Ch 24 - Japanese Expansion into Korea

Cracks in the Facade

Amidst political in-fighting between the Min clan and supporters of the Taewongun, King Kojong began a conscious and visible effort to expand Korea's knowledge of the outside world. The move toward reforms sealed the government's determination to end Korea's centuries-old life of isolation.

The Taewongun lost none of his political influence nor any of his strident opinions in the years since his forced retirement in 1873. Many people even renewed their once favorable opinion of the former enemy they had ousted from political power. Among the people, hostility toward the expansion of Japanese influence in Korea acted to make an already unstable situation even more volatile. As the polarization of opinion in Korea grew more stark, the Taewongun began planning his own return to power. Queen Min and her relatives became greatly alarmed by the growing popularity of the Taewongun among his former critics and foes, mainly the followers of Yi Hang-no and Choe Ik-hyon. Thus, the conflict between modernization and conservative forces became clouded in a new power struggle between the Taewongun and the powerful Queen Min.

The Min clan led the principal faction favoring accommodation with the West. In their competition for power, neither side hesitated to employ any strategy that had the potential to embarrass the opposition, including the incitement of locals to attack foreigners. Realizing that literati agitation alone would not restore him to power, the Taewongun and his supporters initiated a scheme to remove King Kojong from the throne in the summer of 1881, install the Taewongun's own son, Yi Chae-son, as the new ruler of Korea, and eliminate the factions that advocated enlightenment and modernization. Yi Chae-son led a small group of dissidents, aided by former royal secretaries An Ki-yong and Kwon Chong-ho. Through inept planning, internal bickering and the inability to raise sufficient force to carry it out, the plan collapsed in September, when an informer revealed the plot to the government.

Government authorities swiftly arrested, imprisoned and executed more than thirty of Yi Chae-son's co-conspirators. Although it was virtually common knowledge that the Taewongun was behind the whole affair, he was the sole member of the conspiracy not investigated. Only his position as father of the reigning monarch spared him open indictment and punishment. Yi Chae-son, the Taewongun's eldest son by a concubine, and the king's half-brother, was forced to commit suicide on December 25.

Nearly a full year before "self-strengthening" had become a general topic of debate in Seoul, King Kojong realized that the first step to master the secrets of the modern world had to be knowledge of that world. In the fall of 1879, he secretly dispatched Yi Yong-suk to Beijing to inquire into China's attitude toward accepting Korean students and artists in China for training in military and industrial skills. Li Hongzhang was unreservedly enthusiastic in his support of the request.

On August 14, 1880, Kojong sent his first formal letter on the subject to Beijing in which he mentioned that Korea's weaponry was old and useless and noted his concern for Korea's lack of military preparedness. Li endorsed the training project, but was unwilling to permanently engage the Chinese government in Korea's modernization. He decided to train a limited number of yangban students and artists at the Tianjin Arsenal in military applications of basic science and the manufacture of modern weapons. The student training program was short-lived however, and added very little to Korea's early self-strengthening movement. Plagued by an ill-suited climate, language difficulties and inadequate finances, the students soon returned home to Korea.

By now, nobody in government still believed that Korea could keep its enemies at bay by the sheer force of Confucian moral superiority. It had become obvious that in the future, Korea's security depended on technological and military innovations, and that required a fundamental reorganization of government. Armed with new knowledge, Kojong issued a royal edict to prepare and present organizational rules for the creation and operation of a new government body. This new office would be charged with handling Korea's military matters, its border affairs and its relations with China and Japan. In January 1881, Korea established the Office for the Management of State Affairs (T'ongnigimu Amun), the most important institutional innovation of the late Yi dynasty.

Modeled after the Chinese Foreign Office (Zongli Yamen), the T'ongnigimu Amun moved the government to match more closely the Qing administrative structure. In contrast to the foreign office however, this new umbrella agency had a much wider range of functions and responsibilities. Twelve major departments were formed to deal with Chinese relations, diplomatic affairs with other nations, military affairs, border administration, coastal surveillance, foreign trade, machinery production, military ordnance, shipbuilding, personnel recruitment, foreign language instruction, and special procurement. The office held such importance that its ministers were all of the first rank and it was accorded the same status as the Council of State. Even in the structure of its government Korea began to exhibit a desire to come to grips with the new world situation in which it found itself.

The Japanese had made numerous attempts to convince the Yi government to accept its help in planning and executing Korea's self-strengthening program, but Kojong rejected their assistance, always suspicious of their motives. King Kojong decided that if Korea were ever going to strengthen itself, it first needed to carefully study Japan's industrial and military superiority. A shroud of secrecy surrounded the preparations for a historic inspection mission to Japan that came to be known as "the gentlemen's sightseeing group."

In February 1881, without prior consultation with the Japanese government, the order for the mission was handed down. A total of 64 men were assigned to the mission, including 12 mid-level officials, 27 aides, 12 interpreters (including two Japanese), and 13 support personnel. The instructions given the mission included carefully observing and reporting on the prevailing opinions in the Japanese government, the general situation of the country, Japanese customs, military, industry and foreign trade. Each man was assigned a single government organ or institution for special investigation.

The mission arrived in Nagasaki on May 8 and spent over seventy days traveling throughout Japan. Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru paved the way for an extensive sightseeing itinerary that included Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Tokyo. Korea's secret inspectors visited shipyards, schools, industries, mines, arsenals, mints, hospitals, and prisons and carefully compiled their experiences and impressions from their journey. Everywhere they traveled, they saw a nation deeply immersed in "the atmosphere of Westernization."

Meiji Japan took many of Europe's civil and military structures that appeared after the French Revolution and remodeled them to fit the Japanese vision of a modern nation-state. The Japanese adopted a number of Western institutions to their own designs:  army - France;  navy - Great Britain;  education system - United States;  government - Great Britain;  constitution - Germany. By 1880, the fundamental institutions of a modern Japan were, for the most part, already in place.

The Korean Mission members saw a Japanese government that superficially observed the formalities of the western concept of "division of powers" while simultaneously monopolizing all political power. Instead of reconstructing the old Chinese imperial system, the Meiji government created its own version of numerous administrative functions adopted from modern western institutions. Outside the government, many Japanese enthusiastically campaigned for a constitutional government and an elected assembly. Outwardly, at least, the Korean Mission saw a country that appeared to be moving politically in a modern direction, with a formal division of powers and movement toward a constitutional government.

Economically, Japan had already laid the foundation to build a central financial institution, a prerequisite for a centralized state economy. The Ministry of Finances, established in 1869, held jurisdiction over internal economic policy questions. The Ministry of Industry, established in 1870, built governmental industries, focusing on transportation. They introduced capital investment and technological expertise from Europe in telegraph communications, construction and ship building. With strong guidance from the government, the Japanese instituted modern company laws, unified the monetary system, reformed tax laws, and began encouraging the accumulation of capital as it progressed towards becoming a modern capitalist power.

The Korean Mission also saw the effect of modernization on the Japanese people. In its effort to create a "civilized" people, the Meiji government abolished its hereditary status system, and replaced it with a uniform household registration system. The government abolished slavery and guaranteed freedom of movement and employment. A modern school system, based on the American model, became an important system for uniformly educating Japanese. The Japanese press functioned under regulations that restricted and harshly dealt with criticism of the government, which curbed their effectiveness. Shinto became the state religion as well as a useful tool to unify the populace. In 1873, Japan replaced its old lunar calendar with the European Gregorian calendar. The Japanese even went so far as to prohibit some of their old customs in an attempt to make themselves "look civilized" by Western standards. From Nagasaki to Tokyo, the Korean Mission saw a countryside that had both supported and encouraged the free flow of goods, people and information;  modern postal and telegraph systems, modern sea transportation. Most city roads, illuminated by lamps at night, were filled with rickshaws and carriages.

The Korean Mission members came from a society deeply ingrained with the customs, traditions and intellectual underpinnings of Confucianism. Everything they witnessed and experienced during their visit to Japan had to be filtered through that perspective. Some members, influenced by earlier reformers and enlightened thinkers, were free enough from Confucian traditions to see Japan objectively. The rest could only judge Japan by old Confucian standards.

Japanese study missions abroad considered it important to publish their experiences and share them with the entire nation. The Korean Mission however, proved to be more interested in demonstrating to King Kojong how well they had carried out his secret orders. After returning to Pusan on August 26, the mission members spent nearly two months writing their reports and observations long hand with the help of skilled calligraphers. The final hand-written documents filled over 80 books of reports, each bound with silk, covering what the mission members learned about Meiji industry, politics, military, economy, society, culture, and education.

For three days in October, the twelve officials of "the gentlemen's sightseeing group," in three groups of four, had a royal audience with King Kojong where they personally reported their findings. Hong Yongsik and O Yunjung exemplified those men who took their visit to Japan as an opportunity to advance their own blueprint for Korean reforms. Both men felt very positive about the modernization underway in Japan and envisioned replicating the Japanese Meiji experience in Korea. They believed the Japanese policies supporting fukoku kyohei, "enrich the country, strengthen the military" were appropriate for the situation and were convinced of the need for centralized, state-promoted "reforms from above through enlightenment of people."

The majority of members in the Korean Mission came home unconvinced that Japan had done anything that would cause them to walk away from their deeply held Confucian beliefs. They saw a dramatic decline in Japanese Confucian traditions and could not use their own standards to judge the results. On the surface, they saw a strong and luxurious nation, but they were quite disturbed by what they found by looking deeper;  Japan's economic deficits and the excessive Westernization of everyday life.

Pak Chongyang described Japan's adoption of Western ideas and technology as being "just fond of cleverish things without a thought about the deficiency of its finances." Unable to grasp the concept of investment, he focused instead on the debt incurred by purchasing new equipment and technology. In addition, he described how "Westerners are poking their noses into everything, making the Japanese feel very constrained." Cho Junyong lamented in his report that nothing traditional could be found in the "reformed" Japan. Echoing this opinion, Kang Munhyong commented that, in the long run, to "shamelessly emulate West" meant more losses than gains.

Many of the Korean Mission members did agree on one point;  that "their military system, armaments, machines, and agricultural practices, so far as they strengthen the state and enrich the people, are worth taking example from." They acknowledged that Japan had all the appearances of a strong nation, but they remained critical of Western influences on daily life, customs and financial problems. In the end, the Korean mission reports tilted more against Japan than in support of its modernization. Impressed by the general impact of fukoku kyohei on the country, the mission members viewed Japan's military and industrial achievements to be less than expected and believed a forced modernization program in Korea would only lead to massive debt and eventual economic ruin.

Perhaps the most important perception brought home by the Korean Mission was that only a strong Korea would be safe from Japan's ambitions. The mission advocated that Korea should selectively introduce modern industrial, agricultural, and military technologies needed to guarantee Korea's survival and the people's economic well being, but only to the extent they did not impact Korea's basic traditional values.

So began a conscious and visible effort to catch up with advances in the outside world. There is little doubt about the sincerity of King Kojong's commitment to self-strengthening. The government understood the dimensions of the task and made serious efforts to formulate an adequate policy. However, Korea's mounting financial troubles meant he could not muster the necessary economic commitment to develop and implement the new policy. Nevertheless, the new program sealed the government's determination to lead Korea out of its centuries-old life of isolation and into the modern world. It marked the beginning of an effort that led to the inevitable consequence of introducing Western civilization to Korea. In general, it opened the door to the aggressive actions of Western powers. In particular, it opened the door to Japan.