Read A History of Korea Online
Authors: Professor Kyung Moon Hwang
Tags: #Education & Reference, #History, #Ancient, #Early Civilization, #Asia, #Korea, #World, #Civilization & Culture
A History of Korea (66 page)
As an emblem of modern technology and material change, however, the railroad came to dominate the popular and historical consciousness in Korea during the opening decades of the twentieth century—serving, as it did around the world, as a metaphor for progress and transformation. The fanfare that greeted the opening of the Seoul–Inch’
n line on September 18, 1899, reflected the momentousness of the event, as dignitaries from the political, diplomatic, and business worlds gathered in a station on the south bank of the Han River, just outside Seoul, for the inaugural ride. News reports and official pronouncements heralded this event as a momentous step toward a new era. One newspaper account noted with awe that, “On the inside, the rail cars were divided into three classes—high, medium, and low—while the outside of the cars was decorated in such a [lavish] way as to be indescribable.” The train departed with the first group of passengers at 9am, and “within a short time” found its way to Inch’n, where a magisterial welcoming ceremony awaited them at the station. At the
festivities, according to another newspaper report, the head of the Japanese company that operated the rail line concluded his congratulatory address with three cheers of “Long Live the Korean Emperor” and “Long Live the Japanese Emperor.” He was followed by Korea’s Foreign Minister, who also ended his remarks by leading three shouts of “Long Live the Korean Emperor.” The reporter noted that the throng of people at the Inch’n station looked “like a cloud,” and pondered, along with a bystander, that this might have signaled Koreans’ overdue achievement of “enlightenment.” They also noted regrettably, however, that this wondrous technology had been built by foreigners.
An American company had won the concession from the Korean government to construct the Seoul–Inch’n rail line, which broke ground in 1896, but a few months before completion had sold these rights to a partially government-owned Japanese company. In hindsight it was clear that the Japanese had eyed this short stretch as the prelude to the larger prize of building two “trunk lines” that would extend from the capital to the port city of Pusan in the southeast and to
iju in the northwest. These two lines, with the former completed in time to aid the Japanese effort against Russia in the 1904–5 war, would greatly aid Japan’s expansionist aims. But the Korean imperial government had sold many concessions to representatives of various countries for transportation and communication networks, mines, and industries. These concessions all had in common favorable terms for the foreign enterprise and a potential, often met, to retrieve great returns on the investment. From the Korean government’s (or monarchy’s) vantage point, selling these rights did not constitute a giveaway, but rather an opportunity to import commercial and industrial technologies while expanding the coffers of the state. The Korean rulers could hardly have envisioned that some of these ventures, especially the railroad, would also serve literally as a vehicle for imperialist aggression.
Furthermore, as Korean governments later in the twentieth century discovered, it was difficult to separate the general well-being of the country from the influx of foreign capital, technologies, and industries. The economic gains in the Korean Empire period would not have materialized without foreign commercial intercourse.
The rise of Korean port cities
An unlikely symbol of the ambiguous position of the Great Korean Empire period in modern Korean history is the city, or more precisely, the rapid growth of urban centers from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. As with so much else associated with the modern era in Korea, the emergence of modern cities is entangled with the unsettling impact of external forces, in particular the transformation of the country into first a target of imperialism, then a Japanese colony. Imperialist and colonialist interests, especially regarding trade and transportation, launched the rise of many of the familiar cities today. These places include Sin
iju, Kaesng, and Hngnam in the North, and in the South, Kunsan, Mokp’o, and especially Taejn, now South Korea’s fifth largest metropolis, which went from small town to provincial capital during the colonial period. Outside the traditional centers of Pyongyang and Seoul, however, the two largest cities by the end of the colonial era were Pusan and Inch’n, which grew through the regional trading system beginning in the late nineteenth century.
Pusan and Inch’n had long served as ports in the Chosn era, but their significance increased dramatically after the 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa with Japan. Afterwards they served as two out of the three official “treaty ports,” along with Wnsan (now in North Korea), where officially sanctioned foreign trade could occur. Through the accelerated influx of foreign merchants, interests, and conflicts at the turn of the twentieth century, the stage was set for these two ports to grow rapidly as Korea’s meeting points with the larger world. Inch’n, the gateway to the capital, grew into a hotspot teeming with Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and other foreign merchants, who set up their own communities and worked with the native population to gain favorable terms for extending their commercial ventures into the interior. Though the port became a battleground for the imperialist rivalry between China and Japan, by the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905
Japanese interests had gained the firm upper hand and soon began to construct not only railroads but also electricity, gas, and telegraph lines. Presently South Korea’s fourth largest city and home to the country’s gleaming flagship airport as well as other enormous development projects, Inch’n (Incheon) now touts its long ties to China and its status as Korea’s most visible global hub.
Pusan, by contrast, was always a creature of Korea’s relations with Japan. A port that had long facilitated the minimal official trade between the two kingdoms during the Chosn era, in the late nineteenth century Pusan quickly developed into an almost extra-territorial base for Japanese commercial, agricultural, then military ambitions. By the turn of the twentieth century the harbor area had a large Japanese settlement and served as the primary entrance point for Japanese merchants wanting access to Korea’s internal trading networks, and for Japanese companies supplying the amenities of the modern commercial world. Railways and electricity lines that began as short networks within Pusan during the pre-annexation period, for example, soon extended to neighboring areas in the southeastern region of the peninsula. And, not surprisingly, this Japanese largesse continued into the colonial period, when Pusan’s expansion swallowed up its adjacent towns and eventually turned the city into an official provincial capital. The rapid development of Pusan served it well when, during the opening months of the Korean War in 1950, it functioned as the interim capital of South Korea that held at bay the North Korean siege until American reinforcements, through an invasion of Inch’n, provided relief. Today Pusan (Busan), as South Korea’s “second city,” ranks as one of the largest ports and most dynamic metropolises in the world.