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Colonial Origins of Korean Enterprise, 1910–1945 ed. by Dennis L. McNamara (review)

1991; Volume: 15; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/apr.1991.a921260

2288-2871

Christopher S. Johnson,

Japanese History and Culture

ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 15, No. 2, Fall-Winter 1991, pp. 179-185 Book Review Dennis L. McNamara, ed., Colonial Origins of Korean Enter­ prise, 1910-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 208p. The British like to claim that their empire was acquired in a fit of absentmindedness, an example no doubt of the national gift for ironic understatement. In contrast, the Japanese imperi­ um, the only non-western empire of modern history, was pur­ sued with that assiduous intent so characteristic of Japanese endeavor. Of all the reasons put forward for the remarkable events that led Japan, an Asian nation, to cobble together a string of colonial appendages during the twilight of western imperialism's rush to partition the globe, status and security emerge, intertwined, in a peculiar embrace of unusual intensity. That intensity derived, in turn, its compelling quality from a certain empirical reductionism that had colored the doings of the Japanese state from the time of the Restoration. As a society historically obsessed with notions of hierarchy and rank, an insecure and vulnerable Japan drew an early lesson in 19th cen­ tury Real-politik: national strength and international respect paralleled colonial aggrandizement. There could not be one without the other. It would, however, be a gross misrepresentation to con­ clude that the mere satisfaction derived from her overseas pos­ sessions terminated Japanese interest or ambition. Other nations, perhaps, could afford the luxury of imperial adorn­ ment—Japan could not. Her colonies were to be going concerns, intimately and profitably tied to advancing the interests of the mother country. 180 Dennis L. McNamara Korea was not the first of Japan's imperial possessions. That dubious honor befell Taiwan. Yet it was the Korean peninsula that first drew the longing glances of Japan's early extra-territo­ rial expansionists. Major Meckel, the Prussian strategist and principle advisor to the Meiji Emperor's army, identified the Korean menace in a phrase as colorful as it was provocative. In a pointed reference to the misfortunes of geography he called the peninsula "a dagger thrust at the heart of Japan." The Meiji leadership took both his words to heed and the men he trained into battle, not once, but twice, in the course of a decade to pre­ vent that dagger from falling into the wrong hands. When the Japanese protectorate, established in 1906, proved an insuffi­ ciently vigorous means to effect the desired changes from an obdurate Korea, the formalities were dispensed with. In 1910, Korea was annexed to the Japanese empire. For the next thirtyfive years, in the words of Hyman Kublin, Japan: .. .foisted upon her newest colony an apparatus of soldiers, police­ men, bureaucrats, technicians, and teachers to guide the Koreans in the proper fulfillment of their duties as obedient and produc­ tive subjects of the Emperor. For sheer effectiveness of political control no other colony of the twentieth century ever approximat­ ed Korea, a prototype in many ways of the police states which were to emerge in the aftermath of World War I. When the Japanese withdrew from the peninsula in 1945, they left behind a very different Korea, a Korea transfromed and distorted to serve the ruinous pretensions of another people and another country. The persistence of this inherited legacy continues to haunt the national identities of both Koreas into our own time, for, if one cares to peel away the surface veneer of contemporary Korea, it is not difficult to discern there linger­ ing vestiges of the colonial past that time has yet barely touched. Nowhere are the outlines of the past in starker relief than in the engine room of the locomotive we call the Korean Miracle—South Korea's capitalist economy. Dennis McNamara has set himself the task of fleshing out the structures submerged by the years, yet that reach out to shape the present, in his study, The Colonial Origins ofKorean Enterprise 1910-1945. Mr. McNamara has uncovered much that is of interest and value in this work, providing insight into the manner by which Book Review 181 the Japanese have deeply and lastingly influenced, not solely the structure of Korean enterprise and the patterns of owner­ ship that characterize the giant industrial combines...