Sovereignty Experiments (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University) by Alyssa M. Park

Author:Alyssa M. Park [Park, Alyssa M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2019-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

World of Subjects

The issue of subjecthood occupied a central place in discussions about Koreans after Japan established a protectorate over Korea. Tsarist officials were well aware of the Japanese colonial government’s efforts to use subjecthood—later called “citizenship”—to wield influence over Koreans in Kando and to extend its jurisdictional reach in northeast China (see chapter 3). As reported by a border commissar, Kando Koreans lived “under the rule of Chinese authorities but without a precise definition of their subjecthood.” The Japanese government, he continued, “considers all Koreans living there as Korean subjects”116 Inside Korea proper, Russian diplomats had already experienced how the presence of Japan had complicated the legal status of Koreans, particularly those who had naturalized as Russian subjects. Officials grew anxious about the status of Koreans inside Russia. If Korea as a sovereign state no longer existed, what was the nationality of Korean subjects on Russian territory? Would the Japanese try to claim them as their own and use them to extend Japanese jurisdiction into Russia as they had in Kando? How was a Russian, Japanese, or Korean subject actually defined? Given Japan’s ambitions on the Asian continent, answering these questions became an urgent matter that was tied to protecting Russia’s sovereignty.

Around the time of Korea’s annexation in 1910, tsarist officials noted Japan’s efforts to claim the Koreans. The dragoman of the Russian Imperial Consulate in Tokyo, Pavel I. Vaskevich, warned of the actions of the Japanese consulate in Vladivostok in particular. He reported that Japanese officials treated Koreans in Russia with “benevolence and friendliness” and “did not miss an opportunity to remind [them] that even though they had become Russian subjects, they still remained Japanese subjects.” Japanese authorities also refused to acknowledge children of naturalized subjects as Russian because they had no legal right to relinquish their original subjecthood in the first place.117

Fears about the spread of Japanese propaganda across national boundaries deepened suspicions about Japan’s imperialist intentions. According to tsarist reports, Japan endeavored to “unite all Koreans in Kando and Ussuri on the basis of loyalty to Mikado and an aversion to Russia.”118 As evidence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs pointed to the existence of pro-Japanese organizations operating in Korean communities in the Russian Far East, including the Chōosen Kyoryūminkai (Chosŏn Resident Association) and Ilchinhoe (Advance-in-Unity Society).119 The ministry believed that Koreans were particularly susceptible to Japanese propaganda because “in their souls they sympathized with the Japanese as a nation that was closer in kin and spirit than Russians.” With the Koreans on their side, it concluded, “Russia will find it impossible to stop the Maritime Province from being annexed to Japan.”120 That threat to Russia’s sovereignty was all the more real because of the large population of Koreans just across the border. Governor Unterberger and other officials believed that the Japanese would use the Koreans to colonize the Russian Far East:

The migration of Koreans to us is highly useful for the Japanese, who for this reason encourage it. In Korea, for example, a society was established by the Japanese government for the purpose of promoting Korean migration to South Ussuri.

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