Objective 3: Study ABTL0812 combination efficacy with current neuroblastoma therapies
5. Discussion
5.1 ABTL0812 as a therapeutic candidate for high-risk neuroblastoma
t
he peace treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War of 905 was signed in a rather unlikely location, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt brought the combatants to the nego-tiating table. For his efforts he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the sixth one given.
The Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding, many Koreans over the years have considered Roosevelt’s negotiation of the Portsmouth Treaty, which gave Japan a free hand to do what it liked in Korea, a betrayal by the United States. Certainly the treaty did not serve Korean interests. In fact, Dr. Horace Allen, the U.S. minister in Seoul, had urged his government to intervene to stop Japanese aggression, but Roosevelt believed that Japanese control of the Korean Peninsula would be useful as a break to Russian expansion. In addition, the treaty ratified a secret agreement between William Howard Taft, the U.S. secretary of war, and Katsura Taro, Japan’s prime minister: The United States agreed not to interfere with Japan’s role in Korea as long as Japan did not interfere in the U.S. role in the Philippines.
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autonomy. To them Japan represented progress and modernization, while the lingering Choson royalty represented stagnation, corruption, and poverty. The majority of Koreans were somewhere between the two poles, just trying to get by.
In 1907 Emperor Kojong made his last desperate move to restore Korean sovereignty. Learning of an international meeting, the sec-ond World Peace Conference, to be held that year at The Hague, Netherlands, he sent a secret delegation—secret, at least, from the Japanese, who would have blocked their participation had they known.
At the conference the delegation presented itself as the true represen-tative of Korea with credentials from Kojong. It was an open repudia-tion of the Japanese protectorate. The June 30, 1907, New York Times reported that it had been a dull day at the conference except for the appearance of Yi Sangsol, former premier; Yi Chun, former judge of the supreme court of Seoul; and Yi Wijong, former secretary of the Korean legation at St. Petersburg:
The protest says . . . the Japanese are violating [Korea’s] rights and trampling on international law, depriving them of their national independence and even resorting to violence. It adds that the Korean Emperor gave the delegates full powers which they will put at the disposal of the delegates to the conference, asking their intervention for admission to the conference. They wish, the protest says, to defend their rights, and expose the Japanese methods. . . .
One of the Korean delegates said in an interview today:
“The Japanese are behaving in Korea like savages. They are committing all kinds of barbarities against property and against the people, especially the women. [The conference’s] refusal to receive us was astonishing and painful, as our relations with Russia, as well as with America, are so good that we thought they could not refuse to assist us. We intend to go to America to appeal to the generosity of that noble country for help . . . .”
(New York Times, June 30, 1907)
When Kojong’s representatives appeared at The Hague, asking to be seated at the conference as the delegates from Korea, their credentials were rejected by the other delegates, who were bound by the Treaty of Portsmouth. To show their displeasure the Japanese forced Emperor Kojong to abdicate the throne. His son, who was reportedly mentally deficient, became Emperor Sunjong (1874–1926, r. 1907–10). His pri-mary duty was to do the bidding of the Japanese, a humiliating task but one that would last only three years. The Choson dynasty was all but over.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
The Japanese governance in Korea was under the leadership of a resident-general, and the first resident-general was none other than Ito Hirobumi (1841–1909), a former prime minister and one of the fathers of Japanese democracy. His is one of only four statues today in the main hall of the Japanese diet (parliament building). Until recently his image was on the smallest denomination and most-used unit of currency in Japan, the 1,000 yen note. Ito had liberal ideas for his time. He had been one of a small group of former samurai who created the consti-tutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy in Japan. While some Japanese argued for the annexation of Korea, Ito initially favored a kind of confederation in which Korea would have a degree of autonomy. His policy changed as a wave of violent resistance swept Korea.
Upon the abdication of Kojong, when the Japanese had disbanded Korea’s military forces, an angry crowd clashed with Japanese guards outside the palace, and another crowd destroyed the building of a pro-Japanese newspaper. Soldiers from the disbanded Korean armed forces fought a pitched battle with the Japanese in Seoul. They were defeated, but the survivors joined the rebels who were already fighting Japanese rule in the provinces. Korean guerrillas based in inaccessible moun-tain regions raided Japanese installations, damaging railroad tracks and telegraph lines. “The Japanese response,” writes Han Woo-keun,
“was indiscriminate slaughter and destruction” (Han 1970, 453). The Japanese themselves estimated that there were 69,832 Korean guerrillas in 1908, with nearly 1,500 clashes that year between Korean irregulars and Japanese troops. The number fell to 25,000 in 1909, and to 2,000 in 1910 (Cumings 2005, 146). As the Japanese solidified their military control of Korea, the guerrillas moved their bases across the border into Manchuria.
In 1909 Ito Hirobumi made a trip to Manchuria to discuss the possi-bility of Korean annexation with Russian diplomats. At the train station in Harbin he was shot and killed by a Korean assassin. On August 22, 1910, Korea officially became a part of the Japanese empire. The last Yi ruler was forced to abdicate. Not only did the dynasty end, Korea as an independent nation ceased to exist.