Japanese Empire Research Articles

한말~일제 초기 형사법의 추이와 사형제의 변화

Modern Korea implemented the Gab‘o Reform(甲午更張) and unified the type of death penalty by hanging in 1895. The beheading and Neungji execution sentences that had been implemented since the late Joseon Dynasty were abolished. The government of Korean Empire revived the beheading in 1900 through civil rights movements and political upheaval. In addition, the death penalty was strengthened by expanding the death penalty for thieves.
 The Government of Korean Empire promulgated the Penal Code(『Hyeonbeob Daejeon(刑法大全)』 in 1905. At this time, the beheading was abolished and the hanging was unified again. This criminal law was too specific and peripheral for death penalty crimes, and the statutory sentence was defined as the death penalty, so judges could not sentence them in consideration of the norm of the crime. From the Gab’o Reform (1895) to the Korean Empire (1909), the number of executions totaled 1,189, with 17 beheading and 1,172 hanging.
 The Japanese Empire colonized Korea and maintained this criminal law until 1912. The purpose was to punish Koreans who strongly resisted the invasion of Japanese imperialism.

Fishing for a New World Order in the Twentieth-Century Indo-Pacific

Abstract This article argues that the territorialization of the ocean was one of the crucial inflection points of the twentieth century, transforming the sovereignty of states and profoundly reshaping their territories. In terms of scale, it is the most planetary of the many remappings that have marked the twentieth century. A close study of the globalization of the Japanese tuna industry serves to illustrate this transition and can help us understand why and how this process evolved. The Japanese Empire was a key actor in the transimperial hotspot of the Indo-Pacific, where multiple empires met and interacted. Transimperial “brokers”—both human migrants and migratory species such as tuna—moved across boundaries and created an open oceanic frontier dependent on shifting ecological conditions. These transimperial entanglements did not end in 1945. Their legacies weighed heavy in the decolonization process that followed the Second World War, with new states seeking to establish their territories at sea as well as on land. Japan’s success in maintaining access to fishing grounds shows how these entanglements transcended the so-called Age of Empires to influence the establishment of a new global order and a new oceanic sovereignty.

White Heaven Palace and Huh Kyung Young: Political Peacemaker of a New Religion in Contemporary Korea

A common purpose of religious organisations is promoting global or regional peace perspectives through their teachings and practices. Native religious groups in Korea emerged owing to the social transformation of internal security. The ruin of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) and the colonial repression by the Japanese Empire (1910–1945) and Korean War (1950–1953) resulted in the growth of new religious movements. Korean contemporary society (post-1980s) also witnesses the emergence of unique religious leaders. Do any groups promote the socio-political policy of a peacemaker? This paper explores the new religious movement of Huh Kyung Young (1947– ) and his adherents through the perspectives of military-economic environment, mystical prophecy, popular culture, politics, election, new religion, and suspicion. The paper not only demonstrates the historical process of a pop singer and politician becoming a new religious leader, but also argues that the contemporary group of Haneulgung (‘While Heaven Palace’) attempts to establish a permanent peace through the sacred-political domination of the so-called, ‘the God Man’ rather than depending on secular powers.

Nishida Kitaro and Japans Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

No one shaped modern Japanese philosophy as significantly as did Nishida Kitaro, a prominent scholar at Kyoto Imperial University and the author of An Inquiry into the Good. He pioneered the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy, which combined Western and Eastern thoughts, traditions, and religions to reach a new understanding of the world. Not usually seen as a political figure, Nishida penned a controversial essay in 1943, two years before his death, titled The Principle of the New World Order. The essay was intended for Prime Minister Tojo Hideki's use at the 1943 Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo, where leaders from East and Southeast Asian countries under the rule of Japanese imperialism discussed future visions for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan's ostensible war cause. Nishida opposed the militarist government and its oppressive policies at home and abroad, but he hoped to influence its policy through his philosophical writing as Japan's defeat loomed larger than ever. The tense political atmosphere in wartime Japan and Nishida's vision of the world, which was characterized by the harmonious coexistence of the individual and the collective, turned The Principle of the New World Order into a text full of contradictionsthe greatest among them being his uncritical use of Hakko Ichiu (Eight Corners of the World under One Roof), a politico-religious jargon to justify the supreme rule of the Japanese emperor. After WWII, Nishida was posthumously criticized for cooperating with the military government by writing that essay, but a close examination of the text, its historical context, and other works by Nishida reveal that the lone Japanese philosopher was trying to steer Japan's Pan-Asian policy from within, an attempt that was doomed to fail when the government was mobilizing intellectuals for its imperial goals. By focusing on the case of Nishida, this article uncovers the complex dynamic between the Japanese empire and Japanese intellectuals who tried to voice their views different than the government's.

When I was preparing “Study of the Japanese Novel in the Late Period of Japanese Empire”

Attended graduate school during the day, and taught at a language school at night, while working on my master’s thesis.

Overseas Shinto Shrines: Religion, Secularity and the Japanese Empire, by Karli Shimizu

Overseas Shinto Shrines: Religion, Secularity and the Japanese Empire, by Karli Shimizu

Left-wing nationalist-populist movement and identification: A psycho-political analysis of the “comfort woman” statue movements in South Korea

Sonyosang (girl statue in Korean) is a bronze statue symbolizing “comfort women,” the estimated 80,000 to 200,000 women physically, mentally, and sexually exploited by the Japanese Empire during WWII. As a backlash against the 2015 ″comfort women” agreement between the South Korean and Japanese governments, Koreans have installed 384 girl statues across South Korea. Based on ethnographic research that I conducted in South Korea between 2019 and 2021, including in-depth interviews with Korean activists who raised funds for or participated in creating, installing, and managing girl statues in South Korea, this research examines how the girl statue movement in South Korea has developed into a left-wing nationalist-populist movement and how affective identification with the statue generates a populist identity. To this end, this research firstly discusses how former President Park Geun-hye's undemocratic political measures recall the memory of minjungism (Korean populism) that led the pro-democracy movement in the 1980s, enabling Korean nationalist leftists' demands to form a chain of equivalence in the girl statue movement. Secondly, relying on Melanie Klein's theory of identification, this article examines how the ‘people’ is constituted through affective forms of identification with the girl statue. By doing so, this article demonstrates that the growth of the girl statue movement into a left-wing nationalist-populist movement blurs boundaries between the psychological, the personal, the national, and the (geo)political.

Germans in Korea in the late 19th - early 20th centuries as a translocal and bourgeois community

This study deals with the German community in Korea between the conclusion of Korea’s first international treaties in the early 1880s and the country’s annexation by the Japanese Empire in 1910 in the context of transnational and global history. In the decades around 1900 the circulation of people, ideas, goods and capital beyond and across the national borders increased. The Korean peninsula has gradually integrated into global economic and political processes. The result of it became the formation of the European community in Joseon (Choson). The German community in Korea made up of diplomats, foreign experts hired by the Korean government as well as merchants and missionaries. They were individuals who defined themselves as bourgeois (or middle-class) who actively interacted with representatives of the Korean elites, becoming agents of an imperialist policy in East Asia. German citizens influenced the development of German-Korean relations contributing into the cultural dialogue between the two countries and the subsequent modernization of Joseon.

Fragmented geographies: Tada Fumio and the Japanese empire in Manchuria, Mengjiang and Korea

This paper explores the placement and function of the discipline of geography in the expansion of the Japanese empire, doing so through the prism of the work and field research of Tada Fumio, a leading geographer in Japan both before and after 1945. This examination of this aspect of Tada Fumio's career and its interweaving with the construction and consolidation of Japan's empire will broaden recent studies of imperial Japan's simultaneous encounter with geopolitics and fascism while engaging with Japan's developing ideas about geography as a political and cultural discipline. This paper demonstrates the importance of the entwined histories of Japanese and German geographers in the Japanese empire, as well as documenting Tada Fumio's activities in Manchuria (northeast China) and on the Korean peninsula. Finally, the paper reveals fissures in the historical record of Japanese geographers in continental Asia and, until such time as more subaltern voices can be found, seeks to lay down the foundation for further research on the study of geography in the Japanese empire.

The role of State Shinto and sport in integrating Singapore into the Japanese Empire, 1942–45

The role of State Shinto and sport in integrating Singapore into the Japanese Empire, 1942–45

순혈(純血)’의 환상과 혼혈아의 등장

The term “mixed race” is not currently used in South Korea. In Japan, Asahi Shimbun decided in January 2004 to avoid using the term “mixed-race child”. This is because “mixed race” is a term that sets boundaries between humans and otherizes them, and is not appropriate in this era of increasing globalization. The term “mixed race” first appeared in Korea during the colonial period, particularly around 1940. In this study, we will examine the reason and meaning behind the full-fledged emergence of the term “mixed race” in two novels that feature mixed-race children: “Typhoon” (1943) by Kane Raise and “Pirate Story of the South Seas” by Ando Sakan. (1939). Around 1940, there was a serious debate going on in Japan about “maintaining the purity of the race”, and Kim Nae-sung's “Typhoon” and Ahn Tou-hee's “Inferno in the South Sea” were very relevant to this era. It was a novel created in which the main character was a mixed-race man who aimed to build a mixed-race empire in this atmosphere. The exploration of the “mixed-race people” that appear in these two novels has an important meaning in investigating the substance of the pure-blood ideology that was spread by the Japanese Empire during the colonial period. In addition, the conclusions of these two novels are worth noting in order to clearly understand the origins of racial prejudice and discriminatory perceptions that still persist today.

Intercultural Legacies in Shaping the British-Korean Relations Between the 1880s and 1920s

Spanning from the late 19th to the early 20th century, the intricate dynamics between Britain and Korea reveal a multifaceted interplay often overshadowed in broad historical discourses. This article offers an exploratory glance into the multifaceted nature of the British-Korean relationship, touching upon a variety of political, economic, and cultural interactions. The study highlights the geopolitical concerns of the time, marked by Korea’s nuanced role amidst its relations with regional powers like China, Russia, and Japan and Britain’s intermittent sidelining of East Asia due to its global imperatives. The economic exchanges, while not vast, were pivotal, illustrated by the flow of Korean art to Britain and the seeding of British industries in Korea. Central to this narrative are key figures like Isabella Bird, Sir John Jordan, John McLeavy Brown, Ahn Changho, and Syngman Rhee, whose personal experiences and informal influences brought unique depth to the cross-cultural dynamics. The vibrant cultural exchanges, emphasizing both the arts and societal norms, underline the depth and resilience of the Korean-British connection. While the process of Korea’s reception of and response to Western culture took place primarily under the influence of the Japanese Empire, Korea was also unofficially incorporated into the global network of capitalism organized under the leadership of the British Empire during this period, and it is therefore academically relevant to analyze this division in line with recent trends in the study of the history of the British Empire. Looking at how the informal networks of the British Empire worked on the Korean peninsula holds significance. Ultimately, this comprehensive exploration underscores the significance of historical cultural engagements, emphasizing their relevance in today’s world of diplomacy and global collaboration. This article suggests that further research should address these issues from an intercultural perspective.

Gendering and Sexualising Opium Consumption in Manchukuo, 1932–1945

ABSTRACT This article explores the sociocultural history of opium consumption and its popularisation through the beauty of female attendants in Manchukuo, which was a crucial part of the Japanese Empire and an important ‘contact zone’ of diverse cultures. It offers a glimpse into the opium–prostitution nexus by exploring the legal, commercial, social, and cultural dimensions of the gendered and sexualised practice of opium consumption, which reinforced a highly entangled triangulation of imperial consultants from Japan and Korea, Chinese opium shop-owners, and consumers of multiple nationalities. As such, the article highlights how this subculture developed at a time of increasingly pervasive surveillance of sex workers as well as deeply asymmetrical power relations between imperial subjects and the Chinese locals, and along class and gender lines. In examining how female attendants promoted opium within illegal establishments, I argue that the gendered and sexualised consumption of opium reshaped the culture and economy of the substance’s use and that this culture, its regulation, and imperialism damaged Manchukuo society. By doing so, the article reveals the subculture of gendered and sexualised opium consumption in Manchukuo and the Japanese Empire more broadly.

Analysing Racial Theories and Hierarchies Existing at the Time of the Asia-Pacific War: Japan’s View of the “South-Sea Islands”

This paper provides an analysis of the racial theories and conceptions prevailing in Japan during the Asia-Pacific War, a period spanning approximately 15 years from the Mukden Incident of 1931 until 1945, highlighting Japan’s imperialism in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. The central theme explores how the Japanese Empire positioned itself in comparison to Western nations and other Asian peoples, leading to the creation of a racial hierarchy with the “Yamato race” at the pinnacle, while categorizing all other Asian ethnicities into different levels below. Particular emphasis is placed on the racial theories and hierarchies constructed around the region back then referred to as “South Sea Islands”, Nan’yō guntō.

The Empire’s Sweet Tooth

This article examines how the commercial success of Western-style confectionery (yōgashi) of the Japanese Empire was largely built on the capital and resources of colonial Taiwan. Building on existing studies that acknowledge the importance of Taiwan’s colonization in Japan’s sugar industry, this article explores the tension between sweetness and power in the Japanese Empire through the lens of Western-style confectionery, a product regarded as a symbol of progress and modernity. Through the examination of the activities of two confectionery companies—Niitaka Confectionery and Morinaga Confectionery—in Taiwan, this article addresses how the making of Western-style confectionery required raw materials other than sugar, such as bananas and cocoa, that were obtained through the means of colonialism. By expanding the studies on sweetness and colonialism from sugar to confectionery, the article shows that the sugar industry, confectionery manufacturers, and the Japanese state wove together a complicated network that formed the foundation of Japan’s rising empire of sweetness. It also highlights the significance of the colonization of Taiwan in the rise of Japan’s Western-style confectionery industry that has long been obscured in people’s memories of sweetness.

Classification, Observational Practice, and Henry Seebohm’s The Birds of the Japanese Empire in Late-Victorian Britain

In the latter months of 1890 the ornithologist Henry Seebohm (1832–1895) published his transnationally well-received The birds of the Japanese Empire . However, although travelling widely to places such as Greece, South Africa and Siberia, Seebohm never visited Japan. Instead, his knowledge of Japanese birds was gathered through second-hand methods including knowledge and network building, specimen acquiring and comparing and the adoption of a novel classification system. These observational methods of Seebohm as an ‘armchair’ practitioner served to enhance his name as an authority on Japanese birds. Despite an increase in scholarship surrounding the emergence of professionalized twentieth-century Japanese imperial ornithology, little attention has been paid to the various Victorian naturalists who were central to its nineteenth-century origins. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to document the importance of one such naturalist by focusing on Seebohm’s active years between 1878 and 1890. Through this analysis I argue that Seebohm’s observational practices, particularly his use of a novel trinomial classification, were central to securing his credibility on Japanese birds despite never visiting Japan, and that consequently his 1890 book became a landmark in the development of ornithology in the Japanese Empire.

Fragments of multi-layered settler colonialism: mixed-race children in Japanese schooling, the American Philippines, 1924–1945

ABSTRACT This article examines Japanese schools in Davao Province, the American Philippines, by highlighting the mixed-race children born to Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers. How did mixed-race children experience Japanese schooling in the Philippines, in which Japan’s settler colonial project operated in a colonial territory of the U.S. empire? I call entangled conditions, such as Davao on the island of Mindanao, ‘multi-layered settler colonialism.’ In Davao, the settler colonial projects of the U.S. and Japanese empires developed co-constitutively by underlining the subjugation of tribal Filipinos to Christian Filipinos and displacing the former. By following Black and postcolonial feminist method and patching together archival fragments of different genres and locations, I uncover the perspectives of mixed-race students in the history of multi-layered settler colonialism. I argue that the goals of Japanese education in the Philippines, a product of the public and private collusion, both conflicted with and reinforced American colonial education which was also developed by state and nonstate actors. I also show that the diverse experiences of mixed-race children and their mothers contested the stated goals of American colonial and Japanese education by illuminating the multi-layered nature of settler colonialism.

Linguistic (Im)mobility and the Transformation of Korean Language in Ch’ae Mansik’s Late Colonial Literature

Abstract This article examines translingual literary circulations through close readings of Ch’ae Mansik’s Korean-language writings from the early 1940s. While a growing number of recent publications have approached late colonial literature through the lens of transnational movement, the primary focus of this emerging body of scholarship has been the Japanese-language writings of Korean writers. Instead of relegating the Korean language of this time to a position of self-evident immobility, this article shows how colonial writings that were never translated into, nor written in, the imperial language reveal indelible marks of border crossings across distances and languages. Ch’ae’s Korean-language texts resist the linguistic hegemony of the Japanese empire not by refusing change or insisting on linguistic purity but by providing testimony of the various ways the Korean language itself was transformed under the demands of the wartime Japanese empire. Countering the idea that automatically equates translation and other forms of transcultural travel to increased heterogeneity, Ch’ae’s writings also show how the wartime instrumentalization of literature as carriers of meaning across greater geographical and cultural distances led to a stripping down of the existing plurality and materiality of sound within the Korean language.

Yuka Hiruma Kishida. Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism: Education in the Japanese Empire.

Yuka Hiruma Kishida. <i>Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism: Education in the Japanese Empire</i>.

Making Capital of ‘Illegal’ Publication under Japanese Imperial Censorship: Publication Strategies of Senki (Battle Flag) around 1930

Around 1930, the Japanese publishing market was restructured, and as part of this process, the colonial market emerged within the Japanese Empire. In an attempt to expand into the colonial market, publishers such as Kaizō-sha, Chūōkōron-sha, and Senki-sha competed among each other, producing ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ commodities related to socialism. This paper examines the circulation of illegal commodities such as the often-banned magazine Senki (Battle Flag), cross-reading them with internal documents from Senki-sha (Senki’s publisher) and NAPF (All-Japan Federation of Proletarian Arts), as well as with those from the Japanese Home Ministry and the Japanese Government-General in Korea. By doing so, the essay argues that the main actors of the socialist cultural movement around 1930 purposefully planned to capitalize on the ‘illegal’ nature of their commodities, while adopting a public stance of differentiation from commercial capital. Furthermore, by proposing that the publication of illegal commodities was in fact deeply imbricated with the movement of capital in the publishing market, this paper also reveals that Korean-language publications–notably, the magazine Uri tongmu (Our Comrades)–produced by socialists in the Japanese interior around 1930, ended up playing a role in undermining the reconstruction of socialism in Korea. For this reason, it is crucial to reconsider the prevailing narrative about the history of the Japanese socialist movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s, which often essentializes the connection between Japanese and Korean socialists as pure ideological solidarity, paying little attention to the complex movement of capital, legal and illegal, at work in the Japanese Empire around 1930.