Ch 25 - End of the Hermit Kingdom

All Downhill from Here

Encumbered by treaties with Japan, China, the United States, and other Western nations, the once isolated peninsula became an involuntary player on the world stage of international relations. The economic and military presence of China and Japan fomented a fertile battleground for gunboat diplomacy and international intrigue.

General Wu's Anhwei Army remained in Korea. Hanabusa Yoshitada stayed on to supervise implementation of the terms of the Treaty of Inchon and reentered Seoul on September 7, the same day Ma and Admiral Ting Ju-shang returned to Tianjin escorted by the King Kojong's personal emissaries. The Korean envoys transmitted Kojong's thanks to the Qing government for its help and requested they release his father, the Taewongun. The Chinese refused.

On September 16, following a royal audience with Kondo and Hanabusa, King Kojong issued a royal edict that ordered the public disclosure of the texts of all treaties which Korea had concluded with Japan and the West. He also ordered the removal of the stone markers erected by the Taewongun to fuel anti-foreign sentiments among the people. Having completed his immediate mission, Hanabusa boarded the Meiji Maru at Inchon and sailed for Japan on September 20, accompanied by a Korean mission of apology to the Japanese Emperor. Tokyo warmly received the Korean embassy, led by special envoy Pak Yong-hyo and accompanied by Kim Ok-kyun and So Kwang-bom.

Following the Military Mutiny of 1882, the Chinese had three thousand soldiers stationed in and around Seoul, faced by only about six hundred Japanese legation troops whose presence was sanctioned by treaty. China's Foreign Minister Li Hongzhang, still unwilling to deepen China's involvement in Korea's internal affairs, hesitated to use the unrest in Korea to reassert his country's suzerain rights. When the Min family returned to power in Seoul, they found themselves unable to deal effectively with the variety of vexing foreign relations problems that faced the country. The Min faction took a decidedly pro-China stance and looked to the Chinese for support. China took the position that as the suzerain power it was obliged to assist Korea in its time of internal disorder.

Li Hongzhang believed that Chinese trade with Korea had to be freed from inflexible traditions and shared the view that foreigners should not be allowed exclusive trade rights. Following brief negotiations with Korean officials, Chou Fu and Ma Chien-chung assisted Li in drafting the Regulations for Maritime and Overland Trade Between Chinese and Korean Subjects. Li designed the entire document to fit the "fundamental structure" of relations between China and Korea. The eight article text represented the first written understanding between China and one of its vassal states. Instead of creating a treaty in the modern sense, Li carefully attempted to preserve China's suzerain status over Korea. Perhaps the most glaring example of this attempt appeared in the preamble to the document, which read:

But the new regulations for the maritime and overland trade now decided upon are understood to apply to the relations between China and Korea only, the former country granting to the latter certain advantages as a tributary kingdom, and other nations are not to participate therein.

While the treaty granted Chinese citizens extraterritoriality in Korea, legal disputes would be tried under Chinese law by Chinese authorities, irrespective of the nationality of either party. Under the terms of the new "regulations," Chinese merchants, as citizens of the suzerain power, gained the right to reside, conduct business and travel freely within Korea. The document resembled a trade treaty, but it sharply emphasized the two countries' political inequalities and granted to China privileges in Korea that other treaty powers did not enjoy. Li Hongzhang signed and sealed the document on October 4, 1882. He imposed the Trade Regulations on Korea as a way to tighten China's authority on the peninsula without having to strengthen its military presence there.

The dramatic increase in the number of Chinese traders in Korea dealt a severe blow to the economic interests of Korean merchants and lead to anti-Chinese feelings among the Korean populace. Li Hongzhang's concern about the growing level of competition faced by Chinese traders in Korea's treaty ports led to the appointment of Chen Shu-tang, a former consul at San Francisco, as China's first High Commissioner of Trade. Chen spoke fluent English and was familiar with trade matters. He arrived in Seoul on October 16, 1882, and four days later posted a haughty proclamation to announce his arrival. Chen's posting immediately set the tone for future relations with representatives of the other foreign nations in Seoul.

With Korea becoming more and more the focus of attention among the great powers in East Asia, the Chinese continued interfering in Korea's internal affairs. Li Hongzhang's trade regulations expanded Chinese authority in Korea and reasserted China's rights as a suzerain power. They also contradicted China's earlier claim that suzerainty over Korea gave it no right to intervene in Korea's domestic affairs. Chinese diplomats reorganized the Korean government system almost at will, appointing former high-ranking members of the powerful Min clan to important government posts.

For every step Japan took in Korea, China took one too, and generally a longer one. After Japan sent its troops into Korea following the attack on its legation, China quickly followed suit, presumably to help restore order. After the Treaty of Inchon, China countered with an agreement that gave it preferential trade status with Korea. After Japan gained the treaty right to station military legation guards in Seoul, China moved a sizable military presence to the capital and assigned permanent resident advisers to the Korean government. China steadily imposed itself on Korea to the point where it slowly transformed the peninsula from a tributary state to a Chinese protectorate.

Korea's expanded relations with the outside world created a need for people trained in the conduct of foreign affairs. In mid-September 1882, Korea transmitted an official request to Li Hongzhang for a foreign affairs advisor. Li intended to secure China's permanent voice in Korea's affairs by placing his own men in key positions with the Yi government. Li strongly recommended a member of his personal staff, his friend Paul George von Mollendorff, the former German consul at Tianjin. An experienced German diplomat with fluency in foreign languages, von Mollendorff enjoyed Li's full confidence and stood on friendly terms with men like Chou Fu and Ma Chien-chung. The Japanese, said Li, stand in great awe of the Germans and dread von Mollendorff. Li believed he would be able to contain them. In his diary, von Mollendorff wrote that he was about to receive "one of the finest and most influential positions in the Far East, better paid than any ambassador and more powerful than any East Asian minister of state." After being offered the job, he noted in his diary, "If the contract is signed, I will assume the most powerful position in East Asia. It's like a dream."

Because all Western countries had offices to observe the political behavior of other countries and to regulate important trade matters, in December 1882, King Kojong ordered the creation of the T'ongnigimu Amun, the Office for the Management of Diplomatic and Commercial Matters. In short, he created the Korean Foreign Office. The day after its creation, Kojong ordered the Council of State to arrange for the creation of a separate office that would deal exclusively with internal affairs.

The arrival of China's venerable diplomat Ma Chien-chung and Paul George von Mollendorff in Korea on December 12 caused a sensation. An immense crowd of curious villagers lined the road to Seoul to catch a glimpse of the ornate sedan chair carrying the first European officially welcomed to Korea. Following a royal audience with King Kojong on December 26, Paul von Mollendorff was given the position of councillor in the newly established Korean Foreign Office. In mid-January he was promoted to the concurrent post of Vice-President of the Department of Revenue and Port Administration. As a favor, the king presented von Mollendorff with Min Kyom-ho's former mansion in Paktong, which had remained empty since its former owner's violent death.

An experienced diplomat and a worldly example of an elite bureaucrat, Paul Georg von Moellendorff's appointment gave him almost unlimited power in foreign policy and the customs service. He was not only the first official Western adviser to the Korean government, but the first Westerner King Kojong ever met personally. Despite the potential his position held for abuse, Baron von Moellendorff displayed a humble and sincere attitude and felt a deep sense of professional responsibility.

Li Hongzhang sent Baron von Moellendorff to Korea to further Chinese interests, but the German advisor took his post seriously and, as King Kojong had hoped, identified himself closely with the Koreans. He immersed himself in Korean life. He wore his beard in the Korean style and dressed in the official clothing of a second rank yangban and adopted many Korean habits and traditions. He adopted the Korean name Mok In-dok and developed a fair command of the Korean language. He came to be known around Seoul as "Mollendorff Vice-president."

As Ma Chien-chung and Paul von Mollendorff took up their posts in Seoul, Korea instituted another administrative reorganization. Events during the summer of 1882 left the Korean army disorganized and without leadership. In late fall, the government sent a request to General Wu Chang-ching to provide military instructors. General Wu recommended his secretary, the brash twenty-four-year-old General Yuan Shih-k'ai, who had won medals and fame for his successful campaign against the Military Mutiny of 1882.

On November 3, Yuan became the Korean Army's new chief instructor. He personally selected one thousand able-bodied soldiers to man new military units and formed the first of what later became four barracks commands. To train this new army along Chinese lines, Yuan placed them under Chinese instructors. The new units wore uniforms that combined Chinese as well as Western equipment and carried weapons sent from the Tianjin Arsenal. Yuan Shih-k'ai figured prominently in both Chinese history and Chinese-Japanese relations over the next thirty years.

China's removal of the Taewongun left a power vacuum at the head of the Yi government that Queen Min and her pro-Chinese faction quickly filled. Beginning in late 1882, they gained control of the government's nerve centers by effectively concentrating partisan supporters at strategic points of power. The Office for the Management of Military and National Affairs, commonly known as the Home Office emerged in Seoul in January 1883. During the period when Korea concluded its first treaties with the West under Chinese guidance, Ma Chien-chung admirably managed his temporary appointment as intermediary. The elder statesman was nominated to serve in Korea's new Home Office to deal with internal affairs, military matters and the full range of domestic administration.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office provided the Min faction convenient platforms from which to manipulate government power to their own advantage. The new Chinese-trained military however, became the keystone of Min power and they made full use of the China's military potential in Korea. They tied the military organization closely to the Home Office through concurrent appointments. Furthermore, they made extraordinary efforts to provide enough funds to support the new force. For its part, China willingly used the Min's dependence on Chinese support to pursue its own goal of keeping Korea under firm control. General Chang-Qing, whose Anhwei Army occupied five separate camps in and around Seoul and Suwon, had a firm grip on the capital. He frequently visited the royal palace and often made his voice heard in a variety of non-military matters. The Chinese military soon became very influential in Korean political life.

Korea was no longer the Hermit Kingdom. Encumbered by treaties with Japan, China, the United States, and other Western nations, the once isolated peninsula became an involuntary player on the world stage of international relations. Korea's isolation did not end for the sake of suddenly embracing the new and the unknown, but, like the Manchus in China, to preserve the old and the familiar. Korea opened its doors to foreign trade and in the process became a fertile battleground for gunboat diplomacy and international intrigue, with China and Japan struggling for paramountcy. Korea was no longer tied to China as a tributary state. King Kojong's seal on the Treaty of Kanghwa made Korea a sovereign nation whose independent status was guaranteed, on paper at least, by Japan. The Japanese would go on guaranteeing Korea's independence and sovereignty right down to the day they annexed the entire peninsula and snuffed out its sovereignty altogether.