Collaborative Autonomy: The Yokohama Agreement of the YMCA, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and Yun Ch’i-ho

Abstract

The reexamination of the Tokyo Agreement in 1913, the Yokohama Agreement in 1922 and the Institute of the Pacific Relations in 1929 reveal a penetrating theme that the YMCA and its Korean president, Yun Chi-ho, strove to secure. In the midst of political constraints and systemic surveillance of the Government General over the colonial institutions, the YMCA provided a unique space, where information of Korean situations as well as knowledge of international experts streamed in and out. Of utmost importance here was the international exchange that transpired in the space of autonomy. On the loss of Korea’s diplomatic right, the YMCA’s autonomy gave solid leverage to form a network of the East and the West. The Christian missionary organization, the YMCA, provided Korean nationalists an international canopy under which they could champion the Korean cause and cultivate the Koreans’ aspirations. The autonomy and the strength of the Korean YMCA later opened the door to Korean participation in the founding and early conferences of the IPR, where Koreans used the name, “Korea,” with a distinct role in the pursuit of the IPR’s vision for a new world called the “Pacific Community” among Pacific countries. Together with the IPR, Koreans envisioned a new world order, where peace and egalitarianism would govern and transcend a colonial paradigm. Their experience of the YMCA and the IPR consolidated a belief in Christian internationalism, a way to implement nationalistic projects in colonial Korea, and shaped one of their notable characteristics, that is, binary allegiance to nationalism as well as Christian internationalism. The Tokyo Terms of Affiliation, which subjected the Korean YMCA to the Japanese YMCA, displays the signatures of Korean patriots as well as principled missionary statesmen. On the other hand, Yun Chi-ho, a putative collaborator, was the primary force behind the repeal of the Tokyo Terms through the collaborative negotiation at the Yokohama Agreement, which restored the autonomy of the Korean YMCA. Yun, who opposed street rallies for Korean independence during the March First movement, forcefully championed Korean autonomy in the Korean YMCA. He sought to preserve the Korean YMCA from the Japanese government’s suspicion and its operation to emasculate the YMCA’s backbone, as the Korean Conspiracy Case had earlier proven. The crossroads of Yun, the Yokohama Agreement of the YMCA, and the IPR demonstrate the role of Korean Christianity in building the nation of Korea and bridging the world community. Seemingly contradictory stances that often transpire in colonial Korea, this essay propounds, need to be understood in the light of the complexities of the colonial context, in which a monolithic rubric of patriots and collaborators does not easily fit. Their borderline in colonial Korea is fluid.