[KS] Official end of WWII in Asia

[Jim Thomas]

Dear all,
Sorry, I got my "Yoos" and "Yoons" confused; the first line of my earlier post should read "Kwang-On Yoo."
And the fifth line should read "Provincial (sic) [Provisional] Government. as Professor Ledyard and Dr. Richards both pointed out.
My oversights.
 
And while I am at it, I might also problematize the claim that the Korean example [of notable operatives like An and Yoon carrying out clandetine missions against the Japanese colonial leadership] "positively influenced the Chinese at the time," because I  do not believe that this helped the Chinese ani-Japanese efforts materially. Also, while it may have provided a positive example psychologically at that time, Chinese scholars (mostly from Hong Kong and Taiwan) who have shared their feelings with me in recent years have opined that the Chinese have something of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Koreans (again, not something positive), because of the way in which a number of Korean individuals--and not their fellow Chinese countrymen--sacrificed their lives for the cause of the nation. This is not to criticize (or diminish) the Chinese resistance to the Japanese military campaign, only to suggest that--to many Chinese--"the Japanese advance into China would have been much less effective had more Chinese acted as the Koreans did." In any case, both An and Yoon seem to be well known among the Chinese today and are commonly cited as nationalist heroes "the likes of which the Chinese need more of," as one colleague from Hong Kong put it.
 
Of course, I do not subscribe to counterfactual history--especially not to such versions of it. But this case does help illuminate certain distinguishing featurs of the Korean brand of what I would call militant nationalism, which was awakened in the late 19th Century and which is alive and well in both halves of the peninsula today. 
best,
jim  

 


Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2010 11:51:35 -0500
From: lovehankook at gmail.com
To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Subject: Re: [KS] Official end of WWII in Asia

Dear Mr. Jim Thomas,

Thank you very much for the clarification.
That was the exact message I hoped to relay. As you pointed out Mr. Yoon's act
had positively influenced Chinese at the time.

Regards,

Kwang-On Yoo


2010/9/6 Jim Thomas <jimpthomas at hotmail.com>


Dear Listserve members,
 
If I may, and so that we do not digress further, the point of Mr. Kwang-On Yoon's original posting, was that 
A) "the narrator of the film footage of the Japanese surrender mentions that the Japanese Foreign Minister, Sigemitsu Mamoru (重光葵) was wounded by a Korean patriot and walks on an artificial leg," 
B) I"n 1932, upon learning that the Japanese were going to have a ceremony in a Shanghai park to commemorate their recent victory over China in a Shanghai skirmish and to celebrate their Emperor's birthday, Mr. Kim Ku (김 구), the then President of the Korean Provincial Government (the government in exile) and Yoon Bong-Gil (윤 봉길) concocted a plan to eliminate Japanese leadership in China," 
C) "with money sent by Koreans in the U.S., Mr. Kim Ku ordered two bombs made by the Nationalist Chinese Ordinance Depot in Shanghai," 
D) "On April 29th, 1932, during the ceremony in the Shanghai park, Yoon detonated one bomb on the troop review stage, killing General Sirokawa Yosinori (白川義則), who was the overall commander of Japanese forces in China. The bomb also wounded several other military commanders as well as Sigemitsu Mamoru, who was the then Japanese Ambassador to China at the time," and 
E) "the City of Shanghai sets aside one day to remember him [Yoon].
 
All of these pieces are important, but the last is what interests me most. This is because, over the years, numerous Chinese colleagues have remarked positively on the bravery of Korean risistance fighters and their willingness to die for the cause (of independence, liberation, freedom, etc.), which make them and other Chinese envious of the Korean resistance movement and the nationalist cause. So even if Korea did not "win its independence" on its own, it did mount a resistance and does have a pantheon of heroes who did resist and have now been canonised in the ROK and the DPRK--in a way that perhaps early resistance (ie 1931-1945) Chinese figures have not been canonized. It seems that this sets Korea and China apart--at least among Koreans and Chinese. Likewise, the U.S. has its Revolutionary War heroes who "waged war for independence" (often in clandestined missions), while Canada does not. Martyred heroes are central to modern nationalism (just consider the Tillman Story). 
 
But however we might judge the moral justifications of those who resisted (be they suicide bombers or non-violent peaceniks), it seems that we can acknowledge certain historical facts and make certain assessments about them, independently from our (i.e. current) judgements about the "violent" tactics used or the scruples of the principals involved.
jim





 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
General Chiang Kai-sheck, the then Nationalist Chinese Premier stated,  "A young Korean patriot has accomplished something tens of thousand of Chinese soldiers could not do." Ever since, finally,  he and his government extended their full support to the Korean Provincial Government.

 Mr. Yoon was later executed in Japan at the age of 24, 


 		 	   		  
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