Yun Chi-ho's legacy
Bernard Rowan
I’ve been reading about another important leader during Korea’s independence drive. Yun Chi-ho (1865-1945) was a political leader and activist at the intersection of the late 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty, Japanese colonization and the struggle for independence.
His legacy receives mixed reception. Some see him as a "chinilpa," or collaborator with Japan. Others note his many actions to encourage the Korean independence movement and other leaders of it at the time.
Yun was the first son born to a military leader and government official of Joseon. His family would be termed "yangban," or descendants of the noble landed gentry. This term nowadays sometimes carries opprobrium. Yun was well-educated, studying in Japan, China and the United States. He shared the worldview of other independence-minded young Korean men about modernization and development. He also converted to Christianity, another avenue that encouraged independence thinking among the political elites.
Given Yun’s station in life and service as a minister in the failed Korean Empire, some kind of clash or existential crisis was inevitable. As he reached adulthood, his life represented an effort to respect the forces pushing Korean independence and several critical lines of thought around it. He did not want to give up completely the work of administration for Korea under Japanese rule. He did not want simply to side with the U.S. or another foreign power against Japan. He certainly wanted Koreans to organize for their own empowerment and advancement.
As a minister in the government of the Korean Empire, he signed the Japan-Korea Agreement (1904), a prelude to Japanese occupation. He opposed Japanese occupation initially but later came to the side with Japan during the Second World War. His concern was based on a calculation that Western powers could bring their own version of colonization. “Joseon for Koreans” might be a precis of this kind of thinking.
Yun stood in a difficult position. His background and primogeniture had him on a conservative path to serve in the Joseon and imperial court while also bridging the intrusion of Japan. That path was bound to displease many. We could look to those who stood in the America between colonizing England and the independence movement. We could look at the Chinese with links to Japan at the end of Qing and prior to Communist rule and consolidation. It’s reductionist to see Yun as a collaborator.
Yun’s education gave him a commonality with other independence leaders like Ahn Chang-ho and Park Eun-sik. This was a sense of the important developments in science and industry that had already begun in other parts of the world. This witness gave him an idea of the need for Korean self-reliance, a core idea of freedom and independence. Yun expressed this as the primary importance of Koreans developing their potential, as a Korean people, for knowledge, industry, invention and advancement.
Yun is insufficiently appreciated for his critical and measured reception of Western ideas and power during his life. He experienced firsthand the racism and power brokering of the U.S. and European nations in their own dealings with Japan and Korea. It’s a complex record. As Chris Suh indicates in the June 2017 Journal of American History, Yun was impressed by the path recommended by Booker T. Washington for education, economic empowerment and development of African Americans.
As such, many of his quoted remarks make him look reactionary, when instead his vision of progress was different. The Korean Enlightenment Movement and related societies took up these ideas. For Yun, it was more important overall to develop and educate Koreans, their abilities and their financial and human capital assets, than to protest or to use violence. The other Korean independence leaders also shared these kinds of views, though some had stronger valuations of protest, violence and other activities. Who is to say who was the only kind of patriot?
Still today, we can see the familiar hatreds of nationalism and sub-nationalism arise when this or that leader chooses to seek a way forward with Japan, China or the U.S. It’s important to value reasonable disagreement and other virtues of democratic sensibility. That mix surely guided Korea’s path to freedom. Korea has prospered through syncretic foreign relations that welcome other powers constructively, not simply one that descends into internal strife over “picking sides.”
Yun is a patriot of what he termed Joseon, which I think was transmogrified into the "minjung," or Korean people. He loved the Korean people and was determined that they have a chance to develop themselves for a national destiny not equivalent to or simply like those of Japan, the U.S. or any other country. His legacy reminds us that all people run the risk of limiting their own potential when we stigmatize those who live and act across changing boundaries fraught with potential and peril.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and academic services and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and a former visiting professor at Hanyang University. The views expressed here are his own.