Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945

by Mark Caprio

From the late nineteenth century, Japan sought to incorporate the Korean Peninsula into its expanding empire. Japan took control of Korea in 1910 and ruled it until the end of World War II. During this colonial period, Japan advertised as a national goal the assimilation of Koreans into the Japanese state. It never achieved that goal. Mark Caprio here examines why Japan's assimilation efforts failed. Utilizing government documents, personal travel accounts, diaries, newspapers, and works of fiction, he uncovers plenty of evidence for the potential for assimilation but very few practical initiatives to implement the policy.

Japan's early history of colonial rule included tactics used with peoples such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan that tended more toward obliterating those cultures than to incorporating the people as equal Japanese citizens. Following the annexation of Taiwan in 1895, Japanese policymakers turned to European imperialist models, especially those of France and England, in developing strengthening its plan for assimilation policies. But, although Japanese used rhetoric that embraced assimilation, Japanese people themselves, from the top levels of government down, considered Koreans inferior and gave them few political rights. Segregation was built into everyday life. Japanese maintained separate communities in Korea, children were schooled in two separate and unequal systems, there was relatively limited intermarriage, and prejudice was ingrained. Under these circumstances, many Koreans resisted assimilation. By not actively promoting Korean-Japanese integration on the ground, Japan's rhetoric of assimilation remained just that.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Japanese History, School, Japan

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2009

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this is an informative book for those who have little to no background in post-colonial studies, or those who are not familiar with Japan's occupation of Korea (or more likely, have been fed a one-sided narrative). This is a well-researched study that provides plenty of information. However, I have a few complaints. One is that the layout of the book can be quite repetitive, which we could imagine represents Japan's repetitious preaching of similar assimilation policies in Korea. However, I did notice that Caprio often re-used the same sources in different sections without expounding many new ideas. This leads to my second criticism in that this is largely history without the theory. If you have a rudimentary on post-colonial studies, there isn't much theoretical information that will interest you. The introduction's explanation of "peripheral" colonialism is interesting and the first chapter's explanation of assimilation policy in Europe along with the second's history on the development of Japanese colonialism helps place Japan's imperial experiences within a global locus. Yet, by the time we finally reach Korea, it feels as if Caprio's ideas have been exhausted and we are treated to a decent, but by-the-books document-based history. This is a useful book which has a number of insightful moments, but I just didn't feel as if anything was being done to shake the field.

[Woocool · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book, especially the introduction of the idea of peripheral colonization, which is a useful tool to explain the world colonial approaches in general and Japanese endeavors in Korean peninsular in particular.

The main shortcoming of this book is that it argues that 'the first major flaw was Japan's misperceptions of the European examples and their implications for Korean assimilation' (p.202), but it does not even mention the French association approach, which seems more widely adopted by colonizers around the world. This approach seems to align more with the arguments the author proposed. It would be prefect if the book discuss a little bit more on why Japanese empire did not take the association approach, rather insisting on a complete assimilation of Korean peninsular.

[Benemint · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The information is useful and it has a nice narrative. But at this point we don't really care about how the Japanese colonizers thought about assimilation (do we?) unless he could explicitly break down the "colonizer" into multiple forces (which he doesn't). I was annoyed by some assumptions e.g. was it really naive if Koreans decided to cooperate? His understanding of Western colonialism is weak too. No mentioning about the French's turn to associationism?!?! The big question is why Japanese furthered assimilationism when everyone else was going to indirect or associationist rule -- but no analysis whatsovever in this volume.

[Edward · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Jessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very readable book on Japanese colonialism and education in Korea, but it would appeal more to general readers than to scholars already familiar with this period of Korean history. The author's goal is to demonstrate the overall failure of assimilation policy, rather than analyse its meaning and mechanism (which Leo Ching does in his thought-provoking analysis of assimilation policies in colonial Taiwan). Granted the book contains some interesting materials on Korea, Caprio's analysis of these materials is wanting and even simplistic, as it often reproduces the stark division between coloniser and colonised, which makes the narrative sound very outdated.