1. Introduction 1 Neuroblastoma
1.3 Autophagy
1.3.2 Autophagy in cancer
of the benefits of trading with the United States, Perry had brought with him a miniature steam locomotive and a section of track. The United States had been sure that Japan’s isolation was irrational and that its opening, though made under duress, would eventually benefit both parties. The Japanese opened Korea with a similar mixture of self-inter-est, altruism, smugness, and aggression, but the nearness of Korea to Japan increased the ingredient of aggression.
Some 15 years later Japanese bureaucrats were debating ways of restoring the national honor, which they felt had been tarnished by
JiKJi, tHe WorLd’s first booK printed WitH MetaL
MovabLe type
W
hile the French were on Kanghwa Island in the position of conquerors, they engaged in a bit of pillaging. In an intriguing sidelight, they took some books from the government offices there.Kanghwa Island, it should be remembered, was the place where the Koryo court had taken refuge for 80 years during the time of the Mongol invasion in . Some Koryo-period relics were still kept on the island.
It is doubtful that the men of the French expedition knew of the significance of one of their acquisitions at the time. Years later, when these documents were studied, it was found that one of the plundered books was a copy of volume two of a Buddhist text called the Jikji, meaning “pointing out the truth.” As it turns out, it is the only extant copy of any of the books printed with the first set of metal movable type fonts made in history. All other copies of that text and other texts printed at that time have apparently been destroyed. This inven-tion predates Johannes Gutenberg’s inveninven-tion of movable type in the West by 00 years.
Despite the great value of the book to Korean cultural history, it remains in the National Library of France. Korean delegations’
repeated negotiations and appeals that the book be returned to Korea have not yet been successful.
In Chongju, 95 miles south of Seoul, there is a museum dedicated to displays of old Korean printing. It is built on the site of the ruins of the Buddhist temple where the first books were printed using metal movable type.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
their brush with America’s gunboat diplomacy and the trade agree-ments with the West, treaties whose inequality the Japanese came to understand as they had more contact with Europe and the United States. Some Japanese were also aware that colonies were a part of the Western formula for success, which they were determined to imitate.
They had been infected with the anxiety that afflicted the industrial-ized countries of Europe and the United States by the late 19th cen-tury—they worried that if they did not hurry, there would be no more underdeveloped countries available for colonization.
As early as 1869 Miyamoto Okazu, a lower-level official in Japan’s foreign ministry, is on record as fretting that Russia and Western pow-ers had their eyes on Korea and might acquire it, to Japan’s “everlasting harm.” He suggested that since Japan was not yet strong enough to annex Korea, it ought to send an emissary (backed by gunboats, like America’s 1854 emissary to Japan) and to negotiate a “fraternal alli-ance,” joining Korea to Japan in a “united federation.” Okazu proposed that Japan take control of Korea’s diplomacy and reform its calendar, finances, and armed forces. All this would help to “wash away the stain of outmoded customs” in Korea (Duus 1995, 34).
In late 1869 Japan sent Sada Hakubo, an official who favored an aggressive Japanese foreign policy, to Korea on a peaceful, fact-finding mission. On his return Sada advocated a military expedition to force the opening of Korea. His advice, which was unrealistic at the time—Japan was not ready to mount the invasion he proposed—summed up several of the motives that would ultimately lead Japan to annex Korea: to preclude its colonization by some enemy of Japan’s; to benefit economi-cally; to find an outlet for Japan’s military class, the samurai, which had been disgruntled by the Meiji Restoration; and to restore the national honor.
If Imperial Japan passes this great opportunity to the foreigners we will lose our lips [i.e., Korea] as a consequence, and one day our teeth will surely suffer from the cold. . . . Korea is a gold mine, and rice and wheat are abundant. With one sweep we can mobilize the manpower, the mineral resources and the grain [in Korea] and use them in Hokkaido. . . . [Japan] is suffering from the problem of too many military men rather than a short-age thereof. . . . The belligerent, when discontent, contemplate revolt. At this time when there is fear of civil war in our country, if we undertake the Korean expedition and make the bitter cup of samurai grievance spill [in Korea] we can massacre Korea in a single stroke, polish our military system, and demonstrate to the world the imperial glory. (Duus 1995, 35–36)
Japan’s next move was much more modest than the one Sada pro-posed. Traditionally, the very limited amount of trade that Korea per-mitted between itself and Japan was conducted in the waegwan, a small trading post in Pusan, which was invariably run by a representative of a single Japanese family, the So family. In 1873, in a calculated viola-tion of this precedent, a Japanese foreign minister in charge of Korean relations was sent to Pusan for the purpose of transferring control of the trading post to the Japanese foreign ministry. As the historian Peter Duus notes in The Abacus and the Sword: Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910, this move had a symbolic value that both the Japanese and the Koreans recognized. “No longer a symbol of traditional subordina-tion of the So family to the Korean court, the waegwan had become a foothold for the new ‘civilized’ set of institutions through which the Japanese intended to conduct their formal relations with Korea” (Duus 1995, 37).
In late May 1873 local Korean authorities posted a wall notice on the residence of the chief guard of the waegwan that condemned Japan’s illegal actions and called on it to honor the established rules and regula-tions. This Korean response to Japan’s latest maneuver sparked a debate in Japan on the feasibility of a policy that would enable Japan to “subdue Korea.” According to Peter Duus, the Japanese who used this phrase were not yet thinking of colonization but merely of a commercial open-ing of Korea on terms favorable to the Japanese (Duus 1995, 38).
The Taewongun’s Reaction
The Taewongun misunderstood the significance of the French and American invasions. He had heard of China’s travails and its loss of territory to several European powers—the British in Hong Kong, the Portuguese in Macau, and the French and Germans in the northern areas. With the retreat of the Western forces, the Taewongun celebrated his victory in the French War and the American War and sent a mes-sage to the Chinese emperor to that effect. Of course, from the point of view of the French and the Americans, there had never been a war, let alone one lost. When the Taewongun was forced out of power in 1874, he had little idea of the actual geopolitical situation in the world.
His actions were bold, but he was essentially a conservative ruler who did not understand the threats that Korea faced in the new world of 19th-century imperialism. Though he reduced corruption and cen-tralized political power during his time in office, he also bankrupted Korea at the worst possible time. His very strength as a politician had
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA able to take over the throne for himself, and the bureaucracy and king were able to side-line the Taewongun. However, Kojong was not without prob-lems from within his own fam-ily. One reason Kojong had been selected king was that he was not yet married, and the royal family made sure that he did not marry a woman from either of the most pow-erful clans, the Kims or the Chos. In 1866 a marriage was arranged with a young woman
“adopt” a nephew. Later, Queen Min’s father adopted a son from within patrilineal lineage (agnatic adoption was well established in Korea at this point). Thus, Queen Min suddenly had a brother, and that brother had brothers. The court was once again plagued with in-law problems.
Apart from this, Queen Min herself turned out to be the most powerful of all the queens of Korean history. Her role in the crucial events of the next few decades, a time of foreign pressure and internal disorder, was to be pivotal.
King Kojong’s father, the Taewongun, ordered that stone markers urging the rejection of foreign influence be placed all around the kingdom in 1871. They stated, “Western barbarians are invading; we must fight them and not seek peace; appeasement is selling out the country.” (Academy of Korean Studies)
5
The Kanghwa Treaty of 1876
In 1875 an incursion from the West Sea was to change Korea forever.
Korea was opened not by a Western nation but its neighbor to the east, Japan. On the morning of September 20, 1875, Japan sailed an armed naval vessel, the Unyo, near Kanghwa Island; the Unyo was supposedly on a peaceful surveying mission. No surviving records prove that it was not, but in the judgment of most historians, the mission was meant to provoke an incident that would lead to a changed Japan-Korea relation-ship. As described by Peter Duus:
When Korean shore batteries fired on the Un’yo, the Japanese response was swift and severe. After bombarding the Korean fortifications, the Un’yo landed a shore party that torched several houses on the island and exchanged fire with Korean troops. The Japanese, armed with rifles, made quick work of the Koreans, who carried matchlock muskets, and thirty-five Korean soldiers were left dead. News of the incident did not reach Tokyo until September 28, but the next day [the Japanese government] decided to dispatch gunboats to Pusan to protect the Japanese residents there . . . (Duus 1995, 43–44)
As an outcome of this provocation, the Japanese were able to force court officials to meet and sign a treaty of “amity and trade.” The treaty declared that Korea was an “independent state,” meaning that it was no longer even in theory subordinate to China. Later supplements to the treaty contained provisions that privileged Japanese commercial inter-ests, much as Japan’s treaties after its opening had privileged Western commercial interests. Japan had its foot in the door.
Other powers soon signed similar treaties: the Americans in 1882, the British and Germans in 1882 (ratified in 1884), the Russians and Italians in 1884, and the French in 1886. The Chinese, too, moved to establish closer ties with Korea. As other powers, especially Russia and China (enfeebled but still a concern for Japan), began to take a greater interest in Korea, the Japanese became nervous. Korea, with its back-ward military technology, would be a pushover for invasion and take-over. Then, instead of having a hermit kingdom for its nearest neighbor, Japan would look across the sea or Korea Strait at the outpost of some hostile, battleship-possessing modern power. In the words of a German military adviser to the Meiji government, Korea was “a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan” (Duus 1995, 49).
Thus, when Japan’s leaders and representatives spoke of the need for a strong, modern, independent Korea, this was not mere rhetoric to dress up aggressive plans. At least at times, the Japanese were genuinely
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
interested in modernizing Korea, including its armed forces. If Korea could take the path that Japan had taken and do it quickly, then Japan need not worry about the dagger aimed at its heart. Korea would be a younger partner in Asian modernization, dependant on its teacher, Japan. But if Korea were too slow to modernize or if Korea were to show signs of collapsing, then Japan’s best move might be to take over Korea before some other nation did it (Deuchler 1977).
A small group of forward-thinking Korean officials agreed that their country needed to modernize and looked to Japan as an example and guide. Encouraged by the existence of this group, in the 1880s the Japanese invited several of them to Japan, where they went on a tour of Japanese military facilities, schools, government ministries, facto-ries, librafacto-ries, post offices, museums, arsenals, hospitals, and ship-yards—much as Japanese officials had done in their tour of Europe 10 years earlier. While they were in Japan they were given a study writ-ten by Huang Tsun-hsein, a Tokyo-stationed Chinese diplomat, who believed that both China and Korea could best strengthen themselves by adopting Western technology and also the political institutions that underlay Western success. The study was later passed on to King Kojong, who seems to have been persuaded by it. Meanwhile, Japan sent a military mission to Korea headed by Lieutenant Horimoto Reizo to train an elite new Korean military unit, which, it was hoped, would lead to the strengthening of Korea’s armed forces along Japanese lines.
The Military Uprising of 1882
Resentment of Horimoto’s mission led directly to the Military Uprising of 1882, which strengthened the antiforeign, antimodern forces of reaction within Korea. Those excluded from the new uniforms and status eventually attacked the new military and its Japanese advisers.
Horimoto Reizo was killed. To settle the issue and help restore order, King Kojong recalled his father, the Hungson Taewongun, out of exile and returned him to power. This was too much for Queen Min. To counter her father-in-law’s renewed influence, she sent an envoy to China seeking military aid. China responded by sending more than 1,000 soldiers under the command of Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), who later became the first president of the Republic of China. The Chinese soldiers arrested the Taewongun and deported him to Tientsin, China.
With the Min faction making policy in Seoul, the advantage in the great power game that was being played over Korea passed temporarily
to China. Historian Young Ick Lew describes the immediate effect on Korean policy:
With a strong military force firmly entrenched in Seoul, the Ch’ing [Qing] government began to interfere boldly in Korea’s internal affairs, claiming the authority to do so on the basis of the traditional suzerain relationship. . . . The Chinese recom-mended the appointment of two special advisors on foreign affairs, a Prussian diplomat, Paul G. von Mollendorff . . . and the Chinese diplomat Ma Chien-Ch’ang. . . . creating two offices to plan and coordinate Korea’s self-strengthening measures. . . . The Ch’ing government also sought to expand Chinese eco-nomic interests in Korea with a view to offsetting the growing influence of Japanese merchants. On the heels of its armed intervention China imposed on Korea a set of Regulations for Private Maritime and Overland Trade, whereby Chinese mer-chants obtained the right to reside, conduct business and to travel freely within Korea. (Eckert 1990, 207–208)
The Chinese show of force prompted the Japanese to increase their military strength in Korea. In the settlement of the 1882 affair, the