Paper short abstract:

This presentation delves into the debates among Korean activists and Japanese liberals surrounding the so-called "Korea problem" (Chōsen mondai). It discusses the question as to how the voices of Koreans colonial subjects can be situated within the discourse on empire during the Taishō period.

Paper long abstract:

Following the Korean March First Independence Movement in 1919 Japanese left-leaning liberals began to increasingly criticize Japanese colonial rule in Korea. While research has long focused on this aspect, their intellectual exchange with Korean activists received far less scholarly attention. Based on an analysis of contemporary journals like the trilingual Ajia kōron (The Asia Kunglun), this presentation explores how Korean independence activists and Japanese liberals formulated their respective critiques of colonial rule in Korea and, in a broader sense, Japanese imperialism by proposing alternative configurations of regional order. During the early 1920s Tōkyō, as the burgeoning capital of an expanding empire, constituted a contact zone (Pratt 1992; Goebel 2015), within which the transnational lives of people from different backgrounds in Asia converged and which facilitated the interaction between for students and anti-colonial activists from various parts of Asia and Japanese intellectuals. Aided by a liberal political atmosphere, a relatively vibrant print culture thrived in Taishō Japan, which allowed for a dynamic discussion on issues such as the government's Korea policy. The intellectual space which resulted from the contact zone enabled colonial authors to discuss, represent and negotiate their own marginalized positions within the Japanese empire directly with Japanese audiences. The journal Ajia kōron which was published in Tōkyō by the Korean independence activist Yu T'aekyŏng between May 1922 and January 1923 in Tōkyō provided a platform to these approaches to empire and regional order while at the same time epitomizing Korean agency within the variegated publishing landscape of the Taishō era. Assembling a wide variety of authors from Korea, Taiwan, India and China, the journal's significance is underpinned by numerous contributions from proponents of Taishō liberalism including proponents of a "small Japan" (shō Nihonshugi) Ishibashi Tanzan and Miura Tetsutarō as well as Yoshino Sakuzō and other critics of colonial policy in Korea. While, depending on their specific backgrounds, contributors to Ajia kōron may have had diverse motivations and objectives for their criticism, this presentation seeks to reexamine the history of Taishō Japan from the colonial perspective and thus add another layer to the understanding of Japanese liberal thought.