Advantages Of Imperialism In South Korea

1142 Words5 Pages

Gyuyeon Kwon
World History 10
Robert Givich
Oct 25, 2015
Imperialism in South Korea
Is it possible to say that Japan gave Korea some advantages during Japanese colonial rule? From 1910 to 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule, and it is often said that “Japanese colonial rule was a deeply ambivalent experience for Koreans”(CENTURY). Moreover, some people might think Japan definitely gave some positive effects to Korea, because Korea in nowadays is developed after undergoing Japanese colonial era. However, it is hard to determine Japan helped Korea to develop thanks to their invasion and practices. The reason why it is not completely proper to say Korea was supported by Japan is, even though Korea became advanced and modernized, they were terribly …show more content…

Japanese rule in Korea only lasted 35 years yet left an indelible legacy, and the country was relentlessly modernized with new roads, railroads, telegraph lines and new schools. This phenomenon can be called as industrialization that made Korea to develop. Furthermore, Japan raised the quality of education for Korean(THE JAPANESE). Therefore, Korean were being more educated than before thanks to Japan. However, these advantages were just a trick that Japan made. These situations might seem like Japan contributed to development of Korea, but they were actually destroying the country. In true, railroads were needed to move the raw materials that they plundered, and they could plunder more efficiently and strategically by communication, so they educated the people. Therefore, Koreans became worse off as time went on. Per capita rice consumption went down as more was exported to Japan, and all of the top positions were held by Japanese(ibid). In other words, “Koreans living in Japan were mercilessly massacred by the Japanese without reason”(Colonial). Furthermore, when Korea 's twenty-five million people were liberated from Japan, Korea was an exhausted land. Its natural resources and manpower had been ruthlessly exploited, and its energies had been sapped for Japan 's vain dream of dominating all of …show more content…

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