이승만의 국제질서인식과 일본관: 식민지 시기에 있어 망국(亡國)과 건국(建國)의 문제

Abstract

Syngman Rhee was one of the most important Korean intellectuals and politicians during and after the Japanese colonial period. This paper tries to reconstruct his perceptions on international relations and major states such as the U.S. and Japan through the analysis of his articles and letters in this period. And it made efforts to suggest his basic ideas on how to organize a liberation movement against Japanese imperialism. From the beginning, he belonged to the member of reformist groups at the late stage of Chosun dynasty. By contributing regularly articles to monthly journals, he issued a warning that Chosun dynasty was in danger of the fall not to catch up the developped western civilizations. By contrast, he admired Japan’s achievement of modernization under the Meiji leaders’ strong leadership. For him, Japan was a model in many aspects for Chosun, not an adversary or rivalry at that time. However, right after the Russo-Japanese war, his evaluation of Japan was abruptly changed because of Japan’s brutal trial of annexation of Korea. As a exile leader, he began to criticize Japan as a imperial state and suggest a way to liberate Korea from the Japanese colonial rule. Nevertheless of his strong antipathy toward Japan, however, he did not approve the people’s righteous army or rebellion against Japanese colonial rule as a method of liberation movement. Instead he advocated the diplomacy as a desirable method of liberation movement. Especially he tried to get an assistance from the United States. For him, enticing the U.S. to a state of war with Japan could be a most possible path to a liberation of Korea. Syngman Rhee’s perceptions on international relations and the way of liberation movement during the colonial period affected a lot to the newly born independent Korea’s foreign policy as well as the Korean Interim Government’s liberation movement.