일제시기 역사지리서에 반영된 間島 인식

Abstract

Japan used to recognize the Gando as a land that belongs to China before they performed investigations to cope with territorial problems through Japanese military HQ in Korea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Residency-General’s temporary police station in Gando. However, the Japanese regarded that both countries of the Qing Dynasty and Korea have logically right reasons while they investigated the Gando ownership as they advanced into the Gando after robbing diplomatic right. Therefore, they regarded the Gando as a vast in-between zone, no man’s land and neutral zone. After advancing into the Gando, the Japanese needed to set a precondition that the Gando was a Korean territory in order to justify themselves for their national interest. Moreover, there were enough historical and international legal ground to insist that the Gando was a Korean territory. The Gando could be regarded as a Korean territory with some reasons that the Gando has been existed as Korea’s old territory in the history since the first king of Joseon Dynasty, Yi Seong-gye; there were overwhelmingly large number of Korean people living in the Gando and they resisted to the Qing’s suppression with a recognition that they were Korean people; Korea dispatched the Gando managers to control the people of Gando as Korea’s fellow countrymen. Therefore, Japan began to insist that the Gando was Korean territory because Korea’s insistence was valid and they need to advance into Manchuria. The Japanese could have a lot of economic gains from the Gando agreement concluded with the China, but their national image could fall if it was known to the world that they passed over the territorial right of Gando to the China because they accepted that the Gando was a Korean territory. Therefore, the Japanese made a logic to distort the reality by making their image as the ‘peacemaker’ or ‘peace guardian’ who solved the conflict in the Northeast Asia. So they described it in the historical geography book so as to make it as a matter which was already settled to raise their national image. They neglected the profit they took from the Gando agreement but disguised themselves as a peacemaker and guardian who settled down the conflict between the Korea and China and brought peace. Especially, the Japanese was consistent in clearing out their image as an aggressor nation while describing the history in the Gando region for which the Korea, China and Japan have mingled emotions and understandings. It can be seen as another historical distortion done by the Japanese beside current Dokdo issue.