Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/219

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DIPLOMACY
181

themselves by firing the guns they carried with them for self-defence.

The Government was still in the hands of the Queen’s party that had signed the treaty with Japan, but, curiously enough, they were no real advocates of intercourse with Japan. Their temporarily taking the cause of Japan was only a means towards depriving Tai-in-kun of governing power. Having gained this, they were intent on falling back on China. China was more popular, and in their eyes a better protector of their interests, than Japan. What the attitude of China was with regard to Corea after her entering into new relations with Japan may be gathered from the following letter sent by Li-Hung-Chang in 1881 to one of the members of the governing party, and showed by the latter to the King of Corea:

‘Japan has in recent years adopted the manners and customs of the European nations, and begun hundreds of new works calculated to increase her wealth and power. But really her treasury is empty, and her debts accumulate from year to year, so that she is forced to pursue a policy of aggrandisement in order to make up for the deficit. Hence, the nations neighbouring on her must be extremely vigilant. Corea lies to the north of Japan, as Formosa does to the south of her, and these two lands are just what Japan covets the most. The rapacity of Japan, relying on her skill in fraud, is well illustrated in the affair of Liukiu, which she has at last absorbed. Your country had better be on the look-out….’

The policy of China, then, was to draw Corea more and more towards herself by making the Coreans fear Japan’s intention to annex the peninsula, thereby turning her merely historical suzerainty into a real one. Here, then, was one great source of international complication for the future.

But Corea was already not entirely wanting in men who could foresee the great future in store for Japan, and wished to cultivate a really good relation with us for the good of their country, or at least as the means of asserting their power between the two rival parties of Tai-in-kun and the relatives of the Queen. The centre of this new party was an ambitious young man of the Kin family, by the name of Kin-giok-kin, who won over to his cause Boku-ei-ko, born of a very high family, and nominal husband[1] of one of the royal Princesses. Jo-ko-han also belonged to this party. They sent a Buddhist priest called Li-to-jin to Japan, in order to communicate their ideas to Japanese statesmen, and afterwards they sent out two more men, Li-ken-gu and Taku-tei-shoku, to Japan with letters to the Minister of Justice, Iwakura, and the Coun-

  1. ↑ In Corea, when a Princess of blood is given in marriage to one of the subjects, only the marriage ceremony is gone through, and no living together as husband and wife takes place as consequence.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.