Korean “Traitors to the Nation" after the Liberation

 

On the surrender of Japan, the prospect of a nation state looked obvious and natural to Koreans. The nation had been constituting a unified state for a full millennium until her annexation to the Japanese Empire in 1910, and now with the Japanese gone, they could see no reason the nation state should not be restored. Allied Powers too had promised Korea's independence in the Cairo Declaration of 1943. Rebuilding a nation state was the national cause for the Koreans.

Yet there was a group of Koreans who were not wholly committed to the cause. It was a group of wealthy landlords and ex-collaborators to the Japanese regime, who were worried about being persecuted or losing their advantages once a nation state is put in place. To avoid such a situation, some of them even would rather have an 'incomplete' nation state, which would spare them from the persecution and keep them in privileged positions.

People in general wanted to have the "pro-Japs" punished, but opinions varied as to the range and degree of the punishment. Communists usually demanded a more strict punishment to a wider range than most nationalists wanted. The nationalists took into consideration the need to utilize various assets of the wealthy, educated, and widely experienced group for the foundation of a new state.

On the part of the "pro-Japs", most were ready to adapt themselves to the new regime by giving up some of their advantages, if the nationalists should have their way. But there were also a small number of hardliners who thought they had too much to lose under a nationalist regime.

In the USSR-occupied North, the communists took harsh measures against a wide range of wealthy people, including those without conspicuous pro-Jap records. A good part of them fled to the South, many of them turning into hardliners in the course.

In the South, US Army leaders did not allow as much self-rule to Koreans as the Russians did in the North, taking over the ruling role of the Japanese. Thus they needed even more help of disloyal Koreans than the Japanese had needed. And "pro-Japs" were the most suitable material for "pro-Sams". The Americans' military government employed Koreans with pro-Jap records for its administration and police, and took measures not only to protect their wealth but even to increase it.

This situation gradually affected those well-off people who had at first supported the nationalists with a readiness to concede some of their advantages. They turned to KDP(Korean Democratic Party), which paved the way to the division of the country. Armed with money and policeforce, KDP had the power to silence nationalist oppositions and lead its followers into a collaboration with the Americans in much the same way they had had with the Japanese.