Treaty of Annexation The Korean people knew nothing about the signing of the protectorate treaty until the Hwangsong News broke the news. The people were shocked. They joined the nationwide resistance movement, set fire on the new Prime Minister’s home, and closed all stores in Seoul in protest. Some court officials committed suicide. To compound the situation, the Japanese Resident. General ordered the Korean armed forces dissolved in August 1907.
Korean troops stationed in Seoul immediately took up arms against the Japan-ese army. Other military units throughout the country followed suit. However, confronted with superior Japanese armed forces, they fled to the countryside and carried on a stubborn resistance for several years. In 1907, the Japanese government saw the need to install a figurehead more amenable as King in place of Kojong who still stood in its way.
Then, it was revealed that Kojong had sent secret emissaries to the international peace conference at the Hague in a move to arouse international attention to the outrageous situation in Korea. The Japanese Resident-General, blaming Kojong for the violation of treaty, forced him to abdicate and put his second son on the throne. This was Sunjong, the second Emperor of the Taehan Empire and 27th and last monarch of the 500-year Chosun Dynasty.
On Aug. 22, 1910, packing the streets of Seoul with Japanese soldiers, the Japanese forced the Korean government to accept yet another humiliating treaty. It was a treaty accepting total outright annexation with Japan. Korean archtraitor Lee Wan-yong, then Prime Minister, and Japanese Resident-Governor Terauchi signed the agreement which sealed the fate of Korea. Conclusion of the treaty was officially announced on Aug. 29, 1910. The annexation immediately deprived Koreans not only of their political freedom, but currency, and seized the country’s transportation and communications systems.
The Japanese semi-governmental Oriental Development Company took over a huge part of Korean farmlands in the course of the so-called land survey programs. Farmlands were systematically expropriated until up to 80 percent of the nation’s total rice fields fell under Japanese ownership. Faced with destitution, millions of Koreans migrated to Siberia and Manchuria.
Independence Movement In the face of increasing Japanese suppression, latent spirit of the Koreans found its expression in numerous resistance movements that sprang up throughout the country. In foreign countries including China and the United States, the Koreans living in exile staged active anti-Japanese campaigns. The most dramatic and tragic event representative of Korean resistance to the Japanese imperialism was the nationwide uprising known as the March First Independence Movement.
The spontaneous and peaceful resistance movement, which broke out on March 1, 1919. called on Japan for voluntary with-drawal from her imperialistic course in Korea. The movement was inspired by the principle of-self-determination of nations enunciated by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris peace conference that followed the end of World War II. When the news of Wilson’s 14-point declaration reached the Korean students studying in Tokyo, they published a statement demanding Korea’s independence from Japan in February 1919.
This served as a spark for the movement in Korea. Secret plans were drafted and detailed instructions sent out to all the towns and villages via the underground grapevine urging the people to rise up seizing the inspired moment. The movement was timed to be launched on March 1, two days before the date set for the funeral of Emperor Kojong who had just passed away to dramatize the tragic fate of the nation.
At the core of the movement was a group of 33 patriots. On March 1, the 33 men gathered before a large crowd at the Pagoda Park in downtown Seoul and read Korea’s declaration of Independence. And then they led the crowd into the streets to stage a peaceful demonstration calling for national independence. Even remote villages joined in the spontaneous nationwide movement. The exiled patriots in Manchuria, Siberia, Shanghai and the United States also acted in concert, appealing to the governments of their respective host countries to help Korea in her efforts to recover her sovereignty.
However, the movement was ruthlessly put down by the Japanese. The Japanese police arrested the leaders of the movement, tortured and killed many of them. They mercilessly gunned down the crowd who marched in peaceful procession. More than 6,000 demonstrators were killed and about 15,000 others wounded. Some 50,000 others were arrested.
Extermination Policy Japan embarked on a war in Manchuria in 1930. At the same time, Japan started to tighten its grip on Korea. It also embarked on all out efforts to mobilize all available resources, human as well as material, in support of its war efforts. When new Governor-General Minami Jiro arrived, he openly declared that he would adopt a policy of assimilation which was aimed at total eradication of everything Korea. Then he undertook a series of measures for the purpose of assimilating the Korean people to the Japanese.
The Japanese banned Korean language newspapers and magazines. Koreans were forbidden to speak Korean, forcing the students to speak Japanese only in schools and even at home. Students found speaking Korean were severely caned or expelled from schools. Koreans were forced to discard their Korean names to adopt Japanized names.
Members of the Korean Linguistic Society were arrested and put in prison in efforts to discourage Koreans from studying the Korean language. The Japanese stepped up their totalitarian measures more recklessly when they invaded north China. By that time, the powerful financial combines were consolidating their monopolistic control of Korean i+ndustries.
In the meantime, Koreans carried on their independence movement against the Japanese rule overseas. On April 17, 1919, a Korean Provisional Government was established in Shanghai with Dr. Syngman Rhee as its head. The government-in-exile was joined by Korean patriots who fled abroad to escape from the Japanese. In Manchuria and on the Chinese mainland, exiled leaders such as the rightwing nationalist Kim Gu and the leftist Kim Won-bong organized Korean youths and student-soldiers who deserted Japanese army into paramilitary units to fight against the Japanese army.As Japan’s defeat appeared inevitable to-ward the end of World War II, her im-perialistic policy took a frenzied turn, and hundreds of thousands of Koreans were taken to Japan and elsewhere for forced labor in coal mines and other war-related industries. In cities and rural villages the Koreans were forced to surrender almost everything including even the metal kitchenware such as spoons, metal chopsticks and bowls for futile Japanese war efforts, until they were finally liberated by the victorious Western allies in August 1945.