Fighting for the Enemy: Koreans in Japan's War, 1937-1945

Conclusion

183 Conclusion Japan’s imperial endeavor in Korea is a subject of extraordinary sensitivity and controversy, so one must approach it with respect for the pain of the Korean nation as well as for historical veracity. Japan’s dominion over Korea brought both exploitation and modernization in a mixture that is hotly debated. Until recently, most academic accounts of Korea’s colonial past have emphasized Japan’s exploitation of Koreans, the victimization and suffering of the Korean people, and the activities of Korean nationalists in China and America. This field of research, collectively called the “national historical paradigm,” is ingrained in the collective national memories of both North and South Korea and has taken on political meaning. However , the thirty-five years of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, especially the war years (which are considered the darkest hours), cannot be summarily categorized in purely negative outcomes (exploitation, victimization, and enslavement). Colonialism is too diverse and complicated to approach with mental blinders. Once we broaden our view beyond exploitation to include the legal and organizational aspects of mobilization, we discover much that is worth examining. A close examination of Japan’s mobilization policies in Korea helps illuminate the practical nature and modus operandi of the Japanese. Colonial authorities watered down the laws and policies used for Japanese citizens to suit social circumstances in Korea. The legal foundation carefully erected for Korea’s mobilization indicates that the Japanese made an effort to legitimize their policies and to enlist Korean support. The Government-General of Korea (GGK) largely adhered to the laws until the last, desperate months of the war. These laws also show that the GGK delineated the boundaries between the responsibilities of Japanese citizens and those of Korean subjects. The ethnocentricity of Japanese citizens made them hesitant to trust Koreans or to empower them, even during a war. Underlying these | Conclusion 184 concerns were worries that the Koreans might demand political equality without sharing full responsibility. Equally important, the abbreviated versions of mobilization laws show that Japan was concerned that significant numbers of Koreans were not properly prepared for military or industrial service to the state at the outbreak of the war. The Japanese military had no legal provision for extensive Korean military service until the Korean Special Volunteer Soldier System in 1938. The Japanese army procrastinated inducting Koreans, because military service was a bastion of Japanese citizenship, and army officials, along with most Japanese, believed that Koreans were unworthy of and unprepared for military service. The volunteer system was designed to acculturate Korean society to military service over the course of three to five decades, before the implementation of the universal draft system. From 1938 to 1943, Koreans submitted over 800,000 applications for the volunteer soldier system, but the military accepted only 17,000 (one in forty) Koreans into the military. The low percentage of applicants inducted into the military is a testament to the limited military contribution expected of Koreans during the early years of the war. However, war with the United States led to a conscription system decades sooner than expected. Even then, the army instituted a more limited military conscription system for Koreans than existed for Japanese, and then delayed the enlistment of Koreans by thirty months. This is seen in the exemptions provided to Korean men if they were conscripted as laborers, worked as military civilians, or lacked an elementary education. The first two exemptions were not available to Japanese men. Also, only twenty-year-old Koreans were drafted, whereas the draft age for Japanese men decreased as the war progressed. Labor laws were also altered to suit Korea’s social and labor conditions. The National General Mobilization Law (NGML), the most important law in the mobilization of Korean labor, was altered to account for Korea’s lessdeveloped social and economic conditions: First, Korean women were not subject to the NGML, unlike numerous Japanese women; second, Korean men conscripted under the NGML were exempted from military service, a provision not available to Japanese men; and third, the law had three forms of recruitment—company-directed recruitment, government-directed recruitment, and conscription. The first two forms did not exist in Japan, and labor conscription was extended to Korea in 1942, three years after it Conclusion | 185 was implemented in Japan. Even then, large numbers of Koreans were not conscripted until 1944. The GGK, while powerful and capable of brutality, could not secure the complete...