The Pros And Cons Of The Modernization Of Korea

Ever since Chŏson fell under the Japanese rule and signed the annexation treaty in 1910, the Chŏsen government lost all of its sovereign power and gave control to the Japanese faced an end . The occupation of Japan was a shock to many Koreans as the Peninsula withstood numerous invasion attempts ever since the civilization began. Most Koreans scholars view that the Japanese colonial period of Chŏson was nothing but disastrous and a dark age of Korean history. However, Western scholars as well as the new scholars in Korea tend to disagree with the contemporary view and assert that the Japanese colonial rule of Chŏson did indeed bring some limited positive outcome, which is modernization. Modernization in itself can be defined as a process where

It was efficient in terms of the political modernization they had brought, and it was also focused on efficiency with economic sector; with their experience of “building the Meiji state and twentieth-century technology.” In terms of social and cultural modernization, the Japanese ultimately aimed to assimilate the Koreans and wanted to make Chŏson not just a colony, but to incorporate into Japan’s formal territory, but throughout the process, it only strengthened the Korean

With most of the rebellious forces ending up in jail, exiled, or under tight surveillance of the Japanese, the Japanese created a government where it was “rigid, highly administrative” government that aimed to control every aspect of the society. The GGK began to take control of every issue from national level to daily life of the peasants, and began reforming the administrative systems of the cities, creating rights regarding irrigation as well as where to place the family’s