Japanese colonizers in the Honam Plain of colonial Korea

Abstract

Japan, as a latecomer to imperial expansion, began to seek a food supply for its empire in its neighbor Korea's southern rice basket-the Honam Plain. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), a massive wave of Japanese immigration brought many settlers to the Honam Plain, where they initiated their own development (takushoku [Chinese Source]) and production (shokusan [Chinese Source]) activities centered around their farms, ahead of officials and merchants. Emerging in time as local elites or notables (K. yuji, J. yūshi [Chinese Source]), these settler farm owners extended their activities to the arena of public and community projects by organizing and supporting a host of public and semi-official organizations. Economically based on agricultural farms tilled by Korean tenants, they succeeded in turning themselves into colonial masters in their localities by dominating the colonial public sphere that was largely closed to Koreans and local politics. During the period of the well-known Campaign to Increase Rice Production (1920-1933), they served as symbiotic local partners of the Government-General of Korea in implementing assimilation (dōka [Chinese Source]) through local development. Their activities also allowed the authorities to present their rule in a positive light, in spite of worsening conditions for the Korean rural population.