THE KOREAN COLONY IN CHIENTAO: A STUDY OF JAPANESE IMPERIALISM AND MILITANT KOREAN NATIONALISM, 1905-1932

The Korean colony in Chientao played a little known but important role in the power struggle between imperialism and nationalism in Manchuria. Korean emigration to the Chientao area began in the late nineteenth century and expanded until it numbered about one million by 1931. As a result of the predominance of Koreans in Chientao, a border dispute developed between Korea and China wherein both claimed the area as part of their national territory. The when the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910, they claimed jurisdiction over all Koreans including those who had emigrated to Manchuria. What emerged was a portentous confrontation between the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese.;The Japanese colonial administration of Korea after 1910 profoundly antagonized Korean sympathies in Manchuria. This sentiment produced a national consciousness and the growth of a militant nationalist movement to actively oppose Japanese imperialism. Chientao was able to engender such a movement because of its strategic location, Chinese protection, the availability of arms and supplies, and an aroused community led by trained military leadership. Numerous military actions by nationalists and communists seriously undermined Japanese authority in the area and threatened their military positions both on the borders of Korea and Manchuria.;The Japanese, however, through a series of negotiations and treaties, succeeded in turning Chinese support against Korean militants and immigrants. The Japanese insisted upon jurisdiction over the Koreans and thereby gradually entangled the Chinese in the Chientao Agreement of 1909, the Treaty of 1915 and the Mitsuya Agreement of 1925. This strategy forced the Chinese to actively oppose Korean nationalism in an effort to protect their own national sovereignty.;Despite continual revolutionary encounters, the militant Korean nationalists were unable to achieve their goal of freedom from Japanese imperialism between 1905 and 1931. Instead, the nationalists were exploited by the Japanese to achieve their expansion into Manchuria. The success of Japanese imperialism and the loss of Chinese protection were important causes for the decline and demise of the Korean independence movement in Manchuria after 1931. The Korean cause was further weakened by the lack of a unified leadership for the splinter groups among both nationalists and communists.;Although the Japanese establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 effectively suppressed the Korean militant independence movement in Manchuria, the philosophical foundations of independence were firmly implanted in the minds of the Korean people and the sacrifices emanating from the demise were not without results. Chientao's strong movement among Koreans contributed a deep sense of patriotism and a willingness to fight for an independent nation-state against a major world power. When Japan was defeated in World War II, the imperialist pressures ceased and immediately the ideologies and leadership of communists and nationalists inherited from the Koren independence movement emerged to influence the new governments in Korea. Thus, the militant Korean independence movement in the Chientao area left a powerful legacy to Korean political thought and practice that is still felt today.