Jun Uchida. Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876-1945. Harvard East Asian Monographs Series. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. xvi + 481 pp. $49.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-674-06253-5.
Reviewed by John Hennessey
Published on H-Empire (April, 2014)
Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University)
Throughout history, the project of empire has own goals and interests. Nor was this all; Uchida’s always involved an unequal dispersal of power. research also throws light on a signifcant hierar‐ Few empires have been so elaborately stratifed chy among the colonized. Nevertheless, settlers as that of late nineteenth- and early twentieth- remain the focus of Uchida’s study, for they “serve century Japan, however. Not only did Japan’s as a particularly useful prism through which to overseas expansion give rise to a hierarchical col‐ refract the complex and contingent inner work‐ onizer-colonized relationship, but the Japanese ings of colonial power” (p. 30). Drawing on a wide Empire also found itself in a subordinate position variety of primary and secondary sources in Eng‐ in the global imperial competition. This led to a lish, Japanese, and Korean, Uchida’s masterful complex dynamic whereby the Japanese fostered study of Japanese settlers in colonial Korea treats a victim consciousness at the same time as Japan these many levels of imperialism in all of their victimized its neighbors, leading to a paradoxical‐ complexity. ly “anti-imperial imperialism.”[1] Tracing colonial power relations across near‐ In spite of these complexities, Jun Uchida as‐ ly the entire period of modern Japanese imperial‐ serts that this is not the full picture. It is also nec‐ ism in Korea, Uchida aims to show that “settlers essary for historians to distinguish between the played a pivotal role in each stage of Korean gov‐ roles of the state and settlers in Japan’s imperial‐ ernance” (p. 394). The book is chronologically di‐ ism: “To confate settlers and state as fellow ‘colo‐ vided into three parts. Part 1 describes the emer‐ nizers’ is to miss the messy nature of this partner‐ gence of Japanese settler colonialism in Korea ship that drove the construction of empire” (p. from the 1870s up until the March First Move‐ 137). Settlers, Uchida demonstrates, often assisted ment of 1919, in which Koreans held mass demon‐ the colonial state, but not always, constituting yet strations against Japanese rule. In the early years another stratum of Japanese imperialism with its of the Japanese penetration of the peninsula, pri‐ H-Net Reviews vate Japanese individuals exerted considerable in‐ politan government to industrialize the peninsula. fuence over the course of events that would lead These campaigns met with some success in over‐ to Korea becoming a Japanese protectorate in coming metropolitan manufacturers’ protests and 1905, whether as adventurers involved in palace presaged the government-driven rapid industrial‐ coups or businessmen establishing trade net‐ ization of Japan’s empire from the 1930s. Coopera‐ works. According to Uchida, settlers coalesced tion between settlers and Koreans was often rock‐ into a community with a distinct identity from an ier in the struggle for political participation, how‐ early stage. After 1905, in their continuing strug‐ ever. Japanese colonists struggled to expand their gle to carve out a space for themselves in colonial legal rights (especially obtaining sufrage) without governance, these colonists pushed hard for an‐ losing their privileged status over Koreans, who nexation,[2] bringing them into confict with Resi‐ also proved adept at using colonial rhetoric on as‐ dent General Itō Hirobumi’s promotion of protec‐ similation and harmony to press for increased po‐ torate rule. Following the annexation in 1910, litical participation. however, settlers grew frustrated with the in‐ Part 3 examines the last decade and a half of creasingly autocratic rule of the government gen‐ Japanese imperialism in Korea and chronicles the eral, which quickly snufed out their elected local efects of Japanese expansion into Manchuria, the assemblies. This move infuriated Japanese rise of corporatism, and the advent of total war. colonists by placing them in a position that was Uchida insightfully argues that the proliferation too close for comfort to the status of Koreans, of fascistic organizations granted the settler “bro‐ leading to a protracted efort to raise the level of kers of empire” unprecedented opportunities to settlers’ legal rights to that of metropolitan Japa‐ infuence colonial politics, while at the same time nese. paradoxically causing them to be “subsumed in Part 2 forms the core of the book, covering the state’s ruling structure” as they “morphed into the period from 1919 to the Manchurian Incident organs of the state” (p. 28). of 1931. The March First Movement prodded the Theorizing Japanese settler consciousness in Japanese government to soften its strategy of colo‐ terms of liminality, Uchida’s study reveals that Ja‐ nial rule, a step that included bringing more set‐ panese settlers inhabited an ill-defned space on tlers into colonial governance in both formal and the margins of Japanese colonialism, a condition informal capacities. Uchida argues that the explo‐ that deeply afected their self-perception and in‐ sion of Korean nationalism even prompted Japa‐ teraction with other strata of Japan’s empire. nese settlers and administrators to retool their Much like metropolitan leaders’ attitudes toward discourse about Koreans. Although continuing to the international “colonial club,” Japanese settlers use stereotypical tropes of Korean “laziness” or considered themselves victims of the colonial “toadyism” as well as distorted accounts of re‐ state even while abetting its rule. Japanese set‐ gional history to justify Japanese rule, “the Japa‐ tlers’ liminality was not just a feeling, however, nese [colonial] monologue was modifed through but in many ways a legal reality. Unlike white set‐ conversation and debate with Korean interlocu‐ tlers in many contemporaneous Western colonies, tors” (p. 224). Here and elsewhere, Uchida dexter‐ Japanese colonists in Korea were consistently de‐ ously attributes agency to Koreans in the peninsu‐ nied metropolitan voting rights during the entire la’s colonial history without downplaying the period of Japan’s colonization, even while Kore‐ harshness of Japanese rule. In a chapter on indus‐ ans and Taiwanese residing in the metropole trial development, she demonstrates that Koreans were sometimes allowed to vote. During the peri‐ and settler leaders often set aside their difer‐ od 1910-19, these settlers were even stripped of ences when it came to lobbying a reluctant metro‐
2 H-Net Reviews the nominal local self-government they had suc‐ amples. While there is nothing wrong with focus‐ cessfully fought for during the preceding decades. ing on the settler elite, one must keep in mind that As a result, Uchida argues, “at times the set‐ they are not necessarily representative of Japa‐ tlers’ eforts to overcome their marginal status in nese settlers as a group. As Uchida briefy notes, the empire … intersected with the Korean struggle much Japanese migration to the peninsula was of for equality to forge a powerful alliance against a temporary character and the majority of settlers the colonial state’s monopoly of power” (p. 264). did not “strike it rich” in Korea (p. 3).[3] Unlike Settlers and Koreans, especially Korean elites, of‐ some Western tropical colonies, Korea was not ten worked together toward specifc goals, but as merely dominated by a tiny minority of wealthy Uchida astutely observes, “rather than mere ‘col‐ colonists who all belonged to the elite, but was laboration’ ... each locus of settlers’ joint activity heavily settled by Japanese of all classes. Although with Koreans became a dynamic arena of contes‐ Uchida is able to present a compelling historical tation, negotiation and accommodation. Relations case even without examining lower-class settlers always remained asymmetrical, but in each in detail, I believe that her theories of Japanese changing historical context that asymmetry took settler liminality could be even more intriguing if on a new form” (p. 28). Following the March First applied to the history of this group, a topic that Movement of 1919, and especially after the exi‐ hopefully will be elaborated in future scholarship. gencies of total war caused the Japanese state to Another limitation of this book is that its de‐ rapidly raise the legal status of Koreans in the late tailed focus on Korea precludes any analysis of 1930s and 40s, Japanese settlers began to fear Ko‐ other parts of the Japanese Empire. This is hardly rean gains and resent the Japanese state that in‐ surprising given the book’s already ambitious creasingly seemed to favor them. As Uchida pre‐ scope, but it is important to recognize that a dif‐ sciently puts it, in a “warped refection of settlers’ ferent dynamic between settlers, the state, and own subaltern status in the empire ... Japanese the colonized existed in other imperial territories settlers were apt to interpret every sign of Korean (not least in Taiwan, home to two groups of the empowerment as sabotaging their own struggle “colonized”: Chinese and Taiwanese aboriginals). for supremacy” (p. 389). Thus, Japanese colonial‐ Moreover, each of the Japanese Empire’s con‐ ism in Korea was characterized by constantly stituent parts had a diferent legal status, afecting shifting alliances between two of the three major the precise nature of settler liminality.[4] Never‐ stakeholders on the peninsula: the state, the set‐ theless, several existing studies on Japanese set‐ tlers, and the colonized. tlers in other colonies indicate that Uchida’s theo‐ Uchida paints a fascinating picture of power retical approach to settler colonialism has much relations on the peninsula, but it is not always to contribute to future studies of these territories. clear which settlers she is describing. The terms [5] “settlers,” “settler leaders,” and “brokers of em‐ Although rarely juxtaposing Korea with other pire” are frequently used more or less inter‐ Japanese colonies, one of the greatest strengths of changeably, but as the book progresses it becomes Uchida’s book is how it is laced with insightful increasingly clear that Uchida primarily focuses comparisons with Western imperialism. Given the on settler elites. Indeed, according to her defni‐ mimetic nature of Japanese colonialism, most tion, the “brokers of empire” are “infuential long- studies of the Japanese Empire make at least some time Japanese residents who came to constitute connections with its European and American the ranks of the local elite” (p. 91), as are nearly counterparts, but the parallels that Uchida draws all of the individual colonists she singles out as ex‐ are unusually numerous and well informed. Com‐
3 H-Net Reviews paring the situation of Japanese settlers in Korea tie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), with above all that of white colonists in Africa, 240-274. Uchida adroitly describes how these groups had [5]. A vintage article by Edward I-te Chen de‐ much in common but also harbored key difer‐ scribes settler discomfort with calls for greater ences, notably, those resulting from their diverg‐ rights by the colonized in Taiwan: Edward I-te ing legal statuses. The last section of the book, Chen, “Formosan Political Movements under Japa‐ covering the rise of corporatism and the increas‐ nese Colonial Rule, 1914-1937,” The Journal of ingly pervasive nature of state control in the Asian Studies 31, no. 3 (1972): 477-497. More re‐ 1930s and 40s, draws parallels mostly with metro‐ cently, a dissertation partly infuenced by an earli‐ politan Japan, but I feel that this could even serve er version of Brokers of Empire chronicles Japa‐ as the basis of a fascinating comparison with nese colonists’ struggle for sufrage and other Western fascist colonial programs like that of rights in Manchuria: Emer Sinead O’Dwyer, “Peo‐ Vichy France.[6] All too often, researchers of com‐ ple’s Empire: Democratic Imperialism in Japanese parative colonialisms or postcolonial theorists Manchuria” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2007). have neglected the important insights ofered by [6]. For an account of Vichy France’s colonial research on Japanese imperialism. Insightful, corporatism, see Eric T. Jennings, Vichy in the readable, and thorough while remaining accessi‐ Tropics: Pétain's National Revolution in Madagas‐ ble to non-Japan specialists, Brokers of Empire car, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-1944 (Stan‐ has the potential to be an important resource for ford: Stanford University Press, 2001). such scholars. Notes [1]. See, for example, the introduction in Robert Thomas Tierney, Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), quotation on 34. [2]. I use the terms ”settler” and ”colonist” synonymously in this review, even though the lat‐ ter often carried agricultural connotations in the context of colonial Korea. Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Ko‐ rea, 1895-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 295. [3]. Peter Duus makes this point in greater de‐ tail. See ibid., chaps. 8-9. [4]. “Manchukuo” was of course considered an independent state by the Japanese government and Karafuto did not possess a judiciary indepen‐ dent of the metropole the way Japan’s other colonies did, for example. See Edward I-te Chen, “The Attempt to Integrate the Empire: Legal Per‐ spectives,” in The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, ed. Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peat‐
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Citation: John Hennessey. Review of Uchida, Jun. Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876-1945. H-Empire, H-Net Reviews. April, 2014.
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