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Does the colony and war always lead to the ‘exploitation and suffering’?

I began to study the history of social economy during the period of the Japanese colonial rule to find the origin of ‘distorted’ modern history of Korea, and decided to select the ‘delivery of rice to the government’ known as a symbol of exploitation under the Japanese rule.  At first, I wondered ‘whether I was able to prepare a thesis under this topic’ as the conscription and offering of rice to the government were already known as a way to represent the exploitation and suffering of the colonial rule. Many researches were done on the invasion of Japanese imperialism and its wartime regime over the past 30 years. Through this book, I intended to depict and show the reality of war aggression caused by Japanese imperialism and its wartime mobilization that took place like the ‘pouring water in a broken jar’ that agonized and tormented Korean people who had to struggle for survival. No matter what, the exploitation and suffering that destroy the lives of people cannot be condoned. We have to clearly define the cause and responsibility to prevent the error of recurrence.

Imperialism and war of the 20th century

The Korean Peninsula of the 20th century was surrounded by the tension of colonial rule of imperialism, World War, and cold war.  The Japanese imperialism provoked an aggressive war that they could not handle as the country wanted to become the leader of East Asia. Starting from the ‘Manchurian Incident’ in 1931, the Japanese imperialism led to engage in the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Asia-Pacific War in 1941 and ended with the defeat in 1945. The world wars in the modern history took the form of all-out war and there were no front and back lines and it was a war where everyone was involved. The Japanese imperialism decided to engage the wars of aggression in Asia as a way to fill the huge gaps found in poor industrial productivity and materials supply compared to the Western power.

Japanese imperialism continued to engage in the war by mobilizing both human and physical resources to the extent where it threatened the survival of people living under the colonial rule due to the limited productivity. To make this happen, Japan established a regime based on fascism under a powerful totalitarian ideology led by the ‘emperor system’ centering on the military and bureaucrat. It was an abusive and oppressive system ignoring the basic needs for democratic execution of state power, and liberty and freedom of individuals pursed by a modern nation-state.

Deprivation of productivity and forced material mobilization
– the essence of Japanese imperialism

The forced material mobilization under the Japanese colonial rule was focused on food, industrial products, mineral resources, and funds. Some may argue that Joseon was able to develop and achieve a physical growth to a certain degree under the colonial rule of Japan. The wartime mobilization and deprivation that took place during the period of 1937 to 1945, however it was nothing more than predatory consumption, forcibly taking everything away from us. That was not a temporal deviation or simple mistake. It was the essence of Japanese imperialism.

While engaging in the first Word War, Japan had learned the patterns of modern wars called the ‘total war.’ It completed the construction of mobilization system centering on securing the productivity and material mobilization as the country continued to expand the battlefields to include the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. During the process, Joseon under the Japanese colonial rule became its ‘logistics base’ after the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and used for aggressive mobilization of war materials and expansion of productivity. As the main routes of logistics resources were blocked along with the spread of war in the 1940s, it had to build a self-sustaining system within its dominance. Thus, Japan further strengthened the exploitation of mineral resources produced in Joseon. Also, it ordered compulsory savings to all its ‘citizens’ living in the mainland and colonies.

The supply of food is an essential factor during the war. As the agricultural production dropped sharply on the Korean Peninsula and the Midwest Japan in 1939, the country resumed its aggressive policy on Joseon to increase the crop productivity. As Japan failed to increase the food productivity in Joseon, the supply of food became scarce in the Japanese empire during the war. It had no other option than to control and mobilize the distribution and consumption of food aggressively. The delivery of rice to the government as a forced form of distribution control had run under a pricing that did not meet the production cost of the farmers.  Japan forced massive amount of rice to the extend that even farmers could not have a sufficient amount to eat for survival. At the same time, Japan began to extremely restrict the daily necessities ration to limit the consumption by the private sector.

The wartime mobilization of Japanese empire raised the ideologies for integration such as the ‘Korea and Japan are one’ policy and the ‘subjects of Japanese empire’ to persuade Joseon people. Still, the mechanism and oppression of Japanese imperialism worked as they were designed. Thus, people living under the colonial rule could not stop to resist against Japan while arousing the national consciousness and spirit of resistance.

Do we have to live in an era of war again?

The many parts of the world lived the era of peace along with the dismantlement of cold war and trend of neo-liberalism at the end of the 20th century. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the clash of hegemony between China and the U.S. started at the end of 2019, and the Russia-Ukraine war that took place in full-swing in 2022 have shifted the international relations to the landscape of confrontation and caused unstable supply and price surge of energy and food, making the daily lives of people unstable.  Should we have to live in an era of war again as discussed in the book? This is the moment that we desperately feel the preciousness of peace as the instability and confrontation between the North and South Korea become intensified.