A History of Korea (65 page)

THE OPENING OF THE SEOUL–INCH’
N RAIL LINE, 1899

“The noise from the rolling fire-wheeled chariot was like that of thunder, as the earth and heavens shook and the smoke from the chimney of the engine erupted into the air,” wrote a newspaper reporter who rode the inaugural rail trip in Korea in September of 1899. “As I sat in the car and looked out the window, the whole world seemed to be racing past us, and even flying birds could not catch up.” Such awestruck accounts accompanied the introduction of railroads throughout the world in the nineteenth century, as the enormous bellowing machines heralded the onset of a new era. In Korea, the opening of the first rail line between Seoul and Inch’
n, a distance of approximately twenty miles, took on a similarly epochal significance. This event furthermore came to reflect the mixture
of confidence, potentiality, and wariness that came to mark the “Great Korean Empire,” the brief period, from 1897 to 1910, when the Chos
n kingdom became an “empire” in line with the foreign powers that surrounded the country. As with the railroad, the Great Korean Empire period witnessed the birth of many fundamental features of the modern era, not only in communications and transportation infrastructure, but in the wider realms of technology and commerce, and as well as in culture and institutions.

However profound its altering of life and perception, the railroad in Korea also cannot escape the discomfiting connections to the history of national misfortune, for these early rail lines eventually served the purposes of the Japanese takeover of Korea. The initiation into the modern era, like the railroad, constituted a double-edged sword, as the promises of “enlightenment” and progress were tempered by threatening forces beyond the Korean people’s control. It is this duality that renders judgment on the Great Korean Empire contentious. Once largely derided for its failures, this period is now mined for signs of an autonomous Korean modernity.

KOREA AND THE NEW EMPIRES

At the turn of the twentieth century, Korea was immersed in the age of high imperialism. The social Darwinian ethos of the “strong eating the weak” played itself out in the global arena, and northeast Asia became one of the fiercest zones of competition. Once again, Korea, at the center and crossroads of this region, unwittingly stood as a target for territorial gain or commercial exploitation. The imperialist rivalry penetrated and, in turn, was appropriated by competing political groups at court. During the closing years of the nineteenth century a new imperial power, Russia, eyed the peninsula as a key component in its geopolitical strategy, and likewise the pro-Russian sentiment among higher officials, who looked upon Russia as a protector, gained the upper hand. But the Russian empire’s ambitions of establishing a strong presence in northeast Asia clashed with those of another rising power with support from Korean high officials: Japan. The Japanese empire had defeated Qing dynasty China in the 1894–95 war on Korean soil and gained Taiwan and parts of Manchuria as its war booty. At the turn of
the twentieth century, however, it found itself chafing against the constraints on its regional ambitions imposed by the European powers, especially Russia. And finally, China, too, lurched toward refashioning itself as a modern imperial power even while trying to fend off the Western forces.

Korea, traditionally China’s most reliable tributary state, now sought to escape this subordinate relationship altogether. “Independence” from China had been a central motive behind the Kabo Reforms of 1894–96 (
Chapter 14
). And even after the fall of the Kabo government in early 1896, the Korean monarch and government advisors pursued this diplomatic path in order to establish autonomy not only from China but from all the ravenous imperial powers that surrounded the country. After months of entreaties, from both within and beyond the court, to take a bold step in this direction, in 1897 the Chos
n monarchy officially joined the ranks of empires. On the surface, this seemed delusional, for Korea, with no command over different ethnic or civilizational groups, did not look anything like an empire. But in traditional East Asian statecraft, the distinction between empire and kingdom was one of diplomatic recognition and self-declaration. When the Chinese “Son of Heaven” no longer appeared as the pinnacle Under Heaven, Korean officials felt compelled to take such a step, believing this would bestow equal standing in the global order. Hence the birth of the “Great Korean Empire,” or “Taehan cheguk”—shortened to “Han’guk” then as now (at least in South Korea, or
Taehan min’guk
)—and, with it, the coronation of the Korean monarch in 1897 as emperor. One of the best known images from this period shows Emperor Kojong, appropriating the circulating symbols of imperial splendor and might, posing resplendently while dressed in a faux Kaiser uniform. Little wonder, then, that henceforth his reign would be called officially that of the “Glorious Military” (
Kwangmu
).

The construction of the Korean monarchy’s new status and legitimacy went far beyond the emperor himself, however. It encompassed a range of changes, both symbolic and organizational. The ceremonial declaration of the “Great Korean Empire” borrowed
from a mixture of old and recent traditions, surrounding the monarch in ancient customs and symbols while emphasizing that his ascent represented “the foundation of independence” in the new era. The standardization of other symbols accepted globally as emblems of state sovereignty soon followed, including a flag and national anthem, and even national holidays. The strengthening of the monarchical state progressed on the level of institutional changes as well. The formal description and proclamation of the “Imperial System,” which appeared two years later in 1899, employed concepts and terminology establishing legitimacy in the vocabulary of late nineteenth-century international law. But most of the content in this proclamation reinforced the ties to the Chos
n dynasty and declared monarchical absolutism, with each article explicitly covering a different realm of governance over which the emperor had total control.

Even the economic activities directed by the royal house contributed to this emperor-centered state legitimacy, for they bathed the monarchy in the aura of modern advances. The Office of Crown Properties and a host of other organs subordinated under the Royal Household Ministry took the lead in sponsoring major economic projects in electricity, streetcars, waterworks, telegraph and telephone, printing, and minting. Furthermore the monarchy rescinded the concessions already granted to foreign railroad and mining operations and took control over the further development of these industries. This pattern of connecting the imperial state’s legitimacy to economic development would serve as the basis upon which the intensified developmentalist efforts of Korean states would emerge later in the modern era. The Korean government that coexisted uneasily with the Royal Household Ministry did its part, too, in strengthening the state, particularly by revamping the household registration system and undertaking a nationwide land survey. Both efforts sought to increase the central government’s capacities for mobilization and extraction, and to a certain extent they achieved these goals. But ultimately they paled in comparison to the accomplishments of the Royal Household Ministry in solidifying legitimacy through the promotion of material advances.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

The Royal Household Ministry was, in fact, responsible for a substantial portion of the many developments in commerce, industry, and infrastructure during the Korean Empire, which laid the foundation for the material transformation of modern Korea. In some areas, such as electricity generation, Korea benefited from a “late developer” status, gaining immediate access to recent technological breakthroughs through borrowing. The first and most advanced electrical generation system in East Asia had been installed in the royal palace in Seoul in the mid-1880s and built by the Edison Electrical Company. Within a decade, Korea’s capital city could boast of hundreds of electric streetlights. By May of 1899, four months before the opening of the Seoul–Inch’
n railway, the Seoul Electrical Company unveiled, to great fanfare, the first electric streetcar line, connecting the city’s East Gate to a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. The Seoul streetcars, appearing frequently in photographs that implied a range of accompanying social and economic changes, would remain the most visible symbol of rapidly changing Seoul in this era.