Why did Korea take a longer time to modernise during 19th century...

Why did Korea take a longer time to modernise during 19th century? Didn't they see what happened to China or were they content with being a hermit kingdom during that period?

Other urls found in this thread:

quora.com/Why-was-19th-century-Japan-able-to-modernize-so-effectively-but-not-Korea
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

"Modernity" is a spook. The Koreans understood this. Unfortunately their more spooked neighbors took advantage of spooky technologies to make Korea their property.

But what I'm asking is
Why didn't korea modernise during the period when they saw China,their guardian,get buttfucked by western powers

They tried to, they had the misfortune of being sandwiched between Russia and Japan so it didn't work out very well

Neo Confucian State.

It started off with a pretty meek system. The taxation’s were grain based, which unlike its predecessors were rotted upon the efficiency of the communal farm instead of yield. As result, the yearly output was reduced to 1/3.

The government was filled with zealous pro Confucian scholar “party” that persecuted anything that was contrary to Chinese ideals. Old Dynastic Enclaves were persecuted.

When the isolation started during the end of the Manchu Invasion, whole of East Asian continent was terribly afflicted by war. It took years of military reformations and governmental changes enacted by a single King to shape Korea to an open country. Unfortunately, one of the pro isolationist Clans disposed the ambitious King and established an absolute authority over Korea with the isolationists as their puppeteers.

Centuries passed with relative peace. They were content with the equal bilateral trade with the Tokugawa and resisted Qing diplomatically. Trapped in this constant state of tranquility, the kingdom of morning calm fell into decadence. Only old jesuits and small time Russian and French skirmishes would disturb the sorry excuse for a state.

By the time of Meiji restoration, the Korean Dynasty was nothing more than an provincial duke. The Qing lost the war against the new Japan and Gojong of Korea sold the country to the rising imperialists.

Korea did not modernise until after the brutal militarist rule under President Park.

Korea was Manchuria's bitch until Japan walloped the Chinese, during their brief independence they immediately set about modernizing, however it was too little too late to resist the Jap.

Why were they content with being isolationist when their neighbour reaped it's bountiful benefits? Can you please elaborate on your statement?

also why didn't the Koreans work out an agreement with the japs,allowing them to be independent while being their ally in East Asia

That's actually what the original agreement more or less was, the Japs just couped the government and passed the annexation

>reaped it’s bountiful benefits?
I’m not sure I understand. Do you mean other nations exploiting Joseon (Korea) or Joseon failure to modernise?

I mean Japan modernising itself
Why did Korea continue to be isolationist while Japan went all out and modernised itself

although I am also interested on Korea's effort to modernise to become an Asian Tiger during the Cold War

Ah right.

quora.com/Why-was-19th-century-Japan-able-to-modernize-so-effectively-but-not-Korea

As I stated above, the conservatives took control of the court after a fierce political crisis. Sedo politics, roughly translating to “in law politics” took over Korea by a storm. The Andong Kim Family took hold of the imperial court entire and began to persecute on Pro Catholics, “Liberal” Pro Western Parties and Silhak philosophers.

The Silhaks were extremely important in instituting reforms for Joseon. Literally meaning, Practical thinking, these scientific methodologist questioned hard line neo Confucian beliefs and preached for more “enlightened thinking”. With almost the entirety of their power gone after the Andong Kim clan took over, there was little opposition to the same old conservative thinking. And as result, the entire kingdom stagnated for centuries to come.

It did not matter whether Japan was rising or whether the Qing was disintegrating. As long as Sedo existed, Joseon would stay the same.

>began to persecute Pro Catholics,"Liberal" Pro Western Parties and Silhak Philosopohers
What was their casus belli for attacking them? Did they accuse them of attempted destruction of society or were there any other reason?

And how harsh were catholic persecutions in Korea as compared to China or Japan?

...

Literally Privileges.

The Yangban (ruling class) and the Sedo Royalists were afraid of the common peasantry and foreign preachers taking up all the land based rights from them. The Silhaks were promoting peasant rights, nationalism and western technology, whilst the jesuits were were preaching Christianity and the Western way of thinking.

Both ideologies opposed the exact values that made the Yangban powerful.

I see
So the only problem with Korea is the despotic ruling class who tried to shut down any sort of westernisation/modernisation
If Korea did manage to modernise itself during the 19th century,how would it change history? Would China try to curbstomp Korea and turn it into a territory or would Korea be able to reclaim their norther territories?

I’m not sure but according to wikipedia, Japan executed roughly 535 Christians.

Koreans killed 10,000.

I think Japan was more tolerant because of the pre existing Portuguese and Dutch settlers on Kyushu. The Europeans were competing for monopoly on Japan and was too busy to achieve any serious foothold on Korea.

It’s quite late so I need to sleep. Happy reading.

that's a low count since the Shimabara rebellion involved a lot of Christians right?

If Korea were to do that, there would have to be an entire Dynastic change. Joseon had little military industry and their policies were entirely passive. Only Goguryeo and Goryeo was able to Seize Northern Territories, and that was because their government was militarists that supported the idea of a “greater Korean Identity” instead of the the little brother relationship Joseon preached for China,

Oh wow. Didn’t even know that happened. I actually got exam tommorow so I need to sleep. Thanks for the talk dude.

So why did Goguryeo and Goryeo fail? And is it safe to say that Both Kingdoms can be seen in North Korea due to their militarist tendencies?

Oh god, you are baiting me with more interesting questions.

Goguryeo took Liadong during the Northern conquests during the 5th century, repulsing invasions from the Xianbei, Silla, Baekje, Sui and Tang. Keeping most of Southern Manchuria and some parts of Inner Mongolia under tight control, supervised by alliance of Turkic, Mohe and Koreanic people.

Goryeo was granted the authority over Liaoning from the Yuan, who was impressed with the Korean King (increasingly loosing his national identity from Mongolian marriages). That kicked the bucket when Yuan perished.

During the climax of Goryeo, they invaded Liaoyang, made a mongol General their Vassals, repulsed two Chinese invasions, decimated the wakou army and invaded Tsushima.

Both “Empire” kicked the bucket when the inner politics fell apart. Goguryeo was defeated by Tang and Silla whilst Goryeo was over thrown by the new King of Joseon when he was ordered to capture Jilin.

Also North Korea is a shit state that can’t do anything but threathen and kidnap people with the warrant of mutually destructive arms whilst both Goryeo and Goguryeo can go to war against other empires to protect their national interests whilst competing regionally in culture.

>Both "Empire" kicked the bucket when the inner politics fell apart
So they civil war'd themselves? Was there no strong heir to the Goguryeo Kingdom

afaik Yeon Gaesomun held the nation together so is it safe to say he is comparable to Napoleon or Frederick of Prussia?

give me a korean history reading list in exchange for this (you). thanks in advance pham

More like Bismarck. He held King Bojang as a puppet, secured the trust of Foreign allies whilst defending against a greater enemy.

does Veeky Forums have a book guide towards Korean history or East Asian History? I want to learn more but I don't know where to begin

Japs treated Koreans like shit. That’s why.

They were modernizing befire Japan took over

Yea but it was near the end of 19th century and they were far too late

You should read 'The Fall of the Hermit Kingdom' by Woosang Choi. Basically he lays it out in a few arguments (I might be forgetting some things so sorry in advance)

1. Sandwiched between Japan and Russia and China

2. Their government was a Confucian State that wanted to run things business as usual.

3. They were fucked by Japan a lot, basically signing away rights to key things in finance, maritime sovereignty, ect.

They tried to protest and get their independence back but Teddy Roosevelt sided with Japan over Korea and Japan worked hard to delegitimize the Korean independence factions at the time.

>Didn't they see what happened to China
Koreans were in a far worse ideological boat considering they took Neo-Confucianism fucking seriously.

We still take it too seriously.

>Sandwiched between three nations
Couldn’t the Koreans have played them off against each other while protecting their own sovereignty ?

Korea was also being fucked by peasant revolutions.

In short, Korean history is a textbook case of why a powerful elite shouldn't be trusted to keep shit under control when they don't have some significant figure to keep them in line. Even when they do have someone to slap their shit every now and again, it just complicated matters even further by creating even more factions to try and screw each other over and, by extension, screw the kingdom over and everyone in it, including themselves.

Because it's backward confucionist bureaucracy was against modernization since they saw whites as "barbarians".

t. Matthew Perry

Pic related

>“greater Korean Identity”
A unified Korean identity didn't even exist pre-Goryeo. At the minimum you have Gojoseon,Yemaek,Buyeo and Jin/Samhan related cultures who may have partially been inhabited by non Koreanic speaking peoples.

Even the first "Korean" polity,Gojoseon originated in Liaoxi with no possible way of determining linguistic or ethnic complexities.