A History of Korea (57 page)

Perhaps the most important provision in the Treaty of Kanghwa was Article 1, which stated: “Chos
ŏ
n, as an independent state, enjoys the same sovereign rights as Japan does.”
³
The Japanese insisted on this article in the treaty because it meant that, as an independent state, Chos
ŏ
n was no longer subject to China’s traditional suzerainty claims. Thus Japan could begin to exercise economic and political influence over Chos
ŏ
n without Chinese interference. The 12-article treaty opened up three Chos
ŏ
n ports, including Pusan, to Japanese trade. The designation of two other ports was left to Japan’s discretion. The two ports later designated were W
ŏ
nsan on the east coast, in 1880, and Inch’
ŏ
n (then called Chemulp’o) on the west coast, in 1883. The treaty also granted the Japanese the right of extraterritoriality, which Japan wanted to remove from their treaties with the Western powers.

The Treaty of Kanghwa caused considerable concern in China, but in the late 1870s China, because of its own serious problems, could not afford to thwart Japanese designs in Chos
ŏ
n. As the Chinese government mulled this dilemma, the United States provided a possible solution. America once again showed an interest in entering into treaty negotiations with Chos
ŏ
n and had already dispatched a naval officer, Commodore Robert Shufeldt, to East Asia to achieve this goal. First, Shufeldt visited Japanese officials in 1880 to see if Japan would mediate between U.S. officials and the Koreans, but the Japanese did not respond to his offer. Shufeldt then traveled to China, where he met with Li Hongzhang who was in charge of China’s Chos
ŏ
n policy. Li concluded that if he encouraged Chos
ŏ
n to enter into treaty talks with Shufeldt, China could use the United States to offset Japan’s growing influence in Chos
ŏ
n. Following up on this strategy, Li represented Chos
ŏ
n at the treaty talks with Shufeldt in Tianjin, China, during April and May 1882, and produced a diplomatic agreement between Chos
ŏ
n and the United States.

The treaty, titled the “Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Corea,” was formally signed in Inch’
ŏ
n on 22 May 1882 by Shufeldt and Chos
ŏ
n’s two senior
officials, Sin H
ŏ
n and Kim Hong-jip. The document provided for the protection of shipwrecked American sailors, the securing of coal supplies for U.S. vessels entering Chos
ŏ
n, trading rights in selected Chos
ŏ
n ports, and the exchange of diplomatic representatives. It also granted the Americans extraterritoriality rights and most-favored-nation status in Chos
ŏ
n. In return for these benefits, the United States agreed not to import opium or arms into Chos
ŏ
n. The 14-article treaty was a typical nineteenth-century settlement, in which a nation of superior power dictated the terms. Compared to treaties that other East Asian nations concluded with the West, however, the terms were less overbearing.

Two significant issues, one regarding China and the other Chos
ŏ
n, were raised by this treaty. The first concerned Chos
ŏ
n’s status as an independent nation. During the talks with Shufeldt, Li Hongzhang insisted that the treaty contain an article declaring that Chos
ŏ
n was a dependency of China. He argued that Chos
ŏ
n had long been a tributary state of China, but Shufeldt firmly opposed such language, arguing that a U.S. treaty with Chos
ŏ
n should be based on the Treaty of Kanghwa, which stipulated that Chos
ŏ
n was an independent state. A compromise was finally reached, with Shufeldt and Li agreeing that the Chos
ŏ
n king would notify the U.S. president in a letter that Chos
ŏ
n had special status as a tributary state of China.

The other important controversial issue grew out of the second paragraph in Article 1 of that document. The paragraph, in the English-language version, stated: “If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings.”
⁴
The Korean version, written in Chinese, employed far more emphatic language, using, for example, the term
p’ilsu sangjo
(literally, “good offices”), meaning “shall surely render mutual aid,” and the Koreans, in desperate need of outside help, took this as a firm commitment by the United States to come to Chos
ŏ
n’s assistance if its sovereignty and independence were threatened. To Americans, however, this statement in the treaty was nothing more than an expression of friendship between nations. Over the next two decades Kojong earnestly tried to persuade the United States to implement the clause according to the Korean interpretation but without success.

The treaty between Chos
ŏ
n and the United States became the model for all treaties between Chos
ŏ
n and other Western powers. Chos
ŏ
n signed trade and commerce treaties with Great Britain and Germany in 1883, with Italy and Russia in 1884, and with France in 1886. Subsequently commercial treaties were
concluded with, among others, Austria, Belgium, and Denmark. Thereafter Chos
ŏ
n was plunged into a whirlpool of international rivalries, with imperialist intrusions and ensuing struggles for supremacy among foreign powers that ended in Japan’s annexation of Chos
ŏ
n in 1910.

Immediately after opening Chos
ŏ
n to the outside world, Kojong and his reform-minded advisers pursued a policy of enlightenment aimed at achieving national prosperity and military strength through the doctrine of
tongdo s
ŏ
gi,
or Eastern ways and Western machines. To modernize their country, they tried selectively to accept and master Western technology while preserving their country’s cultural values. Despite some reforms, however, such halfway modernization efforts and policies failed to strengthen and stabilize Chos
ŏ
n.

In the wake of welcoming the outside world, the Chos
ŏ
n government first launched administrative and military reforms along enlightenment lines. To carry out the enlightenment policy, in January 1881 the government established the T’ongni kimu amun, or Office for Extraordinary State Affairs, modeled on Chinese administrative structures. Under this overarching organ were 12
sa,
or agencies, dealing with relations with China (Sadae), diplomatic matters involving other foreign nations (Kyorin), military affairs (Kunmu), border administration (Py
ŏ
nj
ŏ
ng), foreign trade (T’ongsang), military ordnance (Kunmul), machinery production (Kigye), shipbuilding (S
ŏ
nham), coastal surveillance (Kiy
ŏ
n), personnel recruitment (Ch
ŏ
ns
ŏ
n), special procurement (Iyong), and foreign-language schooling (
Ŏ
hak).

Following the conclusion and implementation of the Treaty of Kanghwa, Kojong also turned to modernizing his troops and military organization. To this end, in May 1881, the Chos
ŏ
n government organized the Py
ŏ
lgigun, or Special Skills Force with 80 recruits, instructed by Horimoto Reizo, a lieutenant in the Japanese army’s engineering corps. In January 1882 it reorganized the existing five-army garrison structure into the Muwiy
ŏ
ng, or Palace Guards Garrison, and the Chang
ŏ
y
ŏ
ng, or Capital Guards Garrison.

The reform-minded Chos
ŏ
n leadership sent out observation groups to gather the knowledge of foreign nations, and, upon their return, these groups recorded their experiences so they could be used to pursue a policy of enlightenment. In March 1876, immediately after the conclusion of the Treaty of Kanghwa, special envoy Kim Ki-su was sent to Japan. Upon returning home, he presented the king with the journal of his observations abroad, titled
Iltong kiyu,
or Record
of a Journey to Japan. In April 1880 another envoy, Kim Hong-jip, went to Japan. Upon returning in September 1880, he presented Kojong with a booklet titled
Chaoxian celue,
or A Policy for Chos
ŏ
n, written by Huang Zunxian, a counselor in the Chinese legation in Tokyo. In the treatise Huang advised Chos
ŏ
n to accept Western institutions and technology for the sake of its economic development. More important, he proposed that, in view of potential Russian threats, Chos
ŏ
n should strengthen itself by maintaining close ties with China and Japan, and allying with the United States. Kojong generally agreed with its policy recommendations, and he even ordered his officials to circulate copies of
Chaoxian celue
among Confucian literati throughout the country. In May 1881 Pak Ch
ŏ
ng-yang, Cho Chun-y
ŏ
ng, Hong Y
ŏ
ng-sik, and 60 others were sent to Japan as an inspection team called the
sinsa yuramdan
, or gentlemen’s sightseeing group. This was a technical mission to survey a wide range of Japan’s modernized facilities, and until their return home in September of the year, they traveled all over Japan inspecting, for example, administrative, military, educational, and industrial facilities. In October 1881 Kim Yun-sik and his 38-man group went to Tianjin to study methods of modern weapons manufacture, and Chinese technicians were invited to manufacture weapons in Seoul. In July 1883 a fact-finding diplomatic mission, led by Min Y
ŏ
ng-ik, toured the United States, meeting with U.S. government leaders, including President Chester A. Arthur, and observing the startling urban and industrial development of the United States.

The enlightenment policy of Kojong and his adherents met with stiff opposition from the Confucian literati who believed that Confucianism was the only valid system of belief and that civilizations based on any other ideology should be excluded from their country. They propounded the doctrine of
wij
ŏ
ng ch’
ŏ
ksa,
or the defense of orthodoxy and rejection of heterodoxy. The term
ch
ŏ
ng
(orthodoxy) referred not only to Chos
ŏ
n but to the entire country’s traditional Confucian values, and
sa
(heterodoxy) referred to all of Western civilization as well as the Western powers and Japan.

The wij
ŏ
ng ch’
ŏ
ksa movement reached an intital climax soon after the French invasion of Kanghwa-do in 1866, when the Confucian scholar Yi Hang-no submitted a memorial to the king arguing that Chos
ŏ
n should battle foreign aggression to the end in defending itself and its traditional Confucian culture. He cautioned that advocating peaceful relations would transform Chos
ŏ
n into
a colony of the Western powers and cause its people to behave like animals. In late January 1876, immediately before the signing of the Treaty of Kanghwa, Ch’oe Ik-hy
ŏ
n, a disciple of Yi Hang-no, presented a memorial to the king in which he sternly opposed concluding the treaty. He warned that Japan and the West were one and the same in the grave threat that they posed to Chos
ŏ
n.

When
Chaoxian celue
was in wide circulation, on Kojong’s orders, in late 1880, the members of the wij
ŏ
ng ch’
ŏ
ksa movement again became agitated. Kojong had the booklet copied and distributed to educate the Confucian literati who opposed his enlightenment policy. Contrary to his expectations, however, the circulation of the booklet triggered a stormy controversy nationwide. The Confucian scholars immediately organized a mass protest movement in the form of memorials to the king. Initiated by the
Y
ŏ
ngnam manin so,
or Memorial of Ten Thousand Men of Ky
ŏ
ngsang Province, authored by Yi Man-son, a deluge of memorials soon flooded the government. In these outpourings, the Confucian literati violently denounced the arguments articulated in the
Chaoxian celue
and demanded that Kim Hong-jip be punished for having brought the booklet into the country. Thereafter the government resolutely suppressed memorials to the king regarding the doctrine of wij
ŏ
ng ch’
ŏ
ksa.

Under these unsettling circumstances, in September 1881, a coup d’état was revealed in which Taew
ŏ
n’gun’s illegitimate eldest son Yi Chae-s
ŏ
n would have ascended the throne in Kojong’s stead, at the same time eliminating the Min clan and supporting the Taew
ŏ
n’gun as regent. Yi Chae-s
ŏ
n and his accomplices were executed in November. This incident demonstrated that the antagonism between advocates and opponents of the enlightenment policy was intertwined with the struggle for power between the Taew
ŏ
n’gun and Queen Min.

The government’s open-door policy benefited government officials in Seoul and merchants in treaty ports at least for a short time. On the other hand, a steep increase in rice prices followed the export of large quantities of grain, especially rice, and spread misery among the peasantry in the countryside and the lower classes in Seoul. The traditional military units also were financially distressed. Kojong and his enlightenment-oriented government discriminated against the veteran soldiers of the Muwiy
ŏ
ng and the Chang
ŏ
y
ŏ
ng, while favoring the elite Py
ŏ
lgigun. On 19 July 1882, infuriated soldiers revolted after not being paid for
13 months, and when depot officials of the S
ŏ
nhyech’
ŏ
ng, which administered grain taxes, embezzled the rice intended for soldiers’ salaries. Many inhabitants of the slum sections in Seoul took sides with the mutinous troops. The mutineers killed Min Ky
ŏ
m-ho, Queen Min’s nephew and superintendent of the S
ŏ
nhyech’
ŏ
ng who was responsible for controlling soldiers’ pay. They also murdered the Japanese training officer Horimoto Reizo, and burned the Japanese legation building to the ground. The Japanese minister Hanabusa Yoshitada, who had come to Chos
ŏ
n in November 1877 as the first Japanese minister to Chos
ŏ
n, barely escaped to Japan. Hungry soldiers, believing that Queen Min and her family had stolen their pay, sought vengeance, but the queen managed to escape to the countryside in disguise.