Japan's Contribution to Korea

When you hear the word “colonization”, of course, it is bad, you’d say. You’d associate it with exploitation of local people and resources to the benefit of the colonizer. Even killings, as in the infamous case of Belgian-colonized Congo where one fifth of the population died under the colonizer. Then the loss of dignity – every nation should enjoy its sovereign autonomy.

However, not all colonizers had the same objectives nor did the same things.

Alleyne Ireland, a British administrative scholar, examined Japanese colonial administration in Korea, and published a book titled "The New Korea", in 1926. (Japan annexed Korea in 1910 not to allow Russian invasion, and governed the country until 1945. Korea had been a dependency of China over 500 years up to 1897 when Japan defeated China in the Japanese-Sino war and demanded its independence).

In his 300-page book, covering all aspects from government structures and judicial system, to education, health and economic development, Alleyne describes in detail how Japan transformed Korea, and says as follows:

“Whether or not Korea has on the whole been well governed can be determined only from a study of the available data. From such a study, which has occupied me for more than three years, … I have formed the opinion that Korea is today infinitely better governed than it ever was under its own native rulers, that it is better governed than most self-governing countries, that it is as well governed as any of the British, American, French, Dutch, and Portuguese dependencies which I have visited, and is better governed than most of them, having in view as well the cultural and economic development of the people as the technique of administration.” (p.17)

He also describes the situations in Korea before the Japanese annexation:

“It is true that at the time Japan annexed Korea, in 1910, the actual conditions of life in the Peninsula were extremely bad. This was not due, however, to any lack of inherent intelligence and ability in the Korean race, but to the stupidity and corruption which for five hundred years had, almost continuously, characterized the government of the Korean dynasty, and to the existence during that period of a royal court which maintained throughout Korea a system of licensed cruelty and corruption.

Such was the misrule under which the Koreans had suffered for generation after generation that all incentive to industry, thrift, and social progress had been destroyed, because none of the common people had been allowed to enjoy the fruits of their own efforts.” (p.vi)

Alleyne’s book clearly gives an objective and accurate view on the issue: One, he was British, and two, he lived in the time when it happened and saw it with his own eyes.