Korean Migrants In Manchuria

KOREAN MIGRANTS IN MANCHURIA*

Hoon K. Lee

Union Christian College, Pyengyang, Korea

OREAN migrants in Manchuria are one of the elements in the present tense political situation. They are placed between two opposing forces--the nationalist Chinese, who resent their intrusion, and the imperialist Japanese, who might be thought to welcome the Korean advance into Manchurian colonizing territory which has attracted so small a number of pioneers from the island home of the Japanese people. Korean population movements have therefore become of acute interest in economic and political geography and invite intensive studies before general conclusions or solutions of scientific quality can be proposed.

In fact Koreans can hardly be considered a vanguard of Japanese advance into the zones of colonization in Manchuria. The few pro-Japanese among them restrict their residence to the railway zones and other localities where Japanese influence is already pronounced. The pioneers proper, on the contrary, are more naturally inclined to be anti-Japanese. To the Korean immigrant the future looks dark-- "unless Japan owns Manchuria permanently or else takes her hands off it," as one of the number expressed it.

The economic arguments that involve Korean migration to Manchuria are commonly confused. One does well to remember that the Korean immigrants are skilled only in rice raising. Japan with importation from Korea can meet her rice requirements. About half of the Manchurian production of 5,000,000 bushels a year is consumed by the Manchurian population itself. The rest could be exported to Japan were it not contrary to the traditional policy of China to prevent export of grains to foreign countries. High transport rates further increase the difficulty of marketing Manchurian grains.

It has often been said that Japan seeks to drive Koreans from Korea to make room for her own people drawn from the overcrowded rice fields and cities in face of an annual population increase of about 800,000. But there are today 21,000,000 persons in Korea living on 85,000 square miles, and the annual population increase is over 200,000! It is already an overpopulated country. In the last twenty years less than 50,000 Japanese have been settled on the land in

*An extract from a study of the pioneer belts of Manchuria, one of a series of studies of migration and land use in pioneer belts of the world being conducted under the auspices of the American Geographical Society. This extract presents preliminary conclusions of the author, a Korean, based on intensive fieldwork carried on under conditions of extreme difficulty in 1031.

196

KOREANS IN MANCHURIA 197

Korea. The advance of the Korean migrants to Manchuria is therefore not a political but primarily an economic phenomenon. However, once settled in Manchuria they form one of the elements in the political situation, and it is still a question whether the migration is a benefit or a hindrance to Japan. This article deals not with the political aspects of the movement but with Korean migration as a process now running its course in one of the great problem areas of the world, which happens also to be one of the areas of modern settlement on a vast scale, principally by Chinese.

The name Manchuria is quite commonly associated with an un-exploited natural region of primary colonization; but in fact this idea is far from the truth. The greater part of Liaoning Province, for example, has a long history of colonization with the attendant phenomenon of dense population, a density in places approaching that of China proper where the stress of population pressure is felt. The country, in fact, exhibits various degrees of occupation and may be divided accordingly into several "pioneer belts." To obtain a fair basis of classification in a country of such great topographic diversity the ratio between the areas of uncultivated and cultivated arable land may be taken. On this basis four belts are recognized.

Four Pioneer Belts

In the first belt colonization has been nearly or entirely completed. Less than 25 per cent of the arable land remains unutilized. The population is approaching the "saturation " point. Ways of living peculiar to a colonizing area are to be observed only in the case of occasional or temporary immigrants stopping there for the time being on their way to new settlements. In the second belt from 25 to 50 per cent of the arable land is not yet cultivated. Ways of living have a pioneering tinge. The third belt is that area in which 50 to 75 per cent of the arable area has not been broken up for farming purposes. Colonization communities are being formed, but life still has the self-sufficiency of the frontier. The fourth belt is the pioneering fringe proper in which more than 75 per cent of the arable land is still uncultivated. In this belt woods are to be cut and land cleared. No centralized communities have as yet formed. Isolation is the keynote. It is the log-cabin stage, with much occupation by "squatting" and with hunting an important supplementary economy.

The map, Figure 1, shows the relative positions of the four belts. Figure 3 represents by the so-called agricultural regions the density of population per square mile of cultivated land (in conjunction see Table I). Figure 4 shows the distribution of population by the dot method. These maps of course are far from presenting an exact picture. No real census of Manchurian population has ever been

PIONEER BELTS IN MANCHURIA

Percent arable land uncultivated

Fig. i Fig. 2

Fig. 1--The four pioneer belts of Manchuria based on the proportion of arable land out of cultivation. In the first belt less than 25 per cent of the total arable land is uncultivated; in the second, between 25 and 50 per cent; in the third, between 50 and 75 per cent; in the fourth, more than 75 per cent. Compare with the location map on page 179. The dots mark localities where special study of Korean pioneer settlement was made. Scale of map 1 : 16,000,000.

Fig. 2--The relief of Manchuria. Numbers have reference: 1, mountains; 2, uplands and higher foothills; 3, lower foothills; 4. plains; 5. lowlands. Based on the orographical map, PI. II, in E. E. Ahnert's "Mineral Resources of North Manchuria" (1928) and reproduced from the article "Land Utilization Maps of Manchuria" by Nobuo Murakoshi and Glenn T. Trewartha, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 20, 1930, pp. 480-493.

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> POPULATION BY AGRICULTURAL AREAS

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. " . \ Density per square mile of cultivated land

\ DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 1929

Each dot represents 10,000persons

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Fig. з Fig. 4

Fig. 3--Map showing by agricultural districts the density of population per square mile of cultivated land. For identification of the regions and numerical distribution of the population see Table I.

Fig. 4--Map showing the distribution of population in Manchuria by the dot method. One dot represents 10,000 persons.

200

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

taken: the various estimates are widely apart. Even if no bias existed the natural obstacles in the way of accuracy are enormous. The figures used for the maps are from a 1929 estimate. According to this the total population of Manchuria at that time was some 29,000,000. Of this the Chinese probably accounted for 96.5 per cent.

Table I--Manchurian Population According to Agricultural Regions*

Districts	Population	Density per Square Mile	Density per Square Mile of Cultivated Land
1. South of Mukden 2. Peking-Mukden Line . . . 3. Kaiyuan 4. Mukden-Hailung Line . . . 5. Changchun-Kungchuling 6. Szepingkai-Taonan Line . . 7. Kirin-Changchun Line . . 8. Chientao 9. Southern Branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway 10. Harbin 11. Eastern Branch of the Chi nese Eastern Railway . . . 12. Lower Sungari 13. Hulan-Hailin Line .... 14. Western Branch of the Chi nese Eastern Railway . . . 15. Northern Manchuria and other localities	7,057,270 2,335,6oo 2,808,140 1,206,160 2,620,200 1,297,730 1,253,070 578,000 2,111,300 475,490 1,149,150 1,899,490 1,389,230 2,791,980 225,110	218 343 333 132 359 72 66 38 195 2,353 48 53 97 3i 1	1,206 823 804 949 671 403 503 578 406 3,396 385 412 366 319 89
Total Population and Average Density	29,198,020	78	590

?Industrial Statistics of Manchuria, Research Bureau of the South Manchuria Railway Co., 1920.

Koreans in Manchuria

The disparity in the estimates of the Chinese in Manchuria is exceeded when we come to the Korean element. Difficulties are increased by the fact that a number of Koreans in Manchuria are political exiles who are not willing to report their existence to any of the Japanese agencies'in Manchuria, and a large number of Koreans are naturalized as Chinese citizens. On a bold venture we may place the minimum number of the Korean population at not less than 800,000. This is less than three per cent of the total population of Manchuria; nevertheless the Koreans come next to the Chinese in numerical strength.

It is no less difficult to determine the trend of the Korean migration

KOREANS IN MANCHURIA

201

\ KOREANS Ш MANCHURIA

V 1929

Fig. S--The distribution of Koreans in Manchuria. One dot represents 100 persons. Note the concentration in Kando (Chientao) and the basin of the Yalu (West Kando). Scale of map, i : 19,250,000.

to Manchuria. The Chinese authorities tend to exaggerate the number, Japanese authorities to minimize it. The period 1917-1920 certainly witnessed a conspicuous increase of Korean immigrants, explained by the fact that in that time the Korean Independence Movement was at its height. During the seventeen-years period, 1910-1926, the total number of immigrants probably did not exceed 300,000; while from 1912 to 1926 the number of returning migrants was about 90,000.

The Kando District

Manchuria was the ancestral home of the Koreans, their early seat being the region about Changchun. Fuyu hsien (county) retains the souvenir of that once dominating race in the name by which they were known to the Chinese. The nucleus of present-day Korean settlement in Manchuria is the district called Kando (Korean) or Chientao (Chinese), comprising Yenki, Holung, and Wangtsing hsiens, in the southeast corner of Kirin Province. The area of 'the district comprises 1173 square miles. Long a political frontier the area was finally handed over to China by Japan in exchange for certain railway rights in Manchuria in 1909. Sometimes Hunchun hsien is included in the district although it is not included in the map attached to the Kando Treaty.

In Kando district Korean is the main element of the population structure, forming over 75 per cent of the total. The cities of Kando are Korean in their outward appearance and in their content. A stranger here will feel that he is no longer in Chinese territory but in Korea. The Koreans, however, are not an urban people in Man-

202 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

churia any more than they are in Korea. City dwellers may reasonably be estimated at about 40,000 individuals, only five per cent of the total number.

The basis of Korean colonization in Manchuria is specifically rice cultivation. Paddy fields (151,238 acres) make up about 26 per cent, dry fields (492,541 acres) about 74 per cent of the area under Korean utilization. The longer the pioneer work, the larger proportion of dry field over paddy field. In the counties located along the Korean border the acreage of dry field is far greater than that of paddy field. This simply means that the Koreans settle in a new place with reference to the possibility of rice cultivation; later, as lands suitable for paddy fields become fewer, they also utilize the dry fields.

Routes to the Interior

From Kando Korean pioneers penetrated into the interior, going north and along the Mutankiang River to spread over the wilderness of the Sanhsing region.

Another route of Korean penetration was opened when the "closed door" policy of the Manchu Dynasty became only nominal, and many Koreans went openly as well as secretly across the Yalu and settled in the wilderness along the river's course. Among Koreans this region was called West Kando as against the other Kando district to the north.

After the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway lines, especially the Mukden-Antung line, Korean pioneers took advantage of these modern means of transportation and proceeded to Manchuria over the rails. No statistical figures are available, but the number of emigrants traveling over the railways is not a small one. The Korean residents in Mukden, Kwantung Leased Territory, Changchun, Harbin, and so forth largely belong to this group. The Khabarovsk-Vladivostok Railway afforded yet another route. Starting from the northeast provinces of Korea the migrants went to Vladivostok by way of the sea and by rail to Khabarovsk, whence they followed the courses of the Amur and Ussuri to settle in the vast virgin soil of eastern Kirin and southern Heilungkiang provinces.

A Field Study in Central Kirin

A cross section of Korean pioneer settlement in central Kirin Province was obtained by field investigation in 1931. Twenty-nine localities in six hsiens were visited (see Fig. 1), and detailed accounts of their circumstances were obtained from 201 pioneer families in twenty of the localities.

In answer to the question as to why they emigrated only seven

KOREANS IN MANCHURIA 203

gave political oppression as the reason; the overwhelming majority advanced economic reasons, essentially the difficulty of making a living at home. This is clear enough from the conditions of the migrants on arrival.

Most Korean immigrants to Manchuria arrive in the winter, for during the growing season of the year they can gain some subsistence in the fields at home. In the late autumn they sell their scant possessions for anything they can get. This may furnish them with traveling expenses on railway or steamship lines, but in nine cases out of ten they reach their destination with empty pockets. They settle with Koreans already established or make arrangements with Chinese landowners. Usually the arrangement takes the form of the lease of a plot of ground. The Chinese landlord furnishes seeds and all supplies, even the necessities of daily living. This naturally reduces the settler to a state of serfdom, at least for the first year.

To the question "Do you wish to stay here permanently or to move elsewhere?" the 198 heads of families who answered unanimously expressed their desire to move. Inquiry showed that four-fifths of the families had already moved from three to seven times since entering the country. One of the main reasons for this instability appears to be the fact that they are not landowners. Legally Koreans who have not taken out Chinese citizenship papers have no right to own land, even if they can afford to buy it. Of the 201 pioneer households only 20 owned some part of the land, and no single individual owned the entire area he cultivated.

This condition, however, does not apply in the Kando district. There Koreans enjoy the rights of property ownership just as do the Chinese. In 1929 the land owned by Koreans in Kando constituted 55 per cent of the cultivated area.

The average size of the 201 pioneer farms was 16.5 acres. Half the farms, however, were between 5 and 10 acres in size. Even so this is larger than in Korea or Japan where the farm averages only about 2.5 acres.

Korean settlement in Manchuria is largely a matter of irrigation and drainage. In some cases land that has been broken up for other uses is turned into paddy fields by irrigation; but mostly low, swampy ground is chosen for reclamation. Three-quarters of the cultivated ground in the area under investigation was in paddy fields, rice being far and away the leading crop. Only 49 of the farms grew any maize; and only 22 grew soya beans, the great Manchurian staple. Rice offers the advantage of bringing in a large return, and the Koreans are skillful rice growers.

The rent paid by the Korean pioneer tenants was, on the average, about 20 per cent of the total product from the land. This seems relatively favorable though the return to the landlord for the capital

204 ^THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

investment in land is exorbitantly large, for on the average $ (Мех.) loo investment will return $ (Мех.) 94 in a year.

An analysis of the complete balance sheet of the 201 pioneer households shows that one-third of them were not making a living; even in the households with a surplus the profit is too small for progress; they make a bare living. The great handicap is indebtedness. Only three households were reported free from debt. The greater part of the debts were due to Chinese loan offices and pawnbrokers, notorious for their usury.

The standard of living of the Korean pioneers in Manchuria can only be described as very low. The average per-capita living cost of the Korean pioneers in the households investigated is about two-thirds that of the average of the Chinese farmers in Manchuria. This is the weapon by which they compete with the Chinese. As one writer has put it: "Their minimum living requirements are always lower than those of the Chinese, than whom they are not less enduring. In the matter of minimal earnings the Koreans are able to compete with the Chinese and displace them."

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