ISSUES

IN 1910, KOREA was annexed to Japan, downgraded to a mere frontier province in the Japanese empire. For the time being, regional competition and confrontation over the Korean peninsula were at an end. Korea was forgotten, disregarded as a thing of the past in East Asian international politics. Yet the powers’ interest in the peninsula did not vanish completely. For the maritime power of Japan, the annexation provided a foothold for penetration into the continent. The international relations of the East Asian region would now progress toward instability rather than stability, unless the powers of the continent and the West were capable of counterbalancing Japan. Japan, indeed, pursued political and economic expansion into Manchuria and China proper, chiefly from its secure footing in the Korean peninsula. During World War I, this Japanese activist policy seemed to be rather successful vis-à-vis China and Russia, both in the throes of upheavals. Paradoxically, this would heighten Korea's geopolitical value in East Asian politics.

In terms of the balance of power, the East Asian regional order was a subsystem that reflected, and was therefore subordinate to, the balance of power in Europe. The extent of the European powers’ interests in the region was hardly uniform, however, and the European system of balance was not entirely projected onto it. The existence of regional powers, such as Japan and China, also contributed to a considerable degree of autonomy in the region. World War I clearly demonstrated this characteristic of the East Asian order. As the European powers neglected East Asia because of the war, a power vacuum created by their withdrawal seemed to allow for Japan to make the most of “an opportunity that only occurs once in a thousand years.” Despite China's declaration of neutrality, Japan proclaimed war against Germany, and quickly seized Qingdao (Tsingtao), the German naval base in Shandong. During this period, Japan advanced economically into the Yangzi valley, China's economic hub, which had traditionally been considered a British sphere of influence. This move signaled a deepening conflict in Anglo-Japanese relations. When the new Republic of China was shattered by military warlords, giving rise in 1915 to separate southern and northern governments, Japan seized the opportunity and made its so-called “Twenty-One Demands.”