People & Histories
1910–1945

Japanese colonial rule

Japan annexes Korea and rules it for thirty-five years, modernising the economy for its own ends while suppressing Korean identity and, in wartime, mobilising Koreans as labourers, soldiers and "comfort women".

  • Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 — Mark E. Caprio, University of Washington Press (2009)
  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)
  • The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan — C. Sarah Soh, University of Chicago Press (2008)
  • Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II — Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Columbia University Press (2000)
  • Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History — Bruce Cumings, W. W. Norton (1997)

Well established colonialismidentitytraumamemory

Part of the story of Koreans and Japan.

Japan made Korea a protectorate after defeating Russia in 1905 and formally annexed it on 29 August 1910. The last emperor, Sunjong, lost his throne, and the country was ruled by a Japanese governor-general, always an army or navy officer, from Seoul.

  • A Concise History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present — Michael J. Seth, Rowman & Littlefield (2016)
  • The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press (1995)

Three phases

The first decade, often called “military rule”, was harsh: military police kept order, Korean newspapers and political groups were banned, and a cadastral land survey (1910–18) transferred much land claimed under unclear titles to the colonial state and Japanese companies. Anger exploded in the March 1st Movement of 1919. Tokyo then shifted to “cultural rule”, allowing Korean-language newspapers and some associations while expanding police surveillance.

  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)
  • Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 — Mark E. Caprio, University of Washington Press (2009)

From the late 1930s, as Japan went to war with China and then the Allies, policy turned to forced assimilation. Koreans were made to recite oaths as imperial subjects and worship at Shinto shrines. Korean was dropped from the school curriculum. In 1940 families were pressed to adopt Japanese-style names; around 80% registered new names. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were mobilised to work in mines and factories in Japan and across the empire, and from 1944 young men were conscripted into the army.

  • Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 — Mark E. Caprio, University of Washington Press (2009)
  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)
  • Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History — Bruce Cumings, W. W. Norton (1997)
In Japan itself, after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, vigilantes and police murdered thousands of Korean residents on the strength of false rumours.
  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)

The “comfort women”

Tens of thousands of women and girls from across the empire, with Koreans probably the largest group, were taken into military brothels serving Japanese troops, many through deception, debt or force. For decades they lived in silence and shame. In August 1991 Kim Hak-sun became the first Korean survivor to testify publicly, and others followed. In 1993 Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei acknowledged the military’s involvement and apologised, but later denials by some Japanese politicians reopened the wound. Weekly protests have been held outside Japan’s embassy in Seoul since 1992, and statues of a girl in hanbok now sit in Korean towns and abroad.

  • The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan — C. Sarah Soh, University of Chicago Press (2008)
  • Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II — Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Columbia University Press (2000)
  • Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of comfort women — Yohei Kono, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1993)

Development or exploitation?

The colonial state built railways, ports and, in the 1930s, heavy industry, mostly in the north. Some economic historians see roots of later growth here; most Korean historians stress that the economy served Japan, that Koreans were kept out of senior positions and education, and that rice consumption per Korean fell as rice was exported.

  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)
  • Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History — Bruce Cumings, W. W. Norton (1997)

A divided legacy

Liberation came on 15 August 1945, still celebrated as Gwangbokjeol, “the restoration of light”. But many colonial-era police and officials kept their posts in the South under US occupation, and the failure to purge collaborators became a lasting grievance. Japan and South Korea normalised relations in 1965 with a treaty that gave $300 million in grants and $200 million in loans, which Park Chung-hee’s government used for development. Whether that treaty extinguished individual victims’ claims has been fought over in Korean and Japanese courts ever since.

  • Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History — Bruce Cumings, W. W. Norton (1997)
  • The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea — Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel (eds.), Harvard University Press (2011)

How it's seen
Korean mainstream view

The annexation was forced on Korea and illegal. Colonial rule was exploitation, not development: land and rice flowed to Japan, Koreans were second-class subjects, their language and names were attacked, and in wartime hundreds of thousands were forcibly mobilised. Japan's apologies have been undermined by politicians who deny or minimise these facts.

  • Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 — Mark E. Caprio, University of Washington Press (2009)
  • The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan — C. Sarah Soh, University of Chicago Press (2008)
  • Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History — Bruce Cumings, W. W. Norton (1997)

Japanese government and conservative view

The annexation treaty was legally concluded. Japan built railways, schools and industry in Korea. It has apologised, including the 1993 Kōno statement on the comfort women and the 1995 Murayama statement, paid $500 million in grants and loans under the 1965 treaty and contributed to the Asian Women's Fund and the 2015 agreement. Claims were settled "completely and finally" in 1965.

Historians

Most historians agree that Japanese rule was coercive and discriminatory and that the comfort women system involved widespread coercion. They debate how far the colonial economy laid the foundations for later growth ("colonial modernity"), and estimates of the number of comfort women range from under 20,000 to 200,000 or more.

  • Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II — Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Columbia University Press (2000)
  • The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan — C. Sarah Soh, University of Chicago Press (2008)
  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History — Michael E. Robinson, University of Hawai'i Press (2007)

Why it matters today

Koreans

The colonial period is the central wound of modern Korean history and the lens through which many Koreans see Japan. Disputes over apologies, compensation for forced labour, the comfort women, the islets of Dokdo (Takeshima to Japan) and textbooks recur in every generation. Being called "pro-Japanese" (chinilpa), a collaborator, is still one of the worst insults in South Korean politics.

Japan

Many Japanese feel they have apologised repeatedly and that the 1965 treaty settled the past, and grow weary when the issue returns. Others, including many historians and citizens' groups in Japan, have worked to document colonial abuses. The gap between these views shapes every Japan–Korea summit.