24 Blast from the Past
A Peninsula Is Liberated, a Nation Is Born
blast from the past
▲ Flag of South Korea, 1945–1948.
The Making of the Republic of Korea
There’s a lot to celebrate in the Republic in August: the end of the War in the Pacific (WWII), the liberation of the Korean Peninsula, and the birth of the Republic of Korea – all on the same date, August 15 (represented as “8.15” in Korea), though not all occurred in the same year. In this issue, we bring you an account of how Korea went from a dynasty, to a colony, to an independent nation based on two earlier articles appearing in the Gwangju News, both by Dr. Shin Sangsoon: “The Way the 8.15 Korean Liberation Was Brought About” (August 2003) and “August 15 (8.15): Liberation and Birth of a Nation” (August 2010). — Ed.
THE AGE OF COLONIALIZATION The 19th century was the age of imperialistic colonial expansion by the Western powers, and toward the end of the century, Japan also availed itself of this trend lest it should miss the colonialization bus. A brief chronology of events shows the imperialistic appetite of the Western powers for this part of the world. The West’s appetite for territorial expansion was not satiated in the Orient. It extended to the African and American continents. In fact, there was no place under the sun that did not feel itsInfluence (see the box below for a chronology). The British proudly, or audaciously, proclaimed that the sun never set on the British Empire.
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1802 1854 1857–1862 1863 1840–1842 1856–1858 1857–1858 1866 1871 1894–1895 1898 1904–1905 1910
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Meanwhile, Korea (Joseon Dynasty) was a bone of contention between the Japanese, Chinese, and Russians during the latter half of the 19th century. After winning the two wars with China and Russia in 1895 and 1905, respectively, Japan’s domination of Korea was swift and stark, formally annexing Korea in 1910. Starting with the ruthless suppression of the March 1st Independence Movement in 1919, Japan imposed a series of harsh measures to erase the language and culture of the Korean people. They confiscated land (in those days, the only means of production) through the so-called Land Survey Policy. They imprisoned Korean language scholars on the pretext of instigating nationalism, forbade
UK occupies Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 1819: Singapore, 1824: Malaysian Peninsula, 1853: Burma (Myanmar), 1858: India. U.S. Navy requests that Japan open her ports. Franco–Vietnam War. France occupies Indochina. France occupies Cambodia. The Opium War. China cedes Hong Kong to the UK and is forced to open five ports extraterritorially. The Second Opium War. The UK and France attack China and conclude the Treaty of Tianjin, opening the Yangtze River. Russia occupies the Amur River in Manchuria and Vladivostok. The USS Sherman sails into the Daedong River in North Korea. The French fleet attacks Ganghwa Island near Incheon. The U.S. Pacific fleet attacks Ganghwa Island. Sino–Japanese War. China cedes Taiwan and Liaotung Peninsula to Japan. Spanish–American War. Spain cedes the Philippines to the U.S. Russo–Japanese War. Russia cedes southern Sakhalin; Korea becomes a Japanese protectorate. Japan annexes Korea.
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