Japan took the earliest opportunity of regularizing her position by a Protocol negotiated with the native Government, and communicated with Tokyo to her Legations abroad on February 27th. In this, the last of the long series of diplomatic agreements relating to the subject, the fiction of Korean independence is still kept up, while the fact of Japanese control is further accentuated. By the third Article Japan “guarantees the independence and territorial integrity of the Korean Empire”; and by the second she covenants to ensure “the safety and repose of the Imperial Household of Korea.” The Korean Government, on its part, covenants to adopt the advice of Japan in regard to improvements in administration, and to give full facilities for the promotion of any measures the Japanese Government may undertake to protect Korea against foreign aggressions or internal disturbances. It also agrees that for the promotion of these objects Japan may occupy strategic points in Korean territory.
The effect of this agreement has been to place the resources of Korea at the disposal of Japan in the present war. The victorious army which forced the passage of the Yalu so brilliantly on May 1st was landed at Korean ports, concentrated on Korean soil, and supplied from Korean harbors. In the political sphere Korea has denounced, as having been made under compulsion, all her treaties with Russia and all concessions granted to Russian subjects. On the other hand, Russia has declared that she will regard as null and void all the acts of the Korean Government while under Japanese tutelage, and her newspapers loudly proclaim that, if our (English) neutrality were genuine, we should raise objections against the Protocol, as being inconsistent with the Treaty of 1902, whereby we, in conjunction with Japan, mutually recognize the independence of Korea. In reality there is no inconsistency, because, as we have just seen, it is clear from the first Article of the Treaty that the independence is not an ordinary independence, but a diplomatic variety which was perfectly consistent with recurring interventions to ward off foreign aggression and put down domestic revolt. In other words, it was a dependent independence, or no independence at all, and such it remains under the agreement of February, 1904. That instrument undoubtedly establishes a Japanese Protectorate over Korea, and the beauty of Protectorates is their indefiniteness. As Professor Nye, the great Belgian jurist, says in his recently published work on Le Droit International: “Le terme ‘protectorat,’ désigne la situation créée par le traité de protection.... Le protectorat a plus ou moins de développement; rien n’est fixé dans la théorie; il est cependant un trait caracteristique commun aux Etats protégés c’est qu’ils ne sont pas entièrement indépendants dans leurs relations avec les autres Etats.” These words exactly fit the condition of Korea under its recent agreement with Japan. Indeed, the description might be extended to its internal affairs also. Susceptibilities are soothed, and possibly diplomatic difficulties are turned, by calling it independent; but in reality it is as much under Japanese protection as Egypt is under ours; all state-paper description to the contrary notwithstanding.
The new Treaty of August 22, 1904, shows that this is fully understood at Tokyo. A financial adviser and a diplomatic adviser are to be appointed by the Korean Government on the recommendation of Japan, and nothing important is to be done in their departments without their advice. No treaties with Foreign Powers are to be concluded, and no concessions to foreigners granted, without previous consultation with the Japanese Government.
That the view of this authority as to the significance of the Conventions of 1904 is not the view of any individual alone has been clearly demonstrated by the acceptance of its conclusions, in a practical way, though the official action of foreign governments since the date of the conventions themselves.
In particular it is to be noted that the Government of the United States has expressed an opinion touching the effect in international law upon the status of Korea of the February and August Protocols which is substantially identical with that of Professor Lawrence. Before there was any occasion for a formal expression of opinion a significant indication of the views of the Department of State upon the subject could be found in the Foreign Relations for 1904. Over the Protocols as published therein may be found the caption “Protectorate by Japan over Korea.” (437 f.) Later on, Secretary Root had occasion expressly to state this opinion. This was when, in December, 1905, Mr. Min Yung-chan, whilom Korean Minister to France, came to the United States for the purpose of protesting against recognition by the United States of the Treaty of November 17th of the same year. In a letter to Mr. Min, explaining the reasons which made it impossible for the American Government not to recognize the binding force of that instrument, the Secretary added that there was another and a conclusive reason against interference in the matter. This reason, he said, was to be found in the circumstance that Korea had previously concluded with Japan two agreements which, in principle and in practice, established a Japanese Protectorate in Korea, and to the force of which in that particular the Treaty of November 17 added nothing.
To this view of the virtual significance of these earlier Protocols there is only to be opposed the demonstrably false assertions of the now ex-Emperor and the opinions and affirmations—quite unwarranted as the next chapter will show—of writers like Mr. Hulbert, Mr. Story, and other so-called “foreign friends” of His Majesty. These assertions and opinions are certainly not made any more credible by the willingness of their authors to denounce the President and Acting Foreign Minister of the United States in Korea, and, by implication, all the other heads of foreign governments who neither share their opinion, nor approve of their conduct in support of the opinion![32]
By the Treaty of Portsmouth the Russian Government not only definitely relinquished all the political interests she had previously claimed to possess in Korea, but also recognized in all important particulars the rights acquired in the same country by Japan through the Conventions of February and August, 1904. Article Second of the Treaty stipulates: “The Imperial Russian Government, acknowledging that Japan possesses in Korea paramount political, military and economical interests, engages neither to obstruct nor interfere with the measures of guidance, protection and control which the Imperial Government of Japan may find it necessary to take in Korea.”
Thus did the war with Russia, which was fought over the relations between Japan and Korea as an issue of supreme importance, terminate the second main period in the history of these relations. The Chino-Japan war removed forever that foreign influence which had continued through centuries, not only to prevent the immediate realization of a true national independence on the part of Korea, but also to unfit the Korean Government to maintain such independence when conferred upon it as the gift of another nation. The Russo-Japanese war terminated the attempt of a more powerful foreign nation to supersede the controlling influence of Japan in Korea. At the same time it gave a convincing further demonstration of Korea’s inherent and hopeless inability to control herself, under any existing conditions of her government or of her system of civilization. Thus the provisions for a Japanese Protectorate, which shall secure for both nations the largest possible measure of good, offered to the Marquis Ito his difficult problem as Imperial Commissioner to Korea in November, 1905.