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A Korean Nationalist Entrepreneur:  A Life History of Kim Songsu, 1891-1955, by Choong Soon Kim.  SUNY Series in Korean Studies.  Albany:  SUNY Press, 1998.  xiv, 237pp.  (ISBN 0-7914-3721-3 cloth; ISBN 0-7914-3722-1 paper).

Reviewed by Wayne Patterson
St. Norbert College

[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 2 (1999): 159-62.
Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]


Kim Songsu is one of the best known figures in modern Korean history and any book which purports to analyze his life is by its very nature welcome not only for the light it sheds on the man himself but also for its potential to illuminate important themes in the first half of the twentieth century.  The author of the book, Choong Soon Kim, professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee at Martin, is by no means a disinterested scholar in the production of this work, and he admits it.  C. S. Kim not only went to the high school and college founded by Kim, but he also expresses his admiration for Kim and believes that his book will help dispel interpretations in recently-published works which he considers one-sided and which view Kim as a Japanese collaborator.

The recent scholarship to which the author refers is no doubt Carter Eckert's Offspring of Empire:  The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876-1945 (Seattle:  University of Washington Press, 1991) who argues, in part, that Japanese colonial policy aided the development of Korean businesses in general and Kyongbang (Kim's spinning enterprise) in particular, and that the nascent Korean bourgeoisie willingly acquiesced in the Japanese colonial project.  Indeed, the first question that anyone reading this review will ask is, how does the Kim book differ from Eckert's? First, Kim tries to explain that Kim Songsu had little choice but to cooperate with the Japanese but nonetheless stood up to the Japanese whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Second, Kim's book focuses only on the many activities of Kim Songsu, while the Eckert book focuses primarily on the business aspects of the Kim family.  Third, while the Eckert volume is theoretically broader in scope in looking at the development of Korean capitalism and its relationship to Japanese policy, Kim's study is less theoretical and more narrowly focused on the man himself.

The author uses another prominent book on this period, Michael Robinson's Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920-1925 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), to argue that Kim was, in fact, a cultural nationalist who was enough of a realist to understand that Japanese power in Korea could not be challenged directly.  Thus, he places Kim in the same category as Yi Kwangsu and Yun Ch'iho who argued that non-political projects in education, the media, and economic development would better prepare Koreans for independence in the long run.  Such a stance, of course, opened up these cultural nationalists to criticism from the opposition radical nationalists that they were collaborators.

In keeping with the cultural nationalist agenda, Kim's early efforts were squarely in the sphere of education, believing that education was a means to laying the foundation for eventual Korean independence.  To that end, he acquired control of Chungang Hakkyo and turned it into a hotbed of nationalism, although the leader of the Chungang group declined to sign the March First declaration of independence.  Still, Kim tweaked the Japanese by ensuring that instruction was given exclusively in the Korean language up to the late 1930's.  He also founded in the early 1920's what later became Koryô University and for a while served as its president. It was in this capacity that Kim was accused, falsely, according to the author, of writing a letter urging the students to join the Imperial Japanese Army in support of the war effort.  Kim also founded the Tong-A Ilbo in an attempt to promote the native press and to eliminate illiteracy.  When the newspaper published Yi Kwang-su's editorials calling for a gradual approach to independence, the newspaper was boycotted by the left and, in 1940, the Japanese closed it down.

Kim also wanted to promote native economic power by founding the Kyôngsông Spinning and Weaving Company (Kyôngbang) to compete with the Japanese who dominated this sector of the Korean economy.  Indeed, he tried to make it his practice to hire only Koreans, although he was occasionally forced to use Japanese technical expertise, and he certainly relied on Japanese sources of funding.  It is here where the greatest overlap exists with Eckert's aforementioned book.  But Kim was not a very good businessman and so turned over operations to his more economically-astute younger brother Yônsu.  And since Kim's activities in this sphere occupy only one chapter out of seven, it is somewhat odd that the author uses the term "entrepreneur" to describe Kim in the title of his book.

Perhaps the one activity of Kim that was out of character was his involvement in politics in the early postwar period.  Indeed, the author indicates that if it had not been for the assassination of his close friend, Song Chinu, with whom he had collaborated on many projects, Kim would never have gone into politics.  But he was opposed to Communism, cooperated with the American military government, came to lead an opposition party, was elected Vice-President, and opposed Syngman Rhee's drift toward authoritarianism.  He resigned in 1952 after suffering a stroke, and died three years later.

The author concludes that Kim was not perfect but was rather a realist, and that those who see him as a collaborator do not know him and do not understand his motives.  After all, the author points out, he never changed his name nor accepted a peerage offered him by the Japanese, he spent much of his own money on nationalistic projects, and his signature on the article calling for Korean youth to serve in the Japanese military was forged.

The book is arranged topically rather than chronologically, with separate chapters on the high school, the college, the corporation, the newspaper, and his political activities.  On the one hand, this introduces a certain amount of repetition in the volume.  On the other hand, it will permit the reader to pick and choose what aspect of Kim's activities to read about.  Stylistically, the press should have spent some effort on copyediting to remove some of the English usage problems that appear. Moreover, the author also uses some odd conventions.  For example, on p. 115, when one reads that "Choong Soon Kim vividly remembers those hard days," it is the author citing himself!

Nonetheless, this book is a welcome addition to the literature.  It allows us to learn more about the man and his times.  It will not, however, be the last word in the continuing debate about the nature of cooperation and collaboration during the Japanese colonial period in Korea.


Citation:
Patterson, Wayne  1999
Review of Choong Soon Kim, A Korean Nationalist Entrepreneur:  A Life History of Kim Songsu, 1891-1955 (1996)
Korean Studies Review 1999, no. 12
Electronic file:  http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr99-12.htm
[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 2 (1999): 159-62]

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