SUICIDE TO ASSASSINATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE VIEWS OF MIN YŎNGHWAN AND AN CHUNGGŬN ON PEACE IN EAST ASIA AND THEIR RESPONSES TO THE JAPANESE PROTECTORATE OVER KOREA

Abstract

In the early hours of November 30, 1905, Min Yŏnghwan took his own life in protest against the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty that had been forced on the Korean cabinet in the wake of Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)—thus ended the career of an elite member of Korea’s Confucian ruling class, who had unique experience in dealing with foreign diplomatic officials due to his two visits to the West in 1896 and 1897. Four years later An Chunggŭn, a convert to Roman Catholicism, was hung for the assassination of Itō Hirobumi, the Japanese statesman responsible for the protectorate treaty. This article examines the ideas of these two men as expressed in their writings, namely, Min’s policy essay Ch’ŏnilch’aek (One policy out of one thousand) and other pieces from his collected works Min Ch’ungjŏnggong yugo (Posthumous works of Min Yŏnghwan), which were not inherently antagonistic to the Western powers other than Russia and focused primarily on exposing the aggressive intentions of Japan, and An’s treatise, Tongyang p’yŏnghwaron (A treatise on peace in the East), which viewed the West as posing a common threat to China, Japan and Korea that required a collective response based on racial solidarity and the mutual recognition of each state’s sovereignty and independence. The article will also examine their ideas in the context of Western views of the region as well as the responses of Western commentators to their final acts of protest.