Vladimir Tikhonov (Korean name - Pak No-ja). Received MA in Korean History in 1994 (with the thesis on Kaya and Shilla history) and Ph.D. in 1996 (dissertation on the history of Kaya proto-states). Worked with KyungHee University in 1997-2000. Currently teaches Korean and East Asian Studies in Oslo University, Norway
Vladimir Tikhonov (Oslo University)
"The 1890s Korean Reformers' View of Japan - a Menacing Model?"
1. Introduction:
Throughout the troubled history of Korea's post-traditional transformation, Japan used to serve as an important reference point from the very beginnings of Korea's opening to the West until now. However diverse could be the meanings "Japan" as a semantic unit was charged with, it always played the role of an "essential Other" in almost all post-traditional discourses in Korea. A symbol of decay and barbarisation for the conservative Confucians, it became quite an opposite - the model of "progress" and "civilization" - for most of Korea's "pro-modern progressives", beginning with the masterminds of 1884 aborted Kapsin coup d'etat, who actually were going to grasp the power with Japanese assistance and then to proceed with the reforms modelled exactly after Meiji experience. And the model of sorts Japan remained: even these "progressives" that, for diverse reasons; opposed Japan politically, were almost universally supportive and positive so far as the import of Japan's modern institutions was concerned. Pan-Asianism, other important import from Japan, did play a role too: it positioned Japan's "Other" as closer, more intimate, more congenial, than faraway and culturally/racially heterogeneous cradles of "modernity". The process of creation a "modern" nation-state in Korea can be well described as a kind of dialogue with Japanese "Other". While the language of Korean "modernity" (first of all, Chinese logographic combinations for translating borrowed Western terms) and its key institutional and ideological structures were consciously learned from the Japanese interlocutor, the latter's colonial ambitions and pejorative views of Korea's ethnicity and history were largely responsible for provoking many influential Korean intellectuals to an nationalist reaction - the creation of venomously anti-Japanese nationalist ideology, still to remain an important underpinning in the mass consciousness of both North and South Korea. The "Korean nation" created in that dialogue, was often defined in distinctively Japanese-sounding terms ("unique homogenous blood lineage", "possessor of the virtues of loyalty and patriotism", etc.), while being simultaneously described on the more radical end of political spectrum as a single unit involved in a mortal combat with its colonial oppressor. As it often happens in the cases of (post)colonial nationalisms simultaneously copying and rejecting the imperial masters, the intensity of anti-Japanese venom was directly proportionate with the intensity of cultural/institutional borrowing. Evident dependence on the supposedly more advanced interlocutor is universally interpreted in nationalistic terms as a threat, and the process of political subjugation of Korea in reality could only intensify the anti-Japanese resentment on the side of radical nationalist opposition. The figure of An Chunggmn (1879-1910), a reformer who vocally supported Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) as "the defender of Yellow race against White predators", but then perceived Japan's steps to Korea's eventual annexation as betrayal and became a Korean nationalist hero by assassinating in 1909 ItM Hirobumi (1841-1909), a national hero of Meiji Japan and important figure in Korea's colonization, shows very well the complicities of Korean-Japanese modernization dialogue. Positive interest in Japan as the "flagship of Asia's revival" and the "bulwark" of its anti-Western defences, in paradoxical combination with the record of "heroically punishing" Japan's modernization/imperialist hero, were all substantial in making An into a symbolic figure for Korean nationalism.
The modernization dialogue between Korea and Meiji Japan certainly was structurally lop-sided. While Koreans themselves considered their struggle to learn "modernity" from its Japanese regional pioneers and respond to the colonial oppression and misrepresentation of Korea/Koreanness the key element of the modernization process, Japanese satisfaction with "successful civilizational mission in Korea", albeit important for the growing imperialist consciousness, hardly was of any comparable proportions. We have a clear case of what Y.Lotman (1922-1993) used to define as an "asymmetrical dialogue", the type of inter-cultural conversation centred on one-sided implanting of a semantic system perceived as model. It is important to remark here that Yu. Lotman, following the logic of his cultural analysis, viewed these "asymmetrical dialogues" as usually highly creative and conducive to "cultural rebellions" - culture-receiver, on certain stage, always seeks to re-assert itself through claiming differences with or superiority to the hegemonic interlocutor. In the context of (post)colonial encounters, "cultural rebellion" may be equalled to the formation of indigenous nationalism. Close to Lotman's logic is also the recent trend to give more positive appraisal to Occidentalism - practice of consciously emulating what is perceived as modern, Western codes and structures in non-Western societies affected by Western hegemonic domination. As Xiaomei Chen argues, Occidentalism, a discursive strategy of "modern" self-appropriation by the non-Western cultures affected by Western expansion, may empower its proponents to undermine traditional structures of ideological oppression and claim their share of hegemonic power in indigenous society from the entrenched elites. John Fitzgerald's re-appraisal of China's Occidentalist nationalism show also the length the indigenous nationalist "resistant voices" could go to in their struggle against (semi)colonial/dominant misrepresentation of Chineseness. Strongly Occidentalist projects of "renovation of Chinese people" both on the left and right sides of the political spectrum were the main tactic displayed in this struggle for self-appropriation. The case of the "asymmetrical dialogue" between The Independent and Meiji's "modernity" presents us with very similar patterns. The program of "learning from West/Japan" advocated by the Occidentalists of The Independent, certainly was crucial for their attempts to subvert the cultural hegemony of the Confucian traditionalists and re-shape the structures of cultural authority in Korea in favour of younger, Western-oriented elite intellectuals. But it also displayed rebellious, resistant voice in its detailed nationalistic refutations of what was (mostly rightfully) perceived as Japanese slights upon Korean ethnicity, as well as persistence in its admonitions to the Korean readership to "renovate" itself so that not to be subject to contemptuous misrepresentations. And politically, while welcoming trade with and investments by the Japanese in principle, it assiduously warned the Korean public of the dangers the regional pioneer of progress might present for Korea's own independent progressive future.
2. "Japan" in The Independent.
The Independent (Tongnip Sinmun) was published from April 7th,1896 until December 4th, 1899, by a dedicated group of Western-educated reformers, headed by SO Jaep'il (1864-1951), a yangban (gentry) and former participant of aborted 1884 coup who then went to America via Japan, became naturalized - under the name of Philip Jaisohn - in 1890, and obtained his M.D. from Columbia University in 1892. He returned to Korea as an adviser to pro-Japanese reformist government on December 26, 1895, and began the newspaper after King Kojong (r. 1863-1907)'s historic flight to Russian Legation (February 11, 1896), with close support of new, pro-Russian and pro-American regime. The newspaper was bilingual, Korean part being edited by Chu Sangho (alias Chu SigyOng, 1876-1914; became a famous nationalistic linguist afterwards), and English - by several foreign missionaries. But, as King Kojong became weary of SO Jaep'il's radicalism and The Independent's campaign against presumably too pro-Russian ministers, the royal favour to the newspaper enterprise began to run out. From May 12, 1898, as SO Jaep'il was forced to return to USA, the editorship passed to Yun Ch'iho (1865-1945), another famous America-educated intellectual with vast Japanese experience. Under his leadership, Korean edition of The Independent, previously printed three times a week, became a daily newspaper with circulation about 1500 copies. Initially, both Korean and English editions were two part of a single newspaper, but then they were separated from January 1897 onward, and the English edition was printed only 3 times a week until the very end. Both vernacular and English editions were discontinued in December 1899 due to the changed circumstances: Yun Ch'iho, the leader of reform-minded Independence Club (Tongnip hyOphwe), which was forcibly dissolved in November 1898, had to leave Seoul, and the newspaper passed under the management of missionaries who eventually found it impossible to continue publication. The radicalism of SO Jaep'il and his associates brought about, in the end, strong reactionary response and serious persecutions against many of the Independence Club activists.
SO Jaep'il's ideas and role were subject to heated debates in South Korean academia in the 1980s, when, with left-wing militantly anti-American nationalism burgeoning, Occidentalist projects of modernity first came under serious questioning. While the traditional viewpoint on the ideological inclinations of the SO Jaep'il-led pro-American reformers' group describes them as "enlightenment" and characterize SO himself as "Korean Voltaire" and Korea's first linguistic nationalist (as he printed Korean part of The Independent in pure Korean alphabet, almost without using Chinese characters) revisionist historians of the 1980s - early 1890s emphasized his "statist" (kukkwOnjumijOk), elite-centred view of civic rights, Euro-centric and Social Darwinist background of his understanding of "civilization", as well as subsequent "defeatism" (p'aebaejumi) in his views on Korea's development - once Korea would follow China in its perceived failure to civilize itself, imperialistic grab of its territory and national rights was seen by SO as historically inevitable. While agreeing that SO's Occidentalism certainly can be described as a form of self-peripherizing, and essentially Euro-centric thinking, the present author still insists that his model of Meiji-like catch-up development did represent also a form of early nationalist resistance to the political threats/cultural misrepresentation faced by the Korea/Koreans at that time. As for his "statist" approach, it is undeniable that his idea of "civilizing" Korea through transplanting generalized "Western" ideas and institutions did emphasize - in full accordance with Japanese example - strong developmental state (as well as unquestioned loyalty to it on the part of the subjects), state-promoted internalization of "modern" discipline on personal level, and state-driven campaigns against supposedly backward local culture (Chinese acupuncture, shamanism, etc.). At the same time, his view of "modernity" cannot be reduced to its oppressive and destructive aspects exclusively. Lots of "modernization" questions vital to the underprivileged - first and foremost, the unchecked official corruption that virtually nipped in the bud the sprouts of the capitalist growth from below in the country - were often addressed by The Independent. SO Jaep'il's radical subversion of traditional Confucian hegemony did have a liberating effect, giving the "floor" to the suppressed narratives of the multitudes of established elites' underprivileged victims.
1). One of the statements in The Independent that could not but invite fierce criticisms from the anti-imperialists of the 1980s, is SO Jaep'il's friendly characteristic of Japanese Minister to Korea, Komura JutarM (1855-1911) - incidentally, the very person who was instrumental in thwarting SO Jaep'il's earlier attempt to establish a newspaper before Kojong's flight to Russian Legation and collapse of the pro-Japanese cabinet. Komura, a Harvard graduate and future architect of Japan's continental policy, was first mentioned by the English edition of The Independent in the following terms:
"Hon. J.Komura, the Japanese Minister, has been made Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Korea. We congratulate him and all concerned for he has proven himself to be a man for the position and a very delicate position too" (April 21st, 1896)
While the congratulation cited above may be understood as a simple diplomatic compliment, the following article on Komura and the country he represented from an earlier Korean edition is sufficient to cause nationalistic indignation in Korea today:
"We were glad to hear that Mr. Komura, Japanese Minister, was promoted to Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, and wish all other foreign ministers stationed here to get similar promotion. As Korea and Japan are neighbours and have close commercial and political relationship, we do wish the two governments and two peoples will render mutual help that will lead to mutual benefit. If we will cheat and despise each other in the struggle for small-scale profits, it will harm not only the single individuals but also both peoples; if the two governments will not be close, the two people will not like each other, and that will very negatively affect mutual commerce. (..) Two years ago Japan won over China, and Korea became a clearly independent state. That is the reason Koreans might feel gratitude towards Japan, and the reason there are no Koreans actually grateful to Japan now is just that Korea-residing Japanese, unaware about wider implications, concentrate on small profits and treat Koreans badly. Other reason is complicity of some Japanese in August incident (assassination of Korean Queen Min by Japanese and pro-Japanese Korean troops on August 20th, 1895, - V.T.). That is why, before feeling gratitude, Koreans do first feel suspicions and anger. Thus, the contacts between two countries do not get closer, and, on the contrary, are constantly frustrated, only on account of a few unapt Japanese who cannot rightly understand the real intentions of their own government and continuously cause incidents and troubles."
SO Jaep'il's stated believe in good intentions of the Japanese government that "won independence from China" for Korea, certainly does not match today's conventional patterns of historical thinking, and is sufficient to provoke nationalist ire. However, judged from the viewpoint of Korea's 1890s reformist elite, both radicals and moderates, who considered the cause of Korea's self-strengthening a victim of Chinese harassment in the period of Chinese domination over Seoul policies (1884-1894), that was rather a commonplace. The idea that "obstinate and reactionary" China was defeated by "progressive and reformed" Japan to the benefit of Korea - now enabled to "regenerate itself after the decades of degrading Sinophilia" - was a main staple of contemporary European publications on Far Eastern affairs, zealously taken up by the whole of Korea modernizing, Occidentalist elite. As a typical example, Yi Smngman (1875-1965)'s program pamphlet, Tongnip chOngsin (The Spirit of Independence; 1904), were Japan's victory over China was called "a strike of good luck", as it "thankfully, dispersed the black clouds of China's wicked power over Korea", may be cited. Thus, SO Jaep'il's statement of gratitude to Japan was rather a sign of his belonging to the cohort of the country's Occidentalist leaders, than a token of any special pro-Japanese sympathies. In fact, post factum, in one of his memoirist publications of the later 1930s, SO Jaep'il compared Komura with Yuan Shih-k'ai, characterizing both as the "hidden hands" beyond the pro-Japanese governments of 1894-1895 and the pro-Chinese government before June, 1894, respectively. But even then, he preferred to blame mainly what he called "decadence and impotence of the people of Korea" for the abuses of Japanese domination.
At the same time, SO Jaep'il went in his criticism of the Japanese residents' rude and denigrating behaviour towards Koreans as far as the rules of diplomatic politeness allowed, stating frankly that suspicions and anger were what Koreans felt towards Japan at the first place. Afterwards as well, The Independent used to publish many outspoken accounts of the instances of "colonial" behaviour towards Koreans by the Japanese in Korea, thus being one of the few resistant voices to struggle against the everyday aspects of imperialist violence.
The same vernacular article contains a succinct description of Japan's envied "modernization", which shows many important aspects of SO Jaep'il's views on Japan:
"30 years ago, Japan was even less open than Korea. After the trade relationship with the West were established, Iwakura Tomomi, SaigM Takamori, Lkubo Toshimichi, Lkuma Shigenobu, Fukuzawa Yukichi, and others exhausted all the efforts to enlighten the ignorant people, reform the government and educate the populace. Commerce and agriculture were learned from abroad, methods of the production of goods and all kinds of noble subjects were studies in foreign countries, and, as a result, today's Japan is more civilized and enlightened than Japan of the old days".
This eulogy to Japan's elite-driven revolution from above is interesting not only by finding the rationale for strengthening the positions of Korea's own modernizing elite in the Japanese example, but also because of the visible efforts to show the achievability of the reforms. Japan, which was "even less civilized than Korea" before the beginning of Meiji adventure, serves here as a tangible example of the viability of SO Jaep'il's own reformist project.
Then, the article ends with a picture of what SO Jaep'il considered to be an ideal mode of Korean-Japanese relationship:
"When Japan, at the point of advising Korean government, wishes to do it in Korea's government and people's best interests, she should not get excessively attached to the small rights, but should, instead, treat Korea as a neighbourly brotherly state, and treat Koreans as friends. It should help Korean people with the powers of reason, raising up their love of independence, teaching them laws and philosophy of loyalty to the sovereign and saving the people, and doing everything for the successful implementation of new ways and methods. After doing so, Japanese will be thought about with gratitude, as good old friends of Korea. If the Japanese residents in Korea will be working with a thought about their government's intentions and pronouncements, Korea will become a really independent state, and the exchanges between the two countries will be closer. It will benefit commerce, but also will strengthen Asia in general. I wish that the intelligent people of Japan will not despise Koreans and provoke mutual displeasure. New Minister Plenipotentiary of Japan is a graduate of an American university, very knowledgeable about Korean affairs. We believe that during his tenure as Minister, the relationship between the two countries will become closer, and the two people will assist each other to the mutual benefit"
With a grain of Pan-Asianism (idea of "strengthening Asia in general"), SO Jaep'il includes Japanese "modern" expertise into his well-known master plan of "speedy development of Korean resources (...) under expert foreign tutelage" he proclaimed in the first issue of the newspaper.
2). What kind of "neighbourly participation" was expected from Japan in the process of developing Korea, is explained in more details in the editorial of April 18th English edition:
"Korea has about the same area as Japan but only one third the population. This has much to do with the question as to what the future of Korea is to be. It is true that at the present moment a coldness has sprung up between the two but in the long run business interests will assert themselves, and Korea and Japan are so situated and their business interests so dovetail the one into the other that whatever their relations may be politically, their business relations cannot but be intimate. (...).
The relation of Korea's area to her population shows that she is capable of producing vastly more than her people can consume. It follows that the exports from Korea must increase as fast as Korean opens up her agricultural and mineral resources. (..) Korea has so much room in herself and so much to absorb the attention of the people that the carrying trade will for many a decade fall to the lot of others. That it will be Japan is as evident as anything as anything can be in these days of rapid changes. Japan does almost the whole of the carrying trade of Korea and no competitor is in sight.
In the second place Japan is becoming more and more a land of manufacturers. Woollen, cotton, and silk manufactories are springing up all over the land. (...). Already this tendency has far outrun Japan's capacity for producing the raw material, and she is looking in all directions for it. Korea is nearest to her and easiest of access; she has the most spare area that is cultivable, and her soil, climate and temperature are eminently suited to supply the very things that are there wanting. The southern provinces of Korea produce a cotton of superior quality, and her northern provinces abound in the most admirable timber. Both bituminous and anthracite coal are found in large quantities and as Japanese manufactories increase and her merchant marine multiplies Korean coal mines will be called into requisition. Korea's capacity for silk culture is practically unlimited. (...). As Japanese energies become directed more and more toward manufacturing, she will demand more and more foodstuff from abroad. Here also Korea will supplement Japan to a marked degree. Already Korean rice has obtained a firm foothold in the Japanese market and at times the carrying capacity of all the vessels plying to the Korean ports has been quite inadequate for its transportation. (...).
A third important consideration relates to the vast tracts of land in Korea that are too hilly for successful cultivation. There is one and only one way by which these could be made to yield a splendid revenue. It is by sheep raising (italics in the original, - V.T.). If the Korean people could supply the Japanese woollen mills with their raw material they could at one stroke utilize their thousands of squire miles of steep hill sides, give occupation to thousands of their people and secure a steady and rich revenue to themselves. (...).
We are all aware of inborn and inbred antipathy between the two races but that need not interfere seriously with these commercial relations. (...). There are plenty of capable Koreans to act as agents and middlemen between the Japanese factory and the Korean field. (...)"
The article looks as a blueprint for involving Korea into a course of "dependent development" so characteristic for the latecomers into the capitalist world-system. In world-system theory terms, Japan was to act as a regional core state (or semi-core in the terms of world-system as a whole), while Korea was supposed to become Japan's new periphery, supplying it with raw products (minerals, foodstuffs, textile raw materials, etc.) in exchange for the manufactured goods. Among the scholars analysing the development of Korean-Japanese economic relations from 1876 onward, there is actually little doubt on that from the very beginning of mutual trade, Korea did become Japan's periphery in economic terms, exporting mainly rice and other foodstuffs (together with gold and some minerals) and importing manufactured goods, mostly British-made in the beginning, but also with increasing proportion of Japanese production towards mid-1890s. So, the article was rather an approval of an existing trend than a novel project for Korea's economic development.
For better understanding of SO Jaep'il's positive - and somewhat fatalistic - view of Korea's dependent development course of the 1880s-1890s, it is important to remember that the idea of reliance on the industrial and commercial capabilities of Japan, region's first modernizer, and developing Korea through the export of the raw stuffs, was part and parcel of the Korean reformers' views on the country's economic future from the very beginning of Korea's post-traditional intercourses with Japan. One of the first reformers to voice the belief was Yi Tongin (?-1881) - the enigmatic Buddhist monk who came to Japan to study as early as in June 1879, and acted as a middleman between Japanese and Korean politicians until his sudden disappearance (likely to be an assassination) in the beginning of 1881. In his 2 hours-long talk with Japanese envoy, Hanabusa Yoshimoto (1842-1917), which took place on April 25th, 1880 (Gregorian calendar), Yi Tongin suggested that Korean agricultural products and minerals might be of great use for Japan, while Japanese capitals were essential for developing Korean mines, and Japanese goods might well compete with Western manufactories on the Korean market. Attention to Japan as region's biggest capital market was characteristic of both radical and moderate reformers. The plans for raising a loan from Japan were - without much success - promoted by Kim Okkyun and his radical group already in 1883-1884. A well-known moderate reformer, Yu Giljun (1856-1914), who collaborated closely with Kim Okkyun's group before the latter's aborted 1884 coup, even wrote a detailed treatise on modern state loan obligations in 1883, and promoted publication of several articles on interstate and commercial loans in governmental newspaper, HansOng sunbo, in 1883-1884. N Yunjung (1848-1895), Yu Giljun's close political ally who was the Finance Minister in the pro-Japanese governments of 1894-1895 - and who was known as a moderate reformer with a deep interest to Korea's long-term development prospects - was planning to borrow around 8 mln. Yen from Japan for the sake of developing Korea's industries (primarily, mining), commercial shipping, etc. Those plans were aborted by the collapse of the pro-Japanese regime after Kojong's flight to Russian Legation (February 11, 1896). While the activities of the pro-Japanese cabinets of 1894-1895, clearly influenced in no small degree by the intentions and needs of the Japanese government, are often subject to criticisms by today's historians as lacking in independence or detrimental to Korea's national interests, it should be remembered that purchases of Japanese machinery (paper-making machines, gunpowder-making machines, etc.), books, and small-scale invitation of Japanese specialists and technicians were promoted, through Korea's permanent Legation in Tokyo, already in 1887-1894, all Chinese pressure notwithstanding. The 1880-1890s reformers of whatever political persuasion seemingly considered technological dependence on the region's new core state an inescapable stage Korean reforms were to go through. And the only ones to be blamed for Korea's visible peripherization, were, in their opinion, Koreans themselves. Traditional Confucian moralism, blended with strong Social Darwinist believes, led almost all kindred spirits of Yu Giljun to blaming Korean "laziness" and "lack of aptitude" for the diminished stature of the country in the new system of international exchanges. Explaining modern commodity production and trade in his monumental Record of Personal Experience in the West (SOyu GyOnmun: written around 1889, and first published in 1894), Yu Giljun finds the following reason for the plight of poor resource-exporting countries:
"(...). As all the knowledgeable people know, the merchandise is generally classified into natural and manufactured goods. In these countries were the number of idle parasites is small, natural goods are rarely exported, but the production of manufactures prospers. These countries have to buy the natural goods from other lands, and then process them with their skills and technology. As the processed manufactured goods are afterwards shipped back to the suppliers of the resources, it looks as if these manufacturing countries, their own lack of resources notwithstanding, can own and use the resources of others. But the countries were idle parasites abound, even if they have plentiful resources, have to ship these resources to the manufacturing lands and then buy the finished goods, for they lack both in skills and technology. England, for example, as known in the world as a land of scant natural resources, but it is the biggest manufacturer among all the countries, and the reason for this is complete absence of idle parasitic populace there. So, as we can see, strength and wealth of a country depend on diligence or laziness of its populace, not on the abundance or scarcity of natural resources. Today's greatness of Western countries, able to control the world's material resources, is due exactly to this quality. African Blacks or American Reds have natural resources, plentiful to the point of even not being very much treasured, and how are they used?"
Not only the failure to join the ranks of manufacturing core countries, but even racial inequality was explicitly blamed on the "losers" and discriminated themselves. This view on the issues known as "unequal trade" or "trade dependency" in today's political economy became rather popular among - mostly Japanese-educated - reformist economists of the 1890-1900s. For example, Yu SmnggyOm (1876-1917), known as the father of modern Korean economics, used to lament too that in country like Korea, with its "laziness, parasitism, and work-loathing customs", no enrichment could be expected, however fast the populace might grow. Dependent development, thus, was considered more or less Korea's unavoidable fate, unless Koreans' "level of civilization" - proverbial minto of Meiji popular world-view - was dramatically raised.
Interestingly, even as an America-based leader of Korean nationalists' pro-independence efforts that gained momentum after the large-scale demonstrations all over colonized Korea on March 1, 1919, SO Jaep'il conceded that Korea might remain economically dependent on Japan even after it would be granted political independence. In a letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Public Ledger, he wrote: "Japan will not lose her economic advantages in Korea whether the country is under her political control or not. (...). A new Korea, under the leadership of those heroic Christians and the self-sacrificing and enlightened men and women, whose capability and patriotism have been amply demonstrated for the last five months, will be quite different from the old Korea, ruled by corrupt and spineless officials. With a strong, progressive, self-governing democracy in Korea as a buffer state, Japan's future will be far more secure from possible attacks on the part of her larger neighbours, such as China and Russia. (...)". Korean buffer state, he assured in another letter, will be also "an asset to Japan's future legitimate expansion of her economic development on the Asiatic continent".
But is should not be also ignored that the above-mentioned article, pronounced believe in the inevitability of Japan-centred dependent development notwithstanding, assuredly talks about the "inborn and inbred antipathy" between the "two races" as a given fact. It is hardly necessary to explain that "antipathy" is not the most exact term for describing the mutual attitudes in the mid-1890s. Japanese Pan-Asianists, typified by Tarui Tokichi, the author of seminal Treatise on Unifying [Japan and Korea into the State of] The Great East (DaitM Gapporon; first printed in 1893), tended to regard Koreans as racial and cultural kin, the closest allies in Social Darwinist "world-wide racial struggle for survival". Of course, their explicit priority was the promotion of Japan's might and prestige, but the attitude towards would-be junior allies, Koreans, was rather somewhat paternalistic - and sometimes openly condescending - but definitely not tinged with antipathy. For their political and cultural antipodes, Fukuzawa Yukichi-led radical Westernizers, Korea was an object of pity and Japan-led "civilizing" through political - and military - intervention and educational and economical penetration, but hardly an object of antipathy. On the Korean side, if only the conservative Confucians were not to be counted, strong antipathy towards Japan could be felt mostly among the commoners directly affected by the consequences of the Korean-Japanese trade - hikes of foodstuff prices, decline of traditional handicrafts, etc. Outbursts of intense antipathy were also regularly provoked by a plethora of big and small violent incidents with direct Japanese participation ranging from the atrocious assassination of Queen Min in 1895 to incalculable cases of cheating, fraud or aggressive behaviour by the Japanese soldiers, traders, and residents. "Antipathy" here seems to refer chiefly to the Korean reaction to these incidents, which were, as we will see below, often and in details reported by The Independent. While accepting Japan's economical imperialism - and, wider, economic inequality between core and periphery of the capitalist world-system - as inevitable, SO Jaep'il was adamantly resistant when it came to Japan's political imperialism, and its reflection in the conquerors-like everyday behaviour of Korea-residing Japanese. Positive attitude to the existing patterns of the Japan-led economical regionalization did not prevent SO Jaep'il from being as nationalistically sensitive to the "insults from outside" as Meiji Japanese were themselves in relation to the West. Face to face with Japan's "menacing model", SO Jaep'il and the likes combined strong affirmation of the neighbour's advancement with the growing resentment that was to become an emotional background for Korea's early nationalism.
3). Very soon after the above-cited lecture on the prospects of Korea's Japan-assisted development appeared in The Independent, Japan was mentioned at length once again. May 12, 1896 English editorial described Japan's industrial successes and their underlying logic in the following way:
"The are many papers in the home land (USA, - V.T.), which ridicule the idea that Japan is or will be a serious competitor in the markets of the world. We think differently and can show more or less reason for our belief.
In the first place notice that in these days of minute division of labour the manufacture of even delicate instruments is largely a matter of turning a crank. Machinery does it all, and there is less call for this all around, intelligent skill in the individual that was found a century ago. Now the Japanese are celebrated for their deftness, and they can learn to run machinery and they have learned to run it about as well as the Westerner. They have not as yet gotten machinery of a fine enough quality to begin to compete seriously with English or American goods in those countries, but look at the vast quantities of goods that are shipped from Europe to supply Eastern peoples who are not extremely particular as to the finish of the goods so long as they can get them cheap (italics in the original, - V.T.). Here is where Japanese competition has already been felt and will be more and more felt. For example, Japanese matches are not quite up to the standard of the Austrian matches in the point of finish, but they light a fire about as well and are astonishingly cheap. It did not take the East long to decide between the two. These Eastern people are not going to pay a large bonus for a little extra finish.
In the second place no enlightened people can at present compete with the Asiatic in the cost of living. Why is it that the Japanese can live on so much less than the American? Simply because the Japanese people have for centuries been schooled in the matter of economy, their population being so large compared with the arable area of the country, while the American people have been living like a young man who has just fallen hair to a great fortune and do not know how to spend it fast enough. (...) We are in sympathy with the demand along the Pacific coast of the U.S. that American labour shall not be called upon to compete with Japanese labour in America. It would mean that the American labourer would have to give up some of his legitimate needs and descend in grade of civilization where he would eat, work and sleep, and little else.
The Eastern market is so vast and the demand is increasing so rapidly that Japan can never supply it, and in the effort to do so the cost of wages will be so enhanced that European goods will still be able to hold their place"
In a word, SO Jaep'il delineates here regionalization of Japanese industrial exports as the most promising trade strategy for Japan, and expresses his believes in the export competitiveness of the Japanese industries on the Asian markets. Such ideas are hardly original: they were rather frequently put forward by the contemporary observers, especially by the Japanese-resident European and Americans, the witnesses to the growth of Japanese production and exports. For example, in his article entitled "Is Japanese Competition a Myth?", Robert P. Porter, a missionary, writes about Japan's textile production and exports in the following way:
"It is not so much the quantities of these articles exported to the United States that has given alarm, but the sudden manner in which Japanese have, metaphorically speaking, thrown their hats into the American market, and challenged our labor and capital with goods, which, for excellence and cheapness, seem for the moment to defy competition, even with the latest labor-saving appliances at hand. Those who have any doubt as to the reality of Japanese competition should glance at the windows of our leading carpet and upholstery establishments. There they will find, during these summer months, large quantities and infinite variety of cool-looking mattings and blue and white cotton rugs from Japan. (...). In the early days of missionary work, the good Mrs. Jellybys used to hem moral pocket handkerchiefs for the little heathen. To-day the heathen Japanese have turned the tables on the Christian nations and cornered the world's market for silk handkerchiefs, exporting for the last few years 100,000,000 of these useful articles. Look at the big pile of the tooth-brushes at the window of the corner drug store. Sometimes they are sold for ten cents each, sometimes given away with a twenty five cent box of tooth powder. These brushes are made in Japan. (...). It may be urged that the quality of these cheap good is poor. That is true, but the Japanese, while making at this price, are also making at $ 8 gold per gross a superior grade of tooth-brush for which we pay forty and fifty cents apiece at a fashionable drug store. (...). Matches are a small article, but last year Japan exported, mostly to China, nearly five million dollars' worth, and this year her export of his small article will probably exceed this figure. Their safety matches can be bought for fourteen silver dollars (...) for 7,200 boxes. Can Sweden compete at this price? Can the United States? It is doubtful. (...). The Japanese are making every preparation, by the formation of guilds and associations, to improve the quality and increase the uniformity of their goods. (...). The future situs of the cotton industry, at least to supply the Asiatic trade, is bound to be in China and Japan. (...). All this is sad, and discouraging and humiliating, I know, but it is true as gospel. That it is true, would seem to be one reason why the people of the United States must look at the question of Japanese competition free from all sentimental considerations. (...) We must protect our own industry and our labor. (...). When Japan is fully equipped with the last machinery, it will, in my opinion, be the most potent industrial force in the markets of the world"
The observations by SO Jaep'il and R.P.Porter, centred on Japan's ability to utilize the advantages of cheap labor and modern machinery to conquer world - and particularly Asian - markets, look rather similar. But underlying emotions are different. While SO Jaep'il describes Japan's export growth in rather neutral, or even approving tones - but concedes that the American labour should be protected from the Japanese competition, - PR.P.Porter emphatically expresses his apprehensions about coming trade dominance of "heathen" Japan, and urges protective actions by American politicians, effectively putting forward an economic version of a "Yellow Peril" theory of sorts. Soberer, less emotional tone of SO Jaep'il's editorial may also testify to some elements of regionalist thinking in his worldview: as Korea's place inside Japan's economic sphere of influence looked more or less predestined, Japan's trade advance may have looked to him a key to an improvement in Korea's fortunes as well. Actually, his pronounced believe in the vastness of the "Eastern markets" for cheaper Japanese goods echoed manifold assertions by the contemporary Japanese businesspeople and politicians that competition in the Chinese market, immensely vast and poorly saturated, would not lead to any clash of Japanese, European, and American trade interests.
Still, SO Jaep'il's regionalist beliefs notwithstanding, he preferred to emphasize his "Victorian" - thoroughly Americanised - habits in his private life, and seemingly considered patronizing Japanese shops himself beneath his dignity of a naturalized American. Later, he remembered his Seoul life in the following way:
"There were a few Japanese importing houses in Seoul, but for some reason the Americans did not patronize them much. I was told that some of the Japanese merchants of those days were not of the high-type businessmen, as they often practiced unethical and unbusiness-like tricks on their customers. That sort of conduct naturally destroyed confidence of the public and as a result it jeopardized their own interests".
He also commented rather negatively on an "uncomfortable and unheated" Japanese inn he had to stay for a night immediately after his return to Korea in 1895. These judgements correspond with SO Jaep'il's more general view of the relative success of Japan's "enlightenment", in comparison with Euro-American standards of "civilization":
"Japan recently has freed itself from the old customs, and diligently learned good laws and knowledge from the Western states. Consequently, it became now the strongest and richest in the East, and it is being treated in the world on par with the civilized states. It deserves to be congratulated and praised! But even Japan still cannot be compared to the European states. It has to behave carefully, and to learn more to become genuinely independent."
In a sum, SO Jaep'il - a Presbyterian convert (he was baptized in 1885 in San-Francisco) and "Victorian gentleman" with American citizenship - found Japan, judged by the standards of the "civilized states", rather lacking. But in the same time, SO Jaep'il - a pragmatic, realistic politician, journalist and observer - acknowledged the unavoidability and certain progressiveness of Japan's economical dominance on the Korean peninsula - and in the region as a whole - regardless of the question of Korea's political independence. And emulation of Japanese experience in the matter of "catching up with Europe's centuries-old civilization in a few decades" first advocated by SO Jaep'il's senior colleagues - Kim Okkyun and other leaders of the ill-starred 1884 Kapsin coup - was, according to SO Jaep'il, the only way to preserve Korea's independence, although Japan's political intentions as such were not to be fully trusted.
It should be also noted that, while the degree to which SO Jaep'il could identify itself with American cultural space was somewhat exceptional even in the radical reformers' circles of the mid-1890s (even SO Jaep'il's closest collaborator, Yun Ch'iho, himself an American university graduate, confessed once in his diary that racial boundary made impossible for him to identify himself with America completely), the idea of emulating Japan's shortcut to "civilization" gained currency among both the moderate reformers of stronger Confucian background and radicals. The former were impressed with Japan's encouragement of "patriotism" and the cult of kokutai ("national polity"), while the latter admired the range of Japan's "progressive and democratic" developments. Good example of the latter's view of Japan is the following phrase written by Yi Smngman, SO Jaep'il's junior colleague in the Independence Club (Tongnip hyOphwe) movement:
"Fortunately, Emperor Meiji's intelligence and courage prevailed; he quickly understood what was at stake, overcame difficulties, pardoned those who have been accused of treason and entrusted them with important duties; he gradually drove the traditionalists out of power, recruited progressive individuals to implement new laws, and promulgated a constitution creating the upper and lower houses [of parliament] and allowing the people to enjoy the right to discuss national affairs".
4). Emulation of the ascendant regional core power, Japan, being the centrepiece of SO Jaep'il's Occidentalist project, nationalistic resistance to what was (mostly rightfully) perceived as Japanese ethnic and cultural disdain of Koreans, their "colonial behaviour" inside Korea and their attempts to misrepresent Korea and Koreans and to dominate Korea's internal market at the expense of Korea's nascent national capital, was also an important topic for The Independent. Already on the second month of its publication, The Independent carried an editorial strongly critical of Japan's high-handed demands to Korea for governmental compensations of the loss of Japanese life due to the "Righteous Armies" (mibyOng) guerrilla war in the provinces (May 2, 1896, English editorial):
"The claim made by the Japanese Government for an indemnity of $ 5000 for each Japanese life taken by Korean insurgents or others in the country is still before the Korean Government pending settlement. (...). Japan has no other or larger rights in Korea than has England, America, France, or any other power, and her citizens have no rights in Korea that do not pertain to the citizens of any other power in treaty with Korea. This first proposition seems beyond dispute. The second is that the present disturbed condition of affairs in an outcome of the intervention of the Japanese in the politics of Korea. However good may have been Japan's motive in this intervening it is evident that the present state of affairs is due to that intervention. In the third place this disturbed condition of affairs was very greatly increased by the events of October 8th 1895 when, at Japanese instigation, the Queen was murdered. It enraged the people against the Japanese and made it extremely unsafe for any of that nationality to go into the interior.(...). Very few of the Japanese, who have gone into the country during the last year, were provided with passports. (italics in the original, - V.T.). When was it that Japanese subjects were accorded the privilege of travelling at will about the country without passport, to be protected by the Korean government at a risk of $ 5000 a head? With the known combativeness of Japanese merchants in Korea and the rude way they treat Koreans, it would have been folly to have granted them passports excepting on the clear condition that they went at their own risk. (...). The Japanese who were killed in the country were where they had no legal right to be (italics in the original, - V.T.) and the Korean government would be wholly absolved from responsibility in the matter even if there were not evidence that the Japanese were the main cause of the troubles.
But how stands the other side of the account? The Korean Repository strikes the nail on the head when it says: `Kill a coolie in the alley - $ 5000; murder a Queen in her chamber - gomen nasai'.
(...) We believe that Korea and Japan ought to be of great mutual benefit to each other commercially and industrially but it is evident that Japan needs Korea more than Korea needs Japan and so long as Japan goes on intensifying the hatred which Koreans feel toward her so much farther will she be from attaining an end devoutly to be wished - reciprocity between the two countries and the supplementing of the material needs of each by the resources of other. (...)"
As we can see from the article, SO Jaep'il appeals to the highest "civilizational" authority he knows - Korean Repository printed by Western protestant missionaries - in order to subvert Japan's attempt to exploit Korean government's weakness. He reminds his readers that, from Korean Repository's "civilized" view, the Japanese trades killed by Korean "insurgents" are no more than "coolies". He emphatically approves of the West-enforced system of unequal treaties with the "powers" - which, after all, guaranteed him, an American citizen, immunity from attempts unto his life and freedom while he was in Korea - as a whole, while censuring Japan for its intentions to go further than the treaties stipulate in pressuring Korean government. And in the end, he again cites his pet theory of the mutually supplementary nature of Korean and Japanese economies, emphasizing Japan's urgent need in Korea's raw materials - and thus, the necessity to treat Koreans in the way more conducive to the maintenance and development of the economical ties.
Perceived Japanese slights upon Koreans - and especially the Korean officialdom SO Jaep'il wanted to become the driving force of the reforms - also were systematically rebuked by The Independent:
"The Japanese paper in Chemulpo called the Chosen Shimpo in speaking of Korean Government officials calls them by their given name and omits the family name. For instance Pak Chung Yang is called Chung Yang & c. We have no space to give in teaching this sheet what good manners are but we hope the habit will not grow on them or soon they may be calling the English Colonial Secretary `Joe', the President of the U.S., `Grover', and their own sovereign `Micky'" (English edition, May 16, 1896)
The underlying idea of this rather ironic reprimand was that in the international law-governed "modern" world, where, by famous Yu Giljun's expression, there was "no states above the other states and no states below the other states", Korean officialdom's head, King Kojong, was an equal of both American President and Japanese Mikado. It does not need to be repeated that the acquiring of "equal status with all the civilized states" - on the basis of international law and Korean ability to "civilize themselves" - always was one of the key motifs of The Independent's editorials. Interestingly, the Korean version of the rebuke (Korean edition, May 16) was seemingly intended to emphasize rather Japan's residual "backwardness" than Korea's presumed equality with the "civilized world":
"Japanese newspaper Chosen Shimpo printed in Chemulp'o, calls the ministers of Korean government by their personal names only, without mentioning their family names. It is rudeness not personally to the Ministers concerned, but to the Korean government. We believe that being rude to the government of a foreign country you come to and reside is not what a civilized person is supposed to do".
In combating the "colonial" style of (mis)treating Koreans Korea's Japanese residents became increasingly accustomed to after the Sino-Japanese War, SO Jaep'il actively invoked the "standard" Western norms of international politeness, his Occidentalism thus becoming a tool of nationalistic protest.
The (mis)behaviour of Korea-residing Japanese towards Koreans always was one of the main targets of The Independent's criticism. SO Jaep'il took great pains trying to persuade the Japanese that, apart from being "uncivilized" their abusive practices were counterproductive, due to the inevitability of Korean nationalistic backlash:
"(...) As we have pointed out before, Japan and Korea mean much to each other and though Korea's government be not as advanced as could be wished the wealth and resources are here which, properly developed, would prove a great benefit to Japan. But so long as Japanese merchants and pawn-brokers are allowed to impose upon Koreans, the door to Korea's wealth will be shut tighter and tighter against Japan. We admire Japan and rejoice in her prosperity so long as she is fair and honest but we fear that she has so aroused the hatred of Koreans that even should `fire and sword' wrest from her an indemnity, the key to her wealth would have been lost.
There is just one thing that we would say and say it long enough to reach the ears of those most interested and that is that it makes little difference what kind and benevolent wishes and intentions the Japanese government has toward Korea so long as Japanese merchants are allowed to brow-beat Koreans and bully them into purchasing goods and as the Japanese residents are busy helping unscrupulous money-lenders foreclose mortgages on Korean houses, they will make no progress toward gaining the commercial foothold in Korea that they desire" (English editorial, June 2, 1896).
"Civilizedness" of the Japanese government, with all its "benevolent intentions" - government that Korean progressives "admired" and wished to "emulate" - is contrasted here to the "unscrupulous", violent moneylenders and merchants, already notorious in Korea for their abusive practices. An example of such abuses soon appeared in an English edition of The Independent (September 24, 1896):
"A few nights ago three Japanese tried to force their way into Chong Dong past the Korean guards who were at the front of the brick buildings of the Seoul Improvement Co. The guards stopped them from entering, which caused the Japanese to become much enraged and they began to beat the soldiers with their sticks. The officer in charge came to the scene and tried to pacify them but the irate Japanese tried to turn their sticks on the officer. Col. Nienstead was hurriedly summoned and after his arrival the intruders went away without making further disturbance. Such rowdyism on the part of Japanese residents in Korea has more injurious effect on themselves than to Koreans in the eyes of the world. We hope the Japanese Consul will make a thorough investigation of the matter and punish those who have overstepped the limit of their rights and privileges"
Here again, SO Jaep'il appeals to the "eyes of the world" - the authority of "civilized" Western countries - in his attempt to put the pressure onto the Japanese Legation and force it to tighter control the Japanese residents' behaviour towards their Korean hosts. But, as Yun Ch'iho's diary (November 22, 1902) shows us, the disorderly behaviour of the low-class Japanese in Korea did not leave Korea's European residents in peace as well, and both Japanese Consular authorities and Western opinion were powerless to redress the victims' grievances:
"Some month ago, the Japanese collies in Chemulpo assaulted a European, of the Customs out-door staff, in his room and, tying a rope around his neck, they dragged him about through the street like a dog until a Japanese policeman put the coolies to flight. The Japanese Consul actually refused to arrest the dastardly Japanese on the ground that, the day being a festival occasion, the coolies had been drunk; and that they, being drunk, could not be held accountable for their deeds. This was cool enough even for the last summer. What a hell and devil the European Minister or consul would have raised, had the assailants been Koreans!"
In an earlier interview with The Independent (English edition: July 14; Korean edition: July 16, 1896), a Japanese consul did recognize that the problem of the misdeeds of "inferior Japanese law-class adventurers" existed, and promised to take the measures to eradicate the evil, but the effect of his efforts did not seem to be significant. At the same period, the problem of Japanese settlers' crimes was a cause for serious worries even on the very top of Meiji hierarchy: Nkuma Shigenobu seriously feared that the influx of "corrupt, coarse, arrogant, rough, violent, fraudulent, and bullying" Japanese would lead Japan to a failure in Korea.. SO Jaep'il's warnings that Japanese bullying attitudes may gravely jeopardize the trade, were not totally ignored.
But can we fully agree with conventional opinion that SO Jaep'il was a champion of natural human rights and a first "democrat" of Korea? Although he did champion that concept ideologically, the behaviour of this "Victorian gentleman" in the "half-civilized" Korea did not always conform to the standards he helped so much to popularise. Yun Ch'iho's diary (January 1, 1898) tells the following story that was seemingly a talk of the day in Seoul's "progressive" circles:
"Dr. Jaisohn is accused of having never paid a visit to the grave of his former wife who, rather than to be disgraced, committed suicide in '84. When her father, old (italics in the original, - V.T.) and poor, called on the Dr. after his return to Seoul, the son-in-law gave the old man two dollars which the latter didn't take. I know positively that Dr. J. is not over-sentimental but I can't believe such a story on him. Certainly he has alienated the love of many of his former friends among whom are Mun Yu Yong and Han Sei Chin by his coldness and arrogance. Han was shocked to see Jaisohn kicking a collie on the street who dare to go near Dr. Jaisohn"
Obviously, to champion the "civilized" ideas of human rights, and to be able to check "Victorian" disdain to the "natives" - seemingly coupled with lingering yangban arrogance towards the "base folks" - are two vastly different things. While struggling to "civilize" Korea, largely along the Japanese blueprints, and to simultaneously defend it from Japanese bullying on various levels, SO Jaep'il did not identified himself with the real contemporary Korea outside the gates of predominantly foreign-populated ChOngdong quarter. In his Occidentalist imagination, he already was a perfectly "civilized" human being, predestined to lead his less fortunate compatriots up the ladder of progress, but not to stand equal with them in their present "uncivilized" state.
3. Concluding Remarks:
The importance of The Independent's pioneer venture in popularising the Occidentalist projects of "re-creating" Korea on constitutional basis and with active mass participation cannot be overestimated. Although the illiteracy of the majority of Korea's peasants practically excluded them from the "public" The Independent could appeal to, the fact that elite reformers "above" began to "enlighten" - at least, the literate - "masses" (mostly city dwellers of some means, smaller gentry or richer peasants) "below" to their new role as subjects of nationalistic modernizational politics, was itself a landmark in Korean history. The linguistic nationalists of The Independent, in their attempt to vernacularize the Western concepts pertaining to the "enlightenment and civilization", and use them for constructing a basis for more participatory politics, had to utilize the Japanese-coined translations for the Western words in question, putting them, as a result, into long-time usage in modern Korean language. "Equal rights" (p'yOngdmng kwOlli), "natural rights" (ch'Ongsaeng-mi kwOlli), "right to freedom" (chayugwOn) - all these Japanese-coined logographical expressions were Koreanized by The Independent. In this way, SO Jaep'il's acceptance of Japan's regional economic hegemony and Korea's dependence on the new-born semi-core state on its eastern border had an important ideological aspect: not only capital, manufactured goods and blueprints for Korea's own growth were to be imported from the new regional hegemonic state, but the ideological matrixes of the "modernity", the logographical translations of the "modern" terms, as well. Emulated up to the level of directly borrowing the "modern" terminology, Japan certainly was SO Jaep'il's model. But both its perceived half-civilized level and its obvious political ambitions on the Korean Peninsula made it a serious menace as well. Japanese bullying was to be chastised as "uncivilized" behaviour, misrepresentations of Korea by the Japanese newspapers were to be assiduously corrected, and Japanese "lack of good manners" was to be severely judged by the highest "Victorian" standards. In a word, SO Jaep'il's nationalistic resistance to Japan's aggression took strongly Occidentalist forms: Japan's behaviour was criticised as "uncivilized", not simply aggressive or injurious to Korea. Today, when the 19th C. "civilizational" projects tend to be perceived more as an expression of imperialist cultural arrogance, it is certainly easy to criticise SO Jaep'il's blind points, his auto-Orientalist attitude towards Korea's tradition being certainly the most serious of his shortcomings. Yet, it should be remembered that in the world of the later 19th C. triumphant imperialism SO Jaep'il lived in, the Occidentalist "regeneration" of Korea along Meiji lines indeed was the only alternative to a much less savoury prospects of "civilization" of Korea under either Meiji (or Russian) leaders. The subjunctive mood is of little use in history, but it is undeniable that Kojong's ill-advised policy of confrontation against and oppression of the Independence Club did lead - however unwillingly - to the further weakening of the country at the face of mounting pressures from the two main candidates for dominance of the Peninsula - Japan and Russia.