Regardless of what point of view an individual takes, there is no doubt that Japan has dramatically influenced Korea. This is common with most nations in the industrialization period or the modernization period. Think about it, every treaty endorsed between nations leads to policy change. The lessons learned from previous agreements, aid in creating new policies.

Korea, suggested by Cummings, was a buffer zone between China and Japan. China acted as the big brother or role model for Korea. Culture, language values and society itself developed by free choices made by the Korean government. However, China was always ready to step in if Korea seemed to get to powerful or weak. Cummings makes this relationship sound as if everything was all right as long as Korea depended on the aid of China and respected China's dominance of

It is true that Japan significantly improved the infrastructure and transportation area of Korea. The Japanese wanted to improve transport time and efficiency for troop and merchandise movements through the peninsula, there fore they improved the roads, seaports and developed a railroad system. These improvements increased the speed while decreasing costs. For the military, it gave Japan another advantage in controlling the Korean population. In economics, it gave Japan a cost cutting factor.

Besides farming, economic, and tenant changes, the Japanese also changed the social order. The Japanese quickly seized power out of the Korean people's hands and replaced it with Japanese personnel. The new social order is as shown above:

Japan also introduced fertilizers and dams to the Koreans for the purpose of increasing production. This was not an attempt to make the Koreans rich, or even to lighten their burden. It was a clear case of Japan trying to maximize their investments. The building of dams actually burdened the peasants because they still had to pay their rent with rice as well as build the dams. So this technology actually hindered them more then it benefited them at the time. It is true that after the occupation that this technology has helped the Korean people, we must keep a focus on the intent.

These alliances became very influential in foreign policies. For example, when the Americans wanted to open Korean ports, the initial trade agreement was not made with the Korean government but with the Chinese government. Why did this occur? Well there are several reasons. First throughout Korean history Korean's have always looked up to the Chinese in these types of matters. Second because of the family alliances mad with China, China was given the right to make these decisions.

Now that we have explored the changes or modernization made in Korea, let us take those same changes compare them to how they may or may not have been used for exploitation. In this argument, I will follow the same sequences as the changes presented earlier.

As stated before family alliances were made with China to strengthen the power of noble families. However, China was not the only country giving aid to Korean nobles. Russia and Japan had their share of supporters too. This diversity and rivalry of support only further weakened the unity of power in Korea. When Japan defeated Russia in the Japanese -Russian war, Japan had successfully knocked Russia out of the picture for the time being. Although other European countries had now placed interest on the Korean peninsula there, presence was not a big factor. When Japan showed their strength against Russia, this only left two more powers bidding in Korea. They were the United States and China.

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Approximate Word count = 2552
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)