From 1910 to 1945,
Korea
Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...
was ruled by the
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...
under the name Chōsen (), the Japanese reading of "
Joseon
Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...
".
Japan first took Korea into its sphere of influence during the late 1800s. Both Korea (
Joseon
Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...
) and Japan had been under policies of
isolationism
Isolationism is a term used to refer to a political philosophy advocating a foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality an ...
, with Joseon being a
tributary state of Qing China. However, in 1854,
Japan was forcibly opened by the United States. It then rapidly modernized under the
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...
, while Joseon continued to resist foreign attempts to open it up. Japan eventually succeeded in opening Joseon with the unequal
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876 (also known as the Japan–Korea Treaty of Amity in Japan and the Treaty of Ganghwa Island in Korea) was made between representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Joseon, Kingdom of Joseon in 1876.Chung, Young ...
.
Afterwards, Japan embarked on a decades-long process of defeating its local rivals, securing alliances with Western powers, and asserting its influence in Korea. Japan
assassinated the defiant Korean queen and intervened in the
Donghak Peasant Revolution
The Donghak Peasant Revolution () was a peasant revolt that took place between 11 January 1894 and 25 December 1895 in Korea. The peasants were primarily followers of Donghak, a Neo-Confucian movement that rejected Western technology and i ...
.
[Donald Keene, ''Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852–1912'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)]
p. 517.
After Japan defeated China in the 1894–1895
First Sino–Japanese War, Joseon became nominally independent and declared the short-lived
Korean Empire
The Korean Empire, officially the Empire of Korea or Imperial Korea, was a Korean monarchical state proclaimed in October 1897 by King Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. The empire lasted until the Japanese annexation of Korea in August 1910.
Dur ...
. Japan then defeated Russia in the 1904–1905
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
, making it the sole regional power. It then moved quickly to fully absorb Korea. It first made Korea a
protectorate
A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...
with the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, and then
ruled the country indirectly through the
Japanese resident-general of Korea. After forcing Emperor
Gojong to abdicate in 1907, Japan then formally colonized Korea with the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, was made by representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire on 22 August 1910. In this treaty, Japan formally annexed Korea following the J ...
. The territory was then administered by the
governor-general of Chōsen, based in
Keijō (
Seoul
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
), until the end of the colonial period.
Japan made sweeping changes in Korea. Under the pretext of the racial theory known as ''
Nissen dōsoron'', it began a process of
Japanization
Japanization or Japanisation is the process by which Japanese culture dominates, assimilates, or influences other cultures. According to ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', "To japanize" means "To make or become Jap ...
, eventually
functionally banning the use of Korean names and the Korean language altogether. Tens of thousands of cultural artifacts were taken to Japan, and hundreds of historic buildings like the
Gyeongbokgung and
Deoksugung palaces were either partially or completely demolished. Japan also built infrastructure and industry. Railways, ports, and roads were constructed, although in numerous cases workers were subjected to extremely poor working circumstances and discriminatory pay. While Korea's economy grew under Japan, many argue that many of the infrastructure projects were designed to extract resources from the peninsula, and not to benefit its people.
Most of Korea's infrastructure built during this time was destroyed during the 1950–1953
Korean War
The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
.
These conditions led to the birth of the
Korean independence movement
The Korean independence movement was a series of diplomatic and militant efforts to liberate Korea from Japanese rule. The movement began around the late 19th or early 20th century, and ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. As independence a ...
, which acted both politically and
militantly sometimes within the Japanese Empire, but mostly from outside of it. Koreans were also subjected to a number of mass murders, including the
Gando Massacre,
Kantō Massacre,
Jeamni massacre, and
Shinano River incident.
Beginning in 1939 and during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Japan mobilized around 5.4 million Koreans to support its war effort. Many were moved forcefully from their homes, and set to work in generally extremely poor working conditions, although there was a range in what people experienced. Women and girls were controversially forced into sexual slavery as "
comfort women
Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
". After the
surrender of Japan
The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was Hirohito surrender broadcast, announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed on 2 September 1945, End of World War II in Asia, ending ...
at the end of the war, Korea was liberated, although it
was immediately divided under the
rule of the Soviet Union and
of the United States.
The legacy of Japanese colonization was hotly contested even just after its end, and is still extremely controversial. There is a significant range of opinions in both South Korea and Japan, and historical topics regularly cause diplomatic issues. Within South Korea, a particular focus is the role of the numerous ethnic
Korean collaborators with Japan, who have been variously punished or left alone. This controversy is exemplified in the legacy of
Park Chung Hee
Park Chung Hee (; ; November14, 1917October26, 1979) was a South Korean politician and army officer who served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 after he seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961 until Assassination of Park Chung ...
, South Korea's most influential and controversial president, who collaborated with the Japanese military and continued to praise it even after the colonial period. Until 1964, South Korea and Japan had no functional diplomatic relations, until they signed the
Treaty on Basic Relations, which declared "already
null and void" the past unequal treaties, especially those of 1905 and 1910.
Despite this,
relations between Japan and South Korea have oscillated between warmer and colder periods, often due to conflicts over the historiography of this era.
Terminology
During the period of Japanese colonial rule, Korea was officially known as ,
although the former name continued to be used internationally.
In South Korea, the period is usually described as the "Imperial Japanese compulsive occupation period" (). Other terms, although often considered obsolete, include "Japanese Imperial Period" (), "The dark Japanese Imperial Period" (), and "
Wae (Japanese) administration period" ().
In Japan, the term has been used.
Background
Political turmoil in Korea
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876
On 27 February 1876, the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876 (also known as the Japan–Korea Treaty of Amity in Japan and the Treaty of Ganghwa Island in Korea) was made between representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Joseon, Kingdom of Joseon in 1876.Chung, Young ...
was signed. It was designed to open up Korea to Japanese trade, and the rights granted to Japan under the treaty were similar to those granted Western powers in Japan following the visit of
Commodore Perry in 1854.
The treaty ended Korea's status as
a protectorate of China, forced opening of three Korean ports to Japanese trade, granted
extraterritorial rights to Japanese citizens, and was an
unequal treaty
The unequal treaties were a series of agreements made between Asian countries—most notably Qing dynasty, Qing China, Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Japan and Joseon, Joseon Korea—and Western countries—most notably the United Kingdom of Great ...
signed under duress (
gunboat diplomacy
Gunboat diplomacy is the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force.
The term originated in ...
) of the
Ganghwa Island incident of 1875.
[A reckless adventure in Taiwan amid Meiji Restoration turmoil]
''The Asahi Shimbun'', Retrieved on 22 July 2007.
Imo Incident
The regent
Daewongun, who remained opposed to any concessions to Japan or the West, helped organize the Mutiny of 1882, an anti-Japanese outbreak against
Queen Min and her allies.
[Marius B. Jansen (April 1989). ''The Cambridge History of Japan'' Volume 5 The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press .] Motivated by resentment of the preferential treatment given to newly trained troops, the Daewongun's forces, or "old military", killed a Japanese training cadre, and attacked the Japanese
legation
A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legation ...
.
Japanese diplomats,
[Japanese Cabinet Meeting document Nov, 1882](_blank)
p. 6 left 陸軍外務両者上申故陸軍工兵中尉堀本禮造外二名並朝鮮国二於テ戦死ノ巡査及公使館雇ノ者等靖国神社ヘ合祀ノ事 policemen,
[Japanese Cabinet Meeting document Nov. 1882](_blank)
p. 2 left students,
and some Min clan members were also killed during the incident. The Daewongun was briefly restored to power, only to be forcibly taken to China by Chinese troops dispatched to Seoul to prevent further disorder.
In August 1882, the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1882 indemnified the families of the Japanese victims, paid reparations to the Japanese government in the amount of 500,000 yen, and allowed a company of Japanese guards to be stationed at the Japanese legation in Seoul.
Kapsin Coup
The struggle between the Heungseon Daewongun's followers and those of Queen Min was further complicated by competition from a Korean independence faction known as the Progressive Party (''Gaehwa-dang''), as well as the Conservative faction. While the former sought Japan's support, the latter sought China's support.
On 4 December 1884, the Progressive Party, assisted by the Japanese, attempted the
Kapsin Coup, in which they attempted to maintain Gojong but replace the government with a pro-Japanese one. They also wished to liberate Korea from Chinese suzerainty.
However, this proved short-lived, as conservative Korean officials requested the help of Chinese forces stationed in Korea.
The coup was put down by Chinese troops, and a Korean mob killed both Japanese officers and Japanese residents in retaliation.
Some leaders of the Progressive Party, including
Kim Okkyun, fled to Japan, while others were executed.
For the next 10 years, Japanese expansion into the Korean economy was approximated only by the efforts of
tsarist Russia, but eventually would be annexed by Japan in 1910 (See Prelude to annexation).
Donghak Revolution and First Sino-Japanese War

The outbreak of the
Donghak Peasant Revolution
The Donghak Peasant Revolution () was a peasant revolt that took place between 11 January 1894 and 25 December 1895 in Korea. The peasants were primarily followers of Donghak, a Neo-Confucian movement that rejected Western technology and i ...
in 1894 provided a seminal pretext for direct military intervention by Japan in the affairs of Korea. In April 1894, Joseon asked for Chinese assistance in ending the revolt. In response, Japanese leaders, citing a violation of the
Convention of Tientsin as a pretext, decided upon military intervention to challenge China. On 3 May 1894, 1,500 Qing forces appeared in
Incheon
Incheon is a city located in northwestern South Korea, bordering Seoul and Gyeonggi Province to the east. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Incheon was home to just 4,700 people when it became an international port in 1883. As of February 2020, ...
. On 23 July 1894, Japan attacked Seoul in defiance of the Korean government's demand for withdrawal, and then occupied it and started the Sino-Japanese War. Japan won the
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 189417 April 1895), or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. In Chinese it is commonly known as th ...
, and China signed the
Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Among its many stipulations, the treaty recognized "the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea", thus ending Joseon's
tributary
A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...
relationship with Qing, leading to the proclamation of the full independence of Joseon in 1895. At the same time, Japan suppressed the peasant revolt with Korean government forces.
Assassination of Queen Min
The Japanese minister to Korea,
Miura Gorō, orchestrated a plot against 43-year-old Queen Min (later given the title of "
Empress Myeongseong"), and on 8 October 1895, she was assassinated by Japanese agents.
The Korean military unit,
Hullyŏndae, participated in the assassination. With Korean aid, Japanese assassins were allowed to enter the palace Gyeongbokgung. In 2001, Russian reports on the assassination were found in the archives of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation. The documents included the testimony of King Gojong, several witnesses of the assassination, and
Karl Ivanovich Weber's report to
Aleksey Lobanov-Rostovsky, the Foreign Minister of Russia, by Park Jonghyo. Weber was the ''
chargé d'affaires
A (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador. The term is Frenc ...
'' at the Russian legation in Seoul at that time.
According to a Russian eyewitness, Seredin-Sabatin, an employee of the king, a group of Japanese agents entered
Gyeongbokgung, killed Queen Min, and desecrated her body in the north wing of the palace.
The Heungseon Daewongun returned to the royal palace the same day.
On 11 February 1896,
Gojong and the crown prince fled for protection at the Russian legation in Seoul, from which he governed for about a year.
Democracy protests and the proclamation of the Korean Empire
In 1896, various Korean activists formed the
Independence Club. They advocated a number of societal reforms, including democracy and a constitutional monarchy, and pushed for closer ties to Western countries in order to counterbalance Japanese influence. It went on to be influential in Korean politics for the short time that it operated, to the chagrin of Gojong. Gojong eventually forcefully disbanded the organization in 1898.
In October 1897, Gojong returned to the palace
Deoksugung, and proclaimed the founding of the
Korean Empire
The Korean Empire, officially the Empire of Korea or Imperial Korea, was a Korean monarchical state proclaimed in October 1897 by King Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. The empire lasted until the Japanese annexation of Korea in August 1910.
Dur ...
at the royal altar
Hwangudan. This symbolicly asserted Korea's independence from China, especially as Gojong demolished a reception hall that was once used to entertain Chinese ambassadors in order to build the altar.
Prelude to annexation
Having established economic and military dominance in Korea in October 1904, Japan reported that it had developed 25 reforms which it intended to introduce into Korea by gradual degrees. Among these was the intended acceptance by the Korean Financial Department of a Japanese Superintendent, the replacement of Korean Foreign Ministers and consuls by Japanese and the "union of military arms" in which the military of Korea would be modeled after the Japanese military. These reforms were forestalled by the prosecution of the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
from 8 February 1904, to 5 September 1905, which Japan won, thus eliminating Japan's last rival to influence in Korea.
Frustrated by this, King Gojong invited
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Lo ...
, who was on a tour of Asian countries with
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices. ...
, to the Imperial Palace on 20 September 1905, to seek political support from the United States despite her diplomatic rudeness. However, it was after exchanging opinions through the
Taft–Katsura agreement on 27 July 1905, that America and Japan would not interfere with each other on colonial issues.
Under the
Treaty of Portsmouth, signed in September 1905, Russia acknowledged Japan's "paramount political, military, and economic interest" in Korea.
Two months later, Korea was obliged to become a Japanese protectorate by the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 and the "reforms" were enacted, including the reduction of the Korean Army from 20,000 to 1,000 men by disbanding all garrisons in the provinces, retaining only a single garrison in the precincts of Seoul.
On 6 January 1905, Horace Allen, head of the American Legation in Seoul reported to his Secretary of State, John Hay, that the Korean government had been advised by the Japanese government "that hereafter the police matters of Seoul will be controlled by the Japanese gendarmerie" and "that a Japanese police inspector will be placed in each prefecture". A large number of Koreans organized themselves in education and reform movements, but Japanese dominance in Korea had become a reality.
In June 1907, the
Second Peace Conference was held in
The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
. Emperor Gojong secretly sent three representatives to bring the problems of Korea to the world's attention. The three envoys, who questioned the legality of the protectorate convention, were
refused access to the public debates by the international delegates. One of these representatives was missionary and historian
Homer Hulbert. Out of despair, one of the Korean representatives,
Yi Tjoune, committed suicide at The Hague. In response, the Japanese government took stronger measures. On 19 July 1907, Emperor Gojong was forced to relinquish his imperial authority and appoint the Crown Prince as regent. Japanese officials used this concession to force the accession of the new Emperor Sunjong following abdication, which was never agreed to by Gojong. Neither Gojong nor Sunjong were present at the 'accession' ceremony. Sunjong was to be the last ruler of the Joseon dynasty, founded in 1392.
On 24 July 1907, a treaty was signed under the leadership of
Lee Wan-yong and
Ito Hirobumi to transfer all rights of
Korea to Japan. This led to a large-scale righteous army movement among Koreans, and disbanded troops joined the resistance forces. Japan's response to this was a scorched earth tactic using division-sized troops, which resulted in the movement of armed resistance organizations in Korea to Manchuria. Amid this confusion, on 26 October 1909,
Ahn Jung-geun, a former volunteer soldier, assassinated
Ito Hirobumi in
Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
.
Meanwhile, pro-Japanese populist groups such as the
Iljinhoe helped Japan by being fascinated by Japan's
pan-Asianism
file:Asia satellite orthographic.jpg , Satellite photograph of Asia in orthographic projection.
Pan-Asianism (also known as Asianism or Greater Asianism) is an ideology aimed at creating a political and economic unity among Asian people, Asian peo ...
, thinking that Korea would have autonomy like
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
.
It was adopted as a representative consultant for
Ryohei Uchida, and was used for propaganda with the support of the Japanese government. On 3 December 1909, he and
Lee Wan-yong will issue a statement demanding the annexation of Korea.
However, the merger took place in the form of Japan's annexation of Korean territory and was disbanded by
Terauchi Masatake on 26 September 1910.
Militant resistance

During the prelude to the 1910 annexation, a number of irregular civilian militias called "righteous armies" arose. They consisted of tens of thousands of peasants engaged in anti-Japanese armed rebellion. After the Korean army was disbanded in 1907, former soldiers joined the armies and fought the Japanese army at
Namdaemun. They were defeated, and largely fled into Manchuria, where they joined the guerrilla resistance movement that persisted until Korea's 1945 liberation.
Military police
As Korean resistance against Japanese rule intensified, Japanese replaced Korean police system with their military police. Infamous
Akashi Motojiro was appointed for the commander of Japanese military police forces. Japanese finally replaced Imperial Korean police forces in June 1910, and they combined police forces and military police, firmly establishing the rule of military police. After the annexation, Akashi started to serve as the Chief of Police. These military police officers started to have great authority over Koreans. Not only Japanese but also Koreans served as police officers.
Japan–Korea annexation treaty (1910)

In May 1910, the
Minister of War of Japan,
Terauchi Masatake, was given a mission to finalize Japanese control over Korea after the previous treaties (the
Japan–Korea Treaty of February 1904
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1904 was made between representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire in 1904. Negotiations were concluded on 23 February 1904.Korean Mission to the Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington ...
and the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1907) had made Korea a protectorate of Japan and had established Japanese hegemony over Korean domestic politics. On 22 August 1910, Japan effectively
annexed
Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held to ...
Korea with the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, was made by representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire on 22 August 1910. In this treaty, Japan formally annexed Korea following the J ...
signed by
Ye Wanyong, Prime Minister of Korea, and Terauchi Masatake, who became the first
Governor-General of Chōsen.
The treaty became effective the same day and was published one week later. The treaty stipulated:
* Article 1: His Majesty the Emperor of Korea concedes completely and definitely his entire sovereignty over the whole Korean territory to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.
* Article 2: His Majesty the Emperor of Japan accepts the concession stated in the previous article and consents to the annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan.
Both the protectorate and the annexation treaties were declared already void in the 1965
.
This period is also known as Military Police Reign Era (1910–19) in which Police had the authority to rule the entire country. Japan was in control of the media, law as well as government by physical power and regulations.
In March 2010, 109 Korean intellectuals and 105 Japanese intellectuals met in the 100th anniversary of
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910
The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, was made by representatives of the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire on 22 August 1910. In this treaty, Japan formally annexed Korea following the J ...
and they declared this annexation treaty null and void. They declared these statements in each of their capital cities (Seoul and Tōkyō) with a simultaneous press conference. They announced the "Japanese empire pressured the outcry of the Korean Empire and people and forced by Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and full text of a treaty was false and text of the agreement was also false". They also declared the "Process and formality of "Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910" had huge deficiencies and therefore the treaty was null and void. This implied the
March First Movement was not an illegal movement.
Early years and expansion (1910–1941)
Japanese migration and land ownership
From around the time of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Japanese merchants started settling in towns and cities in Korea seeking economic opportunity. By 1908 the number of Japanese settlers in Korea was somewhere below the figure of 500,000, comprising one of the ''
nikkei'' communities in the world at the time.

Many Japanese settlers showed interest in acquiring agricultural land in Korea even before Japanese land-ownership was officially legalized in 1906. Governor-General Terauchi Masatake facilitated settlement through
land reform
Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution.
Lan ...
. The Korean land-ownership system featured absentee landlords, only partial owner-tenants and cultivators with traditional (but no legal proof of) ownership. By 1920, 90 percent of Korean land had proper ownership of Koreans. Terauchi's new Land Survey Bureau conducted
cadastral
A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref>
Often it is represente ...
surveys that established ownership on the basis of written proof (deeds, titles, and similar documents). The system denied ownership to those who could not provide such written documentation; these turned out to be mostly high-class and impartial owners who had only traditional verbal cultivator-rights . Japanese landlords included both individuals and corporations (such as the
Oriental Development Company). Because of these developments, Japanese landownership soared, as did the amount of land taken over by private Japanese companies. Many former Korean landowners, as well as agricultural workers, became
tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and ma ...
s, having lost their
entitlements almost overnight because they could not pay for the land reclamation and irrigation improvements forced on them. Compounding the economic stresses imposed on the Korean peasantry, the authorities forced Korean peasants to do long days of compulsory labor to build irrigation works; Japanese imperial officials made peasants pay for these projects in the form of heavy taxes, impoverishing many of them and causing even more of them lose their land. Although many other subsequent developments placed ever greater strain on Korea's peasants, Japan's rice shortage in 1918 was the greatest catalyst for hardship. During that shortage, Japan looked to Korea for increased rice cultivation; as Korean peasants started producing more for Japan, however, the amount they took to eat dropped precipitously, causing much resentment among them.
By 1910 an estimated 7 to 8% of all
arable land
Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...
in Korea had come under Japanese control. This ratio increased steadily; as of the years 1916, 1920, and 1932, the ratio of Japanese land ownership increased from 36.8 to 39.8 to 52.7%. The level of tenancy was similar to that of farmers in Japan itself; however, in Korea, the landowners were mostly Japanese, while the tenants were all Koreans. As often occurred in Japan itself, tenants had to pay over half their crop in rent.
By the 1930s the growth of the urban economy and the exodus of farmers to the cities had gradually weakened the hold of the landlords. With the growth of the wartime economy throughout the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the government recognized
landlordism as an impediment to increased agricultural productivity, and took steps to increase control over the rural sector through the formation in Japan in 1943 of the , a compulsory organization under the wartime
command economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...
.
The Japanese government had hoped emigration to its colonies would mitigate the population boom in the ''
naichi''(内地),
but had largely failed to accomplish this by 1936.
According to figures from 1934, Japanese in Chōsen numbered approximately 561,000 out of a total population of over 21 million, less than 3%. By 1939 the Japanese population increased to 651,000, mostly from Japan's western prefectures. During the same period, the population in Chōsen grew faster than that in the ''naichi''. Koreans also migrated to the ''naichi'' in large numbers, especially after 1930; by 1939 there were over 981,000 Koreans living in Japan. Challenges which deterred Japanese from migrating into Chōsen included lack of arable land and population density comparable to that of Japan.
Anthropology and cultural heritage
Japan sent anthropologists to Korea who took photos of the traditional state of Korean villages, serving as evidence that Korea was "backwards" and needed to be modernized.
In 1925, the Japanese government established the
Korean History Compilation Committee, and it was administered by the Governor-General and engaged in collecting Korean historical materials and compiling Korean history. According to the ''
Doosan Encyclopedia
''Doosan Encyclopedia'' () is a Korean-language encyclopedia published by Doosan Donga (). The encyclopedia is based on the ''Dong-A Color Encyclopedia'' (), which comprises 30 volumes and began to be published in 1982 by Dong-A Publishing (). ...
'', some mythology was incorporated.
The committee supported the theory of a Japanese colony on the Korean Peninsula called
Mimana,
which, according to E. Taylor Atkins, is "among the most disputed issues in East Asian historiography."
Japan executed the first modern archaeological excavations in Korea. The Japanese administration also relocated some artifacts; for instance, a stone monument (棕蟬縣神祠碑), which was originally located in the
Liaodong Peninsula
The Liaodong or Liaotung Peninsula ( zh, s=辽东半岛, t=遼東半島, p=Liáodōng Bàndǎo) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located ...
, then under
Japanese control, was taken out of its context and moved to
Pyongyang
Pyongyang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is sometimes labeled as the "Capital of the Revolution" (). Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. Accordi ...
. As of April 2020, 81,889 Korean cultural artifacts are in Japan. According to the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation, not all the artifacts were moved illegally. Adding to the challenge of repatriating illegally exported Korean cultural properties is the lack of experts in Korean art at overseas museums and institutions, alterations made to artifacts that obscure their origin, and that moving Korean artifacts within what was previously internationally recognized Japanese territory was lawful at the time.
The South Korean government has been continuing its efforts to repatriate Korean artifacts from museums and private collections overseas.
The royal palace
Gyeongbokgung was partially destroyed beginning in the 1910s, in order to make way for the
Japanese General Government Building as well as the colonial
Chōsen Industrial Exhibition.
Hundreds of historic buildings in
Deoksugung were also destroyed to make way for the . The displays in the museum reportedly intentionally contrasted traditional Korean art with examples of modern Japanese art, in order to portray Japan as progressive and legitimize Japanese rule.
The
National Palace Museum of Korea, originally built as the Korean Imperial Museum in 1908 to preserve the treasures in the
Gyeongbokgung, was retained under the Japanese administration but renamed Museum of the Yi Dynasty in 1938.
The Governor-General instituted a law in 1933 in order to preserve Korea's most important historical artifacts. The system established by this law, retained as the present-day
National Treasures of South Korea and
National Treasures of North Korea
A National Treasure () is a tangible artifact, site, or building deemed by the Government of North Korea to have significant historical or artistic value to the country.
History
The first list of Korean cultural treasures was designated by Gover ...
, was intended to preserve Korean historical artifacts, including those not yet unearthed. Japan's 1871 Edict for the Preservation of Antiquities and Old Items could not be automatically applied to Korea due to Japanese law, which required an imperial ordinance to apply the edict in Korea. The 1933 law to protect Korean cultural heritages was based on the Japanese 1871 edict.
[Ohashi Toshihiro.]
A Study on the Development of the Cultural Properties Policy in Korea from 1902 until 1962
". ''Sogo Seisaku Ronso'' 8 (2004)
Anti-Chinese riots of 1931

Due to a waterway construction permit, in the small town of Wanpaoshan in Manchuria near
Changchun
Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...
, "violent clashes" broke out between the local Chinese and Korean immigrants on 2 July 1931. ''
The Chosun Ilbo
''The Chosun Ilbo'' (, ), also known as ''The Chosun Daily,'' is a Korean-language newspaper of record for South Korea and among the oldest active newspapers in the country. With a daily circulation of more than 1,800,000, ''The'' ''Chosun Ilbo ...
'', a major Korean newspaper, misreported that many Koreans had died in the clashes, sparking a Chinese exclusion movement in urban areas of the Korean Peninsula. The worst of the rioting occurred in
Pyongyang
Pyongyang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is sometimes labeled as the "Capital of the Revolution" (). Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. Accordi ...
on 5 July. Approximately 127 Chinese people were killed, 393 wounded, and a considerable number of properties were destroyed by Korean residents.
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
further alleged the Japanese authorities in Korea did not take adequate steps to protect the lives and property of the Chinese residents, and blamed the authorities for allowing inflammatory accounts to be published. As a result of this riot, the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Kijūrō Shidehara, who insisted on Japanese, Chinese, and Korean harmony, lost his position.
Order to change names
In 1911, the proclamation "Matter Concerning the Changing of Korean Names" (') was issued, barring ethnic Koreans from taking Japanese names and retroactively reverting the names of Koreans who had already registered under Japanese names back to the original Korean ones.
By 1939, however, this position was reversed and Japan's focus had shifted towards
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...
of the Korean people; Imperial Decree 19 and 20 on Korean Civil Affairs (
Sōshi-kaimei
was a policy of pressuring Koreans under Japanese rule to adopt Japanese names and identify as such. The primary reason for the policy was to forcibly assimilate Koreans, as was done with the Ainu and the Ryukyuans. The Sōshi-kaimei has been ...
) went into effect, whereby ethnic Koreans were forced to surrender their traditional use of clan-based
Korean family name
This is a list of Korean surnames, in Hangul alphabetical order.
The most common Korean surname (particularly in South Korea) is Kim (Korean name), Kim (), followed by Lee (Korean name), Lee () and Park (Korean surname), Park (). These three sur ...
system, in favor of a new surname to be used in the family register. The surname could be of their own choosing, including their native clan name, but in practice many Koreans received a Japanese surname. There is controversy over whether or not the adoption of a Japanese surname was effectively mandatory, or merely strongly encouraged.
World War II
National Mobilization Law
Forcing of labor and migration

From 1939,
labor shortages as a result of
conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...
of Japanese men for the military efforts of World War II led to organized official recruitment of Koreans to work in mainland Japan, initially through civilian agents, and later directly, often involving elements of coercion. As the labor shortage increased, by 1942, the Japanese authorities extended the provisions of the
National Mobilization Law to include the conscription of Korean workers for factories and mines in Korea,
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...
, and the involuntary relocation of workers to Japan itself as needed.
The combination of immigrants and forced laborers during World War II brought the total to over 2 million Koreans in Japan by the end of the war, according to estimates by the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (), or SCAP, was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) ...
.
Of the 5,400,000 Koreans conscripted, about 670,000 were taken to mainland Japan (including
Karafuto Prefecture, present-day
Sakhalin
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...
, now part of Russia) for civilian labor. Those who were brought to Japan were often forced to work under conditions that have been described as appalling and dangerous. Although Koreans were reportedly treated better than laborers from other countries, large numbers still died. In Japan, 60,000 of the 670,000 mobilized laborers died. In Korea and Manchuria, estimates of deaths range between 270,000 and 810,000.
[
Available online: ]
Korean laborers were also found as far as the
Tarawa Atoll
Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Kiribati, Republic of Kiribati,[Kiribati](_blank)
''The World ...
, where during the
Battle of Tarawa only 129 of the 1200 laborers survived. According to testimonies in Japanese records, Korean laborers on the
Mili Atoll were given "whale meat" to consume, which was actually human flesh from other dead Koreans. They rebelled after learning the truth, and were killed by the dozens in the aftermath.
Korean laborers also worked in Korea itself, notably in
Jeju where in the later stages of the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...
, Korean laborers expanded airfields and built facilities at
Altteureu Airfield in order to block a US invasion of the Japanese mainland and in 1945 laborers on
Songaksan (where several airstrips were located) were ordered to smooth down the slope in order to prevent American tanks being able to go up.
Most Korean atomic-bomb victims in Japan had been drafted for work at military industrial factories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the name of humanitarian assistance, Japan paid South Korea four billion yen (approx. thirty five million dollars) and built a welfare center for those suffering from the effects of the atomic bomb.
Korean service in the Japanese military
Japan did not draft ethnic Koreans into its military until 1944 when the tide of World War II turned against it. Until 1944, enlistment in the
Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
by ethnic Koreans was voluntary, and highly competitive. From a 14% acceptance rate in 1938, it dropped to a 2% acceptance rate in 1943 while the raw number of applicants increased from 3000 per annum to 300,000 in just five years during World War II.

Other Korean officers who served Japan moved on to successful careers in post-colonial South Korea. Examples include
Park Chung Hee
Park Chung Hee (; ; November14, 1917October26, 1979) was a South Korean politician and army officer who served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 after he seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961 until Assassination of Park Chung ...
, who became president of South Korea;
Chung Il-kwon, prime minister from 1964 to 1970;
Paik Sun-yup, South Korea's youngest general who was famous for his command of the
1st Infantry Division during the
defense of the Pusan Perimeter, and
Kim Suk-won, a colonel of the Imperial Japanese Army who subsequently became a general of the South Korean army. The first ten of the Chiefs of Army Staff of South Korea graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and none from the
Korean Liberation Army.
Officer cadets had been joining the Japanese Army since before the annexation by attending the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Enlisted Soldier recruitment began as early as 1938, when the Japanese
Kwantung Army
The Kwantung Army (Japanese language, Japanese: 関東軍, ''Kantō-gun'') was a Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army, general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945.
The Kwantung Army was formed in 1906 as a security force for th ...
in Manchuria began accepting pro-Japanese Korean volunteers into the army of Manchukuo, and formed the
Gando Special Force. Koreans in this unit specialized in counter-insurgency operations against communist guerillas in the region of
Jiandao
Jiandao or Chientao, known in Korean as Gando or Kando, is a historical border region along the north bank of the Tumen River in Jilin, Jilin Province, Northeast China that has a high population of ethnic Koreans. The word "Jiandao", literall ...
. The size of the unit grew considerably at an annual rate of 700 men, and included such notable Koreans as General
Paik Sun-yup, who served in the Korean War. Historian Philip Jowett noted that during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the
Gando Special Force "earned a reputation for brutality and was reported to have laid waste to large areas which came under its rule".
Starting in 1944, Japan started the
conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...
of Koreans into the armed forces. All Korean men were drafted to either join the Imperial Japanese Army, as of April 1944, or work in the military industrial sector, as of September 1944. Before 1944, 18,000 Koreans passed the examination for induction into the army. Koreans provided workers to mines and construction sites around Japan. The number of conscripted Koreans reached its peak in 1944 in preparation for war. From 1944, about 200,000 Korean men were inducted into the army.
During World War II, American soldiers frequently encountered Korean soldiers within the ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army. Most notably was in the
Battle of Tarawa, which was considered during that time to be one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. military history. A fifth of the Japanese garrison during this battle consisted of Korean laborers, where on the last night of the battle a combined 300 Japanese soldiers and Korean laborers did a last ditch charge. Like their Japanese counterparts, many of them were killed.
The Japanese, however, did not always believe they could rely on Korean laborers to fight alongside them. In ''Prisoners of the Japanese'', author Gaven Daws wrote, "
Tinian
Tinian () is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguiguan, it forms Tinian Municipality, one of the four constituent municipalities of the Northern ...
there were five thousand Korean laborers and so as not to have hostiles ''at their back'' when the Americans invaded, the Japanese killed them."
After the war, 148 Koreans were convicted of Class B and C
Japanese war crimes
During its imperial era, Empire of Japan, Japan committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity across various Asian-Pacific nations, notably during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents ...
, 23 of whom were sentenced to death (compared to 920 Japanese who were sentenced to death), including Korean prison guards who were particularly notorious for their brutality during the war. The figure is relatively high considering that ethnic Koreans made up a small percentage of the Japanese military. Judge
Bert Röling, who represented the Netherlands at the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on 29 April 1946 to Criminal procedure, try leaders of the Empire of Japan for their cri ...
, noted that "many of the commanders and guards in POW camps were Koreans – the Japanese apparently did not trust them as soldiers – and it is said that they were sometimes far more cruel than the Japanese." In his memoirs, Colonel Eugene C. Jacobs wrote that during the
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March was the Death march, forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of around 72,000 to 78,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war (POWs) from the municipalities of Bagac and Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula to Camp ...
, "the Korean guards were the most abusive. The Japanese didn't trust them in battle, so used them as service troops; the Koreans were anxious to get blood on their bayonets; and then they thought they were veterans."
Korean guards were sent to the remote jungles of
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
, where Lt. Col. William A. (Bill) Henderson wrote from his own experience that some of the guards overseeing the construction of the
Burma Railway "were moronic and at times almost bestial in their treatment of prisoners. This applied particularly to Korean private soldiers, conscripted only for guard and sentry duties in many parts of the Japanese empire. Regrettably, they were appointed as guards for the prisoners throughout the camps of Burma and Siam." The highest-ranking Korean to be prosecuted after the war was Lieutenant General
Hong Sa-ik, who was in command of all the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in the Philippines.
Comfort women

During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, many ethnic Korean girls and women (mostly aged 12–17) were forced by the Japanese military to become sex slaves on the pretext of being hired for jobs, such as a seamstresses or factory workers, and were forced to provide sexual service for Japanese soldiers by agencies or their families against their wishes. These women were euphemistically called "
comfort women
Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
".
According to an interrogation report by
U.S. Army in 1944, comfort women were in good physical health. They were able to have a periodic checkup once a week and to receive treatment in case of spreading disease to the Japanese soldiers, but not for their own health. However, a 1996
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
Report detailed that "large numbers of women were forced to submit to prolonged prostitution under conditions which were frequently indescribably traumatic". Documents which survived the war revealed "beyond doubt the extent to which the Japanese forces took direct responsibility for the comfort stations" and that the published practices were "in stark contrast with the brutality and cruelty of the practice".
Chizuko Ueno at
Kyoto University
, or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan.
The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...
cautions against the claim that women were not forced as the fact that "no positive sources exist supporting claims that comfort women were forced labor" must be treated with doubt, as "it is well known that the great majority of potentially damaging official documents were destroyed in anticipation of the Allied occupation".
The
Asian Women's Fund claimed that during World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army recruited anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of women from occupied territories to be used as sex slaves.
Yoshimi Yoshiaki asserted that possibly hundreds of thousands of girls and women, mainly from China and the Korean Peninsula but also Southeast Asian countries occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army, as well as Australia and the Netherlands, were forced to serve as comfort women. According to testimonies, young women were abducted from their homes in countries under Imperial Japanese rule. In many cases, women were lured with promises of work in factories or restaurants. In some cases propaganda advocated equity and the sponsorship of women in higher education. Other enticements were false advertising for nursing jobs at outposts or Japanese army bases; once recruited, they were incarcerated in comfort stations both inside their nations and abroad.
From the early nineties onward, former Korean comfort women have continued to protest against the Japanese government for apparent historical negationism of crimes committed by the
Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
, and have sought compensation for their sufferings during the war. There has also been international support for compensation, such as from the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
, the Netherlands, Canada and the Philippines. The United States passed
House of Representatives House Resolution 121 on 30 July 2007, asking the Japanese government to redress the situation and to incorporate comfort women into school curriculum.
Hirofumi Hayashi at the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
argues that the resolution has helped to counter the "arguments of ultrarightists flooding the mainstream mass media" and warned against the rationalization of the comfort women system.
Religion and ideology
Protestant Christian missionary efforts in Asia were quite successful in Korea. American Presbyterians and Methodists arrived in the 1880s and were well received. They served as medical and educational missionaries, establishing schools and hospitals in numerous cities. In the years when Korea was under Japanese control, some Koreans adopted Christianity as an expression of nationalism in opposition to the Japan's efforts to promote the Japanese language and the Shinto religion.
[Danielle Kane, and Jung Mee Park, "The Puzzle of Korean Christianity: Geopolitical Networks and Religious Conversion in Early Twentieth-Century East Asia", ''American Journal of Sociology'' (2009) 115#2 pp 365–404]
In 1914 of 16 million Koreans, there were 86,000 Protestants and 79,000 Catholics. By 1934 the numbers were 168,000 and 147,000, respectively. Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. Harmonizing with traditional practices became an issue. The Protestants developed a substitute for Confucian ancestral rites by merging Confucian-based and Christian death and funerary rituals.
Korean independence movement
Guerrilla resistance in Manchuria and Russia
Since the early 1900s, Koreans in
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
and
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...
in Russia waged a guerrilla war against the Japanese occupation. At this time,
Beom-do Hong's unit ambushed and annihilated the Imperial Japanese Army that was advancing in
Battle of Bongodong(Fengwudong),
Jilin
)
, image_skyline = Changbaishan Tianchi from western rim.jpg
, image_alt =
, image_caption = View of Heaven Lake
, image_map = Jilin in China (+all claims hatched).svg
, mapsize = 275px
, map_al ...
,
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
(June
1920
Events January
* January 1
** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20.
** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...
). Also, the combined forces of the independence army commanded by
Kim Chwajin and
Hong Beom-do, while repeatedly retreating operationally, ambushed and killed about 1,500 Imperial Japanese soldiers in
Battle of Cheongsanri(Qīngshānlǐ),
Jílín,
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
. In retaliation to loss at
Battle of Cheongsanri, the
Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
committed the
Gando Massacre, massacring between 5,000 and tens of thousands of Korean civilians in
Gando. The
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded the Manchuria region of the Republic of China on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden incident, a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext to invade. At the ...
in 1932 and subsequent
Pacification of Manchukuo deprived many of these groups of their bases of operation and supplies. Many were forced to either flee elsewhere in China, or to join the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
-backed forces in eastern Russia. One of the guerrilla leaders in this region was the future dictator of North Korea,
Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung (born Kim Song Ju; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he led as its first Supreme Leader (North Korean title), supreme leader from North Korea#Founding, its establishm ...
. These experiences served as a base for Kim's legitimacy after the liberation of Korea.
March First Movement
In January 1919, Emperor Gojong died suddenly, which led to widespread . Anti-Japanese sentiment flared amongst Koreans. In Tokyo, Korean students issued a
February 8 Declaration of Independence that declared Korea independent from Japan.
Inspired by this, Koreans in Seoul issued their own
declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...
, which was prominently read aloud in
Tapgol Park. This gave rise to the nation-wide March 1 Movement peaceful protests; it is estimated that 2 million people took part in these rallies. However, they were violently suppressed by Japan; according to Korean records, over a year of demonstrations, 46,948 were arrested, 7,509 killed and 15,961 wounded.
According to Japanese figures, 8,437 were arrested, 553 killed and 1,409 wounded.
Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea

After the repression of the March 1st Movement protests, Koreans fled the peninsula. A number of them congregated in Shanghai a month after the protests and founded a government-in-exile: the Korean Provisional Government (KPG). The government was highly diverse, with both left- and right-leaning members, and engaged in a range of political and militant efforts that advocated for Korea's independence.
In 1931, member
Kim Ku founded the
Korean Patriotic Organization (KPO), a militant arm of the KPG. The KPO planned a number of attacks on Japanese government and colonial officials, including a
1932 assassination attempt on Emperor Hirohito and a bombing at a
military rally in Shanghai.
After the Shanghai bombing, they were forced to flee the city, and eventually settled in Chongqing,
where they received support from the
Chinese government
The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...
.
There, Kim Ku, then the leader of the KPG, founded the
Korean Liberation Army (KLA). The army fought in China and Burma, and prepared for its return to Korea as the tide of World War II turned against Japan.
This culminated in the
Eagle Project, a mission for the KPG and KLA to return to the peninsula and fight the Japanese. Ultimately, with the surprise of the
atomic bomb droppings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the sudden end of the war, the mission did not come to pass.
Resistance within Korea
Within Korea itself, anti-Imperialism rallies continued on occasion. Most notably, the
Gwangju(Kōshū) Students Independence Movement on 3 November 1929 led to the strengthening of Japanese military rule in 1931, after which freedom of the press and freedom of expression were curbed. Many witnesses, including Catholic priests, reported that Japanese authorities dealt with insurgency severely. When villagers were suspected of hiding rebels, entire village populations are said to have been herded into public buildings (especially churches) and massacred when the buildings were set on fire. In the village of Teigan, Suigen District, Keiki Prefecture (now Jeam-ri,
Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province) for example, a group of 29 people were gathered inside a church which was then set afire.(
Jeamni massacre)
On 10 December 1941, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, under the presidency of
Kim Ku, declared war on Japan and Germany.
Independence and division of Korea
Following the
dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Soviet invasion of Manchuria
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation or simply the Manchurian Operation () and sometimes Operation August Storm, began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union, Soviet invasion of the Emp ...
, and the impending overrun of the Korean Peninsula by U.S. and Soviet forces, Japan
surrendered to the Allied forces on 15 August 1945, ending 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, though Japanese troops remained in Southern Korea for several more weeks until fully withdrawing by mid-September.
American forces under General
John R. Hodge
General John Reed Hodge (12 June 1893 – 12 November 1963) was an American military officer of the United States Army. Hodge commanded Operation Blacklist Forty in 1945. He served as the governor of the American military government in Korea fr ...
arrived at the southern part of the Korean Peninsula on 8 September 1945, while the Soviet Army and some Korean Communists had stationed themselves in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. U.S. Colonel
Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States secretary of state from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving secretary of state after Cordell Hull from the ...
proposed to Chischakov, the Soviet military administrator of northern Korea, that Korea should be split at the
38th parallel. This proposal was made at an emergency meeting to determine postwar
spheres of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity.
While there may be a formal a ...
, which led to the
division of Korea
The division of Korea began at the end of World War II on 2 September 1945, with the establishment of a Soviet occupation zone and a US occupation zone. These zones developed into separate governments, named the Democratic People's Republic of ...
.
After the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule, the "Name Restoration Order" was issued on 23 October 1946 by the
United States Army Military Government in Korea
The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula from 9 September 1945 to 15 August 1948.
The country during this period was plagued with political a ...
south of the
38th parallel, enabling Koreans to restore their names if they wished. Many
Koreans in Japan
() are ethnic Koreans who immigrated to Japan before 1945 and are citizens or permanent residents of Japan, or who are descendants of those immigrants. They are a group distinct from South Korean nationals who have immigrated to Japan since t ...
chose to retain their Japanese names, either to avoid discrimination, or later, to meet the requirements for naturalization as Japanese citizens.
Administrative divisions

There were 13 provinces in Korea during Japanese rule:
Keiki Province,
Kōgen Province,
Chūseihoku Province,
Chūseinan Province,
Zenrahoku Province,
Zenranan Province,
Keishōhoku Province,
Keishōnan Province,
Heian'nan Province,
Heianhoku Province,
Kōkai Province,
Kankyōnan Province, and
Kankyōhoku Province. The administrative capital Keijō was in Keiki Province.
Economy

Japan encouraged an inflow of Japanese capital to Korea's less developed economy.
A large majority of major firms in Korea became Japanese owned and operated as a result, with key positions reserved for Japanese.
Koreans were permitted to work in menial roles under harsh labor conditions.
Most of Korea's coal, iron, and crop production was shipped to Japan.
Economic output in terms of agriculture, fishery, forestry and industry increased by tenfold from 1910 to 1945 as illustrated on the chart to the right.
Princeton's
Atul Kohli Atul Kohli is a professor of politics and international affairs at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
Education and career
Kohli was promoted to full professor in 1991, and was also appointed as Davi ...
concluded that the economic development model the Japanese instituted played the crucial role in Korean economic development, a model that was maintained by the Koreans in the post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
era.
Randall S. Jones wrote that "economic development during the colonial period can be said to have laid the foundation for future growth in several respects".
A 2017 study found that the gradual removal of trade barriers (almost fully completed by 1923) after Japan's annexation of Korea "increased population growth rates more in the regions close to the former border between Japan and Korea than in the other regions. Furthermore, after integration, the regions close to Korea that specialized in the fabric industry, whose products were the primary goods exported from Japan to Korea, experienced more population growth than other regions close to Korea did."
There were some modernization efforts by the late 19th century prior to annexation. Seoul became the first city in East Asia to have electricity, trolley cars, water, telephone, and telegraph systems all at the same time,
but Korea remained a largely backward agricultural economy around the start of the 20th century.
"Japan's initial colonial policy was to increase agricultural production in Korea to meet Japan's growing need for rice. Japan also began to build large-scale industries in Korea in the 1930s as part of the empire-wide program of economic self-sufficiency and war preparation."
In terms of exports, "Japanese industry as a whole gained little ... and this is certainly true for the most important manufacturing sector, cotton textiles. This export trade had little impact, positive or negative, on the welfare of Japanese consumer." Likewise in terms of the profitability of Japanese investors: colonial Korea made no significant impact.
According to scholar
Donald S. Macdonald, "for centuries most Koreans lived as subsistence farmers of rice and other grains and satisfied most of their basic needs through their own labor or through barter. The manufactures of traditional Korea – principally cloth, cooking and eating utensils, furniture, jewelry, and paper – were produced by artisans in a few population centers."
However, under Japanese rule, many Korean resources were only used for Japan.
Economist
Suh Sang-chul points out that the nature of industrialization during the period was as an "imposed enclave", so the impact of colonialism was trivial. Another scholar, Song Byung-nak, states that the economic condition of average Koreans deteriorated during the period despite the economic growth. Cha primarily attributed this deterioration to global economic shocks and
laissez-faire
''Laissez-faire'' ( , from , ) is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations). As a system of thought, ''laissez-faire'' ...
policies, as well as Chōsen's rapid population growth; the colonial government's attempts to mitigate this problem were inadequate.
Most Koreans at the time could access only a primary school education under restriction by the Japanese, and this prevented the growth of an indigenous entrepreneurial class. A 1939 statistic shows that among the total capital recorded by factories, about 94 percent was Japanese-owned. While Koreans owned about 61 percent of small-scale firms that had 5 to 49 employees, about 92 percent of large-scale enterprises with more than 200 employees were Japanese-owned.
In addition, 70% of the agricultural workers who made up most of Korea's population at the time were reduced to tenants of Japanese and Korean landlords who purchased land at low prices, and they had to pay high rents of 50–70%. As a result, many Koreans left for Manchuria and settled down, becoming the foundation of
Korean in China.
The Japanese government created a system of
colonial mercantilism
Mercantilism is a economic nationalism, nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports of an economy. It seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources ...
, requiring construction of significant
transportation infrastructure
Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelines, ...
on the Korean Peninsula for the purpose of extracting and exploiting resources such as raw materials (timber), foodstuff (mostly rice and fish), and mineral resources (coal and iron ore). The Japanese developed port facilities and an extensive railway system which included a main trunk railway from the southern port city of
Pusan through the capital of Seoul and north to the Chinese border. This infrastructure was intended not only to facilitate a colonial mercantilist economy, but was also viewed as a strategic necessity for the Japanese military to control Korea and to move large numbers of troops and materials to the Chinese border at short notice.
From the late 1920s and into the 1930s, particularly during the tenure of Japanese Governor-General
Kazushige Ugaki, concentrated efforts were made to build up the industrial base in Korea. This was especially true in the areas of
heavy industry
Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
, such as chemical plants and steel mills, and
munition
Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...
s production. The Japanese military felt it would be beneficial to have production closer to the source of raw materials and closer to potential front lines for a future war with China.
Lee Young-hoon, a professor at
Seoul National University
Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the SKY (universities), SKY universities and a part of the Flagship Korean National Universities.
The university's main c ...
states that less than 10% of arable land actually came under Japanese control and rice was normally traded, not robbed. He also insists that Koreans' knowledge about the era under Japanese rule is mostly made up by later educators. Many of Lee's arguments, however, have been contested.
Alleyne Ireland, a British author, referred to conditions in Korea under Japanese rule in 1926. He wrote in his book ''The New Korea'', "looking forward from 1910, one thing was clear where many things were obscure, namely that Japan, having decided to make Korea part of her Empire, would deem the permanence of her occupation to be a major element of her national policy, to be held intact, at whatever cost, against internal revolt or foreign intrigue.
[ Alleyne Ireland ''The New Korea'' E. P. Dutton. 1926 Chapter I Introductory pp. 2] The Japanese refer with pride to their effective protection of life and property throughout a country but recently overrun by bandits, to the enormous increase during the past fifteen years in every branch of production, with its connotation of increased employment for Koreans, to the constantly mounting number of Koreans appointed to the government service are facts, that cannot be gainsaid. However, the Korean nationalists attribute to them a sinister significance."
Drug trade
Korea produced a small amount of opium during the earlier years of the colonial period, but by the 1930s, Korea became a major exporter of both opium and narcotics, becoming a significant supplier to the illicit drug trade, specifically to the opium monopoly created by the Japanese-sponsored Manchukuo government.
The Government-General developed facilities dedicated to the production of morphine and heroin.
Emigrant Koreans played an extensive role in drug trafficking in China, especially in
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
, where they were employed as poppy farmers, drug peddlers, or proprietors of opium dens — disreputable jobs that were at the bottom rung of the drug trafficking ladder.
The initiation of opium and narcotic production in Korea was motivated by the worldwide shortage of opium and Japan's unfavorable environment for poppy cultivation, making the Japanese entirely dependent on foreign imports to meet domestic demand for medical opium.
The Japanese discovered that Korea provided favorable climate and soil conditions for poppy cultivation; not only were the climate and soil conditions more suitable, but land and labor costs were lower than in Japan.
Farmers in Korea were aware of the global demand for opium, and welcomed the idea of increasing the amount of land for poppy cultivation, an idea that was introduced to them by Japanese pharmaceutical companies.
The sale and consumption of drugs were pervasive in Korea, where the country faced a substantial domestic drug abuse problem, appearing in the form of opium-smoking and morphine addiction.
Within Korea, most illicit narcotics were supplied by Japanese druggists.
Policies
Motivation behind Japanese colonial policy
In Japan, attitudes toward Koreans were deeply shaped by the
Nissen dōsoron (日鮮同祖論, "Theory of Japanese-Korean Common Ancestry"), which claimed Koreans and Japanese shared mythological ancestors:
Susanoo (Koreans) and
Amaterasu
, often called Amaterasu () for short, also known as and , is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. Often considered the chief deity (''kami'') of the Shinto pantheon, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the () ...
(Japanese). According to this theory, Koreans were inherently Japanese. This idea served as the ideological foundation for the colonial government's assimilation policies, which aimed to fully incorporate Koreans as "racial Japanese."
In a speech in February 1944, Governor-General Koiso used the
Nihon Shoki
The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...
to justify the campaign to erase Korean language, culture, and ethnic identity. He asserted that Koreans were descendants of Susanoo-no-Mikoto, younger brother of Amaterasu, the sun goddess and ancestral figure of the Japanese emperor and nation. According to the Nihon Shoki, Susanoo had been sent to Korea to rule, a narrative Koiso used to suggest Susanoo was the same figure as
Dangun
Dangun or Tangun (; ), also known as Dangun Wanggeom (; ), was the legendary founder and first king of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom. He founded the first kingdom around the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. He is said to be the "gra ...
, Korea's mythical founder. He further argued that Korea's annexation in 1910 mirrored the "divine land transfer" (
Kuni-yuzuri
The was a mythological event in Japanese prehistory, related in sources such as the ''Kojiki'' and the ''Nihon Shoki''. It relates the story of how the rulership of Japan passed from the earthly ''kami'' (''kunitsukami'') to the ''kami'' of Heav ...
), where Susanoo's descendant,
Ōkuninushi, submitted to
Ninigi, Amaterasu's grandson, establishing a precedent for the subordination of Koreans (Susanoo's descendants) to Japanese (Amaterasu's descendants). Koiso frequently made use of wording that hoped for the colonial policy to help "awaken" Koreans to their "true nature" as Japanese.
Assimilation, however, did not mean equality. Koreans were to remain subordinate, as theorized by
Imaizumi Teisuke, who compared the Japanese-Korean relationship to hierarchical bonds like man and woman, rider and horse. This religious ideology also explained the construction of Shinto shrines across Korea during wartime, seen as completing a divine ritual to secure Japan's destiny.
As opposed to other occupied countries, Koreans were nominally granted Japanese citizenship, including passports, but they were denied basic rights like freedom of speech, assembly, and an independent press. By 1910, all Korean publications were banned, leaving only censored outlets run by the colonial government. Japan's ultimate goal was to erase Korean identity entirely, making Koreans indistinguishable from the Japanese, much like the assimilation policies directed at the Ainu and Okinawans. However, modern research confirms that Korean remains distinct and unrelated to Japanese or other languages.
Newspaper censorship
In 1907, the Resident-General of Korea passed the Newspaper Act,
which effectively prevented the publication of local papers. Only the English-language ''
The Korea Daily News'' and its Korean-language counterpart ''Daehan Maeil Sinbo'' continued their publication, because they were run by the foreigner
Ernest Bethell.
However, after continued Japanese pressure on the paper's staff and Bethell's death in 1909, even these papers became owned by the Japanese government.
The newspaper's Korean-language successor, ''
Maeil Sinbo'', was subordinated to the Japanese-language ''
Keijō Nippō.'' These two papers, along with the English-language newspaper ''
The Seoul Press'', were effectively backed by the colonial government.
Concurrently, the colonial government published an
official gazette, entitled the ''
Government-General of Chōsen Gazette''.
By 1910, the only major privately owned Korean newspaper allowed to publish was the ''
Gyeongnam Ilbo''. However, this paper was pressured to close by 1915, leaving only the ''Maeil Sinbo'' left. However, restrictions were eased upon the 1919 March First Movement and the policy, which led to the establishment of the historic Korean papers ''
The Chosun Ilbo
''The Chosun Ilbo'' (, ), also known as ''The Chosun Daily,'' is a Korean-language newspaper of record for South Korea and among the oldest active newspapers in the country. With a daily circulation of more than 1,800,000, ''The'' ''Chosun Ilbo ...
'' and ''
The Dong-A Ilbo''.
In 1932, Japan relaxed restrictions on the publication of Korean newspapers. Despite this, the government continued to seize newspapers without warning; there are over a thousand recorded seizures between 1920 and 1939. Revocation of publishing rights was relatively rare, and only three magazines had their rights revoked over the entire colonial period. In 1940, as the Pacific War increased in intensity, Japan shut down all Korean language newspapers again.
Education

Following the annexation of Korea, the Japanese administration introduced a public education system modeled after the
Japanese school system with a pyramidal hierarchy of elementary, middle and high schools, culminating at the
Keijō Imperial University in
Keijō. As in Japan itself, education was viewed primarily as an instrument of "the Formation of the Imperial Citizen" (황민화; 皇民化; ''Kōminka'') with a heavy emphasis on moral and political instruction. Japanese religious groups such as Protestant Christians willingly supported the Japanese authorities in their effort to assimilate Koreans through education.
During colonial times,
elementary schools
A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...
were known as "Citizen Schools" (; ; ''kokumin gakkō'') as in Japan, as a means of forming proper "Imperial Citizens" (황국민; 皇国民; ''kōkokumin'') from early childhood. Elementary schools in South Korea today are known by the name ''chodeung hakgyo'' () ("elementary school") as the term ''gukmin hakgyo/kokumin gakkō'' has recently become a
politically incorrect term.
During the colonial period, Japan established an officially equal educational system in Korea, but it strictly limited the rate of coed education. After the Korean Educational Ordinance was published in 1938, this situation changed slightly. "Primary education consisted of a mandated four years of primary school (''futsu gakkō''). Secondary education included four years of middle school for boys (''koto'' ''futsu'' ''gakkō'') and three years for girls (''joshi'' koto ''futsu gakko'') or two to three years of vocational school (''jitsugyo gakkō''). 1915, the Japanese announced the Regulations for Technical Schools (s''enmon gakko kisoku''), which legalized technical schools (''senmon gakkō'') as post-secondary educational institutions."
In addition, modernized (for the time) Korean educational institutions were excluded from the colonial system. 1911, Japanese government set The Regulations for Private Schools (''Shiritsu gakko kisoku'') aimed at undermining these facilities which were believed to breed Korean patriotism.
The public curriculum for most of the period was taught by Korean educators under a hybrid system focused on assimilating Koreans into the Japanese Empire while emphasizing Korean cultural education. This focused on the history of the Japanese Empire as well as inculcating reverence for the
Imperial House of Japan
The is the reigning dynasty of Japan, consisting of those members of the extended family of the reigning emperor of Japan who undertake official and public duties. Under the present constitution of Japan, the emperor is "the symbol of the State ...
and instruction in the ''
Imperial Rescript on Education
The , or IRE for short, was signed by Emperor Meiji of Japan on 30 October 1890 to articulate government policy on the guiding principles of education on the Empire of Japan. The 315 kanji, character document was read aloud at all important school ...
''.
Integration of Korean students into Japanese-language schools and Japanese students in Korean-language schools was discouraged but steadily increased over time. While official policy promoted equality between ethnic Koreans and ethnic Japanese, in practice this was rarely the case. Korean history and language studies would be taught side by side with Japanese history and language studies until the early 1940s under a new education ordinance that saw wartime efforts increased and the hybrid system slowly weakened.
One point of view is that, although the Japanese education system in Korea was detrimental towards Korea's cultural identity, its introduction of public education as universal was a step in the right direction to improve Korea's
human capital
Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...
. Towards the end of Japanese rule, Korea saw elementary school attendance at 38 percent. Children of elite families were able to advance to higher education, while others were able to attend technical schools, allowing for "the emergence of a small but important class of well-educated white collar and technical workers ... who possessed skills required to run a modern industrial economy." The Japanese education system ultimately produced hundreds of thousands of educated South Koreans who later became "the core of the postwar political and economic elite".
Another point of view is that it was only after the end of Japanese rule with World War II that Korea saw true, democratic rise in public education as evidenced by the rise of adult literacy rate from 22 percent in 1945 to 87.6 percent by 1970 and 93% by the late 1980s. Though public education was made available for elementary schools during Japanese rule, Korea as a country did not experience secondary-school enrollment rates comparable to those of Japan prior to the end of World War II.
For example, according to the statistics of the Japanese Government-General of Korea in 1944, which was prepared just before independence, only 8.5% of the total population entered elementary school, and the middle school enrollment rate was only 0.9%. The literacy rate was also very low, so only 30% of the population could read letters, compared to a sharp rise to 90% in 1955, 10 years after independence.
Korean language
In the initial phase of Japanese rule, students were taught in Korean in public schools established by ethnic Korean officials who worked for the colonial government. Prior to this period, Korean education relied heavily on
Hanja
Hanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period.
() ...
, Chinese characters, for written communication. However, during this time the Korean language transitioned to a
mixed Hanja–Korean script influenced by the
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of Logogram, logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and Syllabary, syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabary, syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for n ...
, where most lexical roots were written in Hanja and grammatical forms in Korean script.
[Pratt, Rutt, Hoare, 1999. ''Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary.'' Routledge.] Korean textbooks from this era included excerpts from traditional Korean stories such as (興夫伝; Kōfuden).
In 1921, government efforts were strengthened to promote Korean media and literature throughout Korea and also in Japan. The Japanese government also created incentives to educate ethnic Japanese students in the Korean language. In 1928, the
Korean Language Society inaugurated
Hangul Day (9 October), which was meant to celebrate the
Korean alphabet
The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...
in the face of accelerating Japanization of Korean culture.
Koreans were obliged to take Japanese names by 1932.
In 1933, the foundation of modern South and North Korean spelling was completed.
The Japanese administrative policy shifted more aggressively towards cultural assimilation in 1938 (''Naisen ittai'') with a new government report advising reform to strengthen the war effort. Under this influence, in 1940, all Korean newspapers except the Japanese government's official newspaper were eliminated. In 1942, Japanese authorities caused the
Korean Language Society Incident and closed the society by applying suspicion of rebellion to scholars.
This left less room for Korean language studies and by 1943 all Korean language courses had been phased out. Teaching and speaking of Korean was prohibited.
Although the government report advised further, more radical reform, the 10-year plan would never fully go into effect.
Taking of historical artifacts
The Japanese rule of Korea also resulted in the relocation of tens of thousands of
cultural artifact
A cultural artifact, or cultural artefact (see American and British English spelling differences), is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information ...
s to Japan. This removal of Korean cultural property was against a long tradition of such actions dating at least since the sixteenth century wars between Korea and Japan , though in the 20th century colonial period it was a systematised and regulated activity covered by rules issued 1916–1933.
The issue over where these artifacts should be located began during the U.S.
occupation of Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...
.
In 1965, as part of the
, Japan returned roughly 1,400 artifacts to Korea, and considered the diplomatic matter to have been resolved. Korean artifacts are retained in the
Tōkyō National Museum and in the hands of many private collectors.
The primary building of
Gyeongbokgung Palace was demolished and the
Japanese General Government Building was built in its exact location. The Japanese colonial authorities destroyed 85 percent of all the buildings in Gyeongbokgung.
Sungnyemun, the gate in Gyeongsong that was a symbol of Korea, was altered by the addition of large, Shinto-style golden horns near the roofs, later removed by the South Korean government after independence.
According to the South Korean government, there are 75,311 cultural artifacts that were taken from Korea. Japan has 34,369, the United States has 17,803,
and France had several hundred, which were seized in the
French campaign against Korea and loaned back to Korea in 2010 without an apology. In 2010, Prime Minister of Japan
Naoto Kan
is a Japanese former politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from June 2010 to September 2011.
Kan was the first Prime Minister since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006 to ...
expressed "deep remorse" for the removal of artifacts, and arranged an initial plan to return the Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty and over 1,200 other books, which was carried out in 2011.
Religion
As Japan established the puppet state of
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...
, Korea became more vital to the internal communications and defense of the Japanese empire against the Soviet Union. Japan decided in the 1930s to make the Koreans become more loyal to the Emperor by requiring Korean participation in the
State Shinto
was Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto. The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for Kannushi, priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that ...
devotions, and by weakening the influences of both Christianity and traditional religion.
Shinto shrines were established throughout the peninsula, including
Chōsen Shrine on the mountain Namsan in Seoul and
Heijō Shrine in Pyongyang.
Shrines such as these were destroyed shortly after Korea was liberated in 1945.
Christianity and Communism
Nowhere else were Protestant missionary efforts in Asia more successful than in Korea. American Presbyterians and Methodists arrived in the 1880s and were well received. During the Japanese colonial period, Christianity became an expression of Korean nationalist opposition to Japan and its assimilation policies.
In 1914, out of 16 million people, there were 86,000 Protestants and 79,000 Catholics; by 1934 the numbers were 168,000 and 147,000. Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. Harmonizing with traditional practices became an issue. Catholics tolerated Shinto rites; Protestants developed a substitute for Confucian ancestral rites by merging Confucian-based and Christian death and funerary rituals.
In 1937, Japan began requiring the worship of the Emperor at the numerous Shinto shrines set up across the peninsula to bolster patriotism and national unity. The Presbyterian Church in Korea decided to support the Emperor worship as a denomination in 1938. Other denominations followed. Fewer than a dozen Protestant pastors refused to worship the Emperor and were imprisoned. In total, around 2000 Christian were imprisoned and 50 were martyred. The vast majority of Korean Christians followed the national guidance, and worshipped the Japanese Emperor. Missionaries expressed alarm at the rise in communist activity during the 1920s. With the enactment of the
Peace Preservation Law
The was a Japanese law enacted on April 22, 1925, with the aim of allowing the Special Higher Police to more effectively suppress alleged socialists and communists. In addition to criminalizing forming an association with the aim of altering the ...
in 1925, communist literature was banned throughout the Empire of Japan, including Chōsen; in order to avoid suspicion and permit dissemination, it was often disguised as Christian literature addressed to missionaries. Communist concepts, such as class struggle, and its partner nationalist movement were resonating well with some of the peasants and lower-class citizens of Chōsen; this was worrying to some missionaries because of communism's
atheist components. At one point, communist students in Keijō held an "anti-Sunday School conference" and loudly protested religion in front of churches. This protest renewed Japanese governmental interest in censorship of communist ideas and language.
Legacy
Korean diaspora
A number of groups in the
Korean diaspora
The Korean diaspora consists of around 7.3 million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korea, Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent emigrants from Korea. Around 84.5% of overseas Koreans live in just five countries: the Unit ...
formed because of the Japanese colonial period. Zainichi Koreans descend from the population of around 600,000 Koreans who remained in Japan, often not by choice.
After Sakhalin was transferred from Japan to the Soviet Union, most of the 43,000 ethnic Koreans there were refused permission to repatriate back to Japan or Korea, and were thus trapped in Sakhalin. Many remained stateless. They now form the Sakhalin Korean population.
Many Koreans had also escaped to Russia and the Soviet Union because of Japanese activities, and were eventually
forced to move to Central Asia in 1937. They became a part of the population of Koryo-saram throughout the
former Soviet Union
The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...
.
Forced laborers, comfort women, and Unit 731
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, about 450,000 Korean male laborers were involuntarily sent to Japan.
Comfort women
Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
, who served in Japanese military brothels as a form of
sexual slavery
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This includ ...
, came from all over the Japanese empire. Historical estimates range from 10,000 to 200,000, including an unknown number of Koreans. However, 200,000 is considered to be a conservative number by modern historians, and up to 500,000 comfort women are estimated to be taken. These women faced an average of 29 men and up to 40 men per day, according to one surviving comfort woman. However, of the 500,000, less than 50 are alive . Comfort women were often recruited from rural locales with the promise of factory employment; business records, often from Korean subcontractees of Japanese companies, showed them falsely classified as nurses or secretaries. There is evidence that the Japanese government intentionally destroyed official records regarding comfort women.
Koreans, along with many other Asians, were experimented on in
Unit 731, a secret military medical experimentation unit in World War II. The victims who died in the camp included at least 25 victims from the former Soviet Union and Korea.
Some historians estimate up to 250,000 total people were subjected to human experiments.
A Unit 731 veteran attested that most that were experimented on were Chinese, Koreans, and Mongolians.
The Tokyo trials convened on 29 April 1946 to try Japanese personnel on Class A, B, and C charges for
crimes against peace, conventional
war crimes
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...
, and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
respectively. Class C was created mainly to address atrocities committed by Japan against its nationals or allied citizens in times of peace or war since the
law of war
The law of war is a component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of hostilities (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territories, ...
only covers enemy and neutral nationals in interstate armed conflicts. However, the principal Allied powers realized they had colonies themselves and never pressed on the Class C charges as they did not want to risk their own colonial atrocities being subject to prosecution. This left the Korean and Taiwanese victims of Japanese colonial atrocities without any recourse in the international legal system.
In 2002, South Korea started an investigation of Japanese collaborators. Part of the investigation was completed in 2006 and a list of names of individuals who profited from exploitation of fellow Koreans were posted. The collaborators not only benefited from exploiting their countrymen, but the children of these collaborators benefited further by acquiring higher education with the exploitation money they had amassed.
The "Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under the Japanese Imperialism Republic of Korea" investigated the received reports of damage from 86 people among the 148 Koreans who were accused of being Class B and C criminals while serving as prison guards for the Japanese military during World War II. The commission, which was organized by the South Korean government, announced that they acknowledged 83 people among them as victims. The commission said that although the people reluctantly served as guards to avoid the draft, they took responsibility for the mistreatment by the Japanese against prisoners of war. Lee Se-il, leader of the investigation, said that examination of the military prosecution reports for 15 Korean prison guards, obtained from
The National Archives of the United Kingdom, confirmed that they were convicted without explicit evidence.
Korean to Japanese name change order
Although officially voluntary, and initially resisted by the Japanese Colonial Government, 80% of Koreans voluntarily changed their name to Japanese in 1940. Many community leaders urged the adoption of Japanese names to make it easy for their children to succeed in society and overcome discrimination.
A study conducted by the United States
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
states that "the Korean culture was quashed, and Koreans were required to speak Japanese and take Japanese names". This name change policy, called
sōshi-kaimei
was a policy of pressuring Koreans under Japanese rule to adopt Japanese names and identify as such. The primary reason for the policy was to forcibly assimilate Koreans, as was done with the Ainu and the Ryukyuans. The Sōshi-kaimei has been ...
(; ), was part of Japan's assimilation efforts. This was heavily resisted by the Korean people. Those Koreans who retained their Korean names were not allowed to enroll at school, were refused service at government offices, and were excluded from the lists for food rations and other supplies. Faced
with such compulsion, many Koreans ended up complying with the name change order. Such a radical policy was deemed to be symbolically significant in the war effort, binding the fate of Korea with that of the empire.
Discrimination against Korean leprosy patients by Japan
Colonial Korea was subject to the same ''
Leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a Chronic condition, long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the Peripheral nervous system, nerves, respir ...
Prevention Laws'' of 1907 and 1931 as the Japanese home islands. These laws directly and indirectly permitted the
quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...
of patients in sanitariums, where forced
abortion
Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...
s and sterilization were common. The laws authorized punishment of patients "disturbing the peace", as most Japanese leprologists believed that vulnerability to the disease was inheritable. In Korea, many leprosy patients were also subjected to hard labor.
The Japanese government compensated inpatients.
Atomic bomb casualties
Many Koreans were drafted for work at military industrial factories in
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
and
Nagasaki
, officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
.
According to the secretary-general of a group named Peace Project Network, "there were a total of 70,000 Korean victims in both cities". Japan paid South Korea 4 billion yen and built a welfare center in the name of humanitarian assistance, not as compensation to the victims.
South Korean presidential investigation commission on pro-Japanese collaborators
Collaborators of the Imperial Japanese Army were prosecuted in the postwar period as
Chinilpa, or "friendly to Japanese". In 2006
South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun
Roh Moo-hyun (, ; 1 September 1946 – 23 May 2009) was a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the ninth president of South Korea from 2003 to 2008.
Roh's pre-presidential political career was focused on human rights advocacy for ...
appointed an investigation commission into the issue of locating descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators from the times of the 1890s until the collapse of Japanese rule in 1945.
In 2010, the commission concluded its five-volume report. As a result, the land property of 168 South Korean citizens has been confiscated by the government, these citizens being descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators.
Memorials
A number of memorials cover the legacy of the Japanese colonial period. The
Independence Hall of Korea in Cheonan,
Museum of Japanese Colonial History in Korea in Seoul,
and the
National Memorial Museum of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Occupation in Busan all cover the subject. The
Trail of National Humiliation in Seoul passes by a number of the former sites of colonial-era buildings.
Modern justification of the colonization
Some conservative Japanese nationalists have since attempted to more positively portray the colonization and Japan's intentions. Claims such as "Japan did not want to annex Korea" and "Koreans came to Japan and asked to be annexed" have been forwarded, and efforts are made to highlight Korea's economic development during this period. However, the scholar Mark Caprio writes skeptically of such viewpoints:
List of governors-general of Korea
*
Terauchi Masatake (1910–1916)
*
Hasegawa Yoshimichi (1916–1919)
*
Saitō Makoto (1929–1931)
*
Kazushige Ugaki (1931–1936)
*
Yamanashi Hanzō (1927–1929)
*
Jirō Minami (1936–1942)
*
Kuniaki Koiso (1942–1944)
*
Nobuyuki Abe (1944–1945)
In popular culture
* ''
Madam Oh'', 1965 South Korean film
* ''
Sea of Blood'', 1971 North Korean opera
* ''
The Flower Girl'', 1972 North Korean film
*''
Tell O' The Forest!'', 1972 North Korean opera
* ''
Femme Fatale: Bae Jeong-ja'', 1973 South Korean film
* ''
Mulberry
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...
'', 1986 South Korean film
* ''
Modern Boy'', 2008 South Korean film
* ''
Capital Scandal'', 2008 South Korea TV drama
* ''
The Good, the Bad, the Weird'', 2008 South Korea film
* ''
My Way'', 2011 South Korean film
* ''
Bridal Mask'', 2012 South Korean TV drama
* ''
Assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
'', 2015 South Korean film
* ''
The Silenced'', 2015 South Korean film
*
The Tiger (2015 film), 2015 South Korean Film
* ''
Spirits' Homecoming'', 2016 South Korean film
* ''
The Handmaiden'', 2016 South Korean film
* ''
The Last Princess'', 2016 South Korean film
* ''
The Age of Shadows'', 2016 South Korean film
* ''
Love Lies'', 2016 South Korean film
* ''
Chicago Typewriter'', 2017 South Korean TV show
* ''
Battleship Island'', 2017 South Korean film
* ''
Anarchist from Colony'', 2017 South Korean film
* ''
Mr. Sunshine'', 2018 South Korean TV show
* ''
Pachinko
is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Gambling in Japan, Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of l ...
'', 2017 novel by
Min Jin Lee
* ''
The Hymn of Death
''The Hymn of Death'' () is a 2018 South Korean television miniseries based on true events, starring Lee Jong-suk and Shin Hye-sun. It aired on SBS from November 27 to December 4, 2018, and is available on Netflix worldwide.
Synopsis
The s ...
'', 2018 South Korean TV show
* ''
Different Dreams'', 2019 South Korean TV show
* ''
The Battle: Roar to Victory'', 2019 South Korean film
* ''
A Resistance'', 2019 South Korean film
* ''
Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid'', 2019 webtoon by Na Yoonhee
* ''Beasts of a Little Land'', 2021 novel by Juhea Kim
* ''
Pachinko
is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Gambling in Japan, Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of l ...
'', 2022 Apple TV+ drama
* ''
Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938'', 2023
See also
*
Sōshi-kaimei
was a policy of pressuring Koreans under Japanese rule to adopt Japanese names and identify as such. The primary reason for the policy was to forcibly assimilate Koreans, as was done with the Ainu and the Ryukyuans. The Sōshi-kaimei has been ...
*
Japanese war crimes
During its imperial era, Empire of Japan, Japan committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity across various Asian-Pacific nations, notably during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents ...
*
Hashima Island
*
Comfort women
Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term ''comfort women'' is a translation of the Japanese , a euphemism ...
*
Japan–Korea disputes
*
Taiwan under Japanese rule
The Geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu, Penghu Islands, became an annexed territory of the Empire of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan Province, Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki a ...
*
History of Korea
The Lower Paleolithic era on the Korean Peninsula and in Manchuria began roughly half a million years ago.
Christopher J. Norton, "The Current State of Korean Paleoanthropology", (2000), ''Journal of Human Evolution'', 38: 803–825.
The earl ...
Notes
References
*
Sources
*
Further reading
* Brudnoy, David. "Japan's experiment in Korea." ''Monumenta Nipponica'' 25.1/2 (1970): 155–195
online*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Isabella Lucy Bird (1898)
''Korea and Her Neighbours: A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country''*
Horace Newton Allen (1908)
''Things Korean: A Collection of Sketches and Anecdotes, Missionary and Diplomatic''Toshiyuki Mizoguchi, "Consumer Prices and Real Wages in Taiwan and Korea under Japanese Rule" ''Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics'', 13(1): 40–56Toshiyuki Mizoguchi, "Economic Growth of Korea under the Japanese Occupation – Background of Industrialization of Korea 1911–1940" ''Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics'', 20(1): 1–19Toshiyuki Mizoguchi, "Foreign Trade in Taiwan and Korea under Japanese Rule" ''Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics'', 14(2): 37–53Kim, Young-Koo, The Validity of Some Coerced Treaties in the Early 20th Century: A Reconsideration of the Japanese Annexation of Korea in Legal PerspectiveMatsuki Kunitoshi, "Japan's Annexation of Korea"'
* Walter Stucke (2011)
''The Direct and Indirect Contributions of Western Missionaries to Korean Nationalism During the Late Choson and Early Japanese Annexation Periods, 1884–1920''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korea Under Japanese Rule
States and territories established in 1910
States and territories disestablished in 1945
Japan–Korea relations
Former colonies in Asia
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
Annexation
1910 establishments in Korea
1910 establishments in the Japanese colonial empire
1945 disestablishments in the Japanese colonial empire
1945 disestablishments in Korea
Former Japanese colonies
Japanese military occupations
Former countries of the interwar period
Japanese imperialism and colonialism
Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea
Anti-Korean sentiment in Japan