Japan in 1900: As mentioned in the last section, this arbitrary date of the “turn of the century” of 1900 marks nothing for Japan, except perhaps an approximate half point in its transformation under the Meiji Restoration: Reviewing the previous period and the transformation of Japan among the Meiji reformers to meet the challenge of the invasion of the imperialist West: As mentioned in the previous period of 1750-1919, the developments surrounding the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I in 1919, marked a turning point for Japan. different, but probably just as consistent as for China. World War II devastated not only Japan, but also the Korean Peninsula, and in 1945, the United States and the USSR conquered the peninsula and ended Japanese rule there. Korea was divided into two zones of occupation, which were to be temporary. However, a unified state was never returned to the newly independent Korean people. Instead, the Korean War broke out between the northern half of Korea supported by the Soviets and China and the United States and the South supported by the United Nations. After the suppression of the uprising, some aspects of Japanese rule that were considered most reprehensible to Koreans were removed. The military police were replaced by a civilian force and freedom of the press was allowed to a limited extent. Two of the three major Korean dailies, Tōa Nippō and Chōsen Nippō, were founded in 1920. When Soviet troops invaded Pyongyang, they found a local branch of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, operating under the leadership of veteran nationalist Cho Man-sik. The Soviet army allowed these popular committees, friends of the Soviet Union, to function. Colonel General Terentii Shtykov founded the Soviet Civil Administration, took control of the committees, and installed communists in key positions. Later, underground groups such as the Three Thousand Party formed, a group of students who tried to undermine the Japanese army after being enlisted to fight in World War II.
Koreans also protested in their silent way. Some refused to speak Japanese or change their names; others coined names that reflected their family history or contained subtle opposition to politics. Until the mid-1960s, the USSR was credited with defeating Japan, but since then, propaganda claims that Kim and his guerrillas liberated the race on their own. That this is known to be false by those who have lived the time is of secondary importance. The painful historical reality of mass collaboration (and the military insignificance of all Korean armed resistance to colonial rule) is exactly what made the Kim myth so appealing. Japanese rule over Korea also led to the relocation of tens of thousands of cultural artifacts to Japan. The question of where these items should be located began during the US occupation of Japan. [137] In 1965, Japan returned about 1,400 artifacts to Korea under the Treaty on Fundamental Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea and considered the diplomatic issue resolved. [138] Korean artifacts are kept at the Tokyo National Museum and in the hands of many private collectors.
[139] Collaborators of the Imperial Japanese Army were persecuted in the post-war period as Chinilpa or “friends of the Japanese.” [179] In 2006, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun set up a commission of inquiry into the search for descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators from the 1890s until the collapse of Japanese rule in 1945. In June 1907, the Second Peace Conference was held in The Hague. Emperor Gojong secretly sent three representatives to raise awareness of Korea`s problems. The three envoys were denied access to public debates by international delegates, who questioned the legality of the Protectorate Convention. Out of desperation, one of the Korean representatives, Yi Tjoune, committed suicide in The Hague. [27] In response, the Japanese government took stricter measures. On the 19th. In July 1907, Emperor Gojong was forced to relinquish his imperial authority and appoint the Crown Prince Regent. Japanese authorities used this concession to force the accession to the throne of the new Emperor Sunjong after the abdication, who never accepted Gojong.Neither Gojong nor Sunjong were present at the “accession ceremony”. Sunjong was to be the last ruler of the Joseon Dynasty, founded in 1392. [28] At the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of its victory in Europe. On August 8, 1945, after three months to the day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops advanced rapidly and the U.S. government began to fear occupying Korea. On August 10, 1945, two young officers – Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel – were tasked with defining an American occupation zone. Extremely short-term and completely unprepared, they decided on the basis of a National Geographic map for the 38th parallel. They chose it because it would roughly divide the country in two, but would also place the capital Seoul under US control. No experts on Korea were consulted.
The two men did not know that 40 years earlier, Japan and Russia had discussed the division of Korea according to the same parallel. The division placed sixteen million Koreans in the American zone and nine million in the Soviet zone. To the surprise of the Americans, the Soviet Union immediately accepted partition. North Korea presented itself as a defender of orthodox communism, which was different from the Soviet Union and China. The regime developed the doctrine of juche, or autonomy, which included extreme military mobilization. In response to the threat of nuclear war, it built vast underground and mountain facilities. Pyongyang`s subway was opened in the 1970s and could serve as an air raid shelter. Until the early 1970s, North Korea was economically on an equal footing with the South. Persistent anti-Japanese uprisings, such as the National Student Uprising in November 1929, led to the strengthening of military rule in 1931. After the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War II in 1937 and World War II, Japan sought to eradicate Korea as a nation. The persistence of Korean culture itself has become illegal.
Worship in Japanese Shinto shrines has been made compulsory. The school`s curriculum was radically modified to eliminate the teaching of Korean language and history. .