Читать книгу Trust and Deception - Hannah K - Страница 21

The main purpose of applying the Imperial bureaucratic system was to abolish the feudalistic status system in which the former regime, the Tokugawa Samurai Regime in Edo Period (1600-1867), had been built. Under the Emperor, all the people should be treated equally and it did not matter where they came from and even what their nationality were. This could be seen after Japan-Korea Treaty in 1907.

After Japan-Korea Treaty in 1907, Japanese government built Keijou Imperial University in order to recruit new bureaucrats to rule the Korean Peninsula. Any Korean person who passed the qualification test for civil servants was allowed to work in Japanese governmental offices as well and was treated according to the same rules as Japanese people in the Japanese bureaucratic system. In this test, the individual’s ability was the only issue and nationality was not a matter of importance. Korean and Japanese people were treated completely equally under this system. The university was closed down by GHQ (1946).

In the Japanese Empire, soon after the social and political reformation during the Meiji Period, some of the Samurai members, who were expelled from the political power system, felt deep resentment against the Meiji Regime and resisted the Regime by becoming traitors or terrorists. They assassinated a lot of political leaders of the Meiji Regime. Some of the leading politicians were assassinated because of the resentment of the collapse of their Samurai system.

Concerning this terrorism based on the resentment by those who belonged to the older power system against the leaders of the new Regime, I would like to mention the case which occurred in the Korean Peninsula in 1909. On October 26^th, Hirobumi Ito, the first Superintendent General of the Korean Peninsula, was assassinated by a man named An Jungeun, who was a descendant of the former yangbang in the Korean Empire, which had held the dominant political power before Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula.

Before the assassination of Hirobumi Ito there had been a strong movement to merge the Korean Empire with the Japanese political system due to the strong pressure from Great Britain and France to prevent the Russian Empire from invading the Korean Peninsula. At first, Ito had objected to this movement because he insisted that it would impose a very heavy burden on the Japanese Regime. But the Japanese Empire Regime ordered him to become a Superintendent General of Korean Peninsula.

Ito had tried hard to modernize the Korean political system. He had abolished the feudalistic Yangban System of the Korean Empire, and introduced the westernized bureaucratic system. He stated, “Soon after the renovation of the Korean System, Japan should return the Korean government back to the hands of Korean people.” This renovation, however, was strongly resented by the Yangban members who had lost all of their political power. Some of them formed anti-Japan groups. Under these circumstances, An Jungeun assassinated Hirobumi Ito.

Before the Annexation, the common Korean people had been repressed by Yangban members, so they did not share the feeling of resentment against the Japanese Empire. The common Korean people hated Yangban class members. Common Korean people had had no chance to gain any political position under the Yangban System. Yangban’s ruling positions had been monopolized by a handful of wealthy prestigious Yangban families.

After the assassination Hirobumi Ito, the Japanese government decided to speed up the merger of the Japanese Empire and Korea because there was no one who objected to the annexation policy, and in 1910, the Japanese Empire-Korea merger treaty was finally signed. The new system always tends to be established at the cost of the old system.

Just like the abolishment of samurai status, the Yangban status was abolished. Literally, Yangban meant two parties; one was engaged in war affairs and the other in bureaucrats. In reality, Yangban were the privileged few. They were atrociously arrogant and their arrogance was written about by a few famous Western travelers, such as Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904), who wrote “Korea and her Neighbors.” According to those Western writers including her, Yangbans were incompetent, greedy and haughty, merciless and brutal.

After the Korea Annexation (1910), the Japanese Empire Regime set up the strategical plan. The government recruited highly-skilled Japanese farmers, and asked them to make model farmlands in the Korean Peninsula. In these farmlands, model Japanese farmers succeeded in growing splendid rice, and reaping a great harvest. On the other hand, after losing political position, Yangban descendants became mere landowners, but since they had no ability to cultivate their farmlands, the farmers in their lands were driven into extreme poverty. They hated their Yangban landowners, and wanted to be hired by the Japanese model rice field leaders.

Through the history of Yi Empire (1392-1910), Yangban had absolute privileges and led quite different lives from those of peasants who accounted for over 98% of all the Korean people. Deep ambivalent, resentment and yearning feelings arouse among poor peasants against Yangban.

In 1980s, there occurred a boom in South Korea, in which quite a few kinship groups tried to make their family tree books. They would try to insert the name of honorable ancestors who had once been told as Yangban. In Jeju Island, which is famous for luxury resort area in modern South Korea, the historical fact indicated that even though Yangban never lived there, the residents there also clearly made up family tree books which include honorable names of Yangban ancestors.

After the Japanese Empire-Korea Annexation Treaty, the Meiji Regime tried to pose the same alteration of political rules on Korean people in the Korean Peninsula, as well, just like the alteration carried out in Japan soon after the Meiji Restoration. In the political rules, the Meiji Regime strongly denied any discrimination based on the traditional status customs. This idea was inherited during the Taisho Period (1912-1926). Under the name of the Emperor, Taisho, “Isshi-do-jin Policy was proclaimed. This meant that all people living in the territories of the Japanese Empire should be treated perfectly as equally” as Japanese. The common view point of lawmakers at that time was that Korea was not a colony at all.

When Premier Taro Katsura (1848-1913) during Taisho era mistakenly alluded to Taiwan as a colony, he had to resign from the position because he was declared as a racist in the Diet Houses in the Japanese Empire. It was true that, in the Korean Peninsula, the elections for lawmakers were never carried out, not because that the Korean Peninsula was Japanese annexation, but because the Japanese Empire Regime thought Korea was filled with foreign spies from the Russian Empire. When a Korean person got the right of permanent residence and started to live in Japan, he could be a representative or a senator of the Japanese Diets. Furthermore, even Japanese citizens in the Korean Peninsula did not have the right to vote there.

Japan has had a long history of good relationship with Korea since the birth of Japan. A lot of Korean culture has been introduced into Japan. A lot of Korean people escaped into Japan from the Korean Peninsula in ancient times owing to the conflicts in the peninsula. Japanese people enthusiastically welcomed Joseon missions, and Korean envoys, to Japan even during the policy of isolation under the Tokugawa Resume. So it is a shame that present South Korea has anti-Japan feelings.