Continuation of Status Quo under Colonial Economic Drain, 1910–45

Abstract

During the late 19th century, the Joseon dynasty in Korea was already weak and counting its days. The royal authority was under Chinese suzerainty with tributary relations as a guiding framework for the bilateral relationship. The Korean state under the late Joseon dynasty can be regarded as predatory and rent-seeking, marred by rampant corruption.¹ The Korean elite Yangban class, comprised of officials and aristocrats, led a life of luxury at the expense of the rural peasantry. The state’s capacity to extract revenues and exert control over the powerful agrarian elite was rather poor. This weakness of the late Joseon state created a power vacuum that drew foreign powers to compete for influence over the Korean peninsula. The relative decline of agrarian China and post-Meiji industrializing Japan provided a favorable chance for Japan to occupy and colonize the Korean peninsula, which it had been trying to do since centuries. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and on the ruins of samurai feudalism, an industrialized-militarized Japan emerged. The Japanese quickly learned crucial lessons from the developmental experience of European countries and carefully adopted them to their own conditions. Two events — the defeat of China in 1895 and the victory over Russia in 1905 — mark a watershed in the growth of the Japanese military-industrial complex.