Colonialism and Imperialism

Week 2

State & Society in East Asia

2021
WEEK 2: Colonialism and Imperialism
• Haggard, S., Kang, D., & Moon, C. I. (1997). Japanese colonialism and
Korean development: A critique. World Development, 25(6), 867-881.
• Robinson M.E. 2007. Colonial State and Society. In Korea’s Twentieth-
Century Odyssey. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 36–55
• Booth, A. E. 2007. What Were Colonial Governments Doing? The Myth of
the Night Watchman State. In Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social
Development in East and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 67-87.

• Holcombe, C. (2017). The Age of Westernization (1900-1929) In C.

Holcombe A History of East Asia. Cambridge University Press, pp. 259-288.
• Holcombe, C. (2017). The Dark Valley (1930-1945). In C. Holcombe A
History of East Asia. Cambridge University Press, pp. 288-311
IMPERIALISM is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of
extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial
acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other
territories and peoples.

POLITICAL ECONOMIC CULTURAL


Legacy of Colonialism
COLONIALISM: exploitation of a
weaker country(ies) by a stronger
one(s) for political, strategic, and
resource interests.
Different types of colonialism:
• Settle colonialism = large-scale
repopulation (e.g., Canada, Australia);
• Exploitation /extractive colonialism =
using natural resources or indigenous
populations to the benefit of the
metropole (e.g., Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch, French, British empires);
• Neo-colonialism/ neo-imperialism =
using globalization as a tool to
subordinate other countries.
Some scholars distinguish more than 12
specific forms of colonialism (IMHO, those
additional categories don’t make sense).
POST-COLONIALISM: the political and
intellectual struggles of societies that
experienced the transition from political
and economic dependence to sovereignty.
Transport/ trade
colonialism:

In 1854, US
pressure resulted
in the “opening”
of Japan as a
“safe haven” for
American
whaleships. This
disrupted local
economies but
did not displace
Japanese people
themselves.
OTHERING is the process of
making a political distinction
between “We” and “They”
Othering is based on an assumption
that those who are different from
oneself are inferior.
• Demonic other
• Exotic other
Samuel P. Huntington
The Clash of Civilizations?
“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this
new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic.
The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of
conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful
actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will
occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash
of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between
civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

The Clash of Civilizations?, in Foreign Affairs (1993)

Edward Said: Orientalism
• Edward Said’s research focuses on relations between Muslims and Western societies. He is
famous for developing the concepts of orientalism.
• Orientalism is a way of seeing that emphasizes and exaggerates differences of non-Western
peoples and cultures as compared to those of Europe and the United States.
• It often involves constructing non-Western cultures as the exotic or/and demonic other,
backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous.
• Said (1978) defines orientalism as the acceptance in the West of “the basic distinction between
East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and
political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.”
• Discussing 9/11, Said (2001) argues that neither cultural nor religious diversity cause the current
conflict but ignorance nourished by the false and artificial dichotomies such as “the West” and
“Islam.” He points out that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Samuel Huntington’s
vocabulary of the “clash” (1993, 1996) is used to justify the superiority of “the West” and
essentialize Islam in a potentially racist way.
• The concept of orientalism was further applied to other non-Western societies and cultures,
including those in East Asia
 DEVELOPMENT = DISAPOINTMENT

…for the two-third of the people on

earth, [the] positive meaning of the
word ‘development’ – profoundly
rooted after two centuries of its social
construction – is a reminder of what
they are not. It is a reminder of an
undesirable, undignified condition. To
escape from it, they need to be
enslaved to others’ experiences and
dreams. (p. 6)
Esteva, G. (2010). Development. In W.
Sachs (Ed.) , The development
dictionary: A guide to knowledge as
power (pp. 6-25).

http://lijenhuang.blogspot.ca/2010/06/post-colonialism-cards.html
European colonialism in Southeast Asia
• A common assumption seems to be that British, Dutch, French and
American colonial regimes in Asia did not promote economic growth
and structural diversification, left behind institutions which were
extractive rather than inclusive, and did very little to improve living
standards.
• Inequality, poverty, broken education system…
• European colonialism is linked with the idea that the way of life of the
colonizers is better than that of the colonized = othering
• “White Man’s Burden”
• “civilizing mission”: bring the modernity to the “uncivilized world”
Colonialism =
White Man's Burden
Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child. Rudyard Kipling
Неси это гордое бремя -
Родных сыновей пошли
На службу тебе подвластным
Народам на край земли –
На каторгу ради угрюмых
Мятущихся дикарей,
Наполовину бесов,
Наполовину людей.
Is Japanese colonial empire an exception for Asia?

1895: Taiwan
1910-1945: Korea and Manchuria
An influential case: Why?
• Japan was the only non-Western nation to assemble its own colonial empire in Asia.
• Robinson (2007) about Japan in Korea: “The geographical proximity of metropole and colony was also
unique in the annals of modern colonial history, a feature it shared with only France and its North
African colonies. This proximity encouraged settlement of large numbers of metropolitan émigrés and
facilitated colonial migration into the metropole” (p. 20).
• Also: “But unlike France and its colonies, Japan and Korea shared a racial and cultural affinity and a
long, complex historical relationship” (p. 20).
Japanese colonial exceptionalism?
• Some scholars argue that Japanese colonial policy was more “developmental” than that of European
colonial powers and laid the foundations for the stellar economic performance of Taiwan and the
Republic of Korea in the decades after 1950.
• As brutal as Japanese colonialism was, it created new state structures and patterns of state-class
relations that helped postcolonial ruling elites in Taiwan and South Korea to build high-growth
economies.
• Does colonialism have a “good side” after all?
• What are (arguably) positive aspects of Japanese colonialism?
• Emphasized food self-sufficiency and agricultural transformation (e.g., the successful transfer of
higher-yielding rice varieties in Taiwan);
• Development of industry;
• Transport infrastructure;
• Emphasis on expanding access to education.
 Taiwan
• Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 through the Treaty of Shimonoseki =
the result of the 1st Sino-Japanese war
• Taiwan was Japan's first colony and can be viewed as the first step in
implementing their expansion strategy.
• Taiwan was supposed to become a Japanese showpiece “model colony.”
– Tokyo focused on agriculture and improved rice production by bringing new
seeds and farming techniques.
– Taiwan had about 50 km of railroads when Japan took control of the island, but
within a decade it had increased the track length to some 500 km, and much
more construction was planned.
– Taiwan was soon electrified, which facilitated the growth of new industries such
as textiles and chemicals.
Japan-Korea: 1910-1945

• The Korean Empire was formally annexed by the Empire of Japan in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910:
• The first article that opens the treaty states: “His Majesty the Emperor of Korea makes the
complete and permanent cession to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan of all rights of sovereignty
over the whole of Korea”.
• Colonial administration = the Government General of Korea (GGK)
• The governor-general was appointed from Tokyo and accountable to the Emperor of Japan and had a
near-absolute power.
• Japan viewed Korea as a base for advance into the whole of North-East Asia, including China,
Mongolia, and the Russian Far East.

• Kohli (2004) calls Japanese colonial regime in Korea a “busy state” (p. 40).
• Booth (2007) describes it as being characterized by “activist governments” (p. 68).
 • 1910-1918, a survey of land ownership and use:
The “busy • Better taxation system;
state” • Benefits for big land-owners;
• Collapse of traditional land-ownership systems.

• 1920s-1930s, rapid industrialization:

• The Japanese economy experienced fast growth over the
1930s => the economy of the colonies also flourished.
• By 1938, the industrial sector accounted for around 28%
of total GDP in Korea. In Korea, the growth in
manufacturing was from a very low base (6.4% in 1913
and 12% in 1929), which was low in comparison with
most other Asian colonies.
 • Revenues > Expenditures
Large surpluses of revenues over
expenditures permitted the “drain” abroad
Colonial fiscal of public funds.
• Positive assessments of Japanese
policies & colonial rule have “a technocratic bias”
(Haggar et al. 1997, p. 868).

bureaucracy Japanese colonial administration was

indeed sophisticated. In 1945, it employed
246,000 people. In contrast, France ruled
Vietnam with a 2,920 bureaucrats and a
small army of 11,000.
The positive aspects of the Japanese legacy in Korea include
• Improved food self-sufficiency and the agricultural industry;
• Industrialization;
• New transportation infrastructure;
• Access to education.

BUT:
• Once Japan could no longer supply crucial inputs such as fertilizer, the agriculture
production went down;
• Infrastructure was largely developed to serve the needs of investors from the metropolitan
power;
• Trade with the rest of the world was severely constrained, while that with Japan was mainly
based on the exchange of agricultural products for manufactured ones;
• The colonial administration did not support local small and medium enterprises;
• Industrialization was limited to agricultural processing. Some scholars even argue that
Japanese developmental planning focused on suppressing Korean industrialization to keep
it as a market for Japanese goods;
• The colonial used education as the prime means of social and cultural control and provided
only basic primary education to the locals.
The kominka campaign
The kominka campaign, a policy program that aimed at turning subject
peoples in Korea and Taiwan into loyal, thoroughly Japanese, subjects of the
Emperor.
1. The name changing policy (sōshi-kaimei, 創氏改名) pressured Koreans to adopt
Japanese names. In 1939, Koreans were gracefully allowed to choose a Japanese
name. About 84% of all Koreans took a Japanese name, because those who kept
their original Korean names were not recognized by the colonial bureaucracy and
were shut out of public services (e.g., couldn’t use mail services).
2. “Religious reform” meant the discouragement of traditional local beliefs and the
substitution of State Shinto in their place.
3. The “national language movement” was intended to denigrate the speaking of
local languages in favor of Japanese.
4. The “military volunteers' movement” was designed to encourage active colonial
participation in the war effort through voluntary enlistment in the armed forces.
Education and culture in Korea under the
Japanese administration
• Schools and universities forbade speaking Korean and emphasized
manual labor and loyalty to the Emperor.
• Public places adopted Japanese, too, and an edict to make films in
Japanese soon followed.
• It also became a crime to teach history from non-approved texts and
authorities burned over 200,000 Korean historical documents,
essentially wiping out the historical memory of Korea.
• The colonial government also attempted to preserve treasures of
Korean art history and culture—but then used them to uphold
imperial Japan’s image of itself as a civilizing and modern force.
 Colonial “soft power”
Yoshiko Yamaguchi / Li Xianglan (Ri Kōran)
Yoshiko Yamaguchi
represented China in
Japanese propaganda
movies.

Early in Yoshiko
Yamaguchi’s career, the
Manchukuo Film
Association concealed
her Japanese origin. She
went by the Chinese
name Li Xianglan (李香
蘭), rendered in
Japanese as Ri Kōran.
Comparative perspective
• First and foremost, North Korea and Manchuria accounted for around 70%
of the total population of Japanese colonies in 1938 (when the empire
reaches its peak). However, they have not performed nearly as well as
Taiwan and South Korea in the second half of the 20th century.
• Even though the three Manchurian provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, and
Liaoning) had a higher per capita GDP than the average for the rest of
China in the early years of the 21st century, they had not achieved the level
of development of Taiwan or South Korea.
• Overall, Taiwanese and South Korean growth miracles after the 1960s
were more influenced by the policy responses to the problems of the late
1940s and 1950s than by the period of Japanese control.
POPULATION OF KOREA: 1900–1944
New immigration patterns & new social stratification system

• Koreans comprised the same percentage of the population in Manchuria as

Japanese did in Korea.
• By 1940, the number of Koreans living outside Korea exceeded 2.5 million,
or about 10% of the total population at that time.
• The Koreans worked mainly in intermediate occupations, while large
numbers of migrants from China moved mainly into unskilled laboring jobs.
• There were no “melting pot” in the Japanese Empire.
• Tokyo forced the colonized populations to learn Japanese and absorb Japanese
culture. However, neither Korea, nor Chinese were supposed to become Japanese.
• The Japanese had little or no contact with the other ethnic groups in the colonies
and lived apart from them.
• Japan uses a form of “scientific racism” to justify colonization.
Development despite the colonial rule
• The nature of the decolonization process is of crucial importance.

• Korea had already a small class of educated Koreans before it was colonized by
Japan.
• Given that the Japanese dominated the upper echelons of the civil service, some
educated Koreans opted to go into business.
• When the Republic of Korea was established after the bitter civil war of the early
1950s, there was already an indigenous business class that had experience and
skills to kick-start the rapid industrial growth for which South Korea has become
famous in the 1960s.
• Japan’s defeat and subsequent political upheavals in the 1940s in Korea and
China wiped out much of the progress that occurred during the three decades
Japanese occupation.
How does
colonialism affect
modern Korea?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
ZdEqOdmK62E
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
yfTHoR5gQQk
 • Like Japan, China has a rich history of imperialism and is a
regional power.
• 2000 years of imperial rule = vast geography and disparate
peoples (think: Xinjiang and Tibet)

• 1839-1949: the “Century of Humiliation” (百年国耻)

• 1899-1901: The Boxer rebellion in Northern China (义和

团运动)

• 1900: a united international force arrives in Beijing and

routs the Boxers who have besieged the foreign legation

• The Qing dynasty never recovered from the turbulence and

humiliations of 1900 and finally collapses in 1912.
• Overthrow of imperial rule in 1912 led to a civil conflict
and clash between Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) and
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1927 and
1949.
The Chinese Martyrs
• 1931-1945: Japan invades and gradually
occupies more and more of China.

• Japanese occupation of China before and

during WWII led to renewed civil conflict and
the eventual victory of Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong.

• 1937-1945: the 2nd Sino-Japanese War

• 1937: Kuomintang and Communists nominally

unite against Japanese. Civil war resumes
after Japan's defeat in Second World War.

• 1949: Chinese nationalists fled to Taiwan and

the People’s Republic of China emerged
Millions of people all of one
mind vow to exterminate
the Japanese
enemy, ca. 1937
 The Nanjing Massacre, 1937

1997 2007
The Nanjing Massacre, 1937

On December 13, 2014, China held its first

Nanjing Massacre memorial day.

Nanjing Memorial Hall – 2015

“Achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has been the greatest dream of the
Chinese people since the advent of modern times. This dream embodies the long-
cherished hope of several generations of Chinese people.”