Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea (1905–10): The Imperial Progresses of Sunjong

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Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea (1905–10):The Imperial Progresses of Sunjong

Christine Kim

The Journal of Asian Studies / Volume 68 / Issue 03 / August 2009, pp 835 - 859DOI: 10.1017/S0021911809990076, Published online: 19 August 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021911809990076

How to cite this article:Christine Kim (2009). Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea (1905–10): The ImperialProgresses of Sunjong. The Journal of Asian Studies, 68, pp 835-859 doi:10.1017/S0021911809990076

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Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea(1905–10): The Imperial Progresses of Sunjong

CHRISTINE KIM

In the winter of 1909, at the height of Japan’s informal rule in Korea, theprotectorate government sent the Korean emperor Sunjong on an extendedtour of the provinces. Applying the nation-building techniques of Meiji Japan,the residency-general had intended to promote unity and cooperation throughthe Korean royal house. Instead, the progresses sparked anti-Japanese national-ism and culminated in expressions of resistance. This article explores the politicalcontext of the progresses, the role of the newspapers in Korea and Japan inshaping public opinion, and the contest of official and popular nationalisms inKorea, defined by the symbols of the throne and the national flag.

IN 1909, THE KOREAN monarch Sunjong (r. 1907–10), claiming a desire toinspect his subjects’ daily lives, embarked on two imperial progresses in

which he traversed the length of the Korean peninsula. Traveling by train and car-riage over the span of three weeks, he strode through provincial capitals in thesouth and northwest and met with government officials and local communityleaders along the way. As he paraded along freshly cleared boulevards of hisdaily destination, he was greeted by school children waving national flags andshouting Manse! (Long live the emperor!). He nodded approvingly as speecheswere made on the importance of maintaining stability in East Asia and promoting“new education” and commerce, and he gave special recognition to those meri-torious subjects who had contributed to these efforts. When appropriate, hehanded out awards to filial sons and virtuous widows and toured the local histori-cal monuments. Newspapers at the time praised the emperor for “responding tothe mandate of renovation (yusin) and attempting to renew the general admin-istrative affairs of the state (sojong)” (Hwangsong sinmun, January 27, 1909).

At first glance, it would appear that the political underpinnings and timing ofthese processions place them squarely within the framework of nation-buildingexercises that flourished worldwide at the time. In his well-known essay onmass-producing traditions, Eric Hobsbawm (1983) demonstrates how latenineteenth-century imperial rivalries prompted European states to create official

Christine Kim ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor in the School of Foreign Service and Departmentof History at Georgetown University.

The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 68, No. 3 (August) 2009: 835–859.© 2009 The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. doi:10.1017/S0021911809990076

ceremonies, implement primary education, and produce public monuments as ameans to forge a common identity across the ranks of society. But rising intandem with the age of empire was a tide of political modernity, and conse-quently, many of the dynastic states utilized the new practices as mechanismsto reinforce the significance and centrality of the royal house within the newlyemerging conceptualization of the nation. Political pageantry constituted themost self-conscious and conspicuous deployment of “official nationalism,” touse Benedict Anderson’s term (1991), by which thrones encountering demandsto broaden the political franchise sought to placate their subjects. Although1914 would emerge as a turning point for many royal houses, before then, spec-tacles of extravagance, or at least novelty, appeared to succeed in seducingsubjects with the notion that king and country were one and the same.

Much like the political exercises that unfolded throughout Europe, as inJapan, at the height of new imperialism, the Korean emperor’s provincial toursrepresented an effort to unify the country through the medium of the royalhouse. Even as late as 1909, the vast majority of Koreans had never steppedfoot in the capital, and few outside the major urban centers had laid eyes on aphotographic likeness of the monarch. The progresses thus presented an unpre-cedented opportunity to create, however fleetingly, a sense of meaningful contactbetween the throne and its subjects. As tens of thousands of people lined thestreets at each stop to witness this extraordinary event, newspapers closelyreported on the progress, thereby extending a sense of national simultaneity tothose excluded from the official itinerary. Their coverage focused extensivelyon the tour’s promotion of modern changes, contributing to an emergingimage of Sunjong as “a model of enlightenment” (Tawara 1909, 18).

Yet Korea in 1909 existed as a protectorate of the Japanese empire, andlooming behind the calculated efforts to cast Sunjong as a modern monarchwas a larger imperial project underwritten by the semi-colonial office of theresidency-general (K. T’onggambu, J. Tokanfu). Created in the aftermath ofthe Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) as a key feature of the ulsa protectoratetreaty (1905), the administration was headed by the preeminent Meiji statesmanIto Hirobumi (1841–1909) and enjoyed a broad imperial mandate to manageJapan’s “paramount interests” on the peninsula. Although nominally serving atthe pleasure of the Korean emperor, the residency-general, according to thelogic of imperialistic legal practices, operated as the peninsula’s de facto govern-ment (Dudden 2005). Nevertheless, until Korea’s formal annexation, the twooffices continued to engage in an awkward two-step of reign-and-rule as eachrelied on the other for assurances of its continued existence. The Koreanemperor might have appeared to be nothing more than a puppet throughwhom the voice of the resident-general was piped, but as long as informal imperi-alism remained the blueprint of Japanese expansionism, he persevered as a criti-cal member of the protectorate infrastructure. Without a doubt, this was arelationship in which Ito and the colonial agenda enjoyed the upper hand, but

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vital to the protectorate’s continuing survival was at least the appearance of adynasty that was content with, and flourishing under, Japanese guidance.

Nothing illustrates the contradictions and ambiguities of power inherent inthe system of informal empire better than the political pageants that unfoldedin the Korean protectorate in 1909 (see figure 1). Drawing upon the lessons ofJapan’s modern nation-building exercises, officials in the protectorate adminis-tration conceived of fashioning a modern Korean emperor à la Meiji as ameans of shoring up support for the regime. Yet by placing the monarch frontand center in their efforts and creating a nationally shared experience, the pro-tectorate administration provoked an upswell of nationalism melding traditionaland modern elements that largely fortified Korean resistance. Sunjong’s imperialprogresses thus reveal much about the development of Korean nationalism, aswell as the gross underestimation on the part of the Japanese imperial projectthat sought to mobilize the sentiment for its own political ends. The failure ofthe residency-general to seize the symbolic capital of the imperial house ulti-mately helped bring an end to the protectorate administration and usher in theformal colonization of Korea.

THE INVENTION OF SUNJONG

When Sunjong set out on his tour of the countryside, he had occupied thethrone for all of eighteen months. Yet already in his brief reign, remarkablechanges to traditional royal practices had taken place. Conspicuous amongthem was the monarch’s increased visibility to his subjects—in print andphotos, as well as in person. Whereas his father Kojong had rarely set footbeyond the confines of the palace after 1900, Sunjong started his tenure with avisit to the royal tombs in October 1907, just weeks after his accession rites.

Figure 1. Sunjong’s parade in Pusan, January 7, 1909.Courtesy ofWôlgan Chosôn (Monthly Chosun), Feb. 2009.

Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea (1905–10) 837

Several days later, he boarded a train to Inch’on to welcome the arrival of theJapanese crown prince Yoshihito (the future Taisho emperor, r. 1912–26) onKorean shores (Hara 2000),1 and in the following year, he traveled to Suwonto review the opening of a commercial exposition that showcased Japanese indus-trial products alongside Korean handicrafts. Seeking to overcome the patternof contention between the throne and the protectorate administration, theresidency-general assiduously deployed the timid “new emperor” to promotethe perception of close ties between the two countries and expand Japan’s pres-ence on the peninsula.2 The shaping of Sunjong’s public image was indeed acentral preoccupation of the Japanese government, just as the fashioning ofthe Meiji emperor had consumed the oligarchy for decades following the Restor-ation of 1868.

Like the Japanese emperor Meiji, who emerges from Donald Keene’s recentbiography (2002) as a mere cipher to the oligarchs’ grand strategy for building amodern state, little can be discerned about Sunjong beyond the public records.Born in 1874, he was the only son of Kojong (r. 1863–1907) and his queen consortMin to survive into adulthood. (Kojong sired additional offspring through palaceladies.) Despite this singular claim to dynastic legitimacy, the prince’s position asheir apparent was a precarious one. Indeed, life in the palace proved to be any-thing but sheltered; as a young man, he witnessed the brutal killing of his mother,Queen Min, at the hands of Japanese assassins in 1895, and only narrowlyescaped an attempt on his own life in 1898. Described in contemporary accountsas feeble in body and spirit,3 Sunjong was an ideal pawn in the political machina-tions of the protectorate government—especially in comparison to Kojong, whohad demonstrated uncharacteristic resolve against the Japanese administration,ultimately leading to his forcible removal from the throne. Installed as the

1Yoshihito’s 1907 visit was the only trip to Korea undertaken by an immediate member of the Japa-nese imperial family (excluding those of collateral branches) during the protectorate or colonialperiod—or, for that matter, in the twentieth century. It was part of a larger plan of imperial outreachthat sent him on a tour of the main islands of Japan between 1902 and 1905 and, in 1907, fromKorea onward to Kyushu (Hara 1995). Photographic images of that historic journey are collectedin Togu denka Kankoku gyokei kinen (1907?).2As it had become common dynastic practice for a monarch to die on the throne before his heir wasallowed to succeed him, Kojong’s forced abdication created a politically awkward situation of twoliving monarchs, requiring, among other measures, their physical separation in two distinct resi-dences. In popular parlance, as in the newspapers, the father and son became known as “theformer emperor” (kuhwang) and “the new emperor” (sinhwang), monikers that persisted intothe colonial period.3Similar to the vague descriptions of the future Taisho emperor’s illness, the medical causes of Sun-jong’s infirmity have never been established. Some accounts attribute it to the psychological traumaof bearing witness to his mother’s death, while others point to the residual effects of imbibingpoison in 1898; meanwhile, a biography of his queen consort, written with an unabashedly natio-nalistic orientation, states offhandedly that Sunjong’s fragility and impotence were symptomsof an opium addiction, a malady that was initiated and enabled by Japanese administrators(Chang 1966).

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“new emperor” in August 1907, Sunjong quickly became the poster child for awide range of political agendas, including modern education, bilateral friendship,and co-prosperity, that served to justify Japan’s presence in Korea. Whereas theJapanese government’s applying pressure to the Korean court for influence canbe traced back to the signing of the Treaty of Kanghwa in 1876, Tsukiashi Tatsu-hiko (2002) notes that during the protectorate period, reforming the Koreanroyal house came to be seen as a worthy project of reform in its own right, andnot merely as a useful tool for shoring up support of Japan’s imperial projectand suborning the Korean people to its will. Moreover, cultivating and “civilizing”the royal house was a cause that appealed to Korean reformists.

Monarch-centered imperialist politics brought together a strange alliancebetween the residency-general and the pan-Asian organization Ilchinhoe(Advance in Unity Society), as well as the nationalist newspapers. Above all,the new policy that enlisted the Korean emperor to promote Japan’s imperialproject bore the imprimatur of Ito. A towering figure in Meiji politics, Ito’s exten-sive contributions to early Meiji nation building included a lengthy appointmentas president of the Survey Bureau for Imperial Household Institutions (Teishitsuseido chosakyoku) in the 1880s and into the early 1890s. Many of the definingmoments of courtly splendor that were exhibited on the national stage were chor-eographed by Ito, and in Takashi Fujitani’s rich study (1996), one gets a sense ofhow inventively he approached seemingly all aspects of monarchy—from thequotidian to the majestic—as an opportunity to create a sense of national com-munity in which the imperial household occupied the center. After 1907, thereare abundant examples of a similar agenda in Korea that underwrote the prolifer-ation of pageantry and symbolic acts for the purpose of promoting loyalty to thethrone; these included the frequent public appearances of Sunjong, the desig-nation of the emperor’s birthday as a national holiday (K. konwonjol, on March25), and the proliferation of his portraits in government buildings and educationalinstitutions (see figure 2).

Standard historical accounts consider the Ilchinhoe, whose members notor-iously petitioned the throne to invite Japanese annexation, a blight on Koreannationalism during the nation’s twilight years, a “front organization” of Japanesedesign at best, and an organization of traitorous pro-Japanese collaborators atworst. Recent scholarship, however, makes a persuasive claim that the organiz-ation’s confoundingly broad appeal—the society had an estimated membershipof more than 140,000 paying supporters, making it the largest political subscrip-tion entity—was rooted in a populist reform platform that drew in followers ofthe Independence Club and the Tonghak movement (Hayashi 1999; Moon2005). Somewhat paradoxically, even as the organization sought to reorganizethe state–society relations of the ancien régime, the leaders of the Ilchinhoemaintained a strong attachment to the sanctity of the royal house. In a manifestofirst published in 1904, allegiance to the throne and the promotion of nationalautonomy headed a short list of principles that prevailed throughout changes


in the society’s leadership, organization, a revolving door of Japanese advisors,and an increasingly pro-Japanese political orientation (Chandra 1974, 47). Ulti-mately, the progressive nature of the Ilchinhoe’s activities was overshadowedby the naive view that regarded Japanese expansionism as an antidote to the pre-vailing white imperialism, but it is important to note here that throughoutits six-year existence, the society saw no contradiction among the impulsesto uphold the royal house of Korea, to upend the traditional social order, andto modernize the nation under Japanese auspices.

Korean newspapers such as Taehan maeil sinbo (Korea Daily News) andHwangsong sinmun (Capital Gazette) naturally were reluctant to support toany agenda of the residency-general and harbored ambivalence toward Sunjong’suse by the protectorate regime. Even they, however, found it difficult to opposethe general thrust of the policy that sought to modernize the Korean nation. Such

Figure 2. A 1908 portrait of Sunjong. Konwonjol wonyu-hoe kinyomch’op (Commemorative Album of EmperorSunjong’s Birthday Garden Party), 1908.

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was the political dilemma confronting Korean intellectuals in the twilight ofempire: How to follow the prescriptions of modern Japan without fallingunder its influence? The pressing desire to put Korea on a path toward prosperityand strength led even those social reformers who were skeptical of Japan’s ulter-ior motives to discount them in favor of enacting palpable changes to the existingorder. This attitude allowed journalists writing for the newspapers that played adefining role in shaping national priorities occasionally to side with the moderniz-ing impulses of the protectorate regime rather than the “less civilized” forms ofnationalism demonstrated by their unenlightened countrymen. Korean papersthus were often quick to criticize the ham-fisted tactics of the “righteousarmies” (uibyong), the ill-fated anti-Japanese guerrilla forces that frequentlylapsed into rectifying local justice, by referring to them derisively as “bandits”(Schmid 2002, 44–46). In a similar manner, despite the obvious contradictionsin the protectorate administration’s highly publicized embrace of Sunjong,both papers aided in the project by carrying almost daily reports on the affairsof members of the royal family, often accompanied by photographs. Thus,without intending to be complicit in the imperial project, the nationalist newspa-pers’ belief in the symbolic capital of the royal house compelled them to reportwidely on Sunjong’s progresses.

In the winter of 1909, the three principal political bodies came togetherto create an experience of national communion like none other before. Thedriving force behind the progresses, of course, was the residency-general,which was responding to demands in the metropole to resolve the intractableproblem of the Korean “insurgency”—the uibyong assaults on the Japanese pres-ence. Beginning in the fall of 1907, as a consequence of forcing the abdication ofKojong and disbanding the Korean military, an anti-Japanese force consisting ofan estimated 140,000 guerrilla fighters confronted and challenged the protecto-rate regime with outbreaks of armed resistance in the countryside. To counter thehard-line faction pushing for the formal annexation of Korea, Ito lobbied theTokyo government for one last opportunity to sell the Korean leadership andpopulation on the idea of Korean-Japanese co-prosperity (Lone 2000, 163).Ito’s belief was that the tours, by creating opportunities for direct contactbetween Sunjong and his subjects, would persuade the Korean people ofthe emperor’s authority and benevolence, on the one hand, and demonstratethe “spirit of cooperation” that existed between himself and the emperor, on theother (Hamada 1936, 206).

POLITICS AND PROSE

Although it was the confluence of Korean resistance activities and hawkishpolicy makers in Tokyo that spurred the residency-general to action, the ideaof an imperial progress built upon a plan that had been in development for


quite some time. Ito had first floated a proposal of sending the Korean emperoron a national tour to members of the Korean cabinet almost a full year earlier inthe winter of 1907–8, apparently as a test run for a future visit to Tokyo (Saionji1930, 111). The plans were nevertheless developed in the utmost secrecy, invol-ving only the highest-level members of the protectorate administration and theJapanese police force. Matsui Shigeru, who was then serving as chief of theKorean Police Bureau, supervised a vast operation to improve the general con-ditions of all key stops on the emperor’s itinerary, which included paving roads,renovating accommodations, erecting welcoming arches, and razing dilapidatedgrass roof huts along the railroad tracks.4 The police force was instructed touse the occasion to canvas local populations on a wide range of issues, includingtheir attitudes toward the Japanese presence in Korea, popular sentiments on theroyal house, and reactions to the modern institutions that were being introducedin Korea.

On New Year’s Day 1909, Ito unveiled the grand plan by “proposing” to theemperor that he tour the country. The announcement managed to surprise evenclose Japanese advisors to the court (Gondo 1926, 18). Three days later, newspa-pers announced the emperor’s imminent journey to the south, publishing in itsentirety a carefully scripted imperial edict:

We have given our thoughts to this matter: the people are the foundationof the dynasty, and if the foundation is not solid, the dynasty cannot bestable. Having acceded to the throne in accordance with the enlightenedinstructions of our father, His Imperial Majesty [Kojong], we have hopedonly to stabilize the dynasty’s precarious situation and provide relief tothe despondent people. For this reason did we promise to improve thepolitical affairs last year at the Royal Temple (Chongmyo) and ancestralshrines (Sajik). But the chaos in the countryside has not abated, andthere has been no end to the people’s hardship. This pains us. Underthese dire circumstances, it is evident that the people’s hardship canonly worsen. How can we pretend not to take notice, and remain obliv-ious to their suffering? Having been invigorated with the New Year, weare resolutely determined to travel across the country with officials in toeto observe and inspect personally the prevailing conditions in the coun-tryside, and to acquire intimate knowledge of the people’s hardships.Marquis Ito, Resident-General and Royal Tutor to the Crown Prince,has devoted himself with all sincerity to our country, assisting andguiding us. Last summer, despite his advanced age and failing health,he escorted our Crown Prince throughout Japan in an effort tobroaden the prince’s education, and for this we are eternally grateful.

4Matsui Shigeru (1866–1945) played a major role in the development of Japan’s modern police andfirefighting system, for which he was eventually awarded a seat in the House of Peers in 1934. Heobtained firsthand training in Korea, where he served as head of the police force from 1907 to 1910(Matsui 1952).

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On this occasion, he will accompany the progress and assist in varioustasks to solidify the dynasty’s foundations and address the disasters.Hear ye, all subjects high and low. (Kojong Sunjong sillok 1970,January 4, 1909)

The official announcement of the imperial tour served as an instrument of pro-paganda, notable as much for what it stated as for what it elided. Employingclassic Confucian rhetoric, it sought to buttress Sunjong’s legitimacy by empha-sizing the moral virtues of a traditional ruler: his benevolence (Mencianconcern with the people’s welfare), concern with the dynastic line (ancestorworship), and filial piety (submission to father’s orders). Conveniently glossedover were the circumstances through which Sunjong had come to the throne—that is, the heavy-handed presence of the Japanese administration that hadforced his father Kojong off the throne. By decontextualizing the dynasticinstability, the people’s hardships in the countryside were represented as theresult of irrational “chaos”—a coded reference to the uibyong insurgency—rather than of patriotic resistance against the Japanese regime. The script’sfawning recognition of Ito similarly played up his “sincerity,” conjuring up theimage of a loyal minister who was on death’s door but nevertheless felt such devo-tion to the throne that he was compelled to accompany the emperor, when intruth it was the emperor whose health remained precarious. The text gave officialsanction to Ito’s self-appointment as royal tutor to the crown prince, a matter ofsignificant controversy at the time, as it gave him moral authority to remove theeleven-year-old heir to Tokyo for the ostensible purpose of providing him with aproper, modern education (see figure 3).

As Sunjong set out for a tour of the provinces, the official propaganda alter-nated in its promotion of conservative and modern values. On the one hand, theprocession retained many of the traditional hallmarks of royal authority thatreinforced the Choson state ideology of Neo-Confucianism: ancestor worship,as demonstrated by the homage paid at the royal tombs; public commendationsof filial piety and female virtue; the official recognition of worthy Confucian scho-lars at their shrines; and the commemoration of notable patriots who had giventheir lives in defense of the dynasty. Although it was a well-established practicefor Choson rulers to publicly honor individuals of merit, the progressesmarked the rare instance in which the monarch personally visited with his sub-jects, living and deceased, to commemorate their accomplishments, and theirpublic commendation served as assurances that these virtues would continueto be valued by the new regime. On the other hand, Ito’s conceit of the imperialprogresses as an opportunity to herald the new era of modern Korea and, aboveall, Korean-Japanese co-prosperity, which demanded the promotion of modernvalues. Sunjong’s role was to endorse modern institutions—be it the train,his “Westernized” appearance, or the daily telegrams that enabled the perform-ance of his filial, uxorial, and diplomatic duties to Kojong, his queen, and the


Meiji emperor. Appropriating the contemporary practices of the Japaneseimperial house and going one step beyond, Sunjong was represented as afamily man and an acolyte of the Japanese empire.

IN KOREA WITH MARQUIS ITO

On the morning of January 7, 1909, Sunjong set out for the southern pro-vinces. The itinerary included overnight visits to Taegu, Pusan, and Masan, aswell as a number of stops along the Seoul–Pusan Line (kyongbuson). Sunjongwas accompanied by a retinue consisting of more than 100 officials, includingIto, members of the royal family, cabinet ministers, and high-ranking courtiers,

Figure 3. Resident-General Ito Hirobumi posing withthe Korean crown prince Yi Un. Taiyo 15.15 (1909).

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each of them donning Western ceremonial attire (tae yebok) of “European uni-forms, dark marine-blue tunics, with many black and gold badges and heavilybraided dark red trousers… of the best material and highly finished, apparentlymade far beyond Korea’s frontiers” (Vay de Vaya 1906, 265).5 Although coveredby a cap, Sunjong’s hair was visibly cut in the “Western style,” shorn of thetraditional topknot. The streamlined appearance of the procession, both in theconformity of modern attire and the orderliness of the parade, provided astark contrast to the “sea of colour” and “riot of imperious discord” that hadcharacterized the occasional royal procession by Kojong through the streets ofSeoul (Hamilton 1904, 248–49; Savage-Landor 1924, 138–39). After headingto Toksu Palace for a morning audience with his father, Sunjong headed toSeoul Station, where he boarded a specially equipped train. There, he composedthe first of numerous telegrams dispatched to the palace with daily updates, con-spicuous demonstrations of a son’s devotion. As Sunjong headed south to Kyong-sang Province, a region of conservatism whose political significance, as measuredby the number of scholar-officials in bureaucratic service, had witnessed adecline, and had been the site of many an uibyong outbreak, the daily remindersof Sunjong’s virtues were intended to appease the recalcitrant and conservativeyangban elite and rebels by playing up his moral qualities.

Every leg of the tour followed a tightly scripted agenda. Sunjong enteredeach town amid crowds of people shouting “Long live the king!” (Manse!) andwaving flags. The imperial marching band struck up at each stop the recentlycomposed national anthem, Aegukka, whose pre-annexation lyrics exhorted sub-jects to venerate the imperial house (Chang 1974, 189–92, 210).6 The emperorreceived greetings from provincial governors and officials, local dignitaries, andcommunity leaders. He visited important historical sites, temples, and shrinesand donated funds for their maintenance. He awarded gifts to the elderly andindividuals of merit, such as filial sons (hyoja) and virtuous women (yollyo).At schools and model commercial sites, he offered words of encouragement tostudents and workers. In Pusan, Sunjong boarded a battleship of the JapaneseImperial Navy, where he reviewed military exercises and received a twenty-one-gun salute. These visits usually concluded with a lavish dinner banquet,organized by welcoming committees consisting of both Koreans and Japanese ofthe highest civil and military ranks, including members of the Ilchinhoe.

5The Korean court adopted the attire of Western ceremonial costumes in 1896, following therecommendations of envoys such as Min Yonghwan, who had previously attended the coronationceremony of Czar Nicholas II.6The melody of the Korean national anthem was composed in 1902 by Franz Eckert (1852–1916), aGerman musician who had been involved in the composition of the Japanese national anthem,Kimigayo. The lyrics of the original anthem begin with a line affirming the sanctity of the royalhouse: “500 years of sage rulers and sacred heirs: our imperial house” (songja sinson 500-nyonun uri hwangsil iyo). These lines were revised to suit the republican sensibilities of the SouthKorean government in 1948.


Although the progresses ostensibly were a showcase for the emperor, andcrowds turned out to catch a fleeting glimpse of him, in reality, it was Ito withwhom the hundreds of thousands of Koreans who thronged the train stationsand town plazas made direct contact (see figure 4). Sunjong’s addresses werelimited to a handful of toasts he gave at the nightly banquets, and they essentiallyreiterated the official themes of renovation and co-prosperity (Naegak kirokkwa

Figure 4. Map outlining the itinerary of the “southern” and “western”imperial progresses, along the Seoul–Pusan and Seoul–Uiju lines. Courtesyof Hara Takeshi (2000).

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1909). Thus, it was Ito who commandeered the podium in each passing town todeliver a speech that emphasized the historical affinities between Korea andJapan and cast the protectorate relationship in positive terms. In a speech thatwas repeated across the peninsula, Ito claimed that Japan’s “sincere aspiration inKorea” was to bring it “the same blessings of civilization which the people ofJapan enjoy” by encouraging Koreans to “aspire for knowledge and industry.”He stressed that an alliance with Japan was not only the key to national prosperity,but also a vital element for securing stability in the Far East” (Hamada 1936, 207).

The impact of Sunjong’s highly publicized appearances varied widely over thecourse of the progresses. According to a detailed internal report assessing theimpact of Sunjong’s public appearance prepared by the Education Department(Hakpu), the fleeting vision of the emperor in all his trappings of modernitymoved scores of male students in the southwestern cities of Taejon andCh’ongju, in Ch’ungch’ong Province, to pledge their loyalty by lopping offtheir topknots at the train station (Tawara 1909, 2)7; fifteen years earlier, an offi-cial decree to rid the adult male population of this appendage had galvanizedopposition to the Kabo reformers and pushed them out of power.8 Sunjong’s per-sonal visits to schools, where he donated scholarship monies, were seen as having“heightened awareness to the importance of modern education” and prompteda spike in school enrollments in Kwangju and Pusan (Tawara 1909, 16–17, 23).These endeavors prompted the local progressives who were engaged in thepatriotic enlightenment movement (aeguk kyemong undong) to sing thepraises of the emperor for bringing attention to the nation’s need to modernize.In the March 1909 edition of the monthly newsletter of the Kyonggi and Ch’ung-ch’ong Provincial Society to Promote Education (Kiho hunghakhoe wolbo), onewriter expressed his gratitude to the emperor for issuing a mandate of renovation(yusin ui myong) to the Korean people and for personally braving the elements ofthe deep winter to reach his subjects. With echoes of Ito’s exhortations to mod-ernize mixed with a class-based anxiety over diminishing yangban privileges, theauthor exhorted his fellow members to redefine their elite credentials by discard-ing the “useless” yangban hobbies of poetry and verse and acquiring more prac-tical skills to keep in step with the modern age:

In this day of feverish competition in the twentieth century Pacific, thereis no hope for a state (kuk) to be a state, or for a people (min) to be apeople, by holding on to old thoughts and old attitudes… . These days,

7Tawara Magoichi, a senior Japanese official in the Education Department, oversaw an extensivesurvey of public opinions conducted in conjunction with the imperial progress. The reports are rep-rinted as part of a collection of documents on Japanese educational policies in the colonies, Nihonshokuminchi kyoiku seisaku shiryo shusei. I am indebted to Tsukiashi Tatsuhiko for bringing thisvaluable resource to my attention, and for sharing his own research.8On the significance of the topknot and haircutting within the ideological and social context ofChoson Neo-Confucianism, see Jang Sukman (1998).


without teaching and learning politics, the law, industry and commerce, itwill be impossible to maintain our yangban status, and our state andnation will face ruin. Yet our fathers and brothers remain deadlyopposed to [their study]. Such is the difficulty of changing old customs(Han’gukhak 1976, 10:85–87).9

Author Yun Sanghyon’s residual class consciousness was representative of histime. Since the official abolition of the four social strata in 1895 as part of theKabo reforms, and with social upheaval manifest in virtually every aspect ofthe traditional order, members of the yangban elite were as anxious to perpetuatetheir hereditary privileges as they were concerned with the specter of lost sover-eignty. The imperial progress played to this foreboding by holding out thepromise of continuity in the social order, through demonstrations of respectfor the elders, the virtuous (as defined by a Confucian moral code), and the well-born that were reinforced throughout the pageants.

The pageants, of course, sought to appeal to a broader audience than theyangban elite, and if the reactions of the townspeople of Tongnae, KyongsangProvince, are any indication, a close encounter with the razzle-dazzle ofWestern costumes and a marching band was sufficient to link the emperor tomodern changes. Moreover, local surveys conducted at the time concludedthat the emperor’s brief appearance resulted in generating “heightened respectfor the dignity of the imperial house” (Tawara 1909, 15–16). Descriptions ofthe welcoming crowds, the festival-like atmosphere that enveloped theparades, and the speeches delivered by Ito made their way back to Tokyo andappeared in the popular magazines Taiyo (Sun) and Chosen (Korea), whichwere initially quick to praise the success of Ito’s strategy in winning Koreanspopular support.

Even as the Tokyo monthlies prepared their glowing reports for publication,however, Ito’s tightly choreographed programs in the Korean countrysideencountered glitches in the forms of everyday resistance as well as indifference.Although it is difficult to account for the varieties of the crowds’ reactions to theimperial tours from one place to the next, numerous Japanese police reports filedfrom the field suggest that the protectorate administration anticipated resistanceto Japanese rule at certain places. In Ansong, Kyonggi Province, for example, atown labeled by the Japanese police as “a place of high anti-Japanese stubborn-ness,” the residents’ forceful rendition of the Korean national anthem was seennot as a sign of submission to the disciplining force of the gendarmerie (kenpeitai)but as an act of defiance (Tawara 1909, 7–8). Elsewhere, as in Inch’on, Japaneseofficials remarked upon the public’s utter indifference to the pageantry and itssignificance, and filed reports bemoaning the fact that people failed to recognize

9For background on the society and the patriotic enlightenment movement in general, see ChoHangnae (1993).

848 Christine Kim

the national flag or were unpracticed in the patriotic protocol of shoutingManse!(Tawara 1909, 7). In towns such as these, school enrollment figures actuallydropped, apparently as parents who witnessed the parade of Sunjong’s processionreached the grim conclusion that in a world governed by Japan, their childrenwould be better off learning practical skills (Tawara 1909, 7–8).

Face-to-face encounters with the emperor—no matter how fleeting—alsostripped him of any mystique or imperial aura, and drove home his mortality.Contrary to enhancing the prestige of the throne, the residency-general’s exerciseelicited sympathy for the visibly frail emperor, and brought criticism to theregime for parading him around in the dead of winter. Sunjong thus becamean object of pity, as his image failed to conjure up an impression of sovereignauthority, much less one of personal autonomy. Among the rumors circulatingat the time were that the progresses represented a thinly disguised plan tokidnap Sunjong to Tokyo (like the crown prince) or exile him to Cheju Island(Hwang 1994, 823). Conspiracy theories enveloped the resident-general aswell, giving rise to an insidious rumor that Ito had committed regicide in hisown country and had been dispatched to the peninsula to execute a similarmission (Ch’oe 1977, 231–35; Lee 1996, 404–6). In Taegu, the persistence ofsuch rumors mobilized a group of conservative Confucian scholars (yusaeng)to come to the emperor’s defense. Men in the audience, interrupting Ito inthe middle of a speech, presented him with a petition of protest; only afterPrime Minister Yi Wanyong had given them his personal assurance of the emper-or’s safety did they agree to disband. Suspicions of a conspiracy lingered anddogged the progress, however, and when Sunjong boarded the Japanese battle-ship Azabu off the coast of Pusan to review a military exercise of the SecondSquadron, agitated Koreans circled the naval vessel in a hastily arranged flotillacomprised of sixty fishing boats to demand his release. Similarly, hundreds ofmen lay down on the railroad tracks outside the town of Mokp’o to preventthe train from traveling further south, where suspicious minds believed a shipwas bound for Tokyo. In Masan, the crowd’s heckles prevented the resident-general from completing his speech (Kuksa 1965, 1:390).

Thus, Ito’s efforts to replicate the positive effects of the Meiji progresses inthe Korean protectorate, rather than engendering subordination, instead unex-pectedly raised the level of nationalist consciousness. When Ito arrangedfor Sunjong to visit hallowed sites on the national landscape, he directedthe emperor to various sites commemorating Korean cultural patrimony, theChoson ruling house, or its loyal subjects. In addition to those of his forebears,Sunjong visited several shrines commemorating Neo-Confucian scholars suchas Yi Hwang (1501–70), Kim Changsaeng (1548–1631), and Song Siyol (1607–89). Sunjong was also directed to pay homage to a number of civil and militaryofficials who had mobilized forces in times of national threat, including notonly figures of the distant past, such as the Silla dynasty general Kim Yusin(595–673) and defenders of the realm against the Manchu invasions of the


mid-seventeenth century, but also exemplars of Korean patriotism, such as theAdmiral Yi Sunsin (1545–98) and Chong Pal (1553–92), figures lionized in thedynasty’s history whose reputations had been built on anti-Japanese militaryexploits during the Hideyoshi invasions (1592–98). It is plausible that Ito, inhis eagerness to convince the Korean population of Japan’s sincerity, made thedecision to honor even those heroes who embodied anti-Japanese nationalism.This tactic and its numerous manifestations subsequently came under fire inthe Japanese media, as advocates of formal expansionism castigated Ito for“placing the concerns of Koreans above those of the empire.”10 In the weeksthat followed, Ito’s critics found even greater cause for alarm as the cities on thenortherly tour erupted in a nationalist frenzy over the issue of the national flag.

THE NORTHERN REGION

On January 27, Sunjong returned to Seoul Station to travel along theSeoul-Uiju Railroad and embark on his second progress, through the northwes-tern provinces of the peninsula. With stops at the major urban centers of P’yong-yang, Uiju, and Kaesong, the emperor’s daily agenda bore close resemblance tothat of the southern tour (see figure 5). But in an apparent effort to musclethrough the tide of public reproach that had been mounting for two weeks,the residency-general instructed local police forces to mobilize schoolchildrenand to instruct them to wave the national flags of Korea and Japan at the welcom-ing parades and at school visits. The entourage packed on added splendor andswelled to a size of 139 officials, while security was heightened.

In the three weeks since Sunjong had first set out for the southern provinces,the political landscape had shifted considerably. The Korean press and popularmobilization shaped national discourse in a way that soon rendered it impossibleto regard the imperial progress merely as a celebration of the royal house or mod-ernity. Rather, Korean subjects across the political spectrum and along the ladderof social hierarchy responded negatively to the residency-general’s manipulativeuse of the emperor in a manner that blended personal sympathy and politicaloutrage. The negative predisposition was all the more apparent in the northwest,particularly in the provinces of Hwanghae and P’yongan, where the highest con-centration of the peninsula’s Christian population lived. Historically marginalizedby the political and social center of Seoul, the northern region emerged in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a dominant force in the trans-formation of modern Korea with a distinctive local identity (Hwang 2004).

The Japanese authorities got their first taste of Korean recalcitrance inKaesong, where the faculty of a mission school refused to instruct its studentsto wave the Japanese flag. The instructors maintained that they had received

10“Kokki mondai,” Chosen 3, no. 1 (1909): 2–3, 5.

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no directive from the Education Department in Seoul to fly the hinomaru, andthat the authority of the local police did not supersede that of the central govern-ment; this claim was subsequently backed up by the education minister himself(Matsui 1952, 251). In fact, Education Minister Yi Chaegon added insult toinjury, stating that as an attendant to the Korean emperor, Ito warrantedneither salutes nor flag-waving receptions. Once again, the prime minister wasbrought in to intercede, while local chapters of the Ilchinhoe scrambled to com-pensate by hoisting their own crudely drawn Japanese flags. Meanwhile, word ofthe brouhaha over the flag issue spread, emboldening Korean nationalists to takematters—literally—into their own hands. Seemingly overnight, all throughoutthe northwest region, the hinomaru flags on display were seized, then tornapart, stomped upon, or burned. In Uiju, townspeople descended upon a smallfactory assembling Japanese flags and seized them, while in Sinuiju, studentsand teachers fanned out on a search and destroy mission. The TaesongAcademy (Taesong hakkyo) in P’yongyang placed itself at the center of thestorm by refusing to raise the Japanese colors on its campus, precipitatingpolice intervention that shut the school down.11 What might have remained a

Figure 5. Emperor Sunjong and his entourage tour the site of Mansudae inP’yongyang. Taiyo, 1909.

11The Taesong Academy offered a military and modern education whose curriculum emphasizedthe cultivation of a patriotic character, and it was purportedly the first school to institute the


local event became a national cause célèbre when the Taehan maeil sinbo pub-lished the spirited exchange between the school’s principal, An Ch’angho(1878–1938), and the police (Pak 1958, 77; Pak 1999). In this manner, the north-erly imperial progress helped popularize the use and symbolism of the t’aegukkias a touchstone of Korean national identity that defied the presence of Japan’sprotectorate administration and its control of the peninsula.

KOREA AND THE POLITICS OF IMPERIALISM

Japanese media coverage of Sunjong’s progresses had initially started out on ahigh note, carrying the tone of paternalism that persisted into the colonial period,by congratulating the emperor on his good fortune to enjoy Ito’s counsel. As Itohimself regarded the tours as something of a farewell tour after spending threeyears in Korea, he had consciously employed the Tokyo-based press to maximizeits coverage and drum up interest on Korean affairs in the metropole. This isevident during the early stages of the southern progress, when the leading Japa-nese publications on Korean affairs, Chosen and Taiyo, dedicated their editorialspace to carry the text of an Ito’s speech in its entirety, the latter providing evenan English-language translation. In the speech, a template for the numerousaddresses he delivered on the road, Ito went to great lengths to dispel lingeringsuspicions of Japanese imperial ambitions on the peninsula. He acknowledgedthat historical relations between Korea and Japan had been broken at intervals“by temporary enmity,” but insisted that “affairs then were different fromthose of the present day…. Japan’s only desire and aim [in Korea is] to havethe situation here altered for the better, to guide its people in enlightenmentand industry, to allow her to enjoy the blessings of a civilization similar to thatenjoyed by Japan.” After stressing that the two countries’ different stages ofdevelopment merely reflected their respective attitudes toward modernization,Ito offered assurances of “his firm belief in the intellectual and physical capacityof Koreans,” and “expectations that he could ultimately bring about a hopefulchange in [Korea].”12 The message, so representative of the rhetoric of the civiliz-ing mission proliferating throughout the world at the time, elicited a favorablereaction in Japan. In a letter dated January 30, 1909, Ito Miyoji (no relation),the resident-general’s longtime associate from their days of constitution drafting,congratulated his colleague on pulling off a public relations success: “Your effortshave brought unity to the hearts of our people, and attracted the favorable atten-tion of the world” (Ito 1974, 449).13

practices of singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge of allegiance; its proudly nationa-listic agenda made the school known to the Japanese police as “the devil’s den” (Pak 1999).12“Prince Ito’s Speech at Taiku [Taegu],” Taiyo 15, no. 2 (1909): 16; Taiyo 15, no. 5 (1909): 18–20.13For a biographical treatment of Ito Miyoji, see George Akita (Pak 1970).

852 Christine Kim

As news of the political fracas in the Korean south and northwest traveled toTokyo, however, journals that only weeks earlier had extolled the achievements ofthe protectorate government began to run opinion pieces that were highly criti-cal. An outraged Japanese media initially pounced on the “national flag issue”(kokki mondai) as evidence of the backward social behavior of Koreans that jus-tified the presence of the residency-general. But as the dust settled, commenta-tors moved beyond simplistic castigation of the Korean “hooligans” (yobo),instead seeking to identify the source of Korean resistance. One article, focusingon the opinions of Police Chief Matsui, cited the influence of Protestantism asthe root cause of the region’s anti-Japanese sentiment and pushed for strictercontrols on the churches and mission schools. Others expressed general fearsthat “the roots of the incident ran deep” and laid the blame at the resident-general’s feet, arguing that the rise of anti-Japanese attitudes among Koreanswas in fact “the by-product of Ito’s protectorate government that placedKorean interests ahead of those of the empire.” In those assessments, the flagswere viewed as a catalyst that “provided the anti-Japanese faction with an oppor-tunity to express their feelings of loyalty to the Korean nation.”14 Collectively,these articles succeeded in transforming the Japanese public opinion on the pro-tectorate administration’s influence in Korea from favorable to damning.

Criticism of the residency-general’s policy naturally focused on the man incharge, Ito. One writer forChosen weighed in with a scathing analysis of Ito’s pre-viously celebrated speech. While praising the “courage, self-confidence, sincerityand oratory skills” that recalled the Meiji statesman at the height of his formid-able powers, the author opined that Ito’s repeated promises to “develop theKoreans’ mental faculties through widespread education and enrich theircountry by promoting industrial development” lost sight of the true intentionsof Japan’s imperial project. The author described Ito’s views on Korea as “arbi-trary” and “a blunder,” and accused him of placing the interests of Koreaahead of those of the empire, in effect “cultivating [Korean] desire for indepen-dence through his declarations and administration.” Ito’s “Korea-First ideology”(Kankoku honi shugi), the article continued, had created the conditions for theflag incident, encouraged a pervasive anti-Japanese sentiment among theKorean population, and generated hostility toward Koreans among the Japaneseofficials and settlers there.15

This criticism of Ito’s so-called Korea-First ideology mirrored argumentsmade by other promoters of the empire’s project on the peninsula. Some, suchas Uchida Ryohei, leader of the right-wing Amur Society (Kokuryukai), hadhad opportunity to observe firsthand the consequences of the imperial pro-gresses. Writing from Seoul, where he was retained as a member of Ito’s staff

14“Kokki mondai,” Chosen 3, no. 1 (1909): 2–5.15“Ito tokan no shisei hoshin ensetsu” [Resident-General Ito’s speech on political affairs], Chosen 2,no. 6 (1909): 63–69.


and was actively involved in the affairs of the Ilchinhoe, Uchida repeated con-cerns that he had first voiced in 1907 on the occasion of Crown Prince Yoshihito’svisit. At that time, Uchida had openly questioned the wisdom of parading Sunjongbeyond the city walls and raising his political profile. With renewed vigor, he nowwarned that such measures “instructing Koreans in the ways of loyalty to the kingand country” had fostered their desire for independence from Japan’s protection,and questioned why Ito persisted in pursuing a track that was “harmful anduseless to the policies of the Residency-General” (Kuzuu 1930, 1:354–55,2:47–54). While acknowledging their utility as propaganda that “demonstratedthe sincerity of Japan to the world,”Uchida expressed concern that the progressesdiminished the power of the resident-general by heightening loyalty to theKorean king and patriotism among the Korean people” In Uchida’s mind, Ito’suse of the Korean imperial house amounted to placing it on equal footing withthe Japanese imperial house, which constituted nothing short of an act of lèsemajesté to the chrysanthemum throne (Kuzuu 1930, 2:48, 54).

Such vituperative opinions on both sides of the channel proved to be devas-tating to Ito’s reputation and to his imperial plans for Korea. In the months thatfollowed, opinion makers who had previously promoted Ito’s policies andheralded the protectorate’s achievements instead published article after articleportraying the winter journeys as a political disaster and openly accused Itoof provoking Korean nationalism. In a wholesale repudiation of Ito Miyoji’searlier assessment, the editors of Chosen voiced concerns that “the sproutsof opinions that Koreans hold about their imperial house might gradually cast anegative influence on Japan-Korea relations,” and openly admonished the pol-icies of Ito’s administration for the diffusion of anti-Japanese sentiment through-out Korea.16 Lauded as a public relations coup only weeks earlier, the progressesand their outcome now compelled one analyst to write that the flag incident hadbroadcast to the world the Koreans’ lack of confidence in the protectorate gov-ernment.17 Shortly thereafter, Taiyo published a special issue to examine “thefailure of protectorate politics” and “the real facts of the anti-Japanese issue.”18

The resident-general’s last-ditch effort to preserve the Korean protectorate, bygalvanizing anti-Japanese resistance on the peninsula, instead helped solidifyJapanese public opinion against the enterprise and formalize its demise.

THE EMPEROR AND THE FLAG

In the same manner that the media’s take on the imperial progresses unwit-tingly galvanized public opinion against the direction of the imperial project inJapan, newspapers in Korea, too, helped shape the national debates on identity

16“Kokki mondai,” Chosen 3, no. 1 (1909): 2, 5.17Chosen 3, no. 2 (1909): 2.18Taiyo 15, no. 6 (May 1909): 18–28, 60–67.

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and politics in a manner entirely unanticipated by the residency-general. In thepages of Taehan maeil sinbo and Hwangsong sinmun, it is possible to discern theemergence of two national identities that revolved around the symbols of theemperor and the flag. Although both icons started out as sacred entities repre-senting the Korean nation and its pressing agenda for renovation, in shortorder, their paths diverged, with the emperor representing an official nationalismthat appeared to accommodate the colonial regime—the unity and modern tra-jectory of the dynasty within Japan’s imperial project—while the flag representedan anti-Japanese nationalism that refused subordination to Realpolitik and theresidency-general.

In an editorial published in February 1909, in the aftermath of Sunjong’snortherly progress, Hwangsong sinmun featured an article on Yi Sunghun, achampion of modern education who was given recognition by Sunjong duringhis stopover in Chongju, P’yongan Province. A successful entrepreneur and aprominent Presbyterian, Yi was the founder of the Osan Academy (Osanhakkyo), a school that, like many privately funded institutions that openedduring the protectorate years, promoted a curriculum of national reconstruction(Kim 2005). Representing an entirely different perspective from that of the Kihohunghakhoe wolbo, the editorial criticized the conservative elitism of old-schoolscholars (sajok) and local officials for opposing the spirit of modernization anderecting numerous bureaucratic obstacles for the Academy. While attacking “thehigh and mighty who make up the Royal Library (Kyujanggak) and provincial gov-ernments, who do not spare expenses for their own corrupt causes but give no heedto schools or learning societies,” the article praised Sunjong as a benevolent andmodern monarch. By conferring imperial grace (songdok) upon Yi, it claimed,the cause of modern learning was likely to encourage “thousands, nay ten thou-sands” of new students to enroll throughout the country (February 9, 1909).The article’s paean to Sunjong, established by linking him to Yi’s philanthropic edu-cational endeavor, was representative of the nation-building efforts pursued by thenewspapers at this time, which often subordinated the regional particularity of thenewsworthy item—in this case, Yi and the school—for the sake of promoting alarger, common identity: the nation and the imperial house.

Like the crowd’s enthusiasm for the emperor in the south, what is notableabout this article is how themes of kingly allegiance and modernizationtrumped national sovereignty as the writer’s primary concerns. The protectorateregime’s insistence that the Japanese flag be flown and waved throughout thenorth shifted the priorities in such a manner that publications subsequentlydiminished the role of the emperor to highlight the symbolic cachet of the t’ae-gukki. As the Japanese press clearly noted, the northerly progress jumpstarted awidespread anti-Japanese response—whipping up political consciousness amonga large segment of the Korean population whom the residency-general hadcomplacently thought it could cajole into accommodation. By publishing articlesand editorials on the incident, the Korean newspapers staked their positions in


the nationalist controversy. Amid the mayhem, it was the national flag thatemerged as the symbol of a defiant Korean identity, while the throne came tobe perceived as fatally compromised by Japan’s imperial project. As Tsukiashi Ta-tsuhiko (2000) notes, the progresses marked a turning point from which Taehanmaeil sinbo consciously distanced itself from the throne, initially by publishingfewer articles stressing loyalty to the imperial house, and eventually refuting itsearlier stance through outright criticism of those who insisted on linking kingand country.

CONCLUSION

The Japanese administration’s best-laid plans to bring Koreans into theempire’s fold through a program of pomp and propaganda indeed proved to bean unprecedented event, although not in the manner envisioned. In the earlystages of his journey, Sunjong elicited the anticipated response in many placesalong the official itinerary, but this was by no means universal, and palpableapathy or resignation registered in others. Yet in either case, the protectorate-sponsored exercise in political pageantry connected the imperial house, theKorean nation, and modernity in a manner that found keen support acrossthe political spectrum, from conservatives to progressives, nationalists andpan-Asianists. Ultimately, however, the progresses through the peninsula high-lighted tensions—between the throne and the residency-general, Korea andJapan—and forced them to play out on a set of national stages. Critics in bothcountries then published their reviews to devastating, and long-lasting, effect.

The outcome was particularly devastating for Ito, whose plans to prolong theJapanese hold on Korea through means of informal control were completely side-lined by the show of flags in the north. Fueled equally by the desire to appropri-ate the symbolic capital of the Korean throne and promote the image of Japaneseimperial benevolence, the resident-general had blithely applied the lessons ofMeiji nation building to Korea with the assumption that the imperial showcasewould move the Korean people to submission—to their monarch, and to thecause of modernity that he represented. Instead, the Korean emperor becamea catalyst for nationalism, in the northern region at first, and eventually,through the medium of the nationalist press, throughout the peninsula. Theuibyong insurgency hardly subsided during or after the progresses took place,and the public uproar occasioned by the flag incident undermined the entiretyof Ito’s governing strategy in Korea, just as he was preparing to leave his postthat spring. Moreover, the progresses carried grave personal consequences forIto, whose high-profile exposure to the Korean populace during the journeysestablished him as the face of the Japanese empire. Five months after resigninghis post, Ito was assassinated by a young Korean nationalist—a northerner—while visiting Harbin.

856 Christine Kim

The consequences for the monarchical institution in Korea were no less sig-nificant. To the Japanese government in Tokyo, the progresses raised a differentkind of awareness of the symbolic capital of the Korean throne, namely its abilityto incite nationalist passions. Subsequent colonial policies on the peninsula tookgreat pains to circumscribe it in co-optive ways, beginning with the Treaty ofAnnexation of 1910, which went to great lengths to assimilate the Choson dynas-tic house into Japan’s imperial structure, granting courteous treatment and gen-erous financial allowances to its members. Yet even as the Japanese governmentpersisted in according great significance to the Korean throne, the experience ofthe progresses had launched a profound disquiet on the peninsula. Althoughmany Koreans would continue to link the fate of the nation to that of the royalhouse—at least until 1919, when Kojong’s death was experienced as markingthe end of an era—disaffection with the compromised crown moved many toquestion traditional assumptions of sovereignty. The events of January 1909thus illustrate the inherent difficulties faced by Japan in seeking to colonize acountry in which some inchoate form of modern nationalism was alreadyemerging.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to all those who read earlier drafts or commented on presentations ofthis work, including Mark Caprio, Kevin Doak, Carter Eckert, Andrew Gordon, KyungMoon Hwang, Sun Joo Kim, Hyung Gu Lynn, Andre Schmid, Aparna Vaidik, and twoanonymous readers for the Journal of Asian Studies.

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Politics and Pageantry in Protectorate Korea (1905–10): The Imperial Progresses of Sunjong

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