korean culture.
Korea’s history as an independent country is far older than
that of Greece or Italy—about as old as that of Egypt, Abys¬
sinia, and the Hebrew tribes. In comparison with Korea,
England, France, Germany, and Russia—to say nothing of
the United States and the Latin American countries—are all
newcomers to the world family of nations.
Koreans invented gunpowder, movable type, the first iron¬
clad warship, and published an encyclopedia generations be¬
fore the western world thought of that method of systema¬
tizing and stabilizing its accumulated knowledge.
In brief, the Koreans are a homogeneous people with a
long tradition of continuity. They are a people who have
proved their devotion to self-government at a cost few na¬
tions have ever been called upon to pay. And now at last
they are standing on the threshold of a rebirth of their inde¬
pendence, with opportunities to make of themselves a nation
far better than they have ever been.
/
IV
For all practical purposes, the modern history of Korea
began in 1882, when U. S. Commodore R. W. Shufeldt sailed
t into Chemulpo Bay and succeeded by diplomacy (where oth¬
ers had failed by force) to persuade the Emperor to exchange
his policy of isolation for a treaty of mutual assistance and
commercial relations with the United States. The religious ,
economic, and 'political penetration of outside powers into
Korea followed thereafter in rapid succession.
The work of the Christian Churches in Korea has never
been easy. Japan has always frowned upon efforts to Chris-
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KOREA
tianize Korea, just as she has struggled against Christian
tendencies on her own islands. As Japan’s anti-Occidental
program became more and more plain, she imposed ever-
sterner restrictions on the Korean Christians. By 1940 all
but a handful of missionaries had been driven out. The rest
were subsequently interned. Meanwhile Shinto shrines were
erected and worship of the Japanese Emperor decreed.
The religious status of Korea today is one of turmoil.
What it will be after the war is difficult to foretell. Will the
people welcome back representatives of missionary societies
that refused to help them in their generation-long struggle
against Japan? Will they be as receptive to Western beliefs
as before? These are vexing questions for churches having
converts in Korea to face.
If the Koreans were to have had any hope of catching up
with the outside world in economic development after 1882,
they needed an influx of capital, scientific information, and
industrial and fiscal management. Their Industrial Revolu¬
tion, had it been permitted to develop freely, would have
been far more overwhelming than anything the Occident had
known. Their natural resources were—and are—adequate
to sustain a degree of industrialization that could raise them
to first rank among Oriental nations. It is significant that
at the beginning of the century American investors were
ready and eager to take the lead in converting Korea from an
agricultural and handicraft people to a manufacturing and
trading nation. As a result, however, of Japanese interven¬
tion, its economic development was not allowed to take its v
normal course.
v
Japan’s first successful step in her attempt to subjugate and
absorb Korea came in 1894, when she went to war to force .
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FORGOTTEN NATION
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China to abandon all influence over Korea. Shortly after¬
ward, on October 8, 1895, the Korean Queen Min, who re¬
sisted the spread of Japanese influence over her country, was
murdered in her palace at Seoul by a band of Japanese. The
Japanese Judge of Preliminary Enquiry, who was appointed
by his Emperor to determine the facts of the murder, issued
a report unprecedented in the history of international adjudi¬
cation. He found evidence to establish beyond doubt that
the Japanese Minister at Seoul was the principal leader in
the plot against the Queen. He described the nature of the
plot in detail, named the conspirators who participated in it,
and, in describing their machinations, noted that “the whole
party entered the palace through the Kwang-wha Gate, and
at once proceeded to the inner chambers.” Then he con¬
cluded with a bland assurance incomprehensible to Western
minds: “Notwithstanding these facts, there is no sufficient
evidence to prove that any of the accused actually committed
the crime originally meditated.”
The next three years marked a period of greedy grabbing
of Chinese territory which did not leave the European Pow¬
ers in an appropriate position to condemn Japan’s imperial¬
ism. Germany took over Kiaochow on a 99-year “lease.”
France seized Kwangchouwan. Russia secured the Liaotung
Peninsula and Port Arthur on the basis of a 25-year lease.
Great Britain clearly revealed how little meaning these ter¬
minal dates had by taking Wei-hai-wei “for so long a time as
Russia should remain in possession of Port Arthur.” More¬
over, Britain “leased” 370 square miles opposite Hong Kong
for 99 years. The United States kept its hands cleaner, but
was more attracted by the hustling spirit of Japan than by
“backward” Korea.
Japan prepared for her own future by attacking the Rus¬
sian fleet without a declaration of war in 1904, just as she was
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KOREA
to attack us at Pearl Harbor, and as she had already attacked
China without any declaration in 1894. It was also in 1904
that the Korean Emperor was forced to accept Japanese as¬
surance of “the political independence and territorial integ¬
rity” of Korea—on condition that Japanese troops be given
right of way through the country to attack Russia. And it
was in the following year that Japan used a seemingly inno¬
cent clause in the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the
Russo-Japanese War, as a means of locking the independence
of Korea in an iron box.
In 1907 the Korean Emperor Kwang Moo sent secret en¬
voys to The Hague to plead for the independence of his na¬
tion. He denied that he had ever acquiesced in the establish¬
ment of any protectorate over his country. For this effrontery
the Japanese forced Kwang Moo’s abdication, placed his im¬
becile son, Yoong Hi, on the throne under a Nippon con-
strolled Regency, and gave the Japanese Resident-General
the same power over Korea’s internal affairs which he al¬
ready exercised over its foreign relations. The formal an¬
nexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was merely the official
confirmation of an established fact. As early as 1905 the
United States withdrew its Minister from Korea in recogni¬
tion of Japan’s suzerainty.
In attempting to draw the fangs of possible Korean revolt,
the Japanese Treaty of Annexation sought to win over the
national and local leaders of Korea by these two provisions:
“Article V. His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will con¬
fer peerages and monetary grants upon those Koreans who,
v ' on account of meritorious services, are regarded as deserving
of special recognition.
“Article VI. The Government of Japan will, so far as cir¬
cumstances permit, employ in the public service of Japan in
Korea those Koreans who accept the new regime loyally and
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FORGOTTEN NATION
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in good faith and who are duly qualified for such service.”
The Japanese forced the helpless Emperor Yi to bow off
the stage, presenting for him a forged message of abdication,
adjuring his subjects “not to give yourselves up to commo¬
tion, appreciating the present national situation as well as the
trend of the times, but to enjoy happiness and blessings by
pursuing your occupations in peace and obeying the enlight¬
ened new administration of the Empire of Japan.”
Thus was the seizure of Korea accomplished. It was an
inglorious period to a long history of cultural development
and notable achievements. Japan had finally accomplished
the goal her militarists had set for themselves centuries
earlier.
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Chapter II
THE SETTING
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