고려대학교

초록/요약

This study analyzes the contents and characteristics of the reports related to the Japanese annexation of Korea that appeared in the major newspapers in Great Britain and the United States, namely The Times and The New York Times, before and after the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910. Both papers boast traditions of over 150 years and continue to be internationally influential dailies. At the time, these two entities, which were representative of the press in Great Britain and the United States, swayed public opinion in favor of imperialistic expansion. In essence, the two newspapers came out in favor of the Japanese annexation of Korea. They reprinted the official position of the Japanese government regarding the annexation of Korea, namely that the chaos in Korea had made annexation inevitable, and reflected the imperialistic expansionist logic that annexation would help foster the development of Korea. This can be regarded as the moment at which the issue of independence used as the logic for Japan’s territorial encroachment in Korea reached the terminus known as the ‘inevitability of annexation.’The two newspapers reported on the annexation of Korea from the standpoint of Western imperialism. They reported on the process of the annexation of Korea in a manner that cloaked the violence carried out by Japan in the name of pushing through the annexation treaty, and excluded the positions of the Korean people. The rise of ŭibyŏng (righteous armies) and of the independence movement in Korea in opposition to the violence of Japanese imperialism was decried as ‘riots’ initiated by ‘malcontents.’Although the two newspapers, in their capacity as Western papers representative of imperialist nations, by and large maintained the common position of accepting the inevitability of the ‘annexation of Korea,’ each adopted, in keeping with the positions of their respective governments, its own line of reasoning for this acceptance.