East Asia Observed: Selected Writings 1973-2021 9789048560028

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EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

J. E. Hoare

East Asia Observed: Selected Writings 1973–2021 v

By

J. E. Hoare

Amsterdam University Press

Distinguished Asian Studies Scholars: Collected Writings. Volume 5 Cover design: Juan Hayward Layout: Dataworks

ISBN: 9789048560011 e-ISBN: 9789048560028 (pdf ) DOI: 10.5117/9789048560011 © J. E. Hoare / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted content reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

For Susan, my children and grandchildren and in memory of Professors S. T. Bindoff, W. G. Beasley and I. H. Nish who were my guides.

Contents v

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Captain Broughton, HMS Providence (and her tender) and his voyage to the Pacific 1794–98 The ‘Bankoku Shimbun Affair’: Foreigners, the Press and Extraterritoriality in Early Modern Japan Japan undermines extraterritoriality: Extradition in Japan 1885–1899 British Journalists in Meiji Japan The Tokyo Embassy, 1871–1945 Captain Francis Brinkley (1842–1912): Yatoi, Scholar and Apologist William Keswick, 1835–1912: Jardine’s Pioneer in Japan The Era of the Unequal Treaties, 1858–99 Ernest Cyril Comfort: The Other British Aviation Mission and Mitsubishi 1921–1924 Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria: Britain’s Consular Service in the Japanese Empire, 1883–1941 John Carey Hall (1844–1921): A Career in the Japan Consular Service Memories of the Past: The Legacy of Japan’s Treaty Ports The Centenary of Korea-British Diplomatic Relations: Aspects of British Interest and Involvement in Korea, 1600–1983 The Anglican Cathedral Seoul 1926–1986 British Public opinion and the Korean War: A preliminary survey vii

1 13 25 33 45 64 74 82 102 112 125 134 150 178 188

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16. A Brush with History: Opening the British Embassy Pyongyang, 2001–02 17. Potboiler Press: British Media and North Korea 18. Reflections on North Korea: Myths and Reality 19. Twenty Years a-Stagnating—The Lost Opportunity of Britain’s Relationship With the DPRK 20. Building politics: The British Embassy Peking, 1949–1992 21. Diplomacy in the East: Seoul, Beijing and Pyongyang 1981–2002 22. Odd Arne Westad. The Global Cold War 23. Charles Stephenson. Germany’s Asia-Pacific Empire: Colonialism and Naval Policy, 1885–1914 24. Gordon Pirie. Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation 1919–1939 25. Margaret Hall. The Imperial Aircraft Flotilla: The Worldwide Fundraising Campaign for the British Flying Services in the First World War 26. Richard T. Chang. The Justice of the Western Consular Courts in Nineteenth Century Japan 27. Michael Auslin. Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and Culture of Japanese Diplomacy 28. Ian Nish. The Japanese in War and Peace 1942–1948: Selected Documents from a Translator’s In-tray 29. Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Carmen Blacker – Scholar of Japanese Religions, Myth and Folklore: Writings and Reflections 30. Christian Polak, ed., with Hugh Cortazzi. Georges Bigot and Japan 1882–1899: Satirist, Illustrator and Artist Extraordinaire 31. Anthony Farrar-Hockley. The British Part in the Korean War. Vol. I: A Distant Obligation; Vol. II: The British Part in the Korean War. Volume II: An Honourable Discharge 32. Erik Cornell. North Korea under Communism: Report of an Envoy in Paradise

202 235 241 257 264 279 297 300 303 306 308 312 315 317 321 324 328

CONTENTS

33. Valérie Gelézeau. Séoul, ville géante, cites radiuses 34. Donald N. Clark. Living Dangerously: The Western Experience in Korea 1900–1950 35 Jane Portal. Art under Control in North Korea 36. Felix Abt. A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom 37. Kevin O’Rourke. My Korea: 40 Years without a Horsehair Hat 38. Arissa H. Oh. To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption 39. Keith Howard. Songs for ‘Great Leaders’: Ideology and Creativity in North Korean Music and Dance 40. Michael Lindsay. The Unknown War: North China 1937–1945 41. P. D. Coates. The China Consuls 42. Michael J. Moser and Yeone Wei-chih Moser. Foreigners within the Gates: The Legations at Peking 43. Hsiao Li Lindsay. Bold Plum: With the Guerrillas in China’s War against Japan 44. Hugh Baker. Ancestral Images: A Hong Kong Collection 45. Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power 46. Odd Arne Westad. Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China Korea Relations Notes Index Names Index Places

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330 333 336 339 341 343 346 349 351 353 355 358 360 362 365 407 415

Foreword v

Our careers are a mixture of necessity, happenstance, and design. Some have it easier than others, but our life experiences, be they trials and tribulations or the need to change direction as we take on family or other responsibilities, including those that come with our jobs, always offer potential for personal development. It is up to us whether we take advantage of the hand we are dealt, even if it takes us along paths that we do not expect. We are, indeed, fortunate that Jim followed the meander that he did. He would have been a very different scholar had he spent his career in academia, but, equally, he would have been a very different diplomat had he not written a PhD thesis on Japanese treaty ports during the Meiji era. There have been few academic posts in East Asian subjects until recently, resulting in some of our best scholars having to traverse circuitous routes as they develop the expertise for which they come to be appreciated. Jim renders meaningless our custom of pigeonholing those who we rely on for bringing us knowledge of the East Asian region into a single category, as an academic, a diplomat, or an expert commentator. Indeed, he slots neatly into all three of these categories, and more. It comes as no surprise that he dislikes the ‘scholar-diplomat’ label, because that too readily dilutes one element at the expense of the other. We admire his writing, and his interventions at symposia and conferences, precisely because he refuses to slot neatly into our expectations of what such categories mean. And, since his retirement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he has also enjoyed a late career as expert commentator, one that would have been likely to incur the wrath of government during his diplomatic career. Not that we should really consider him a normal diplomat, since his day job was as a member of the FCO Research Department (now Research Analysts), and from there he took postings to Seoul, Beijing and Pyongyang. In fact, in ‘Diplomacy in the East’ (2007), he remarks that his only training in diplomacy was his PhD training. xi

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Still, the temptation to pigeonhole always lurks nearby, and I confess that when I first came across him in the early 1980s – he, posted to the British Embassy in Seoul; me, a PhD student from Queen’s University, Belfast, conducting fieldwork in Korea – I thought of him only as a diplomat. True, I was able to hear and read his work on the British Embassy in Seoul, but I only came to appreciate his academic side as the British Association for Korean Studies re-established itself a few years later. However, as I took over the role of BAKS president, he was posted to Beijing… Soon, we agreed to collaborate, to co-write the Korea volume in the Clio World Bibliography series. He also wrote sections on the Korean War, on reunification of the two Korean states, and on strategic and defence issues for the book I assembled for British secondary schools, Korea: People, Country and Culture (1996; with later translations into Indonesian, Italian and Korean). All too soon I encountered disapproval. Academic strictures against ‘light’ research – dictionaries, bibliographies, and anything for the pre-tertiary education market – meant I had to accede to demands from my seniors in SOAS that I concentrate on writing ‘serious’ research if I ever wanted to be in line for promotion. Jim graciously took over the Clio project, co-writing it with Susan Pares (Susan also helped edit Korea: People, Country and Culture), although by some quirk it is still to this day sometimes wrongly listed with my name as joint author. But I took no part in writing it, and Jim, graciously, didn’t protest too loudly when my review of the volume appeared in print (his 2021 review of my Songs for “Great Leaders”, though, means we are even!). There is much to be criticised in the dominant understanding of academic research, which prizes tightly focused monographs and obscure articles that by their nature, because they are peer-reviewed for specialist journals, are never seen by a wider public. This understanding, where value is ascribed to ‘new’ knowledge ‘effectively shared’, is systematised by the British Research Excellence Framework. However, ‘sharing’ routinely lines the pockets of publishers within an industry created for academics and academic libraries not least by the late and much discredited Robert Maxwell, and ‘new’ tends to discard what Jim has for much of his life excelled in – bibliographies with Clio, the Scarecrow/Rowman and Littlefield Historical Dictionaries for both the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, overviews of both Koreas (and small books on customs and etiquette that we surreptitiously check

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before struggling with cultural misunderstandings), the Political and Economic Dictionary of East Asia and the Dictionary of Korea, and the many contributions to the Korea Yearbook. The latter was published between 2007 and 2013, refocusing an earlier North American based series that had struggled to retain focus and relevance with funding from the Academy of Korean Studies. These, though, are our standard ‘go to’ volumes. They are informed, reliable, and to-the-point, and it would be our loss if we devalued their importance by arguing that they are not ‘serious’ research. They also manage what I find largely impossible, condensing complexity into bite-sized pieces appropriate for busy officials, those in business, and generalists, while still digging deeper to uncover hidden histories. And they are able to do so because Jim fuses materials, observations, data and research collected as part of his day job within the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the rigour typical of an academic. There was a time when scholars wrote their monograph as they approached retirement. Knowledge slowly mutated, and the monograph was the crowning achievements of a career spent teaching, marking student coursework and, at least in theory, taking time to reflect on meticulously collected data. Today, though, too much is published by too many too quickly. Knowledge changes at an alarming rate, and scholars must publish or perish. Indeed, a few years ago I encountered a ‘vintage sale’ at the Stanford University bookshop: any book published three or more years earlier was savagely reduced to a small percentage of the original price, because it was no longer considered ‘current’. Today’s speed of change is made all the more expedient by periodic research assessment exercises, but such systems work only for the small minority who succeed in using their PhD thesis as a meal ticket for an academic career. Jim did not do so, because necessity forced him away from academia. Before he had his graduation certificate he entered the FCO. And so it was that for more than two decades his thesis languished, unpublished (digitisation and the mantra of Open Access, however, means it is now freely downloadable online – with typos and corrections left intact). He took a box containing the transcript to postings in Seoul and Beijing, although this was certainly not the box containing relics of an earlier life that we encounter at the beginning of L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between, since Jim mined parts of the thesis for sundry other projects. Those above him in his day job did not look kindly on academic pursuits; indeed, the protocols of Cold War diplomacy required the protection

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of knowledge, with the result that diplomats were discouraged from publishing or speaking in public. Still, diplomacy brought access, since in the 1980s and beyond small local diplomatic communities were friendly and information circulated. His diplomatic status also helped him track down sources, including, in respect to Korea, descendants of early British visitors and residents such as the Hilliers (Walter Hillier was consul-general in Seoul from 1889–1896, and his wife laid the foundation stone for the embassy building). Today, the situation has changed, both because the diplomatic corps has grown and has become more sensitive to protocol and rank and because contemporary geopolitics mean that there is greater competition for information. He was in Seoul as the British Embassy prepared to celebrate a century of diplomatic relations, and his ambassador, John Morgan (and later, Nick Spreckley), saw value in calling on Jim’s expertise as a historian. Still, it was his unexpected release from the FCO in 1992 that allowed him to resume his more academic focus. A year at the International Institute for Strategic Studies was spent developing new research but also blowing the dust off the pages of his PhD thesis. Duly revised, the thesis appeared as Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (1994). Later, it resulted in the significant edited collection Culture, Power and Politics in Treaty-Port Japan 1854–1899 (2018). Robert Bickers, reviewing the book, wrote that it was very much an insider’s view, and that after some 30 years working with the material Jim knew his sources and personalities very well (1996). Similarly, Simon Bytheway, commenting on the edited collection, referred to the fifty-year production process, and how it marked the culmination of ‘a long and distinguished lifetime of foraging’, benefitting from the patronage of senior academics in the field and the assistance of the world’s best libraries (2020). Jim has returned to the history of treaty ports (and journalists and diplomats in Japan during the same period) regularly, since, and as many academics will attest to, we are repeatedly invited to write more about the research topic we initially came to be known for. Jim’s PhD training meant he studied in Japan and learnt Japanese. He developed a skill set for assembling and managing data, and referencing it to ensure its usability by others. He switched from a research interest in North America to exploring nineteenth-century Japan. Although such a switch was not without risk, in the heady days of 1960s Higher Education expansion grants were more readily available

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than they are today and were distributed through the University of London rather than being allocated to individual colleges within the university, so he kept an escape route should he flounder. Importantly, his PhD established what has proved to be a lifelong concern. In stating this, I refer not to treaty ports but to the need to get up close and personal. Commentaries written from afar cannot observe the reality of local life. Nor, in East Asia or elsewhere, can adequate commentaries be written from the comfortable ghettos in which so many of the ex-patriate community reside. Both render one divorced from local life and lead to blinkered understandings. The failure to listen to Asian voices and to observe the reality is, then, inexcusable. This may seem more pertinent with respect to the present, but it also applies to history, hence, in the preface to his PhD Jim states that he seeks ‘to show what foreigners in Japan felt about Japan’s trade’ and ‘to explain why the foreign merchants of the treaty ports lost the exclusive control they once had over the foreign trade of Japan’. A succinct statement of his approach comes in ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun” Affair’ (1975), which explores how and why Japan learnt to stand up for itself and to promote its sovereignty (although this ominously foreshadowed its later colonial and expansionist ambitions). Jim reflects on the present in much the same way, remarking at the end of ‘Building Politics: The British Embassy Peking, 1949–1992’ (1994) that Chinese attempts to keep foreign diplomats isolated from the local population has added to the Western failure to understand China – not, though, that foreign diplomats, or at least many of them, have been unhappy at their isolation, which gives them access to swimming pools, commissariats and hotel bars, and avoids the noise and pollution of city streets. Jim has become less constrained in retirement, and ‘Twenty Years a-Stagnating’ (2020) pulls no punches as it notes the naïve and contrasting expectations of Britain and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in establishing diplomatic relations which could never be realised. Having charted the deterioration of relations since the start of the new millennium and noted the uninspiring groups of socialist supporters who populated receptions hosted by DPRK diplomats, he asks whether there is any reason for the DPRK to maintain its diplomatic presence in London now that Britain has left the European Union. It is not surprising that Jim’s training as a historian meant little in the FCO. Officers were allocated desk responsibilities that had little relationship to their existing regional knowledge, and Jim initially

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worked primarily on China but at times was required to look at South and Southeast Asia. Officers were expected to take their steer from government policies. They were not to challenge official positions hence, and beyond the distinct issues facing office archivists the questioning which is routine within academia would generate suspicion. Reputedly, some of Jim’s reports from on the ground in China after Tiananmen brought disapproval, as did his questioning of the official line that women in North Korea were suffering declining fertility. Balancing evidence with policy was no easy matter, hence when he was posted to Pyongyang, EU colleagues criticised Jim for taking what they regarded as a pro-US stance (a mark of British diplomacy since World War II), while his FCO bosses declared him anti-American (who, in their right mind, could countenance Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech?). Getting up and close to data also requires sensitivity. Consider, then, Jim’s work on the two Historical Dictionaries. The 2004 second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Korea, inherited from the late Andrew Nahm and the first which Jim worked on, combined Nahm’s earlier contributions (used with permission from his widow) with new writing, while more recent editions are solely Jim’s work. In contrast, the 2012 second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was actually the first produced under that title, since it had previously appeared with the country rendered as ‘North Korea’. Jim wanted to create equity in respect to the two Korean states, and moved away from the writing of the original compiler, a former army-officer-turned-academic. Again, he has had little patience with unsubstantiated and sensationalist journalism. His ‘Potboiler Press: British Media and North Korea’ (2016), while decrying the parochialism of many in Britain, rightly and justifiably lambasts the BBC journalist John Sweeney for using subterfuge to pass himself off as a university professor to gain access to North Korea, and ‘whose predictable and banal reportage was only matched by a tendentious book.’ Jim, not surprisingly, can be impatient. Not just with journalists, but with policy makers (see, for example, his 2016 article, ‘United Kingdom’, in Global Expectations for Korean Unification); he is only too aware that East Asia, and Korea in particular, is distant from Britain, and British interest often reflects concerns with geopolitics elsewhere. He can also be somewhat sharp with academics, some of whom sensationalise Asian difference and, in respect to North Korea,

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respond to access challenges and relative sparsity of materials by producing shoddy, shallow commentaries. To Jim, of course, everyday life in Pyongyang undermines theories and glib assumptions. Hence, he writes in his contribution to a volume on North Korean artistic production, ‘The People’s Art Galleries? Some Reflections on Posters, Sculpture, and Monuments in the DPRK’ (2011): ‘Whatever the reality for ordinary people … they did not behave as downtrodden slaves. They argued with police and other officials. They worried about their children just as parents did everywhere…’. Again, he contends that information is available but, and as he argues in ‘Reflections on North Korea: Myths and Reality’ (2020), it is easy to be thrown off-balance, to see what authorities want one to see, and to forget that nothing should be taken at face value. Likewise, he resists the notion that North Korea is a theatrical state, as proposed in books by Suk-Young Kim (2010), Sonya Ryang (2012) and Hyonik Kwon and Byung-ho Chung (2012). I see his point but admit to having used the theatre concept to explore mass spectacles and grandiose construction in North Korea in my Songs for “Great leaders” (2020). To defend myself, I suspect those of us adopting an anthropology perspective take our lead from works such as Victor Turner’s The Anthropology of Performance (1986) and Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1977). The result is that we adopt a more theoretical and less literal ‘take’ than Jim feels appropriate. I have just touched on the need for academic research to theorise. Theorising is very much part of the definition of good research in academic assessment, but Jim has never needed to be constrained by any such narrowly conceived understanding of what makes a contribution to knowledge. Rather, his writing tells stories. This is fundamental to the discipline of history, but in Jim’s case it also reflects his former FCO day job, where he prepared reports and identified courses of action – pithy and to the point. And so, he tells stories as he explores the history of British embassies in East Asia – for which he was first encouraged, while posted to Seoul, because of the centenary of diplomatic relations. He tells the story of the Anglican community in Seoul, whose cathedral, a ‘not well-known landmark,’ inters the grave of its inspired and committed founder, Bishop Trollope – the only known burial that has been permitted within Seoul’s ancient walls. The stories speak to personal experience and observation, so he relates the rough journey by ferry to the Komun island archipelago as Korean passengers retire to the saloon to lie on the floor. He describes houses left from the past in Komun, more like rural Japan than today’s highly

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built-up Korean mainland. The islands were occupied for a period in the 1880s by British naval vessels, as Port Hamilton, when it seemed important to counter potential Russian interests in the region, and Jim, with wife and daughter, visited in September 1983 as part of an official visit to place a commemorative plaque at the two surviving British graves. Stories are there when he writes about ‘Beijing: Building Politics’ (1994) that in lockdowns that followed Tiananmen in 1989 it was disconcerting to be ordered off his fourteenth-floor balcony by a pistol-waving officer in charge of a roadblock at ground level far below. Jim (re)tells the story of Captain Broughton’s voyage in the last years of the eighteenth century. Broughton initially found little of interest as he explored Korea’s coastline, but this changed when he landed at Pusan – Korea’s southeastern port that he confusedly referred to by the name of the country. There, he found people ‘universally clothed in linen garments made into loose jackets and trowsers, quilted or doubled [and] linen boots, with sandals made of rice straw.’ He observed the custom of men wearing top-knots. He found the women plain, although he only saw older women and none of child-bearing age. Officials had large black hats, fans and perfume boxes, and pipes looked after by attendant boys. Not surprisingly, the stories are also there in Jim’s contributions to Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, the ten-volume compendium initiated by Hugh Cortazzi and published between 1995 and 2016; Jim contributed to several volumes and edited the third. And stories, as the telling of recent history, are his bread-and-butter material for the Korea Yearbooks. Jim retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after his ‘brush with history’ in Pyongyang, where he was charged with setting up the British embassy (‘A Brush with History,’ 2004). He had reached Counsellor rank, which in the British establishment meant he would expect an honour, presumably as Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. It never came, but then he had never solely been a diplomat, and was never a perfect fit in the straitjacket of officialdom. But that is to our benefit, since the dictionaries, bibliographies and everything else that have emerged from his office at the front of his house in Clapham over the last 20 years stand testament to an output that has become truly prodigious, and truly essential for our understanding of East Asia. Jim’s is a life worth celebrating, which is precisely why you have opened this book of his collected essays.

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REFERENCES (Excluding publications by J.E.H. Hoare)

Bickers, Robert. 1996. ‘Review of J. E. Hoare, Japan’s treaty ports and foreign settlements: the uninvited guests 1858–1899 (1994.’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 59/1: 193. Bytheway, Simon. 2020. ‘Review of J. E. Hoare, ed. Culture, Power and Politics in Treaty-Port Japan, 1854–1899: Key Papers, Press and Contemporary Writings (2018).’ H Japan (February 2020), at http://www.h-net. org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=54339. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon. Hartley, L. P. 1971 [1953]. The Go-between. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Howard, Keith, editor (with Susan Pares and Tessa English). 1996. Korea: People, Country and Culture. London: School of Oriental and African Studies. Howard, Keith. 2020. Songs for “Great leaders”: Ideology and Creativity in North Korean Music and Dance. New York: Oxford University Press. Kim, Suk-Young. 2010. Illusive Utopia: Theater, Film, and Everyday Performance in North Korea. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kwon, Hyonik, and Byung-Ho Chung. 2012. North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Ryang, Sonia. 2012. Reading North Korea: An Ethnological Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press. Turner, Victor. 1987. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. KEITH HOWARD PROFESSOR EMERITUS, SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Introduction v

To be invited to publish a selection of one’s writings is a great honour, and I am most grateful to Paul Norbury for suggesting that I should do so. Making a workable selection has not been easy. Preparing the selection, I kept coming across pieces that I had completely forgotten about. Most were short comments or reviews, but one or two were quite substantial. I have a certain diffidence about the project. While I did receive a proper academic training, and, since retiring from the Diplomatic Service in 2003, some short periods teaching at university level, I am not an academic, more a pushy amateur. Some describe those in my position as “scholar diplomats”. It is not a term I would use, certainly about myself. Neither is it a term that the British Diplomatic Service would have much time for. Years ago, I came across a reference to Montague Paske-Smith, (1886–1946), a Canadian in the (British) Japan Consular Service, and who, as he moved around from one quiet post to another, wrote a series of historical works, some of which have stood the passage of time. I cannot now find the exact reference, but from memory, a senior member of the Consular Department in London noted that Paske-Smith had not been sent to a particular post so that he could write books. No time for “scholar-diplomats” then. It is not clear whether or not this view was conveyed to Paske-Smith, who continued to publish. My first task was to make a representative selection of the whole. Since published volumes tend to have a longer life and a higher profile than journal articles or reviews, I have not included extracts from them. However, included are a few journal articles that have been reprinted. Selecting reviews to include was a particularly difficult task. There are so many of them, going back a long way. My first published piece was a review of China and the Christian Colleges, by the American scholar, Jesse Gregory Lutz, which appeared xxi

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in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies in February 1973. It did not appear without a struggle. By 1973, I was a member of what was then the Research Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), working on Chinese foreign policy, for which, to be honest, I had the barest of qualifications. I was the first member of my family to go to university and had completed a University of London BA at Queen Mary College (QMC) in British and European History in 1964. I was accepted by H. C. Allen, the Commonwealth Fund Professor of American History at University College London, for a PhD on American history. However, Professor Bindoff at QMC had other ideas, and persuaded two of us to look to Asia, a field he predicted, would have plentiful posts available following the establishment of Asian Studies centres following the 1961Hayter Report. Such changes of direction were easy in the days of full grants and fees and we were assured that if we decided to revert to our original fields after a year, we would not be at a financial disadvantage. We both enrolled at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), then part of the University of London, but now independent. Roger Knight took up Indonesian studies and later had a successful academic career in Australia, while I began to look at modern Japanese history under Professor W. G. Beasley. Beasley wanted a study of the Japanese Treaty Ports for his work on the Meiji Restoration. By the end of the first year, I was hooked and there was no question of going back. I did a year’s Japanese, spent six months in Tokyo, and enjoyed learning how to do research. Beasley was the ideal supervisor as far as I was concerned. He was always there to help but normally left me to my own devices. When my grant ran out at the end of three years, he arranged a Governors’ Fellowship for me at SOAS, which let me continue for another year. Writing up the research began that year, a task complicated by the fact that the only surface available was the kitchen table so that notes, texts and books had to be cleared away each day. But by late 1970, it was ready, helped by learning that the SOAS Fellowship I had held would meet the cost of typing and binding the manuscript. I submitted in January 1971 and the PhD was awarded in the spring. Despite support from Beasley and others, my career trajectory was not going well. I made many applications to universities at home and abroad, and had a number of interviews, But no job materialized. I did some tutorial work at QMC and some school teaching, but these were short-term fill-in slots. With a family – I had married a fellow

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student and PhD candidate, Jane Fletcher, in 1965, and Charles was born in 1968 – I needed something more permanent and better paid. An advertisement for the FCO Research Department, about which I knew nothing, seemed to offer some hope. So in 1969 I became an Assistant Research Officer, working on China. I expected that the Research Department would be a semi-academic organization that would encourage its members to make contact with the academic world and with those interested in foreign affairs. In theory, that was the case. In practice, little had changed since Paske-Smith’s day, and such activities seemed to be viewed with suspicion. The Official Secrets’ Act hung menacingly over any public appearance, whether in person or in print, in case one might reveal vital state secrets. In reality, I had very little access to any secrets, never mind highly sensitive ones but that did not stop the discouragement. Who knew what dangers to British security might lurk in an academic review of events in nineteenth century China! But I persisted and it was eventually allowed to appear, as were subsequent reviews. They were still vetted, as was my first academic paper, “The ‘Bankoku Shimbun Affair’: Foreigners, the Press and Extraterritoriality in Early Modern Japan.” (See no. 2 in this selection.) But it got easier. Some mainstream Diplomatic Service officers also wished for a change in the rules, to allow such activities unless there was a really serious concern about the subject. The issue was taken up by the coordinating body for trades’ unions in the FCO, the Staff Side. After a long campaign, Diplomatic Service Regulation 14 was at last changed. Publishing was still viewed with some concern but was no longer actively discouraged. Not all thought this was a good idea; one of my fellow researchers, who joined in the 1940s, told me at one union meeting that if I wanted to write, I should have become a greengrocer… I fear the logic passed me by. Nowadays, the rules appear to be totally relaxed, with even ambassadors who held sensitive posts such as Afghanistan or the United States, publishing within a couple of years of leaving the post. While I wrote more than just reviews, they were still the main outlet. My coverage also increased, with a few reviews on Japanese subjects in addition to those on China. Most appeared in Asian Affairs, the journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, to which I had been introduced by a colleague. Then it was independently published but later it became part of the Routledge catalogue. But I was still occasionally asked to contribute reviews to the China Quarterly and other publications, and I had three papers on Japan published. Two were based on

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conference presentations, which the office was now much more positive about, and the third was on the long term consequences of one Japan consular officer’s involvement in grave robbing (for ethnography studies), of Ainu graves in Hokkaido, a foretaste of a growing interest in Britain’s Japan consular service. In June 1981, all changed as I took up a posting to Seoul. This had an effect on my writing that has lasted ever since. Thanks to the Diplomatic Bag, the reviews continued. At the same time, my second wife, Susan Pares – we had married in 1978 – and I began writing about things Korean. It was much easier in Seoul since I only needed the ambassador’s agreement, both for talks and publication. Luckily, my ambassadors, successively John Morgan and Nick Spreckley, actively encouraged me. We were marking the centenary of British-Korean diplomatic relations, which provided a fruitful source on which to draw. A series of seminars on the same theme, organized by the embassy-supported Korean-British Society, of which I was the British secretary, took us around the country and produced a series of papers, some of which we published. Out of these arose my first two books. One was a short history of the embassy, much aided by access to the Office of Works’ papers. Those relating to the overseas estate had become part of the Foreign Office papers at the Public Record Office (now the National Archives). Totally unsorted and unweeded, they must have been an archivist’s nightmare, but were a historian’s dream. This would eventually form part of Embassies in the East, published by the Curzon Press in 1999. John Morgan pretended to be upset that I had debunked all his best, and alas! inaccurate stories about the origins of the buildings but was really rather pleased. Nick Spreckley had several copies bound for presentation purposes. The other, an edited volume with my fellow secretary, the late Professor Chung Chong-wha, Korean-British Relations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow drew on the papers presented at our seminars – a neat symmetry! Korean newspapers and even academic journals were pleased to take other pieces about the British in Korea. Japan did not disappear from my repertoire, for I continued to write reviews, while thanks to Hugh Cortazzi, then ambassador in Tokyo, I was invited to give a paper to the Asiatic Society of Japan on extraterritoriality in Japan, which duly appeared in their Transactions. Since then, I have often returned to the theme of extraterritoriality, although often in wider terms than just Japan.

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We left Seoul, where we had made many friends, in March 1985. Back in London, I continued to write and to attend conferences, occasionally getting back to the Republic of Korea. Korea began to feature more in both my office work and in private life. I was active in both the Anglo (now British)-Korean Society and in the British Association for Korean Studies. Together Susan and I wrote our first joint book, Korea: An Introduction, published by KPI. This was supposed to be the introductory volume in a series of books on Korea but in the event, it was to be the only one to appear. There was little time to mark its publication in summer 1988, for by then we were on the move to Beijing to take up a new post in the embassy. Beijing was a much larger embassy than Seoul. Politically, China was more important than the Republic of Korea, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. My job was a new one, created after an inspection. I was to head the nonHong Kong political work, supervise consular work, and, as head of chancery – a title now abolished, replaced by an American-style deputy head of mission– to be responsible for staffing matters and a general advisor to the ambassador. I had held the same slot in Seoul, in a much smaller environment, and had become a skilled hand at working out placement for ambassadorial dinner parties! Much of my portfolio had been covered by the political counsellor, who was also in charge of Hong Kong matters. As this had grown enormously since the 1984 Sino-British Declaration, the inspectors had thought it was too much. Unfortunately, the counsellor made it abundantly clear that she was not happy with the changes. Our first year in Beijing was fascinating. Susan had worked in the embassy in the 1970s, at the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Beijing of 1988 was very different. The Chinese were increasingly relaxed with foreigners, shops were more modern, domestic travel was much easier and there was an abundance of restaurants and interesting places to visit. Work was steady and interesting. As well as taking part in general political reporting and my supervisory and welfare roles, I handled issues such as wild live animals – dead animals belonged to the commercial department – air services, and the occasional historical enquiry. I got on well with the ambassador, Sir Alan Donald, who seemed to value my advice. There were plenty of visiting ministers and senior officials on the political side and I often found myself escorting them on calls. But there was still time to write reviews and so I continued doing so all the time we were in Beijing.

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Much changed in June 1989, when the Chinese government brutally ended the occupation of Tiananmen Square. For a long time afterwards, there was a hunt for those who had been involved in the demonstrations that led up to June. Killings of workers – whose participation was seen as far more of a threat than the students who tended to catch the attention of the world’s media – went on well into the autumn. We regularly heard gunshots from the lanes near us at night, and there were reports of police and other security personnel being killed in retaliation. Chinese officials went to ground, but with a heavily reduced embassy staff, and for a time we had no Chinese staff except one, those who remained were kept busy even though the normal round of banquets and meetings with the Chinese did not really begin again until 1990. This left me some time to begin work on a project about the history of the British embassy in Beijing, similar to that on Seoul. Once again, the Office of Works’ papers, consulted on leave, proved an invaluable source. And, because the embassy from 1861–1960 had been housed in a historic mansion right in the heart of Beijing and had played an important role on many occasions, including the 1900 siege of the legations, there was also far more published material than there was for Seoul. I was also able to tap into human resources for the story from the early 1950s. two of them on the spot. Alan Donald had begun his China career in the old embassy compound, as had Douglas Hurd (now Baron Hurd of Westwell) who visited Beijing as foreign secretary. He had been a member of the Diplomatic Service before becoming a politician in 1966. Both shared accounts of those days, while Mr Hurd also provided some photographs. The final days of the old embassy and the beginning of the new were told in “Building politics: The British Embassy Peking, 1949–1992” (no. 21) published in The Pacific Review. It too would form part of Embassies in the East. By mid-1990, things had more or less returned to pre-June 1989 conditions. Checkpoints still operated in some areas of Beijing at night but day to day relations with the Chinese, except over Hong Kong, improved. Such writing as I did was, with Susan, confined to producing a British Embassy weekly newsletter, the BEN. Prepared on an AMSTRAD computer, then photocopied, it was generally deemed a success. It survived our departure, though not for long. We remained in Beijing as a family until summer 1991, when Susan and our daughter Joanna returned to London. I stayed on, first to cover Prime Minister John Major’s visit and then because my successor was consul-general in Boston, who was to be deputy head of mission,

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showed great reluctance to come. Eventually, just before Christmas, I told the ambassador, Robin McClaren, that I was leaving. He was not best pleased but accepted my decision and gave me a glowing final report. He noted that, while my Chinese was minimal, that I knew far more about China and its history than anybody in the embassy. I returned to FCO research but a remarkable thing happened. While I knew Dr Gerry Segal, then director of studies at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) and an expert on China, from occasional earlier contacts, I cannot say I knew him well. Now he contacted me to see if I would be interested in spending a year at IISS to work on the emerging issue of North Korea’s nuclear development. This would lead to an Adelphi Paper, a well-established and highly regarded series of short studies on matters of strategic importance. While interested, I thought it seemed unlikely that the FCO would release me so soon after returning. I was wrong. While to this day, I do not know why I was released – on full salary – and in autumn 1992, I joined IISS. This was a very different life. While taking an active role in IISS activities such as seminars, I had time both to work on the North Korean nuclear issue and other matters. One was The Pacific Review, which Gerry founded and edited. He published what interested him – and he had eclectic tastes. I wrote two long review articles, one on Emperor Hirohito of Japan, the other on Hong Kong and the Chinese view of the last Governor, Chris Patten. I also took over partial running of the book review section, adding a series of short reviews, which I wrote, to the main section. For the IISS’s own Strategic Survey, an annual political and military roundup, I wrote on Korean issues, a task that I continued for some years after my sabbatical. My Adelphi paper never saw the light of day. In attempting to explain why the North Koreans had gone down the nuclear path, I was deemed to be far too sympathetic towards their position, which did not fit in with the IISS assessment. Once back in the FCO, I made occasional attempts to work on the draft, but other things took over. Gerry Segal would enquire about progress, eventually suggesting that we should work together. Alas, he fell seriously ill and died at 46, before this proposal could become a reality. Over the coming years, I was able to incorporate much of what I had drafted into other publications, so it was not a wasted effort. IISS still involved me for many years in their work on North Korea, at seminars and conferences. Gerry’s death broke my link with The Pacific Review. Although he hoped that I would

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continue as book review editor, the new editor was not interested. Before long, book reviews disappeared, as did the quirkiness that had made it an interesting a varied publication. It has continued but now as a highly theoretical social science journal. I have another debt to Gerry Segal. Since completion in 1971, the text of my PhD thesis had languished in a box, occasionally mined for information for a paper, but otherwise untended. The box had gone to Seoul, where at least I had some additional copies made, and drew on the text for the paper I gave in Tokyo. It had also gone to Beijing, where nothing happened. Gerry encouraged me to take it up again. So a revised version went to Routledge. At first, they said they liked it and would publish it. It went for peer review – a new experience for me – and I made minor changes as a result. Then they got cold feet, not so much over my text, the said, but over the hostile reception of a book that they had recently published on the Meiji Restoration. So they had decided to pull back a bit from Japanese history, to take stock. This was a blow but then a contact mentioned that Paul Norbury, who had been in the business of publishing on Japan for many years, might be interested. So I sent off my revised text. (I had forgotten that my first-ever chapter in a book had been published by what was then Paul Norbury Publications.) It was accepted and duly appeared under the Japan Library imprint in 1994, as the first volume in what became a ten volume collection on the Meiji period. Reviews were mixed, with one complaining that I had not used his edition of the diaries of a Yokohama resident. Given the dates, this would have been difficult. Despite the criticism, the book now seems to be well-regarded, and I am still asked to talk and write about the subject. From my return to the FCO in autumn 1993 until early 2001, I was busier than ever at work. I continued to cover many aspects of Chinese foreign policy, but was also increasingly drawn into Japanese matters, including the question of compensation for former prisoners of war. Above all, Korea featured more and more. In addition, following promotion, I now headed a joint section covering South and Southeast Asia and East Asia, which involved a certain amount of administrative duties. I began to meet ministers almost for the first time since 1969, and there was a lot of travel. Twice a year to the United States and, most years, to Australia, sometimes for specific research talks with our counterparts, sometimes for more general FCO purposes. I also spent a week in the State Department’s Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR), thanks to Bob Carlin, who I have known since Seoul days and

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who was then the head of INR’s East Asian section. China tended to be once a year and there were trips to New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. To some of these, I was able to tack on what Gerry Segal had called “strategic tourism” – just like other tourism but the FCO paid the fare. I was finally doing what I had always thought I would do. At the same time, though where I got the time, I know not, there was writing. I became heavily involved in Hugh Cortazzi’s Biographical Portraits series on Britain and Japan, produced for the Japan Society, and edited vol. III. I wrote about journalists, traders, newspapers and their editors and owners, and about the Britain’s Japan Consular Service. My accounts of the Seoul and Beijing embassies led Tokyo to ask for a similar product. This I eventually produced, aided by being able to fit in some work on it at the office, since it was formally requested, and being able to consult many people who had worked in the buildings. These included a letter from Arthur de la Mare, which seemed positively libelous! I used some of it. Later, he incorporated most of it into his published memoir, so I felt safe. I combined all three accounts into Embassies in the East: The Story of the British and their embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present, which appeared in 1999. As before, Japan was not the only field and I produced papers, and chapters, in books on both Korea and China, as well as a constant stream of book reviews. Most of these appeared in Asian Affairs, but there were others in The Pacific Review, The China Quarterly and even The Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics. Susan and I worked together on several books, including three for ABC-Clio: bibliographies of Korea and Beijing and a Dictionary of Modern Conflict. As the decade progressed, North Korea began to loom larger in my office life. This began with the entry of the two Koreas to the United Nations, which raised the issue of recognition of the North and, possibly, diplomatic relations. The death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 also aroused interest, which became intense after the first ever summit meeting between the two countries in 2000, when South Korean President Kim Dae-jung travelled to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong Il, who had taken over after his father’s death. British ministers remained adamant that there would be no diplomatic relations with the North, even though Kim Dae Jung was calling for his country’s allies and supporters to make such a move, to end the North’s isolation. Readers of “A Brush with History” (no. 16), will know what happened. Rather than slowly preparing for retirement, my last two years as a diplomat ended in a relative whirlwind, as we swapped London for

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Pyongyang. It was a stimulating experience and an exciting end to my career. Writing was reduced to a few reviews but in exchange, the triple experience of being in North Korea, being the head of a diplomatic post and of establishing a new embassy was well worth it. When I did retire, in January 2003, I found myself in demand for seminars, press comment, and television and radio appearances at home and overseas. I also taught a course on the North at SOAS. Media attention began with an appearance on the BBC television’s HARDtalk programme, described as “In-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities”, on 28 February 2003. Not sure how much of an interesting personality I am, but the interviewer, Tim Sebastian, whom I had met once, was certainly hard-hitting! While I was in Pyongyang, the BBC had wanted Kim Jong Il to appear on the programme. This had been a vain hope, and I had told them so. I put in the request but of course never heard anything. So now I was treated as though I was the North Korean leader, and closely quizzed about my nuclear weapons. I think I held my own. Media attention would continue for about ten years but has now faded, yet I remain amazed that, nearly twenty years after I left Pyongyang, I am still dining out on the experience. Writing about both Koreas, aiding by the occasional visit, continues. While I was last in Seoul in 2015, I went to Pyongyang in 2018. We wrote North Korea in the 21st Century: An Interpretative Guide, based on our experiences, in 2005, which got reasonable reviews and was a modest success. Among other publications, I have produced three editions – each one substantially larger than its predecessor – of a Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Korea. The first of these was jointly in my name and that of the late Andrew Nahm. He had produced the first edition which I was allowed to use. I have also produced two editions of a Historical Dictionary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, all for Rowman & Littlefield. Japan also still forms part of my repertoire; most recently in a two-volume collection, Culture, Power and Politics in Treaty-Port Japan 1854–1899: Key Papers, Press and Contemporary Writings. China has faded, apart from the occasional piece on its relations with North Korea. The reviews still flow. Also worth a mention is the Korea Yearbook, which Brill published between 2008 and 2013. Susan and I formed part of the editorial team of four, together with Ruediger Frank of the University of Vienna and Patrick Köllner of the German Institute of General and Area Studies. As well as editing, all four of us contributed to each issue. I have covered

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the two Koreas for the Annual Register since 2004. I have also become the editor of Rowman & Littlefield’s World Today volume on East and Southeast Asia. REFLECTIONS

So apart from being moderately prolific, what sort of writer am I? As a number of people have pointed out, I am no theorist. I was trained as a historian and would still regard myself as at my best when writing history, and narrative history at that. There is analysis but I see my role as primarily to try to reconstruct what happened, the context in which it happened, and to tell a story. Official work was different but not much. Establish the issue and suggest how a problem might be resolved. Ministers and senior officials, by and large, are not interested in elaborate theories. Most do not have the inclination to follow theoretical explanations, and even if they do, they rarely have the time. Academics sometimes complain that government ignores their work but fail to realize the pressures, especially the time constraints, under which busy people have to make decisions. Most of my official work was producing short summaries of issues, or occasional longer pieces that brought together a mass of information, boiled down to manageable size. Perhaps that was what attracted me to compiling historical dictionaries and such like works. The academic world seems not attach any importance to such writings, which will rarely count towards a scholar’s output. This is mistaken. Such works often involve considerable knowledge and even original research. Of course, I was fortunate in that a government salary and later a pension have meant that I am not dependent on writing for a living and being outside academia, could pursue what I liked. It has also been one that has brought a certain amount of acknowledgement. I have been an honorary research associate in Korean studies at SOAS since the 1990s, and a research fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs) from 2014–2022. These positions have led to providing comment to the media and to attendance at seminars at home and abroad. So since retiring from the FCO, I have been to meetings and seminars at most major British universities, and in Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Russia, the US, Japan and the two Koreas. I have received two awards, the Thomas Kettle Award of the Economics Society of University College Dublin. 2017, and

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the Woodang Award from the Woodang Foundation for Education and Culture in Seoul. The latter, initiated in 2019, goes to domestic and foreign figures who follow the spirit and vision of Woodang (penname) Lee Hoi-young, who, in the words of the Korea Herald, “worked for the nation’s independence movement and contributed to creating an atmosphere of peaceful unification”. Two reviews have received high praise: Hsiao Li Lindsay. Bold Plum: With the Guerrillas in China’s War against Japan in Asian Affairs (no. 45), and Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Carmen Blacker – Scholar of Japanese Religions, Myth and Folklore in the Japan Society Proceedings (no, 31). I have been fortunate in having family support and understanding as I disappeared for long periods to write, and in having a congenial fellow writer in residence. As will be obvious by now, Susan and I collaborated on a large number of works, with little friction. I have been fortunate in my publishers. Apart from KPI, all have proved good to work with. Special thanks are due to Paul Norbury, a most understanding and helpful publisher and friend since 1993. I must also thank the editors and book review editors of Asian Affairs who have provided me with a constant stream of books for review and shown a ready willingness to take my offered papers. It has been a privileged existence.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 31, part 3, (October 2000), pp. 303–313.

1

Captain Broughton, HMS Providence (and her tender) and his voyage to The Pacific 1794–98 v

Captain William Robert Broughton, Royal Navy, was one of a group of British naval officers sent on a series of survey expeditions to the Pacific and Northeast Asia during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The group included such well-known figures as Captains James Cook and George Vancouver. Broughton, who sailed with Vancouver, though less remembered, was in many ways equally distinguished, with a good record of patient survey work, as well as a moderately successful naval career. His name, once prominent on maps, has now disappeared as the fashion for ‘cartographic imperialism’ has faded. Yet he made a major contribution to surveying knowledge at the time, and his work contributed to much nineteenth-century cartography of East Asia. Born in 1762, by 1774 he was a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He served in the American War of Independence, when he was taken prisoner during an action in Boston harbour, and later in the East Indies, where he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1790, he became commander of the brig HMS Chatham to accompany Vancouver in HMS Discovery on the latter’s voyage to the northwest of America, which they reached in April 1792 via Cape Town, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii. The two ships engaged in a systematic survey of the area around Puget Sound, with Broughton responsible for work exploring the Columbia River. In 1793, Vancouver sent him back to Britain with

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despatches designed to encourage the government to authorise further survey work. HMS PROVIDENCE

On return to Britain, Broughton became commander of HMS Providence in October 1793, with instructions to rejoin Vancouver to continue the work of exploration and surveying. The Providence was a small ship, a sloop of some 420 tons with 16 guns. According to Broughton’s own account, she had been intended for the West Indian trade, but had been purchased by the government “for the express purpose of bringing the bread-fruit trees from the South Seas”. It was thought that the breadfruit, discovered in Tahiti some years earlier by Cook, might prove a cheap way of feeding West Indian slaves. To this end, she had sailed for Tahiti in 1791, under the command of William Bligh. Bligh had four years previously been commander of HMS Bounty when a number of his crew had mutinied and set him and the remainder of the crew adrift in an open boat. Bligh commanded the Providence, however, without trouble, despite almost succumbing to a nervous breakdown from delayed shock over the mutiny, and the ship had just returned safely with the breadfruit when Broughton was given her to command. (The breadfruit was successfully planted in the West Indies, but the slaves never took to it.) Broughton was not over-impressed with Providence. She was singly sheathed in copper, and he felt that ships engaged in distant voyages should be sheathed in wood and the wood then covered with copper. In any case, she needed refitting after her Pacific voyage and so was moved from Deptford to the naval dockyard at Woolwich. It was not until early 1794 that she was ready. Her crew totalled 115, of which seventeen were marines and one an astronomer. The crew, with one exception, a seaman pressed into service at Plymouth, were all volunteers. THE FIRST VOYAGE 1796

Broughton’s instructions were to join Vancouver on the American northwest coast. After many delays, he finally set sail, with secret orders, on 21 October 1794. The ship only got as far as Plymouth Sound, where it waited out most of the winter, not departing from British waters until 15 February 1795. By early May they were in the Canary Islands and the Providence reached Rio de Janeiro on 6 May 1795.

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From Rio, they sailed to the South Pacific, reaching Tahiti on 29 November and Hawaii on 1 January 1796. Broughton noted on leaving Hawaii two months later that the ship’s crew were generally healthy, except for those who had become infected “with venereal disease in the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii], but the symptoms of the disorder were not very violent.” More importantly, however, Broughton learnt at Hawaii that Vancouver had left for Britain. He nevertheless proceeded to the North American coast, and by June 1796 was at Monterey. There the Spanish authorities allowed him to re-provision the ship with plenty of meat, vegetables, milk and ‘spruce beer’ for the crew, but the Spanish commander remained aloof and unfriendly. Broughton now had to make a decision. His instructions had been to explore the southern coast of the southwest of America, in case Vancouver had not been able to do so. But, as he argued in his journal, Vancouver had good ships and had the time to take on this work. It was safe to assume that the exploration was complete. If that were the case, Broughton believed that his instructions allowed him discretion to use the ship in the way he thought would be most useful. He consulted his officers, and asked them to state in writing what they thought this would be. Their views coincided with his own, which was: “To survey the coast of Asia, commencing at the island of Sakhalin . . . and ending at the Nanking river in 30 [degrees] N latitude. My intention was also to complete the survey of the adjacent islands viz. the Kuriles, and those of Jeso [Hokkaido] and Japan left unfinished at Captain Cook’s last voyage.” To Broughton, this would be more use than going over ground already covered and would be welcomed by geographers, since knowledge of the North Pacific would be complete. He also felt that it would only be fair to give the astronomer a chance to practise his skills in unknown areas, as instructed, rather than in places already visited by Vancouver. Broughton estimated that the task he had now set himself would take until the middle of 1798 to finish. He would continue working until Christmas 1796 and then return to Macau and Canton for new supplies before setting off again. Despatches recording what they had done so far, and setting out their new plans, were left with the unfriendly Spanish commander for forwarding to London as opportunity arose. Broughton left Monterey for Hawaii on 20 June 1796, where he planned to check their timepieces and take on water for the voyage to Japan.

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From Hawaii, Providence sailed towards the northwest coast of Honshu. After enduring the fiercest gales Broughton had ever experienced and losing all the sails the ship was carrying at the time, land was spotted at daylight on 8 September 1796. On the 9th they passed ‘Port Nambu’ (possibly modern Miyako) and then sailed on past ‘Cape Nambu’ (modern Cape Shiriya). They continued to the north and on 10 September passed the straits between Honshu and Hokkaido. This was not new territory. Broughton had the benefit of charts dating to the Dutch explorers of 150 years earlier. Nevertheless, his detailed observations remain of interest. On 12 September the Providence was visited by fishermen from Hokkaido. The people were clearly Ainu. They were “of light copper colour, with dark hair, very thick and cut short behind. All of them had long beards, and expressive good natured countenances.” They wore cloaks made from the barks of trees, with blue linen at the cuffs and collars. Each had a piece of cloth tied about the waist, from which hung a knife, and they had silver earrings. They were polite, not coming aboard until they had “saluted us in a solemn respectful manner, agreeable to the Oriental custom of salaams.” Asked if the island was called ‘Matsmai’ (Matsume), the visitors indicated that was an area further west; they called the island ‘Insu’. Broughton described the boats used by the fishermen as being like canoes, with additions fixed on them to increase their width. For some days the expedition stayed in the area, exploring the bay which they called ‘Volcano Bay’ (modern Uchiura Bay). They were again visited by the fishermen, but this time a Japanese official arrived and told the Ainu to leave. Broughton gives detailed descriptions of the town and harbour which he called ‘Endermo’, the name, he said, used by the Ainu. From its situation (42° 19’ N; 141° 7’ E), this seems to be modern Muroran. It was set in attractive countryside, with good soil, and Broughton thought that most things which would grow in England would grow there. Broughton clearly liked the Ainu, who were gentle and inoffensive and invariably polite. They spoke slowly and timidly, and he noted that their language contained many Japanese words. He described their food as mainly dried fish, boiled with a little oil, but noted that they also had wild berries and other plants. They kept bears and eagles in cages. He thought these were for food, since the Ainu would not part with them. He also felt that the local inhabitants were under tight control by the Japanese, who tried to drive them away when they approached the visitors, and he noted that the Japanese seemed to eat better than the Ainu. Some of

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the Japanese, nonetheless, also proved friendly and helpful, showing him maps and charts. One had a collection of coats of arms of the world, apparently obtained from the Russians, and was able to point out some relating to Britain. The next day (25 September 1796) the Japanese returned and dined on board the Providence. One of them presented Broughton with a Japanese chart, and he gave one of Captain Cook’s in return. On 27 September 1796, the Providence left to sail north. NORTH TO THE KURILES

Leaving Volcano Bay, the Providence sailed east and then north along the coast of Hokkaido to the Kurile islands. This too was not new exploration, for De Vries had reached the area in the 1640s, while Cook and others had already been there quite recently. There were also maps and charts available, including relatively detailed ones produced some eight years previously by La Pérouse and De Lesseps. Broughton described desolate land, with snow lying in the valleys – the year was now well advanced – and few signs of habitation. The weather added to the gloom, with thick fogs making it difficult to observe properly. There was an abundance of marine life, including whales and porpoises. On 17 October they were off ‘Maruchan’ (also ‘Marikan’, ‘Marukan’, which seems to correspond with the island presently known in Russian as Shimoshir and in Japanese as Shimushiru), “where the Russians are said to have a settlement”. A boat sent ashore found that the Russians were no longer there, but that crosses had been erected at various points and the Russian arms carved or painted at others. The native inhabitants seemed to be similar to those on Hokkaido, though they spoke a different language. They were gentle and seemed poor. They were dressed in bearskins, with Russian boots and cotton handkerchiefs on their heads. Broughton fell and fractured his arm in a gale in the middle of October, and this, and the increasing onset of winter, led him to turn back, rather than pressing on to the north. By the end of October, the Providence was back at the straits between Hokkaido (then known as Ezo) and Honshu, but the weather prevented her sailing through. Broughton, confined to his bed in pain, decided to retrace his route down the west side of Japan. On 14 November they had “a fine view of the famous Mount Fusi [Fuji]”, and by 18 November had left Japan behind. There was little or no attempt to record more than the weather and somewhat distant peaks.

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WINTER IN MACAU 1796–7

By 10 December 1796, HMS Providence was once more in the islands near Macau. At this point Broughton summoned the officers and crew, and told them that “it was necessary that they should deliver up to me their journals, remarks or whatever drawings that related to our proceedings since the first of September ult., and enjoining them also to secrecy since that period.” No doubt this was a sensible way of making sure that new information should not be broadcast abroad, but it may also have been that Broughton had an eye to his own eventual publication of an account of the voyage – others had done so. Repairs were put in hand and there was much catching up on the news from home. Once Broughton’s arm had healed, towards the end of December, he was able to be more active. Hearing that there was a small ship for sale, he decided to buy her to accompany Providence on the 1797 voyage, “the nature of maritime surveys frequently requiring a more close investigation than it might be proper to risk in one vessel only”, as he explained in a letter to the Admiralty. The ship was 87 tons, schooner rigged and copper bottomed. She had been built at Shoreham in Sussex in 1788, and was named Prince William Henry. Broughton paid a total of £1500 for her: £1169 for the ship, with the balance going to pay off her crew. SHIPWRECK

For most of the period January-April 1797, Broughton remained ashore, writing up his account of the Kurile islands. Meanwhile, the two ships were made ready for the voyage. Fifteen months’ supplies were taken on board, including a large herd of pigs to provide fresh meat, sails were made and repaired and new ropes prepared. This last work was done with the cooperation of the local Chinese, who allowed Broughton’s crew to use their ropewalks and helped in the process “at a reasonable consideration”. There were also social occasions, involving Royal Naval ships and East Indiamen, along with the senior staff of the East India Company’s Macau factory. On one occasion, the Governor of Macau dined aboard Providence. The two ships sailed in April 1797. There was some sickness among the crew and among the pigs. The latter had to be destroyed, leaving the crew without fresh pork for the first time since Tahiti. Broughton attributed the sickness to poor weather, and the lack of sunlight; others

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blamed the water taken on board at Macau. Sickness on board ship was clearly a major concern for Broughton, who, like Cook and Bligh, was a great believer in fresh fruit and vegetables to keep his crew healthy. Sickness apart, the other main problem was the discovery on 12 May that the mainmast of the Providence was rotten. It was bound up with iron hoops to keep it in service. By now they were past Formosa (Taiwan) and in the southern Ryukyus. There, on 17 May 1797, all other problems faded into insignificance. At about 7.30 that morning the Providence hit a coral reef off Miyako island in the Ryukyu islands. Despite efforts throughout the day to save her, it proved impossible “and at half an hour after midnight, we quitted the Providence, leaving her a perfect wreck to the mercy of the sea.” None of the crew was lost, though all their goods went down with the ship, as did Broughton’s books, papers and mathematical instruments. Crammed into the schooner, they returned to Macau, receiving help along the way from the generally friendly Ryukyu islanders. The latter, however, were most reluctant to permit them to wander about at will. At Macau, Broughton got passage for some 30 of the crew on various East Indiamen, and 43 others on HMS Swift. Unfortunately, all those on the Swift were lost in June 1797 when she sank in a typhoon. JAPAN AGAIN – AND KOREA

The remainder of the crew joined the schooner – now referred to by Broughton as “Providence, schooner” – to continue the planned expedition, which set out on 27 June 1797. Although time had been lost, Broughton hoped to be able to explore the coast of ‘Tartary’ and Korea, and, he claimed, all the crew were in agreement. They sailed back to the Ryukyu islands – passing and describing, but not naming, the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands on the way – and at the end of July, were off Edo (Tokyo) bay, where several fishing boats came off to barter their fish for “trifles”. In August and September 1797, they again visited Volcano Bay and Endermo to make new observations and soundings. They were visited by various Japanese from the town of Matsumae, including some of those they had met the year before. These were surprised to see how small a ship they now had. The Japanese, as before, tried to keep Broughton and his companions away from the Ainu, and also generally encouraged them to leave. But not all were hostile. Broughton noted

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that those they had met the year before were very civil, and one man supplied a complete map of the Japanese islands, with many requests for the gift to be kept secret. Others told them that the Japanese called their area ‘Matsumae’ after the town of that name, and that the proper name of the island of Hokkaido was ‘Insu’or ‘Insoo’. They were also told that the Russians traded at a port called ‘Ago-dad-dy’ (Hakodate), which had a much better harbour than that at Endormo. When they sailed close to the town of Matsumae, they noted much activity by horsemen, and a body of troops were drawn up near to the landing place. They assumed that this was to prevent their landing. The town itself had a pleasing appearance, with banners flying from the temples, and coloured cloths laid out at other places. Because the season was advanced, Broughton abandoned a plan to sail again among the Kurile islands, and instead sailed towards the north of Sakhalin for a short period. He then turned south, and sailed down the coast of ‘Tartary’ (now the Russian Far East and northeast China), intending to survey the Korean coast to the Yellow Sea. He sailed fairly close to the Korean coast, but apart from noting the rocky nature of the land visible, recorded little of interest beyond the weather and various soundings. The expedition passed ‘Tzima’ [Tsushima], between Japan and Korea, on 12 October, with Broughton noting that there were fires alight in the early morning, “a grateful sight, and what we had been long unaccustomed to on the coast of Tartary.” The first contact with the inhabitants of Korea seems to have been on 14 October 1797. Fishing boats came out from the shore to investigate the ship, and the crew of one of these was persuaded to come aboard in the hope that they might be able to show a good place to land. This they did, indicating a way into a harbour past “some stupendous black rocks some distance from the shore”. Broughton had reached Pusan. He wrote that this was the harbour of ‘Tshosan’ or ‘Chosan’, situated in the southeast of Korea, at 35° 2’ N, and 129° 7’ E; clearly he confused the name of the country, Choson, with that of the harbour. He thought that it was a good harbour, though admitted that he had been allowed few opportunities to study it properly and therefore the chart which he prepared was not very accurate. The land was cultivated “in the Japanese manner” with small fields rising in ridges into the hills for irrigation purposes, and there were trees planted in among the houses. Most of the hillsides, however, were bare except for a few scattered pine trees. Horses, pigs, poultry and black cattle could be seen. The houses were all one storey and thatched.

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The next day they were surrounded by more fishing boats, full of men, women and children, all keen to see the strange vessel. Broughton noted that they were “universally clothed in linen garments made into loose jackets and trowsers, quilted or doubled; and some of them wore large loose gowns.” The women also wore a short petticoat over their trousers, “and both sexes, linen boots, with sandals made of rice straw”. The men wore their hair in a knot tied up to the crown, while the women twisted and plaited theirs around their heads. To Broughton, they all resembled Chinese. He found them plain, but noted that there were no young women among the group; all the females were either old or children. The crew landed that day in search of wood and water. They found plenty of water, but there was very little wood available. The shore party decided to go for a walk, and went off accompanied by a group of villagers. They noticed many villages scattered around the harbour, and in the northwestern part, they saw a town with stone walls and battlements. When they reached another village, it was made clear that their companions wanted them to go no further, so they stopped. Broughton commented that the boats they could see all seemed to be of Chinese style but not so well made. He also described the graves that were pointed out to him. They were aligned east to west, with a mound formed over them, and were usually protected by some stonework and trees planted in a semi-circle around them. Later the same day, some local officials visited the ship, anxious to find out who the interlopers were and what their business was. These men were dressed in large loose gowns, and received much deference from the ordinary people. But what most distinguished them was that “they had on large black hats, with high crowns, manufactured with a strong gauze not unlike horsehair, very stiff and strong. They tied them under the chin; and these hats, serving as umbrellas, were three feet in diameter.” All carried fans and perfume boxes, and they were accompanied by a boy who looked after their pipes – Broughton, like later visitors, was clearly struck by the widespread use of tobacco. Some even more superior visitors arrived on 15 October, accompanied by soldiers. They were dressed in finer garments, and brought presents of salt, fish, rice and seaweed, but despite these gestures of hospitality, they soon made it clear that they wanted the ship to depart. Broughton indicated that he needed water, wood and food. Water and wood were supplied but he could not persuade them to sell cattle, even though these could be seen grazing on the hillsides. When the wood

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and water had been delivered, it was again indicated that they should leave. Broughton refused, since there was still work to do on the ship. From then on, most of their movements ashore were carefully monitored by soldiers, who also kept the ordinary people away. None of the officials or soldiers, he noted, carried “offensive weapons”, although they seemed well acquainted with firearms. All attempts at trade failed. To Broughton, it seemed as if the Koreans had no idea of money, though he noted that they seemed to understand gold and silver, which he could see were widely used for decoration. Yet he added, somewhat obscurely, that: As a commercial nation, of course they were well acquainted and conversant in trade; but with us they did not seem desirous of making any exchanges whatsoever, which may be owing, probably, to the articles we possessed being of no value in their estimation. Indeed, we had nothing to excite their attention, or satisfy their curiosity, except our wearing apparel.

Finally, on 22 October 1797, Broughton was ready to leave, much to the relief of his Korean interlocutors. They sailed to the south, among a cluster of islands so great that the coast of the mainland was no longer visible. They did not land, but noticed that several of the islands were inhabited and there were many boats fishing. On 24 October, they were visited by a high dignitary from one of the islands, dressed in the same manner as the officials at Pusan and accompanied by soldiers armed with sabres and playing military music. This man came on board without any ceremony and seemed particularly concerned to find out how many men were aboard the ship. Broughton’s answers were apparently unsatisfactory, and the Koreans began to try to count the sailors, which Broughton would not allow. The official also tried to persuade them to land. Broughton declined to do, not trusting the man’s intentions. Here, as elsewhere in Korea, the lack of a common language was a major handicap. Broughton added a list of “Specimens of the Corean Language used at Chosan” as an appendix to his published book. While clearly reproducing Korean words for the most simply observed objects, it would not get one far in negotiations with an inquisitive official. Fearing that they might be subject to some form of attack, and the weather having improved, Broughton decided to slip away. They continued southeast, noting again the large number of islands through which they were sailing. 27 October saw them off ‘Quelpart island’

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(Cheju-do), which Broughton wished to examine. He did not land, but noted the large number of dwelling houses visible from the sea, and the black rocks which seemed to run around the whole island. He also noted an absence of fishing boats by comparison with what he had seen among the islands. RETURN TO MACAU AND THE END OF THE VOYAGE

Around 30 November, Broughton left Korean waters and began the journey back to Macau. There were no difficulties, and they docked – “in our old situation” – on 27 November 1797. From Macau, Broughton sailed for Madras and then to Trincomalee in Ceylon. Broughton paid off the schooner at Trincomalee in May 1798, and returned to Britain in an East Indiaman, arriving in February 1799. He had been away for four years. The schooner Prince William Henry was recommissioned at Trincomalee as HMS Providence, four of the crew who had sailed with Broughton rejoining her. She served on the East Indies station for a time, sometimes in surveying work, and eventually returned to British waters. In 1804, she was destroyed while in use as a fireship off Boulogne. BROUGHTON’S LATER CAREER

Broughton, who had been promoted to captain while away, served in a number of commands during the Napoleonic wars. According to his obituary, he commanded the Batavia, 54 guns, the frigate Penelope, 36 guns, the Illustrious, 74 guns, and the Royal Sovereign, a first-rate, that is, a major ship of the line. His duties included patrolling in the Channel in 1805–6, and off the coast between Dunkirk and Ostend in 1808–9 in HMS Penelope. In 1809, he was appointed commodore, though probably only on an acting basis, to command HMS Illustrious on the East Indies station, where he arrived in 1810. He was present in the attack on Mauritius that year. In the spring of 1811, he was in command of the expedition against Java, which assembled at Malacca and sailed on 11 June of that year. Broughton proceeded very cautiously, the “most cautious navigator that ever wore a blue coat”, according to Lord Minto, the Governor-General of India, who saw him in action – or rather inaction – on that occasion. Almost as soon as the attack on Batavia had begun, Rear Admiral Stopford replaced Broughton as

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commander, to the latter’s chagrin, but according to Minto, travelling with the expedition, to the “great relief of all in the fleet and the army”. Broughton demanded that Stopford be court-martialed for behaving in “a cruel, oppressive and fraudulent manner” in depriving him of his command. The Admiralty did not agree, and approved Stopford’s decision. Broughton returned to Britain. He never commanded another ship. He was made a Commander of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1815, and appointed a Colonel of Marines, an honorary title for officers going no further. He had married a cousin, with whom he had three daughters and one son. In his later years he lived at Florence in Italy, where he died suddenly on 12 March 1821. He is buried at Florence. The epitaph on his tomb notes that his career was “honourable to himself and beneficial to his country. In two voyages of discovery he traversed the Pacific Ocean with the perseverance and skill of a British Seaman. On the intricate coast of Java, as Commander in Chief of the English squadron, he steered his fleet to victory, and secured that valuable island to his sovereign . . :”. NOTE ON SOURCES

Much of the above account is based on Broughton’s published journal, which appeared in 1804 and was reprinted in 1967 (Amsterdam: Bibliotheca Australiana, no. 13). Broughton may well have begun work on this fairly early on in his voyage and sent back material to Britain as he went along. His official letters and his main log are in the Admiralty Papers at the Public Record Office, Kew. Edited versions of this paper have appeared in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits III, ed. J. E. Hoare (Curzon, 1999) and in Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies No. 7, September 2000.

Source: Modern Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 3 (1975), pp. 289–302.

2

The ‘Bankoku Shimbun Affair’: Foreigners, the Press and Extraterritoriality in Early Modern Japan v

In December 1875, the Tokyo press was full of rumours that there would soon be a new Japanese-language newspaper on sale. At the end of the month, there came the not-unexpected announcement that the Nisshin Shinjishi (Reliable Daily News), founded some years previously by a Yokohama journalist, J. R. Black, would cease publication on 31 December. On 6 January 1876, as expected, a new paper, the Bankoku Shimbun (News of the World) went on sale. It was owned, edited and published by the same J. R. Black. Within a month, not only had Black’s new venture ceased publication, but it had become an offence for British subjects to publish any Japanese-language newspapers in Japan. The ‘Bankoku Shimbun affair’, as the incident became known, not only marked the end of any significant direct foreign involvement in the press of Japan, but perhaps more important, it was to be a singularly important step forward for the Japanese Government in its campaign to end extraterritoriality in Japan. The Japanese-language press, a thriving industry by 1876, was of very recent growth. Soon after the opening of the country to foreign residence in 1859, the first foreign newspaper made its appearance. This was the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, which began publication in the summer of 1861. By November 1861, the owner, editor and publisher, A. W. Hansard, decided that Nagasaki was too much of a backwater, and moved to Yokohama. There he began to publish a new paper, the Japan Herald. It was not long before Hansard had 13

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competition, and by 1868, the foreign-language press in Japan had become a well-established part of treaty port life, as it had done earlier in China.1 The Shogunate displayed an interest in this new phenomenon from the very beginning. Its officials were set to work compiling translations from all available foreign newspapers, including those published in Japan, and these compilations were usually known as ‘shimbun’ or ‘newspapers’, although they were not newspapers as the West knew them.2 The first Japanese-language newspaper proper, according to its founder, Joseph Heco (Hamada Hikozo), was the Kaigai Shimbun (Overseas News), which appeared in 1864. Heco had been a Japanese sailor who was shipwrecked and taken to the United States. There he received a Western education and became an American citizen. Returning to Japan on the opening of the country, he hoped to use his knowledge of two cultures to run a successful newspaper. His newspaper was printed by moveable type, and was modelled on the newspapers he had become familiar with in America. He managed to produce it for two years, but not without difficulty. In his autobiography he claimed that there was no lack of interest in his paper, but that fear of possible Government action led most literate Japanese to avoid buying it. He even found that he could only give the paper away with difficulty.3 Heco left Yokohama for Nagasaki in 1866, and his paper died with his departure. He did not lack Japanese successors, but foreigners, too, continued to display an interest. Among them was the Chaplain to the British Legation, one Buckworth Bailey, whose Bankoku Shimbunshi (News of the World) was published at Yokohama between 1867 and 1869. Bailey, according to some reports, produced the paper with the assistance of only one Japanese. The paper appeared twice a month in early 1868, but it did run to forty-eight pages and carried many advertisements. It does not appear to have carried much political comment, which may explain why it was able to claim a circulation of around 4,000 per issue.4 The political ferment of the years 1867 to 1869 was one reason why many foreigners attempted to capture a Japanese market then. Another reason was the hope of making money. A circulation figure running into thousands appeared unbelievable to men with experience of treaty port journalism, where five hundred subscribers was a well-nigh unobtainable figure. Whatever the reason, several foreign-owned Japanese newspapers did make an appearance in the Restoration period. With few exceptions, they were not able to keep going for very long.5

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Thus, by 1870 the field of Japanese-language journalism had again become the concern of the Japanese alone. The latter had certainly taken eagerly to this Western import. Tokyo (the capital of the country from 1868) had at least two or three newspapers, and there were few towns of any importance in Japan which could not boast at least one. By and large, these papers devoted their columns to lurid police tales, affairs of the heart and general scandal. Their editors avoided political comment, a not surprising restraint, given the unsettled political state of the country. As one British official, whose training in Japanese had largely consisted of reading these papers, wrote some years later, they contained ‘little [of ] political interest or importance except for the memorials or state papers they occasionally carried. They did not enter on political discussions and had no influence.’6 In spite of earlier failures, this field still seemed a good opening for foreign journalists, whose papers were nothing if not political. Not surprisingly, therefore, the next foreigner to attempt to tap the Japanese market was an experienced journalist who had not been afraid of tackling political issues. This was John Reddie Black, a Scotsman who had arrived in Japan by way of Australia. By 1872, when he turned to the Japanese-language press, he had several years’ experience of Yokohama journalism behind him, having edited both the Japan Herald and the Japan Gazette, two Yokohama dailies. He was also the owner and editor of an illustrated periodical, the Far East. Black was a good writer, even by his opponents’ account, but was notoriously incompetent in financial matters. He may have hoped that his financial problems would be solved if he could move out of the narrow field of treaty port journalism where twenty subscribers could make the difference between financial success or failure. Certainly Black was determined to make a success of his new venture, for he appears to have mortgaged all his property in order to begin producing the paper.7 The Nisshin Shinjishi (Reliable Daily News) made its appearance in March 1872. At first it appeared every other day, but in April 1872 it became a daily.8 In order to avoid difficulties, and perhaps in the hope of gaining access to useful information, Black sought permission from the Japanese Government, through the British Vice-Consul in Tokyo, to publish all official Japanese notifications.9 With the assistance of F. da Roza, a Portuguese who combined experience of treaty port journalism with contacts in the Japanese ruling groups, and a Japanese staff made up, so he claimed, entirely of exsamurai, Black was ‘able to offer the Japanese public a newspaper much

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superior to the small, ill-edited and irregularily issued sheets’ which W. G. Aston described as making up the Japanese press.10 Not only did the paper carry comment of a more political nature than had previously featured in any Japanese newspaper, but Da Roza’s contacts seem to have proved useful. In December 1872 the paper was made the ‘Official Organ’ of two Government departments, the Finance Ministry (Ōkurashō) and the ‘Ministry of the Left’ (Sa-In).11 Whatever the merits of the paper, Black was later to claim that the first two years of its existence had not been profitable and that he had had nothing but ‘loss, anxiety and trouble’ from his new venture. But during 1874 the Nisshin Shinjishi at last began to pay off. At first it only broke even, but soon it began to show a profit as the circulation climbed to about 1,600. To Black, it seemed certain that he was now going to be able to break away from the financial difficulties which had always dogged him.12 Unfortunately for him, it was just at this point that the Japanese Government began to indicate that it would like to see Black out of the way. By 1874 the Japanese press had undergone a great change from what it had been in 1872. Much of the credit for this lay with Black, who had shown Japanese editors some of the possibilities of the type of journalism in which he engaged. But the development of a more politically conscious press was regarded with mixed feelings by the Meiji Government, which even in 1874 could not be sure of having firm control over the country. There had been legislation providing for the control of the press in 1869 and 1873, but these measures had remained largely inoperative because the press itself had avoided giving cause for complaint. This was no longer the case, and a new effort to exert control over the press, and in particular to intimidate political journalism, seems to have been decided upon. First, however, the Government determined to deal with Black. Here the Government had to proceed cautiously. Already by 1874 the Japanese Government was deeply embroiled with the Foreign Representatives in complicated negotiations as to whether or not foreign residents in Japan, living as they were under treaties granting extraterritoriality, were nevertheless obliged to obey Japanese laws.13 By and large, this was a question of principle, and the two sides were quite content to engage in protracted controversy. The question of the right to publish a newspaper, however, was not a matter that could wait for a foreign editor, not subject to Japanese law, could be a very dangerous person. Therefore the Japanese set out to remove

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Black from control of the Nisshin Shinjishi as quickly as possible, but at the same time avoiding the general question of whether or not he had a right to publish his paper. That particular problem could wait for a more leisured attack. By October 1874, when the Government opened its attack, Black had already proved something of a nuisance, because of his criticisms of Government policies.14 The Government apparently decided first to end the Nisshin Shinjishi’s ‘official’ links. Black found that he could no longer obtain information from the Sa-In or the Ōkurashō. When he wrote to the Finance Minister complaining about the alleged breach of aggrement, his complaint was ignored.15 If this was a warning to Black that he could expect further pressure from the Government, he did not take it. The Japanese Government therefore turned to new methods. One of Black’s constant themes in his editorials was that Japan needed to establish a proper representative assembly. This, indeed, was a favourite topic among all foreign newspaper editors in Japan. The Japanese decided to make use of Black’s interest in the topic to end his control of the Nisshin Shinjishi. Towards the end of 1874 Black was approached, exactly by whom is not clear, and told that the Japanese Government was most anxious to establish a representative assembly. As in so many other fields which involved Western ideas, Japan would need Western assistance to implement the Government’s plan. Would Black be willing to join the Sa-In as a foreign employee, his principal duties being to begin making arrangements for the projected assembly? Black was willing, and on I January 1875 he joined the Sa-In.16 As a condition of joining the Sa-In, Black had to sign a contract containing a clause forbidding him to take part in any non-Government business of any sort. Black did not object to this, he later claimed, because he was told that while it would be necessary for him to take his name off the front of the Nisshin Shinjishi, this would only be ‘for form’s sake’, and for all practical purposes he would remain in effective control of the paper. Such misgivings as he had related not to this proviso, but to another clause in the contract which stated that while his contract was for three years, it could be terminated at any time, after three months’ notice, should there prove to be insufficient work for him to do.17 Almost as soon as Black began his new duties, the Japanese press began a campaign against foreigners being allowed to publish ]apanese language newspapers.18 Soon it was quite clear to Black that there were no duties for him to perform in the Sa-In, and that he had been

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employed ‘for the sole purpose of getting [his] name off the register as the proprietor of a Japanese newspaper’. The two Japanese in whose names he had put the Nisshin Shinjishi, in whom he had had ‘the fullest confidence’, proved unwilling to accept Black’s continued control over the paper. Editorial articles written by Black and his suggestions for improvements were rejected by the new editor, ‘who said he must be very cautious, as he was now responsible’.19 The Japanese Government had thus neatly removed Black from control of the Nisshin Shinjishi. It now proceeded to attempt to prevent his ever publishing in Japanese again. At the end of June 1875, a new press law was promulgated, replacing the earlier ones.20 Clause IV stated: ‘The Proprietor, Manager, Editor and Temporary Editor’ of a newspaper had to be Japanese subjects. As the Japan Mail pointed out later,21 it was obvious what would happen next. On 19 July Black was given three months’ notice, on the grounds that there were no duties for him to perform. Black was furious, and was convinced that the Japanese would be unable to enforce their new press law on foreigners, a view shared by most foreign editors in Japan. As the Japan Herald had written in January 1875, when the Japanese press had begun its agitation on the subject: ‘It is clear that a foreigner publishing a newspaper in the vernacular does not make it, as alleged, a “Japanese newspaper”, anymore than the Japan Herald is one, because it is published in Japan . . .’.22 Black decided to put this to the test. At first, it was believed that he would attempt to re-assert control over the Nisshin Shinjishi, but that paper was already dying and ceased publication altogether at the end of December 1875. Black, in fact, had apparently decided to start a completely new newspaper in his own name. Thus, on 6 January 1876, the first number of a new Bankoku Shimbun, owned, edited and published by Black, appeared from an office in the foreign settlement at Tsukiji in Tokyo. It was to last barely a week. At once there was a howl of protest from the Japanese press. Significantly, the protesters were not concerned with the contents of the new paper, but with the very fact of its existence, which, they argued, was a clear breach of the Japanese Press Laws. The editor of the Hōchi Shimbun, who professed himself ‘astonished’ at being able to read the first number of the paper, called upon his fellow editors to demand its immediate suppression.23 On 14 January it became clear that the Government was about to act, for the Nichi Nichi Shimbun, a paper

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known for its links with the Japanese Government, carried an editorial on the subject. After noting the appearance of the new journal, and explaining who was responsible for it, the editorial went on: It would appear then, that Mr Black, in his capacity as an Englishman, who is not subject to Japanese law, freely edits, freely prints and freely publishes the Bankoku Shimbun. Now, even admitting that nothing in his articles offends against the law of slander in the 12th and succeeding clauses of the Press Laws, if the Japanese Government took no steps to challenge this undertaking of Mr Black’s, and, shutting their eyes, allowed him to proceed with the publication, what would then become of our famous Press Laws, the renown of which has resounded since last year both at home and abroad? Whither would we then turn to look for the grand results which their operation was expected to bring about in the future ?24

The answer to these two questions was not long delayed. On the same day as the Nichi Nichi Shimbun published this editorial, the Tokyo City Police Department issued a regulation which forbade any Japanese citizen to distribute or sell the Bankoku Shimbun. Informing the British Vice-Consul of this action, the Governor of Tokyo also formally requested that the British Authorities take action to suppress the 25 paper. Without waiting to receive a reply to this communication, the Governor issued a regulation on 15 January which made it an offence for Japanese citizens to assist Black to produce his paper, and thus brought the paper to a standstill. Black waited, possibly in the hope that the Japanese would draw back when they realized what they had done, but when they did not, he formally complained to the British 26 authorities on 21 January at the interference with his lawful pursuits. Black, and most of the other foreign editors, were confident that Sir Harry Parkes would quickly rally to his defence.27 As soon as he had received the letter from the Governor of Tokyo asking him to suppress the Bankoku Shimbun, the British Vice-Consul in Tokyo had replied that he had no power to stop Black from publishing, unless he had committed a legal offence and proceedings were begun in a Court of Law. He went on to enquire what offence Black had committed. The Governor replied that Black’s offence was to publish a newspaper in Japanese without obtaining official permission ‘as was his duty’, and that, in any case, the Japanese authorities had already taken action to prevent the publication of the paper. The Vice-Consul promptly referred all the correspondence to Parkes.28

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Parkes’s first reaction to the Bankoku Shimbun affair was that this was merely another Japanese attempt to assert control over foreigners. But when he raised the matter with the Japanese Foreign Minister, Terashima Munenori, he was prepared to concede that the Japanese Government had a good case. In the long despatch which he sent home on the affair,29 Parkes admitted that it was a more complicated problem than it at first appeared. Terashima had pointed out that the Japanese Government had deliberately avoided making the controversial claim that Black must obey Japanese laws; no attempt had been made to force Black to obey the Press Laws, although, as far as the Japanese were concerned, he had undoubtedly broken those laws. The Japanese Government had only forbidden its own subjects from acting in an illegal manner. But while the Japanese Government had deliberately avoided the issue of whether or not Black was subject to Japanese law, it could not but be worried by his claim to publish a newspaper in Japanese in Japan while not subject to the law of the land. The Government, Terashima continued, had reason to believe that Black’s newspaper was to be a front whereby certain Japanese would be able to obtain ‘immunity from the Japanese press laws’. It was true, he conceded, that so far the Bankoku Shimbun had contained nothing offensive. But there was no guarantee that this state of affairs would continue; Black knew no Japanese and was therefore at the mercy of his Japanese assistants. Indeed, Terashima claimed, when Black had edited the Nisshin shinjishi, that paper had from time to time carried ‘objectionable paragraphs’ for which, he was sure, Black himself had not been responsible. Parkes agreed with Terashima that it was inadvisable for British subjccts to be allowed to attack the Japanese Government in Japanese with impunity. However, he was careful to explain that he felt that the Japanese Government was wrong to take direct action against Black; the correct procedure, he maintained, was for Terashima to have asked the British Minister to issue a regulation making it an offence for British subjects to publish Japanese newspapers. The main Japanese argument in the dispute over jurisdiction was that such action was unnecessary; foreigners were bound to obey Japanese laws unless given a specific treaty exemption from them. But it seemed to Terashima more important to block a possible source of sedition against a still-insecure Government than to insist on the Japanese Government’s stand on jurisdiction. Thus on 2 February 1876, Terash-

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ima wrote formally to Parkes asking him to issue the required regulation. Parkes consulted his Legal Adviser, and on 7 February issued a regulation under the 1865 Order in Council, making it an offence for British subjects to publish Japanese-language newspapers, on pain of three months 30 in jail and/or a $500 fine. As soon as the British regulation had been promulgated, Terashima wrote to the other Foreign Representatives, asking them to take similar action.31 Black did not welcome this unexpected development. He wrote to Parkes complaining of the destruction of his ‘legitimate business’, and demanded $65,000 compensation from the Japanese Government. Parkes regarded $65,000 as excessive, but agreed to submit a lesser claim to the Japanese Government. The latter, however, refused to accept it.32 Baulked of satisfaction, and perhaps encouraged by some of the more strident articles in the foreign press, Black attempted to bring pressure on the Japanese to accept his claim for compensation by threatening to return to England and raise the matter with the British Government.33 Black’s attempt at blackmail had no effect. Even before Black threatened to raise the matter in London, the Foreign Office was aware of the case, for Parkes had forwarded the correspondence and had asked for approval of his regulation. Black, it seems, had also made moves to have the question raised in London before writing to Ōkuma in April, for on 23 March, Sir Charles Dilke had asked whether the Government approved of Parkes’s regulation. He was told that it did not then have the full facts of the case. When he raised the question again on 10 April, Dilke was told that the Government now awaited a report from the Law Officers of the Crown.34 The Law Officers duly reported in May that they approved of Parkes’s regulation, and that, in their opinion, Black’s claim for compensation should not be pressed. Parkes was duly informed,35 but the matter was not given a great deal of publicity. When a Mr O’Donnell asked in Parliament in 1881 whether such a regulation existed, he was told by Sir Charles Dilke (now Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), that it did and that the regulation had been ‘approved by the Government of the day on the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown’. He added that no case had ever arisen under it.36 Thus ended the affair of the Bankoku Shimbun, as far as Black was concerned. Disappointed, he turned to some of his other journalistic pursuits and to a history of Japan from 1858. And with the Bankoku

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Shimbun there died whatever hopes foreigners had of tapping a vast pool of Japanese readers. One form of publication in Japanese was allowed to continue; the Japanese Government proved willing to turn a blind eye to missionary publications.37 But the Japanese remained firm in their objection to any other form of publication. Those who tried to make them change were met with polite but firm refusals.38 By 1876 the work of foreigners in the Japanese-language press was done. Foreigners had introduced the newspapers to the country, and had shown the Japanese some of its potential. But inevitably there came a time when foreign leading-strings were no longer desired. In 1876 no Japanese newspaper was prepared to come to Black’s aid. It was not that the Japanese editors had any love for the Press Laws; where possible, they had attacked them. But they had no love for a foreign competitor either, and they were, like other Japanese, anxious to see Japan escape foreign tutelage as soon as possible. This was an understandable attitude, if rather an unpalatable one for foreigners. What made it even more unpalatable, perhaps, was that it was one based on an accurate assessment of the value of continued foreign assistance in the field of journalism. In W. G. Aston’s opinion, Black’s ‘new’ newspaper of 1876 was already out-of-date in the type of journalism it offered. According to Aston, the reason for the failure of the Nisshin Shinjishi was less the removal of Black’s guiding hand than the emergence of sturdier competitors more attuned to Japanese needs and tastes.39 Yet the Bankoku Shimbun affair had more significance than a minor episode in Japanese newspaper history. Unbeknown to themselves, Parkes and Black had set in motion a train of events which was ultimately to go a long way to undermining the foreign powers’ position in Japan. In their report of 5 July 1876, the British Law Officers of the Crown laid down that the Japanese Government had the right under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1858 to prevent Japanese subjects from engaging in activities, even when employed by 40 foreigners, which were unlawful under Japanese law. Parkes asked whether or not this ruling would apply if the Japanese Government attempted to interfere with the publication of the foreign-language newspapers, rather than with Japanese-language papers. It was not until September 1877 that the Law Officers replied. They then laid down that, in their view, the best explanation of the position was that given by the United States’ Secretary of State in a despatch of

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May 1876. In this, the American Minister had been instructed that American citizens were bound to obey Japanese laws, unless specifically exempted from them by Treaty. It followed, therefore, the Law Officers went on, that if the Japanese Government so decided it could forbid British subjects to publish any type of newspaper in Japan, or it could take any measures for their control ‘which it may think right to impose’.41 Parkes had then been arguing for some seven years that the Japanese Government could not impose its laws on foreigners without the express sanction of the foreign powers. He had consistently argued that Japanese law was not binding on foreigners in Japan, and the majority of his colleagues agreed with him.42 It was therefore hardly surprising that he protested. The Law Officers, for their part, remained firm in their opinion. In December 1878 they stated categorically: ‘the municipal laws of Japan apply to British subjects in Japan in all cases where those laws are not contrary to, or inconsistent with, Treaty rights’. This was not a matter specifically applicable to the press laws but one which applied to the whole of the laws of Japan. Nor could any tacit understanding which might have existed in the past interfere with this position.43 In spite of all Parkes’s efforts, the Law Officers continued to reiterate this view in a series of opinions given on the various pending questions relating to the problem of jurisdiction over British 44 subjects in Japan which came to a head in 1879. Parkes’s former position was now untenable, especially once it had been made clear to the Japanese that he no longer had the backing of the British Government.45 As Parkes had argued, this marked the beginning of the end of extraterritoriality in Japan. This Japanese victory was the first and decisive one on the way to full Treaty revision which came in 1894. Although the Japanese did not, as Parkes had feared they would, set out to make the old Treaties completely unworkable, the plain fact was that such was the ultimate effect of the Bankoku Shimbun affair. By 1890, Hugh Fraser, one of Parkes’s successors, could write that there was no longer a question of ‘the expediency of maintaining foreign Jurisdiction in Japan but of the possibility of maintaining it’.46 Yet it was ironic that it was the Bankoku Shimbun affair which had such an outcome. For on that occasion the Japanese Government had been so anxious to stop Black from publishing that they had not pressed their claim that foreigners should obey Japanese laws.

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Unwittingly, Black and Parkes, both equally anxious to maintain foreign positions in Japan, managed to destroy the very positions they were defending. Black’s services to Japan, therefore, were far more than journalistic ones.

Source: European Studies on Japan. I. Nish and C. Dunn, eds. Tenterden, Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1979, pp. 125–129, 335–336.

3

Japan undermines extraterritoriality: Extradition in Japan 1885–1899 v

From 1871 onwards, the government of Meiji Japan began a campaign against the treaties of 1858 to 1869 which was not to end until all the old treaties had been revised in Japan’s favour. The main aims of this campaign were the restoration of tariff autonomy and the end of extraterritoriality. The details of the negotiations which took place at the various conferences on treaty revision from 1882 onwards are becoming better known as the archives have been made available to scholars. But the campaign against the old treaties was not just a question of formal negotiations. In order to achieve success at the conference table, the Japanese set out to make the operation of the old treaties unworkable as far as the clauses relating to extraterritoriality were concerned. They were not wholly successful in this campaign, largely because they appear to have decided not to press home their advantage in order not to jeopardize their main purpose. But by the beginning of the 1890’s, the Japanese Government had effectively made clear to the foreign diplomats in Japan that extraterritoriality could not continue much longer. The main methods used by the Japanese, partly at the prompting of foreign legal advisers, was a rigorous re-examination of the old treaties and a determined insistence on the letter of them. Faced with the disintegrating government of the bakufu and the Japanese lack of knowledge of international law, strong ministers such as Sir Harry Parkes had found it easy to push the ‘rights’ of the foreign powers beyond what a strict interpretation of the treaties would allow. In many cases 25

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this was no bad thing in that it allowed for the better government of foreigners in Japan. But these supposed rights were an obvious target for the Japanese. From the very beginning of the Meiji period, the Japanese Government began to fight to regain its lost powers. It introduced a new legal system, embracing both criminal and civil codes, modelled on western ideas of jurisprudence. At the same time, the Japanese began to show an interest in asserting control over foreigners. By the middle 1870’s, almost in spite of themselves, they had brought under their jurisdiction the non-treaty power subjects in Japan. At the same time, they began a campaign to make the new Western-style regulations introduced from 1869 onwards binding on foreigners. These regulations covered such matters as hunting licences, quarantine regulations, drug regulations, and a host of other matters. Although it was a hard struggle, the Japanese were by the early 1880’s successful in their insistence that Japanese regulations had to be made applicable to foreign residents without any alteration by the treaty powers.1 Then the Japanese turned their attention to an area where the powers were on very unsure ground indeed. This was the area where law and executive action overlapped. Nowhere was this overlapping more obvious than in the case of extradition. A modern definition of extradition, which would equally describe the process in the 19th century is ‘the process whereby . . . one state surrenders to another state at its request a person accused or convicted of a criminal offence committed against the laws of the requesting state, such state being competent to try the alleged offender’.2 In the late 19th century, there was still considerable debate whether extradition was the obligation of a state or a favour conferred by one state on another.3 Until the mid-1880’s, extradition appears to have been a fairly simple process in Japan and it does not seem to have been much of a problem. In spite of early fears about the ‘scum of the earth’ fleeing to Japan, comparatively few criminals fled to Japan either from California or from the China coast and Hong Kong. When such a fugitive arrived in Japan, the normal practice was for the diplomatic or consular officers in Japan of the fugitive’s own country to apprehend the criminal and return him whence he came. There were occasional problems arising from the multiplicity of foreign jurisdictions in Japan, when, for example in 1864, a fugitive from USA arrived in Yokohama on board a French ship, but these were rare.4 While foreign powers assumed that they could exercise this right under the provision of the

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treaties, only one of them – Britain – went so far as to state the claim explicitly. Section 66 of the 1865 Order in Council (and the 1884 Order in Council by extending the 1881 Fugitive Offenders Act to China, Japan and Korea) treated Japan as a colony for the purpose of dealing with fugitive offenders from British territory.5 The Japanese at first paid little attention to these activities of the foreign powers. The 1871 Sino-Japanese Treaty, it is true, did provide for the mutual extradition of criminals, but the provisions of this treaty were not claimed by the western powers in Japan and, as far as I can trace, no attempt was made by either China or Japan to extradite a criminal under the treaty. But in 1885 there came a change of attitude by the Japanese. In July 1885, a group claiming to be Prussians appeared near Sapporo in Hokkaido. It was quickly apparent that these people were escaped Russian convicts from the penal settlements in Sakhalin. The Japanese rounded them up and, after some enquiries, handed them over to the Russian authorities in Tokyo. The latter then returned the convicts to Russia. This was the practice which the foreign powers had become used to since 1858.6 When the next case arose, in November 1885, however, the Japanese reacted differently. In that month an American citizen, Calvin Pratt, fled from California where he was wanted on charges of forgery and theft. Pratt made his escape on the ss Gaelic, a British steamer bound for Yokohama. This news appears to have been telegraphed to the American Consul-General at Yokohama who got in touch with his British colleague, asking for authorisation to use an American warrant on board a British ship. This was the standard practice and the British Consul, Russell Robertson, made no demur in granting the American request. The papers I have examined do not make clear what happened next and so far I have not been able to trace any full Japanese account of the events in Calvin Pratt’s case. But two days after the original request from the American Consul-General at Yokohama, Robertson was approached by that gentleman and also an official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Hatoyama. Hatoyama told Robertson that the request for authorisation of an American warrant was a mistake and that the request to arrest a man on board a British ship should have come from the Japanese authorities. He had a Japanese warrant ready for Robertson’s authorisation. This proposal was such a radical departure from the common practice that Robertson did not feel authorised to follow it without consulting

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a higher legal authority. When he consulted the judge of the British Court for Japan, Nicholas Hannen, he was advised that, providing the Japanese warrant indicated that the Japanese Government was acting at the request of the American authorities, it would be acceptable to the British courts. At first the American Consul-General and Hatoyama seemed disposed to accept this proposal. Then second thoughts prevailed. The Japanese, apparently realising that the effect of the British suggestion was merely to concede to the Japanese Government the right to act as a policeman for the United States, repeated their demand that Calvin Pratt should be handed over to the Japanese Government on a Japanese warrant. Both the American Consul-General and an American adviser to the Japanese Foreign Ministry also wrote to Robertson asking him to back up the warrant. This he declined to do. He confessed, in reporting his actions, that he was the more willing to insist on the traditional methods because he thought there was little danger of Pratt going free. This proved to be the case. When the Gaelic arrived at Yokohama, the Japanese police waited until Pratt came down the gang-plank and then arrested him. The Japanese Government then telegraphed to their Minister in Washington, informing him that a man resembling Calvin Pratt had arrived at Yokohama, had been arrested and, if a prima facie case could be made out, would be held until he could be returned to the USA. After much delay, Pratt was finally returned to the United States on 6 January 1886.7 From the papers which I have examined, it is, as I have said, not evident whether it was the United States government or that of Japan which took the initiative over the Calvin Pratt case. It seems likely that it was the Japanese government which did so, probably at the prompting of H. W. Denison, an American adviser to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.8 Certainly the United States was disposed to favour the Japanese in this matter, and, to ensure that no further difficulties over extradition took place, agreed to conclude an extradition treaty with Japan. This was duly signed in April 1886. It was the first effective treaty with a Western power in which Japan was treated as an equal.9 The question of extradition clearly caused some interest in the Japanese treaty ports. The foreign press, largely anti-Japanese, denounced the course followed in Pratt’s case as a clear infringement of foreign treaty rights. The Japanese Government, via the Japan Mail, which it supported, argued that the supposed right did not exist. The other foreign powers paid little attention to the American treaty; as far

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as Britain, the most important treaty power, was concerned, the Foreign Office made it clear that the Fugitive Offenders Act meant that the question of extradition from Japan of nationals from other territories where ‘the Queen enjoys extraterritorial jurisdiction’ did not arise.10 No account seems to have been taken of the fact that the Japanese Government was clearly no longer prepared to accept this view. The remaining powers appear to have held similar views to the British. The matter next came to a head in the summer of 1889 when a Spaniard, Zoilo Nieves, arrived in Japan after escaping from the penitentiary at Manila. The Spanish Consul at Yokohama, acting on information received from Manila, issued a warrant, and asked the Japanese police to arrest Nieves. Since there had been no foreign police force at Yokohama for many years, this was the normal practice. On this occasion, the British Consul reported, “all co-operation was declined on the ground that the Spanish Consul had no right to arrest fugitive offenders in Japan for offences not committed in the country”. The Japanese police at Yokohama advised the Consul that he should apply to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for assistance. Instead of doing this, the Spanish Consul used his consular constable to apprehend Nieves, who was then lodged in the British jail at Yokohama. (Spain, like most smaller powers, did not have the facilities to detain prisoners and normally used the British jail.) The Japanese police promptly mounted a guard at the jail, threatening to seize Nieves should any attempt be made to move him.11 Nieves might have remained in the British jail for ever, but for another case, this time involving the British, which drew attention to the Spanish case. In September 1889, Luis Campos, another Spaniard who was a naturalised British subject, sailed from Hong Kong where he was wanted on a charge of forgery. Telegrams were sent from the Colonial Government in Hong Kong to the British Consuls at Yokohama and Kobe asking them to return Campos under the 1881 Fugitive Offenders Act. Campos landed at Kobe, but quickly fled to the nearby town of Arima. The Consul at Kobe, Joseph Longford, having got news of this, sent his Consular Constable to Arima. Campos was apprehended and brought back to Kobe. Longford must have had an inkling of a possible Japanese protest at his decision to arrest Campos, for it had been many years since a Consular Constable had effected an arrest off the foreign settlements. If he was anticipating trouble, he did not have long to wait. The day after Campos’s arrest, the Governor of Kobe called upon Longford to protest. The Governor admitted that he

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had no power to arrest the man under the present circumstances but said that the treaty gave Longford no power to arrest him either. Both parties now referred the matter to Tokyo.12 The British Minister, Hugh Fraser, found himself faced with a difficult situation. Not only did he have grave doubts about the legality of the British position but there were complicating factors in this case. These were the arrest by a Consular Constable outside the area of the foreign settlement and the fact, it transpired, that the arrest had taken place in a private house without permission. It was also clear that Campos could not be detained indefinitely but, should Fraser attempt to put him on board a ship for Hong Kong, there was quite likely to be a local riot. Additionally there was a desire on Fraser’s part to abandon the high-handed attitudes of the past. Fraser therefore decided to make an arrangement with the Japanese Foreign Minister, Ōkuma Shigenobu, similar to that which the American Minister made in 1885 in the Pratt case. Accordingly, Longford was instructed to release Campos who was then arrested by the Japanese authorities. A month later Campos was returned to Hong Kong.13 There was some outcry in the treaty ports at Fraser’s actions in the Campos case. Consul Longford had had to face an irate gentleman who announced himself as the prosecutor of Campos, and alleged that Longford’s actions had prejudiced the case against Campos.14 Fraser himself found some opposition to his course of action from British legal authorities in the East,15 while his wife noted that the treaty port press talked of ‘the good old days and Sir Harry Parkes’.16 But Fraser’s actions were approved in London, though Lord Salisbury stressed that the approval was only for this particular case. The matter of principle should not be taken up until the question of the revision of the old treaties then under negotiation should be satisfactorily settled.17 In the meantime, the Spanish prisoner Nieves remained in the British jail at Yokohama. Indeed it was only when the Campos case broke that the British Consul at Yokohama felt the need to report the facts of the case to his minister. Neither did the case attract any wider publicity until after the settlement of the Campos case. Then, possibly as a result of their success in that matter, the Japanese drew attention to the Nieves case by means of an article in the Japan Mail in February 1890. The Mail’s editor stressed in particular the fact that Nieves was held in the British jail at Yokohama at a time when Britain had just conceded the Japanese point on extradition in the Campos case. The Mail went on to argue that, where Britain had shown the way,

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there could be little loss of face in Spain following suit.18 Whether or not this was the argument which prevailed with the Spanish authorities, they also decided to reach an accommodation with the Japanese. On 1 March, Nieves was released from the British jail at Yokohama and promptly rearrested by the Japanese police. Nearly three months later, he was returned to Manila.19 Japan’s evident determination to insist that the foreign powers did not have the right to return fugitive offenders without reference to the Japanese authorities was now obvious. The British Minister and some of his staff were convinced that the Japanese claim was a sound one and that Britain should cease to claim a right which could not readily be discerned from the treaty. Even the London and China Express, a staunch defender of treaty port rights, was prepared to concede by May 1890 that there was merit in the Japanese case.20 Fraser’s views on the question were if anything reinforced by the Japanese action in a third case which arose in April 1890, this time involving military deserters from Hong Kong. Fraser noted that it was unusual for states to extradite such fugitives, but the Japanese had proved helpful. They had willingly turned a blind eye and allowed the Consul at Nagasaki to return the men to Hong Kong under the traditional method.21 Fraser first pressed London for an extradition treaty with Japan in December 1889, and continued to argue in subsequent years that this was the best solution to a complicated problem. The Japanese were willing, but the Foreign Office in London remained reluctant. Eventually, with Fraser’s departure on leave in the summer of 1892, the negotiations petered out.22 But, although Lord Salisbury had said in 1889 that the Campos case should not be regarded as a precedent, it in fact became so because of the virtual impossibility of going back to the old ways. There was no doubt that the Japanese had won their point. If the case of a fugitive offender came to their attention, the Japanese insisted that only they could effect extradition, and then only when the proper procedures had been carried out. Should a foreign power be reluctant to concede the point, the Japanese made it plain that they would do all in their power to prevent such unlawful action taking place, even to the extent of letting a fugitive criminal go free.23 Extradition, as was said at the beginning, was never a major question in Japan. But the extradition problem showed that by the 1890s, the Japanese were able to argue successfully that their interpretation of the old treaties could

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claim equal validity with that of the foreign powers. It also showed that the continued operation of extraterritoriality in Japan was dependent on Japan’s willingness to allow it. If the Japanese refused to assist, e.g. in matters such as the arrest of criminals, then there was little the foreign powers could do about it. It was this fact, brought home to him by the problems caused by extradition, which led Fraser to inform Lord Salisbury in 1890 that there was no longer a question of ‘the expediency of maintaining foreign jurisdiction in Japan but of the possibility of maintaining it’.24 The growth of this realisation went a long way by 1894 towards making Britain willing to give up extraterritoriality in Japan virtually without the guarantees she had formerly insisted on. And, in those days, where Britain led, the other powers followed.

Source: Ian Nish, ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Folkestone, Kent: Japan Library 1994, pp. 20–32, 312–316.

4

British Journalists in Meiji Japan v

JAPAN’S TREATY-PORT PRESS

By the time of the Meiji restoration’ the foreign language press, the majority of whose journalists were British, was an established feature of Japanese treaty-port life. This was not surprising. From humble beginnings at Canton in 1827, newspapers had spread to most foreign settlements in East Asia. They were sometimes little more than advertising sheets but they met a local need and ‘mail editions’ gave the foreign communities an international voice.1 Their history is often obscure, though much can be gleaned from the publications themselves, especially from the editorial quarrels which enlivened their pages and from the court cases which sometimes resulted. John Reddie Black was the only journalist to write a book on local history.2 The first foreign-language newspaper in Japan, the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, started at Nagasaki in 1861. Its founder was A.W. Hansard, an auctioneer and jobbing printer. The annual subscription was $20 Mexican, the accepted currency in the Japan ports, for four sides of news and advertisements four times a week. In subsequent years, over forty newspapers and some thirty magazines and periodicals were published in settlements whose foreign population, excluding the Chinese, was at its maximum about 5000. Most were produced in Yokohama where, by the mid-1890s, some 2500 Western residents lived. One contemporary noted, perhaps tongue in cheek, that this showed ‘a remarkable degree of journalistic activity’, indicating ‘a positive craving for news on the part of the public’.3 Other factors included 33

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international rivalries, personal ambitions and subsidies. A craving for news was probably low on the list. Even successful papers seldom sold more than five hundred copies. The result was high subscription rates averaging $24 per year, with overseas or special editions extra. Advertisements were lucrative; Yokohama rates in 1882 were up to four times those of major London newspapers. Also important was job printing. One British official in 1885 claimed this was the chief source of profit for many papers, and another wrote in 1897 that it was ‘highly lucrative . . . far more so than the newspaper’, for one Nagasaki publisher.4 Capital equipment was cheap. The Japan Gazette was still printed on hand presses in 1891. In 1893 the presses of the Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express were valued at only $1000, although paper and binding materials were worth $7000. Salaries were a major cost. They varied from $20 to $25 a month paid to Japanese compositors (who replaced the earlier Portuguese in the mid-70s) and translators, to $500 paid briefly to the editor of the Japan Gazette in 1891, five times more than the Kobe Chronicle paid Lafcadio Hearn three years later. The usual rate was $150–200 in the 1890s. Another cost was telegram subscriptions, though few paid the high rates charged by the Japanese government – four times the Shanghai rate – after the telegraph reached Japan in 1871. Some papers managed without; others poached. THE BRITISH JOURNALISTS

Although newspapers and periodicals were published in a wide variety of languages, most were in English, and the majority of journalists were British. There were many Scots and Irish, while the ‘first professionally trained newspaperman in Japan’, was the Cornishman, J.E. Beale, for many years the managing editor of the Japan Mail.5 Some of the British might now be Australians or New Zealanders. The founder of the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, A.W. Hansard, had lived in New Zealand before coming to Japan. John Reddie Black, born in Scotland, had later lived in South Australia.6 John Henry Brooke, owner of the Japan Herald from 1870 to his death in 1902, was born in Lincolnshire. He, too, emigrated to Australia, was active in politics and arrived in Japan in 1867. To contemporaries and themselves, all were British.7 Most journalists were men, but Alice Mildred Vaughan Smith (or Vaughan-Smith), also worked as a professional journalist in Japan. She began as a leader writer on the Japan Gazette and correspondent for the North China Daily News in 1889. In 1891, she fell foul of the

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Gazette’s editor, Walter Dening, and was dismissed. The owners of the Gazette, unable to afford Dening, then appointed her editor, a post she held until 1893. She later edited various China coast papers and was a correspondent for others and for the London Standard. She wrote two books about Japan and died in London in 1908.8 THE MAIN NEWSPAPERS: YOKOHAMA

Nagasaki was a backwater even in 1861. In November 1861, therefore, Hansard moved to Yokohama and established the weekly Japan Herald. Yokohama thus became the centre of foreign journalism in Japan, a position it held without dispute until the 1890s. The Japan Herald remained British until 1902, when it was bought by the Deutsche Japan Post, which ran it as its English-language edition until both were suppressed in 1914.9 To many, the Herald became synonymous with treaty-port journalism, especially after it was bought by J.H. Brooke in 1870. Opposed to Japanese policies, firm in defence of foreign rights, against treaty revision, it was the mouthpiece of ‘John Bull’ in Yokohama and Japan. Brooke’s role in local affairs reflected this stand, and he was very opposed to treaty revision. To one British minister, he was ‘a professional agitator of a rather vulgar class’, willing to accept Japanese money when it suited him.10 But his views struck a chord, and the Herald was one of the Yokohama papers most frequently quoted in British periodicals in the 1870s.11 This conservative role did not go unchallenged. Chronologically, the Japan Times came first, but it was the Japan Gazette which most contemporaries linked with the Herald. Like other papers, the Gazette’s allegiance could waver if money was available, but it generally took a conservative stance. It was founded in 1867 by John Reddie Black, a man of many talents who had a great influence on both foreign and Japanese journalism.12 He had been part proprietor of the Japan Herald, but he was a bad businessman, and by 1867 was forced to leave the Herald. He started the Gazette on a shoe-string, using wooden type and an old press. It was an evening daily, which also led the Herald to switch to evening publication. Under Black, the Gazette was moderately critical of the Japanese government.13 By the early 1870s, Black had new interests and he sold the Gazette in 1874. It passed to a consortium including J.R. Anglin, who had come to Japan in the mid-1860s with the British army. He purchased

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his discharge, and stayed on as a compositor and part owner of the Japan Times, then joined the Japan Gazette as a foreman printer. He became sole owner from 1884 or 1885 until his death in 1891. His interest was the technical side of the paper, and he left editorial matters to others.14 The first of Anglin’s known editors was A.H. Cole. He ceased to be editor in 1877 or 1878 but he continued to write for the Gazette. In an obituary in 1884, the Gazette noted that he was well-educated and a good writer, but lacked steadiness and force of character, and did not get on with his colleagues.15 Cole was succeeded by W.H. Talbot. Despite claims that Talbot was ‘a renegade American’, he seems to have been British, with family connections elsewhere in East Asia. He was an accountant and loss adjuster, active in many aspects of treaty-port life, and had been manager of the Japan Times. By the early 1870s, he was Reuters’ Yokohama agent. He later joined the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) as company secretary, and for a time was its Shanghai representative.16 Under Talbot, the Gazette became more critical of the Japanese. It was not invariably hostile; it supported the government’s policy over Korea in the early 1880s, for example. But its usual tone was disapproving, and like the Herald, it was a firm defender of foreign rights. It particularly opposed attempts to control trade or tamper with the currency. Talbot also conducted a bitter campaign against Martin Dohmen, one of Sir Harry Parkes’s protégés in the British consular service.17 The shift which Talbot introduced in 1877 remained evident until the end of the century, under different editors. These included Alice Vaughan Smith and Walter Dening. Dening worked on other papers and was a scholar of distinction. Two others, Henry Tennant and Robert Hay, were both experienced journalists.18 The third of the major Yokohama papers was the Japan Mail. This began in 1865 as the Japan Times, the brainchild of Charles Rickerby. Rickerby arrived in Japan about 1863 as the Yokohama manager of the Central Bank of Western India. He left banking under a cloud – one US consul described him as ‘a disgraced, discharged, English bank official’. He was briefly an auctioneer and a founding member of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce. He may have been connected with the Portuguese-owned Japan Commercial News published from 1863 to 1865, and he was certainly a member of the consortium including Benjamin Seare and J.R. Anglin, which bought the plant in 1885. Anglin worked solely on the production side, and Seare left in

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1866 to join the Japanese customs.19 Rickerby thus became the editor. He began with sonorous statements of principle and fine editorials, and for a time enjoyed success. It was believed that the Times was close to the British legation, and it was in its pages that Ernest Satow published parts of his ‘Eikoku sakuron’ was well as anonymous editorials.20 The success was short-lived. Rickerby’s editorials became hostile to British policies and he was a poor businessman. By 1869, he was in trouble and had to sell. He then held a variety of jobs while occasionally writing for various newspapers. He restarted the Japan Times in 1878, eventually merging it with the Mail while also writing for the Gazette. He was regularly in the courts either pursued by creditors or himself pursuing former employers. It was a heavy load and in spring 1879 he left for Britain, where he died that September.21 The Japan Times was bought by W.G. Howell, a British merchant, and H.N. Lay, formerly of the British consular service and the Chinese Maritime Customs, then in Japan to negotiate a railway loan. They changed the name to the Japan Mail, and it appeared under this title on 31January 1870, though its masthead claimed it had been founded in 1865. It continued until 1917, when it merged with a third, Japaneseowned, Japan Times. Lay fell out with the Japanese over the railway loan and with Howell over the paper. Howell was left on his own; forty years’ later, he was still bitter.22 The Mail projected itself as more respectable than other Yokohama papers. Its staff were active in public affairs and in the Asiatic Society of Japan. Howell was a council member of the Society until his departure from Japan in 1877, and the Mail often published the texts of the Society’s papers and other learned treaties. It was magisterial in style, affecting to despise the petty quarrels of the other papers. A number of its editors acted as Japan correspondents for the London Times, which perhaps increased a sense of importance. The high moral tone, however, rarely prevented a Mail editorial from being as cutting as one from the Herald or Gazette. The Mail had another characteristic, its alleged connection with the Japanese government. Allegations of subsidies were not infrequent, and probably every newspaper wrote to order at one time or another. In 1890, the British minister, Hugh Fraser, noted: ‘. . . English newspapers [in Japan] are of two kinds, those which are actually retained by the Japanese government, and those which do not happen to be under any official engagement . . .’ and implied that the latter could be swayed by a switch in government advertising.23 The relationship between the Japan

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Mail and the Japanese government was seen as different. As early as 1871, Rickerby claimed in court that the real purchasers of the newspaper were not Howell and Lay but the Japanese government. This was not denied, and it was repeated in the Tokei Journal in 1874. In a later court case, however, and in a letter to the Japan Gazette in 1881, Howell stated that it was only in October 1873 that he had signed an agreement with the Japanese government to report ‘the facts’ about Japan’s development to the outside world. Under this agreement, the government would pay for five hundred copies of each issue to be sent abroad. Howell retained the right to criticize the Japanese government, and had done so – the Mail was notably critical of the 1874 Formosan expedition. Whatever the nature of the agreement, it did not survive open hostility to Japanese policies, and it was apparently terminated in March 1875.24 Howell owned the Mail until January 1877, when he left Japan. He was briefly the proprietor of a horticultural journal, and subsequently the London-based secretary of the Shanghai Waterworks Company. He never returned to the East, though he regularly wrote querulous letters on Asian affairs.25 The Mail was bought by G.C. Pearson, who continued Howell’s more critical tone, but sold the paper at the end of 1877. The new owner was F.V. Dickins (1838–1915), a prominent Yokohama lawyer who had worked for the Japanese government and was a friend of Parkes, whose biographer he later became, and of Satow. There was a marked change of tone under his editorship but, in the summer of 1878, he had a breakdown and Charles Rickerby became editor. Dickins retired to London. He later recovered, taught Japanese for a time 26 and became registrar of London University. Rickerby’s involvement was also short-lived, and the Mail passed through a succession of hands until it was acquired by Captain Francis Brinkley in January 1881. Brinkley owned it until his death in 1912. Brinkley was a Royal Artillery officer when he arrived in Japan in 1867. He was employed as a naval gunnery instructor and English and mathematics teacher, first by the Fukui han and then by the Japanese navy, though he remained on the British Army List until 1882. He acquired a considerable knowledge of Japanese and became an authority on Japanese art in general and porcelain in particular. He published several books. To visitors and some residents he was a courteous host, willing to share his delight in Japanese art. To others he was devious and too close to the Japanese.27 Under Brinkley, the paper continued its magisterial tone. The link with the London Times was re-established. Brinkley being its

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main correspondent from the early 1880s until after 1900. The Mail continued to be more literary than the other papers and it reflected Brinkley’s artistic and scholarly interests. It also resumed a pro-Japanese stand. The treaty-port view was not ignored but the Japanese case was sympathetically presented. Some attributed this to Brinkley’s absence from Yokohama, for, although the Mail was produced there, Brinkley lived in Tokyo, leaving the day-to-day work to J.E. Beale. Others testified to his wide range of contacts and his ability to talk to leading Japanese as factors leading him to a sympathetic and positive view of Japan, as was his marriage to a Japanese. The less charitable attributed the Mail’s position to Japanese money. Brinkley may have acquired the Mail with Japanese assistance.28 He was certainly an adviser to the government and to NYK at various times. During the 1884–5 Korean crisis, his role was important enough for the Japanese to contemplate decorating him, but British objections prevailed. The Japan Punch suggested that he should wear an appropriate costume, like the Koreans’ German adviser.29 (Later, he was to receive the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class, a standard award for senior advisers.) In a sense, therefore, he did receive Japanese money. He also admitted some Japanese involvement with the Mail. In February 1881, he published correspondence with Inoue Kaoru in which he noted that the Japanese government had a number of subscriptions to the newspaper but asserted his right to editorial independence. Such an arrangement was similar to that which Howell claimed to have in the early 1870s, and to that later offered to the Kobe Chronicle in 1892. In addition, Brinkley made no secret of his views. He wrote in one editorial that he had lived long in Japan, knew and liked the Japanese, though realising their faults, and thought Western policies ‘illiberal and injudicious’.30 His fellow journalists saw it differently. ‘Left his Queen and Country to become a Japanese flunkey’, wrote the Japan Punch in October 1882. In 1906, the Eastern World carried an editorial which said in black capitals that ‘Ex-Captain Francis Brinkley, R.A., editor of the Japan Mail, the organ of the Japanese Government, is an infamous and cowardly liar and slanderer.’31 There were a host of similar, if less strident, claims that Brinkley was suborned. Brinkley undoubtedly helped spread a positive image of Japan. The extra copies paid for by the Japanese explain the relatively full runs of the Japan Mail or Japan Weekly Mail found in some Western countries, and provided a counterweight to the ‘righteous indignation and gratuitous

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advice’ of more hostile papers.32 By the time of Brinkley’s death, the Japanese government had its own foreign-language newspaper, the third Japan Times, founded in 1897. Its editor paid tribute to Brinkley’s services and avoided the old charges of how those services had come about, while the Jiji Shimpō attributed to him ‘. . . no other motive save a desire to explain the conditions of Japan to the outside world’.33 THE OTHER SETTLEMENTS: NAGASAKI, KOBE, TOKYO

After Hansard’s departure, it was not until 1869–70 that newspapers were again published at Nagasaki. One was the Nagasaki Express, established in 1870 by an American, which was taken over in 1874 by two Britons, John Clark and Charles Sutton, and renamed the Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express. Clark soon left for Shanghai where he had a distinguished newspaper career, while Sutton, by trade a stevedore, left the running of the newspaper to the printer, C.A. Norman, also British. When Sutton died in 1892, Norman bought the paper. He was certified insane in 1896, and died the following year. The paper was briefly under the control of the British consul in Nagasaki, who persuaded E.A. Morphy, later editor of The Straits Times, to run it for a time. It was then sold. Renamed the Nagasaki Express, it lasted until the 1920s. Under Norman it was another staunch and uncritical defender of foreign rights.34 Kobe was the second most important foreign settlement. Here the Hiogo News and the Hiogo and Osaka Herald both established in 1868, vied for influence until the mid-1880s. Britons were involved with both. A.W. Hansard’s son-in-law, A.T. Watkins, and briefly owner of the Japan Herald, was a founder of the Hiogo and Osaka Herald in 1868, though he did not long maintain his connection with the paper. Francis Walsh, a master printer from Shanghai who had worked in Nagasaki, bought out the owners of the News in 1869, and owned it until he retired to Britain in 1888.35 A third paper, the Kobe Herald, began in 1886. It was owned and edited by A.W. Curtis, who had worked for Mitsubishi and NYK. The Kobe Herald may have been started with Japanese assistance, as a counterweight to the antiJapanese Hiogo News.36 Kobe’s best known paper, and the only rival to the Yokohama papers, was the Kobe Chronicle, established by Robert Young in 1892. Young was another Scot, born in 1858. After newspaper work in Britain, he arrived in Japan in 1885. He worked on the Hiogo News, which he

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left because of its anti-Japanese stand. The Chronicle, too, began with Japanese assistance, but Young claimed that, once it was clear that this involved uncritical support for the government, the link was broken.37 Renamed the Japan Chronicle in 1902, it survived until 1942. A few newspapers appeared in Tokyo, of which the best known was the Tokio Times (1877–80), owned and edited by the American, E.H. House. House’s pro-Japanese stand and bitter editorials about Sir Harry Parkes and British policies in Japan led to attacks in the Britishowned press and the usual claims of bribery. The Tokei Journal (1874–5), is sometimes credited to J.R. Black, but this is not certain. James Murdoch, another Scot with Australian links, a classical scholar and historian of Japan, was editor of the short-lived Japan Echo (1890–91).38 As noted earlier, some treaty-port journalists were foreign correspondents for other newspapers. The first was probably Charles Wirgman (see below), often described as the Japan correspondent of the Illustrated London News, though it is not clear if he contributed text as well as illustrations. Others included Alice Vaughan Smith and several of the Mail’s editors. But the most influential correspondent was probably none of these but Major General H.S. Palmer of the Royal Engineers who wrote for The Times and the Manchester Guardian. In 1883, Parkes suggested to the Japanese that they employ Palmer, then visiting Japan, as an adviser on the construction of Yokohama’s waterworks. Soon afterwards, Palmer started to write for The Times, favouring the Japanese position on treaty revision. In 1887, having retired from the army, he was awarded a contract for harbour works at Yokohama. Hugh Fraser, the British minister, later claimed that there was a direct link between Palmer’s reporting and the contract. Palmer continued to write and work for the Japanese until his death in 1893.39 THE PERIODICAL PRESS

The first rival to the Japan Herald was Charles Wirgman’s Japan Punch, which began in 1862 at Yokohama. Wirgman’s career was similar to more conventional journalists. He arrived in Japan via the Indian Mutiny and the Anglo-Chinese wars, where he had worked as an artist for the Illustrated London News. He contributed to the ILN from Japan for some years. He was a close friend of Satow, sometimes interpreter for the British legation, and an influence on Japan’s artistic development. But his main preoccupation was the Japan Punch, which he produced until 1887. The Japan Punch has not worn well. The topical allusions

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are sometimes obscure; and standards of humour have changed. Yet it provides a good idea of life in Yokohama and Tokyo and the issues which concerned the treaty ports. Wirgman had rivals but, with the exception of the Frenchman, Georges Bigot, none approached him in ability or output. To Japanese, he is the father of the modern Japanese cartoon.40 Wirgman may have published another periodical, The Far East, in 1866–7, but no trace remains. Another Far East appeared in 1870, one more of J.R. Black’s projects. It was published at Yokohama until 1876, then in Shanghai. Originally planned as a newspaper, it became a magazine ‘illustrative of native life in the far East’.41 It was fortnightly at first, then monthly, and in its heyday carried papers by Satow, F.V. Dickins and W. E. Griffis. Its main feature was the use of real photographs, individually pasted into each copy. After Black moved to Shanghai in 1876, there was reduced coverage in Japan. It was Black’s last journalistic effort. In Shanghai, he began writing Young Japan, and died while it was in progress. From 1881 to 1883, Britons helped produce The Chrysanthemum, later The Chrysanthemum and Phoenix. ‘A monthly magazine for Japan and the Far East’, published by Presbyterian missionaries. Although it initially attracted a wide audience, it gradually became too missionarydominated for most readers. Other missionary-inspired publications had little success outside the ranks of the committed.42 THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE PRESS

Britons were also pioneers in this field, though foreign involvement did not last long. Japanese interest in Western newspapers predated the opening of the ports in 1859, and publications received via the Dutch at Nagasaki were translated for the Bakufu. After 1861, the treaty-port papers were similarly translated. The first attempt at a Japaneselanguage newspaper was made by Joseph Heco (Hamada Hikozō), whose Kaigai Shimbun (Overseas News) appeared in 1864. Others followed, including the Bankoku Shimbunshi produced by the chaplain to the British legation, Buckworth Bailey, between 1867 and 1869. These publications avoided comment and enjoyed considerable popularity. They were left alone by the Japanese government.43 In 1872, J.R. Black established the Nisshin Shinjishi (Reliable Daily News). This broke new ground, for it carried political comment, and Black claimed it was well on the way to success by 1874. But by then

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there were several Japanese-owned papers as well, and the government determined to introduce effective press controls. There was no frontal attack on Black, to avoid a clash with the Western powers, but he was first offered government employment, then persuaded to remove his name from the Nisshin Shinjishi. He thus lost editorial control and his nominal editors rejected his writings. He also found his work for the Japanese was non-existent. In June 1875, a new press law appeared which stated that newspaper proprietors, editors, temporary editors, and managers must be Japanese subjects. Foreigners believed that they were exempt from Japanese laws, whether they published in English or Japanese. Black, therefore, decided to establish a new vernacular newspaper. On 6 January 1876, the Bankoku Shimbun (News of the World) went on sale. The government again made no frontal attack, but issued regulations banning Japanese subjects from selling or distributing it. They also approached Parkes, pointing out the dangers to Japan if foreigners could freely publish in Japanese. On 7 February 1876, Parkes issued a regulation banning English subjects from publishing in Japanese. This would have repercussions far beyond journalism, but its immediate effect was to end foreign involvement in the Japanese-language press. The Japanese would later ignore some missionary publications in the vernacular, but no other political or commercial paper in Japanese appeared under foreign auspices.44 CONCLUSION

The importance of the foreign press can be disputed. These were tiny enterprises even by contemporary standards and many survived but a short period. Their direct influence on Japanese affairs was also limited. Few Japanese understood Western languages and fewer read the treaty-port press. Western diplomats generally had a low opinion of the treaty-port press, and such views may have influenced the Japanese. Whatever their concerns about the vernacular press, the Japanese government did not seek to control the foreign-language press before 1899, preferring to pay to make sure that Japanese views were made known. To the Japanese authorities, the foreign press was not nearly as important as it considered itself, but merely reflected the views of small and often faction-ridden communities, rather than the views of foreign governments. Yet to Japanese historians, the foreign newspapers are an important part of their country’s history. From them, the Japanese newspapermen

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acquired much technical knowledge, even if the Japanese papers, with their much greater readership, quickly moved beyond the small presses and short runs of the treaty-port press. The Western newspapers also contributed by comment and criticism to the development of Meiji Japan. Perhaps if there had been a little less criticism and more constructive advice, they would have had greater influence, but they did have an effect. Some argue that Japanese journalists obtained their first lessons in editorial freedom and responsibility from the treatyport press. Others note the role of the foreign press in introducing Japan to a wider international audience. Whatever the final verdict, the British, always the majority among owners and editorial staff and always prominent in both positive and negative portrayal of Japan, played a major role.45

Source: Japan Society Proceedings, no. 129 (Summer 1997), pp. 24–41.

5

The Tokyo Embassy, 1871–1945 v

This paper follows on from that which Sir Hugh Cortazzi gave to the Society in 1984. It is not the complete story but an intermediate stage in a history of the British embassies in Tokyo, Seoul and Peking.

In May 1872, in the absence on leave of Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister in Tokyo since 1865, the chargé d’affaires, F.O. Adams, signed the lease for a plot of land outside the Hanzomon gate in Kojimachi. Parkes had been searching for a site for the British legation in the city proper since at least 1867, but it was not until the spring of 1871 that he found the site he wanted, close to the Imperial Palace. As he explained on leave in November 1871, he had undertaken to lease it, without approval, rather than lose the opportunity. Assistant surveyor Boyce at Shanghai showed less enthusiasm than Parkes, but indicated it would do. It was close to the ‘official offices and residences of the Native Government’ and the palace. The rental, Mexican $5 per 100 tsubo, or Mexican $900 (£200) a year was fair and reflected the usual rate. (Parkes minuted: ‘Not the usual rate, but an unusually modest one in Japan’.) In the assumption that Parkes’s actions would be approved, he had drawn up plans for the buildings, and was ‘happy to say that they have . . . all received the approval of the Minister and officers more immediately concerned’. A permanent lease was signed in 1884. Just over 10,833 tsubo or 42,898.68 square yards was made available for the legation and ‘for no further use free of any charge whatsoever except the rent.’ This was six silver yen – the yen having replaced the Mexican dollar by 1884 – per 100 tsubo, or Yen 652.32, (£200), due annually on 1 July. The lease 45

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contained a never invoked clause allowing for the reversal of the land if needed for defence against ‘a foreign or a domestic enemy’ Parkes’s main wish was that his house should have a veranda on the north side, and a tower to serve both ‘as a cool retreat on summer evenings’, and as a lookout point. Boyce believed that the minister’s proposed two storey house would be able to withstand ‘the slight shocks of earthquake occasionally felt’, since the palace gates and walls had done so for many years. Its estimated cost was £8,000, and £18,000 for the other buildings. With slight modifications, and instruction to adhere to ‘the strictest regard to economy’ – the use of local wood, and wood instead of iron for verandas – these plans were approved. Work was to begin in spring 1872, but Boyce was detained in Shanghai. When he returned in August, brushwood and weeds covered the site, and had to be cleared before work could start. He was concerned about contractors, for ‘except for one or two foreigners who only take contracts to make fifty or one hundred per cent . . . and give a great deal of trouble into the bargain’, there was nobody who might do the work. There was another complication. R.G. Watson, now chargé, had doubts about the project. In July 1872, he suggested that the project should be abandoned since circumstances had changed since Parkes departure. There was now a railway and it was only an hour from the Yokohama residence to the Tokyo office. The chancery and students could stay in Tokyo, but the minister’s residence should remain in Yokohama, which was ‘more attractive for a lady’ and the centre of the British community. He also argued that an escort was not necessary, since Japan was much safer following the disarming of the samurai. In addition, Ernest Satow, the Japan secretary, preferred to live off the compound as it would be better for his contacts with the Japanese. Satow also thought his house was too small, for it had ‘only four suitable rooms, the fifth being more of the nature of a large cupboard.’ Finally, Watson felt that Japan would never be important, and there would be little need for accommodation. Parkes was adamant that neither the wishes of ladies nor the British community at Yokohama should interfere with the principle that the minister’s place was in the capital, with his staff close by. As for Satow, he had not expressed such views earlier, and if he did not want the house, his successor might. Parkes suggested that three members of staff, including Satow, should look for suitable housing off the

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compound and to report to him on his return. Work on the escorts’ quarters could be postponed, but the rest should go ahead. Parkes arrived back early in 1873. He agreed that Satow could live out, but argued that there was still a need for the escort. The men had signed five-year contracts in 1872, could serve as the head of post’s personal escort, and could perform messenger and other tasks for the legation. (The escort lasted until the 1890s, and its last member, Inspector Peter Peacock, MVO, formerly of the London Metropolitan Police, was still working for the embassy as a clerical officer when he died in 1906 aged 67.) Progress was slow once work began. Boyce’s calculations were thrown into disarray by the ‘unreliable and worthless character of the natives, from the principle man downwards’ and there was ‘practically no redress for breach of contract.’ By October, he was more optimistic, since he now had Shanghai staff as supervisors. He hoped that the chancery, vice-consul’s residence and the students’ quarters would be ready for occupation by April 1874 Parkes then sought a change. His residence might be better with a ‘pavilion’ or ballroom attached to the drawing room. Boyce asked for funds for this and for a storage building, plants, and for internal roads. He received the latter, but the ballroom was rejected. The new legation was largely occupied by January 1875, though Parkes’s family remained at Yokohama for a little longer. Then, on 3 April, the Japan Mail reported the end of the Yokohama legation. Most of the Yokohama buildings had already passed to the Japanese, and only the minister’s residence was now returned. What happened to them is not clear, and all trace of the Yokohama legation has long disappeared. Tokyo was now the site of the British legation. It was not an easy transition. In July 1875, Boyce forwarded to London a catalogue of complaints and changes. Staff involvement in planning proved no protection against changes of mind or changes of staff. The most complex changes involved the house of the secretary of legation. Boyce wrote that he had been assured by ‘H.M. Chargé’, that there would never be a married secretary of legation in Japan. Then arrived Francis Plunkett, already married, to live in a house similar to that which Satow had rejected. Plunkett wanted an additional bedroom, a wine cellar, storeroom and quarters for European servants. Parkes was also dissatisfied. He wanted better wallpaper, extra servants’ quarters, and he required ‘water tanks, force pumps and water closet apparatus to be introduced throughout his house’. Others too had grievances.

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Funds must have been found, for we hear no more of Plunkett’s house, or Parkes’s water-closets. Visitors liked the new legation. To Lady Brassey, the residence was ‘a nice brick house, . . . in the centre of a garden, . . . as secure as possible from fire or attack’. Isabella Bird who stayed twice with Parkes in 1878, found building and host congenial. The former was in a good location, ‘on very elevated ground overlooking the castle’, near to the Foreign Office, other government departments, and the residences of several Japanese ministers. Parkes maintained ‘an English home’, though with Chinese servants, apart from a children’s nurse, and brought ‘sunshine and kindliness’ into a room, and left it behind him. Parkes transferred to Peking in 1883, and was replaced by the former secretary of legation, Francis Plunkett. Satow met the Plunketts in London in November 1883, and wrote to Parkes that they had persuaded the Foreign Office and the Office of Works to furnish the ground floor of the residence, presumably because it was used for public functions. Mrs Plunkett was taking her two girls with her and the legation would have a young air about it. Plunkett again raised the question of a ballroom, but was told firmly that Sir Harry Parkes had written when the legation was under construction that it contained all that he required. Plunkett’s successor in 1889 was Hugh Fraser, who died en poste in 1894. Fraser’s wife, Mary, left an account of their life in Tokyo which still retains a freshness and a sense of fun. Although she barely described the compound, it emerges from her incidental descriptions. She enjoyed the banks of flowers, while wide verandas provided welcome coolness in the summer, and there were splendid views of Mount Fuji. She noted that by the early 1890s, around 200 lived on the compound. As well as the British, there were Japanese servants, writers, teachers and their families, down to the vice-consul’s jinrikisha man’s grandmother, who appeared at the children’s Christmas party carrying the motherless son of this functionary. Mrs Fraser was delighted at the surprise of the Japanese children when she held this first Christmas party in January 1890, with fifty-eight guests ranging from one to nineteen. She gave two Christmas parties the following year, one for the legation children, and one for foreign and Japanese friends. Her other great delight was to escape to the hills. She did not like to go at Christmas but it was different in summer. Then she fled to Karuizawa, a well-established summer resort made popular by missionaries. Here the Frasers had a Japanese-style, two-storied house

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she called ‘the Palace of Peace’, which she thought of as her own. It had deep verandas, tatami floors, and bamboo pipes brought water from the hills. Hugh Fraser and other colleagues spent part of the summer there, although work sometimes forced them to return to the city. Fraser was followed by P Le Poer Trench, replaced in early 1895 by Sir Ernest Satow, former Japanese Secretary, then minister in Morocco. This was a personal triumph, for the post had been held since Parkes by diplomatic service officers. The clever young man of the 1860s, father of a Japanese family, was now somewhat austere and aloof, even to colleagues from earlier days. His joy was his library, the best room in the house. His other pleasure was a summer cottage which he rented at Lake Chuzenji, where he spent July and August. In 1900, Satow became minister in Peking, swapping posts with Sir Claude MacDonald, hero of the siege of the Peking legations. MacDonald remained until 1912, becoming the first resident ambassador when Tokyo became an embassy in 1905. The MacDonalds, great entertainers in Peking, were dismayed at Tokyo’s limitations. MacDonald despatched a dismal account of a rainy Queen’s Birthday Party, with guests forced into the residence, ‘to the discomfort of hosts and guests alike’. In a private letter to the Office of Works, MacDonald acknowledged that the problem was the Treasury, which still argued that Parkes had accepted the plans without a ballroom, but when Sir Harry Parkes was satisfied, ‘Japanese society went about with two swords and their hair a la Gilbert and Sullivan’. Now they expected proper entertainment. Lady MacDonald joined in. She was not a discontented person, but ‘one always suffers by following bachelors’; the house was dirty and the wallpaper either hung off the walls or, in the drawing room, such that she would not attempt to describe. But she had a greater concern. In Peking, ‘the British legation had the pleasant reputation of being hospitable and a cheery meeting ground for all our friends during the winter months’. They hoped for the same reputation in Tokyo, but had only ‘a drawing room seating twenty eight which was full with thirty’. The floor, of ‘unstained deal’, was no good for dancing, while the main rooms were not linked, and beyond lay a dreary corridor, her husband’s study – ‘which should be sacred from intruders’ – a waiting room, and an ‘unfurnished “library” which we have been obliged to turn into a schoolroom’. The British minister must retire into the background, ‘and entertain on a par with the representatives of Siam & Corea!’ Such pleas must have melted hearts in London, for money was found for work in the 1901–2 financial year. Then the MacDonalds had a

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change of heart, fretting that the work would interfere with their lives. They sought a postponement, then abandoned the ballroom claiming that they had opened up the drawing and dining rooms and could entertain up to 130 guests. The Treasury’s views remain unrecorded. MacDonald thought that the compound was badly used. Although bigger than pre-siege Peking, only five staff, including two students, lived there, while Peking had accommodation for forty. To meet the needs of new students, and increase use of the compound, he got agreement for additional student quarters. He also obtained new furniture for them, for the first time since the 1870s. The students were victims of rules which said that nothing could be replaced until the ‘absolute necessity’ of doing so had been demonstrated, and a ‘reasonable time’ had elapsed since the original purchase. Furniture in use for thirty years was ‘eaten away by the tooth of time’, and the latest batch of students had to buy ‘bedsteads, mattresses, cupboards, washing stands, tables, chairs, earth-closets and the like’, out of their ‘not excessive pay’. He got his way. Despite more telegraphic traffic, George Sansom found the pace leisurely on joining the embassy as the ambassador’s private secretary in 1907. Younger members of the embassy were expected to take an interest in Japan, and it was ‘thought rather priggish to attend the Chancery in the afternoon’. Most business was still by letter, the bag was monthly, and despatches written just before it closed. This gave Sansom the time for the reading which laid the foundation for his books. Others preferred the sporting opportunities. The embassy compound continued to surprise newcomers and visitors. Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, arriving as a student interpreter in 1913, thought it ‘a slice of Wimbledon flown out to Tokyo on a magic, green carpet’ while the residence looked ‘suitable for a late Victorian tycoon’. A visiting former diplomat, Lord Frederic Hamilton, became somewhat confused: The interior of our Embassy . . . was rather a surprise. Owing to the constant earthquakes . . . all the buildings have to be of wood. The British Embassy was built in London (I believe by a very well-known firm in Tottenham Court Road), and . . . shipped out . . . complete down to its last detail. The architect . . . unhappily took a glorified suburban villa as his model. So the Tokyo Embassy house is an enlarged ‘Belmont’, or ‘The Cedars’, or ‘Tokyo Towers’. Every familiar detail is there; the tiled hall, the glazed door into the garden, and the heavy mahogany chimney and overmantels. In the library, with its mahogany book-cases, green morocco chairs, and green plush curtains, it was difficult to realise that one was not in Hampstead or Upper Tooting.

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He was wrong about the building, but right about the earthquakes. On 1 September 1923, a warm, wet day, a huge earthquake struck Tokyo just before noon. Then, or as fires raged in the next forty hours, much of old Tokyo disappeared. With it went the British embassy. Reviewing 1923, Sir Charles Eliot, ambassador since 1920, noted that the shock of the ‘terrible earthquake’ had been less in Tokyo than in Yokohama, but even in Tokyo things had been bad. The compound was ruined. Only one house was totally destroyed, but all were uninhabitable, and had to be pulled down. All around was destruction, for the Kojimachi area was one of the worst hit in Tokyo. One Briton was killed in Tokyo, and over 120 died at Yokohama. They included two of the Yokohama consular staff and two from the embassy, all killed in the collapse of the consulate general. Eliot, on leave when the catastrophe occurred, worked on his return for substantial British aid, but without success, though he did persuade the British government to give £25,000 to Tokyo Imperial University to help restore its library. AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE: 1923–1940

Having established that staff in Tokyo were safe, the immediate need was a temporary office and housing. In September, an office, mainly concerned with consular matters, opened in the Imperial Hotel. While work began to provide an ambassadorial bungalow, Eliot lived in a rented house in Omote-cho, Akasaka. Others were forced to share. Major Piggott, the military attaché, was fortunate. He was at Chuzenji when the earthquake struck and although the house swayed, there was no hint of the devastation on the coast. His Tokyo house was damaged but habitable, although all the surrounding houses were burnt down. Piggott attributed this to the damp atmosphere created by a nearby ginkgo tree, but while the house stood, the tree died. For a time, various homeless colleagues shared the house. Eliot was moderately content with his bungalow on the devastated compound, though he found it very hot in summer and very cold in winter. Entertainment took place at the Imperial Hotel or in the compound grounds. His successor, Sir John Tilley, arriving in January 1926, was less happy. Most of the earthquake damage in the city had been cleared away, and only the British and one or two other embassy compounds were still desolate. All that remained of Parkes’ legation was a double avenue of cherry trees along the former outer wall. There were no walls, and barbed wire fences offering little protection. In November

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1926, a visitor reported that one recent intruder had thrown a dagger at the ambassador’s son, while another had been stopped from setting fire to a warehouse. Tilley took a poor view of the bungalow. He too found it hot in summer and cold in winter, noting that Eliot had been content to live in a building made out of ‘something called Canadian wood pulp’, the only merit of which was that it posed little danger if there was another earthquake. The house had large dining and drawing rooms, but no other sitting room, apart from the study. The bedrooms were small. There were also rats, who had moved in after the earthquake. There was an embassy cat, but Eliot refused to allow her into the bungalow after she produced kittens in the study. Now there were dead rats under the floorboards, while live ones raced around the frieze of the dining room. To solve the problem, the Tilleys persuaded the houseboys to swipe the rats down with brooms. Once on the floor, the Tilleys’ dog made short shrift of them. Big parties were held in the grounds. When the Duke of Gloucester came in 1929 to present the Order of the Garter to the Emperor, Indian ladies mingled with Boy Scouts and teachers, while the Salvation Army concentrated on reforming sailors and midshipmen from HMS ‘Suffolk’. As well as the residence bungalow and a makeshift office, there was a ‘very modest’ guesthouse, and a bungalow for the ambassador’s British servants, with a western bath, the Tilleys fearing that ‘any self-respecting British maid’ would give notice if faced with a Japanese one. Another bungalow served as the Japanese secretary’s house. In November 1927, Sansom, now commercial counsellor, and C J Davidson, the Japanese secretary, wrote objecting to its continued use. It had been tolerated on a temporary basis, but remained surrounded by rubble, was half the size of the original house, and half the size of the planned houses for counsellor-rank officers. They feared that it would be ‘at least ten years’ before they had permanent accommodation, since as consular service officers, their careers were in Japan, unlike the diplomats, who were there ‘2 or 3 years at the most’. They ‘naturally felt discontented with the miserable accommodation provided’, compared to that in China. One or both of them should be allowed to rent accommodation off the compound. If the house were used, it must be improved. After some debate, the work was done, and Sansom occupied the bungalow. Tilley revived the summer quarters at Chuzenji, which Eliot had not used. The Tilleys went there regularly, staying in the two storied

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Japanese-style house looking across to the 8,000 foot Nantai mountain. Access was on foot from Nikko railway station but the Tilleys began to use a car. Some protested, but before long there was a public service of cars. Sailing, walking and fishing were popular pastimes at Chuzenji. Meanwhile, Sir Richard Allison, Chief Architect of the Office of Works, designer of many public buildings, including the British legation in Stockholm and the main facade of the Science Museum, was drawing up plans for a new embassy. Apart from the ambassador’s residence, he included detached houses for the counsellors and for the (diplomatic) first secretary, four large semi-detached residences for the second and third secretaries, four smaller semi-detached houses for junior staff, servants’ ‘barracks’, outhouses, garages and gate lodges. Language students and the archivist would have rooms above the office block. All buildings would be earthquake proof. There was a squash court and two tennis courts. All would be set in lawns with low hedges, creating the sense of a large garden. The basic structures would be steel and concrete, with each building divided into earthquake resistance sections, with expansion joints from 4” to 12” wide, for maximum flexibility. External walls had pumice concrete backing for soundproofing and temperature changes. Externally, the buildings were coated with Japanese artificial stone, jinzoseki, resembling granite when set and grooved like granite blocks, (and ever since fooling residents into thinking that they live in granite houses). This was a great success, for it remained clean and smart. Japanese copper was used for the roofs, gutters and rainwater pipes. Windows and doors were of East Indies teak, and Japanese woods for internal woodwork and floors. Ornamentation was also in jinzoseki, while most of the internal fittings came from Britain. The style was ‘English renaissance’, and deemed an excellent combination of private and public, the residence, ‘a gentleman’s house to which a number of public offices have been attached’. Tilley, though never to live there, suggested changes to make it a more user friendly. The ballroom – finally conceded – should be open on one side, in case of earthquakes, and the kitchen was moved nearer the dining room. When Tilley left in late 1930, the leisurely pace was going. Chancery hours lengthened as telegrams demanded instant responses. The British dominions were seeking independent representation. Canada had shown signs of this as early as 1906 and in 1927–28, Tilley had to negotiate for a fully independent Canadian legation in Tokyo, which opened in 1929. Australia followed in 1940. Outside Tokyo, British officials

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continued to handle consular affairs for all dominions and the Irish Free State (Eire after 1937) until 1941. Tilley’s successor was Sir Francis Lindley. He was homeless at first, for the new residence was not complete when he arrived in July 1931, but the Canadian minister, due to go on leave, made his house available. When the residence was finished, in mid-September 1931, Lindley expressed himself pleased, but worried that it would be expensive to run, and suggested that he might take over a smaller house. But he reconciled himself to the expense, and wrote that while ‘the accommodation as regards bedrooms’ was not lavish, the living and reception rooms were ‘remarkably fine and suitable for their purpose.’ He recorded that Viscount Massey, former Canadian minister at Washington, thought the Tokyo residence ‘superior for entertaining purposes to Sir Edward Lutyens’ palace’, the British residence in Washington. The chancery was then already in use, with first floor accommodation for students and archivist. Lindley was also impressed by this building, the ‘most imposing and complete’ office that he had seen anywhere. Others were less impressed. Piggott, returning in 1936 for a further spell as military attaché, noted that ‘it would be idle to pretend that old hands thought [the embassy] an improvement in appearance or architecture on the original building’. Before long, the new compound was too small for all staff, and some were living out. The service attachés had offices on the compound, but lived elsewhere Arthur de la Mare, in 1937 a newly arrived student interpreter, at first lived in the student quarters above the chancery. He did not enjoy this, especially since the occupants were expected to provide pre-lunch gin for a procession of ‘Third Secretaries, cypher clerks, accountants, archivists, Naval, Military and Air Attaches, and their respective satraps, and all manner of other creatures all claiming both a right and a thirst’. This had hazards. During one session, a chief cipher clerk hid the code books for safe keeping, but could not remember where. The Foreign Office, having sent a ciphered telegram on Monday, expressed concern when it had not been answered by Friday. Fortunately, the Japanese maid remembered that the books were inside the gramophone. de la Mare was pleased at the end of his first year to leave the compound, and after his marriage in 1940, he continued to live in a Japanese house. The Lindleys left Japan in 1934. They were genial and friendly, and Sansom thought him the best ambassador he had known. Lindley’s

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successor was Sir Robert Clive, whose time in Tokyo coincided with Japan’s full-scale war in China in 1937, and deteriorating Anglo-Japanese relations. Like Lindley, Clive was popular with his embassy colleagues, as was his wife. Lady Sansom found her particularly witty and amusing. Clive was succeeded by Sir Robert Craigie. He had some familiarity with East Asian problems, and he and Piggott, now his military attaché, had worked together at the 1921 Washington Naval Conference, but had never worked there. To the Sansoms, the Craigies were uncongenial. Lady Sansom described Craigie as ‘experienced as a committee sort of man . . . [who]seems to have no idea what people are really like, let alone oriental ones’. Lady Craigie was ‘. . . an American from Georgia who means well but acts entirely autocratically’. Craigie made little use of Sansom, preferring Piggott, which may explain the lack of rapport. The Craigies arrived on 3 September 1937. In early July, Japanese and Chinese forces clashed at Luguoqiao, (Marco Polo bridge, south west of Peking), and a full-scale Sino-Japanese war was developing. On 26 August, the British ambassador in China, Sir Hughe KnatchballHugessen, was wounded when his car was attacked near Shanghai by aircraft with Japanese markings. The Japanese expressed regret, but denied their forces were involved. The British chargé d’affaires in Tokyo was instructed to seek an apology from the Japanese, warning that if it was not forthcoming, Craigie would be withdrawn on arrival. Craigie, at sea, was not aware of these exchanges, but wondered whether they should disembark. They did, but so uncertain was the future that they did not unpack for a fortnight. In due course, the Japanese acknowledged that an unfortunate incident had occurred, and provided an undertaking that everything would be done to ensure that no similar incidents should occur. It was less than demanded, but enough. The Craigies gradually relaxed. They were delighted with their welcome from the residence staff, who were to serve them loyally even after the outbreak of war. They were less impressed with their house. Craigie wrote: The Embassy was comparatively new. . . The house, built in the Georgian style . . . well proportioned and commodious. But the furniture and furnishings left much to be desired, both as regards quantity and quality. The bleak . . . rooms, the suffocating damp heat and the mosquitoes combined to produce a depressing effect at the outset. But this soon wore off. In our desire to leave nothing undone which might help to

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promote relations at this critical time, we had brought with us some of our best furniture, rugs and pictures. So we were consoled by the thought that we could make these rooms quite different.

The photographs in his memoirs, however, show rooms of remarkable dreariness, and far less pleasant than those which had adorned the pages of The Builder in 1933. It needed more than rugs and pictures to help improve Britain’s relations with Japan in 1937. By the late 1930s, anti-British feeling was strong. This was not new. In 1932, a group of ‘ill-kept youths’ had staged a protest at the embassy in favour of Gandhi. Then such anti-foreign hostility meant an increased police presence and instant action against those involved. Now it was different. That November, the embassy reported a series of demonstrations, and a large, hostile postbag. By the summer of 1939, the hostile tone of sections of the Japanese press, the receipt of anti-British petitions, and demonstrations featured in reporting. Most demonstrations seemed neither spontaneous nor dangerous. Life continued outwardly normal. General Piggott wrote enthusiastically of a dinner and film evening in May 1939 attended by senior Japanese military. The King’s Birthday Party on 8 June 1939 also saw the Japanese military out in force, and the foreign minister was present. Despite such optimism, Sansom, revisiting in 1940, noted outpourings of hostility and the open expression of anti-foreign feeling on the streets and in the newspapers. For the Craigies, Chuzenji provided escape from this atmosphere. There, in the house they believed Satow had built to which ‘modern European comforts’ had been added to the Japanese structure ‘without spoiling its original design’, they kept in touch with Tokyo by telephone, and sailed or fished with colleagues. They also rented a house at Hayama, a seaside resort 50 minutes by train from Tokyo, which was more accessible than Chuzenji. With new curtains and cushions, the removal of ‘Victorian excrescences’, and a backdrop of Mount Fuji, it was a useful place to entertain Japanese friends who might have been embarrassed to visit the embassy. WAR, DETENTION, AND REPATRIATION, 1941–42

Whatever the qualified optimism of General Piggott and the ambassador, war seemed increasingly likely. During 1940–41, the

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embassy and the consulates worked hard for the evacuation of Britons from the danger areas. Anti-British demonstrations continued. British subjects were being arrested in Tokyo, Seoul and elsewhere. The detention and apparent suicide of the Reuters’ correspondent in Tokyo in July 1940 caused widespread alarm in the foreign community. By the end of April 1941, some 1,040 British subjects, including 140 Indians, had left the Japanese empire and ‘Manchukuo’. Soon after, British and American shipping stopped calling at Japanese ports. After the freeze imposed on Japanese assets by Britain, the Netherlands and the United States in July 1941, when Japanese shipping ceased to operate except within the co-prosperity sphere, evacuation became harder, and soon the only route was through Shanghai. Even that became difficult as Japanese companies began discriminating against ‘hostile countries’, but special charter ships continued in use. By autumn 1941, all British subjects who were willing to go had done so. There remained 733 in Japan, 278 in ‘Manchukuo’, 58 in Korea, and 11 elsewhere. The embassy grew busier. Paul Gore Booth, arriving in early 1938 from Vienna, found the work harder. Chancery hours were 0900 to 1300 and 1430 to 1900, with no time for tea or gin. After September 1939, there were new tasks such as information work, and the Daily Mail Tokyo correspondent, Vere Redman, was appointed Press and Information officer. Sansom, visiting in summer 1940, wrote that ‘The Chancery is lousy with Ministry of Information staff, most of whom (not their fault) are ineffective and expensive’. On ‘the singularly weird morning of Monday 8 December 1941’, the embassy was functioning from 0500 hours, when Redman arrived for the radio watch required for putting out war bulletins. He reported that broadcasts from Lisbon and Ankara said that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbour. There had been similar reports before and bad reception made it uncertain that the news had been properly received. It was not until 0745, when Craigie was summoned to the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ official residence, that war came officially to the embassy. Although the minister did not announce the outbreak of war, he told Craigie that negotiations in Washington had broken down. On his return to the embassy, Craigie learnt that the Japanese radio was announcing ‘warlike operations’ against Britain and the United States. At 0820, the telephone was cut. Later that morning, Craigie went to see the US ambassador, Joseph Grew. At the British embassy

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everything seemed normal, but at the American embassy, police were out in force and controlling access. Craigie saw Grew with some difficulty, and when he returned, normality had disappeared. Extra police had arrived and the gates were closed. He was allowed in, then the gates shut. Craigie sent a telegram reporting his early morning call, the last normal embassy function. Telegrams still went, but via the Argentine embassy, since Argentina was the protecting power. Through this channel, Craigie later reported that the Japanese said that British diplomatic and consular staff throughout the Japanese empire and occupied territories were safe – they denied any knowledge of officials in ‘Manchukuo’. The Japanese government also claimed that the detainees were being carefully protected. Diplomats had the ‘greatest possible facilities’ to continue their normal lives, including purchasing food and other items, and even leaving their domiciles. To guarantee this, the Tokyo Chief of Police had visited each diplomatic mission on 9 December 1941, asking that any problems be reported to him. The reality was different. Returning to the compound from the American embassy on 8 December, Craigie found the head of the MFA’s British section, Mr Ohta, waiting to deliver a declaration of war, and demanding to search for a wireless transmitter. Craigie in turn requested a call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to ask for his passports. This was refused. Instead, Ohta, asked for the handover of the wireless transmitter on the premises. When Craigie denied – truthfully – that there was a transmitter, Ohta announced that he would search the compound, though he agreed not to search the residence. He removed all the short wave radio receivers he could find, promising they would be returned. In the meantime, the Japanese brought in those living outside. Some were handled in rough and ready fashion by anxious policemen, but the main complaint that day was about the treatment of Mrs Redman. She sent a message that she was being held as a hostage until her husband’s return from the embassy, preparatory to his arrest. It required much effort, including an unsuccessful expedition by Lady Craigie, to effect her release. The embassy chaplain, Mr Simonds, was held for several days before he too was released and allowed to join the detained group. By the end of 8 December 1941, the expatriate population of the compound had tripled. (In London, the Foreign Office esti-

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mated that there were 43 men and 15 women staff, 16 wives and ‘perhaps 9 children’ on the compound.) Many had arrived for work unaware that war had begun and had only the clothes they were wearing. There was a major logistics exercise to fit the new arrivals into the available space, and a lack of beds, but the Danish consul general’s wife arrived with camp beds, which she managed to get in despite police efforts to prevent her. Food was another problem, solved, like clothing, by pooling resources. Domestic caches were commandeered, while the release of supplies which arrived at Kobe before the outbreak of war provided variety in a monotonous diet, and allowed the making of three-quarters of a ton(!) of marmalade, most of which went to prisoner-of-war camps. For the bulk of its food, the embassy was dependent on Japanese supplies. Even when regular, these were barely sufficient. Craigie placed control of food supplies with Mrs Mason, the mother of the vice-consul. She ruled with a rod of iron, was never accused of unfairness, and received an OBE for her efforts. Much effort went into negotiations with the Japanese. The police were at first intrusive, regularly visiting all houses on the compound. After a series of meetings with the MFA and the Tokyo Police chief, this stopped. Two Japanese speaking officers, Henry Sawbridge and John Mason, conducted business with the police at the main gate, engaging in complex negotiations over simple matters. Issues that could not be settled there involved the protecting power. The efforts of the Argentine chargé, Senor Vila, were complicated at first by a Japanese refusal to accept his role, though Vila evaded restrictions by conversing with Craigie through the gates. After protests, Vila was allowed to visit. At first, a Japanese liaison officer was present, but eventually that too stopped. Early in 1942, Switzerland took over as protecting power. The most serious incidents involving the protecting power were the arrest and detention of embassy and consular officers. At Yokohama, three members of staff were arrested in late December, interrogated, maltreated, and imprisoned until repatriated in July 1942. R. Hawley, director of the cultural and information library in Tokyo, was also arrested, accused of espionage. He too was imprisoned until repatriated. The most serious case was that of Redman. The Japanese had always been suspicious about Redman’s appointment, and their treatment of his wife on 8 December showed they wanted to arrest him. There was ambiguity about his status. Although appointed in

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early 1940, it was not until October 1941 that the embassy sought diplomatic status for him, and negotiations on his position were still in train when war broke out. In December 1941, therefore, he appeared as a member of the embassy’s clerical and support staff. On 11 December 1941 the Japanese sought Craigie’s agreement, through Vila, for his arrest. Craigie refused, arguing that Redman’s work was not directed against Japan but concerned solely with countering German and Italian propaganda. Hoping that the ambassador’s roof might provide extra protection, Craigie moved the Redmans into his residence. It was in vain. The chief of the MFA’s protocol department, Mr Kiuchi, asked Craigie to reconsider his refusal. Craigie declined, and on 13 December, Kiuchi arrived in top hat and tails, to announce Redman’s arrest. A party of gendarmes burst in and led Redman away. The Japanese assured Craigie that they were aware of Redman’s diabetes and that he would receive treatment. Instead, he was deprived of insulin for long periods, severely interrogated and confined to a small cell until released in July 1942 just prior to repatriation. During this period, he received one visit from the Swiss minister and one from his wife. For most, internment meant monotony. Some regular work continued; political reports were compiled from Japanese media reports, and the events of early December were carefully chronicled. Paul Gore-Booth and a colleague compiled an inventory of British business and personal property in Japan. A concealed short-wave receiver provided news, supplementing the Japanese press and radio. This could only be disseminated in roundabout ways but it helped to put Japanese claims into perspective. The first ‘Doolittle raids’ in April 1942 provided a test for the embassy’s ARP staff, and a sign that Japan would not have things all its own way. There were a variety of classes in languages and other skills, including Scottish dancing on the squash courts. Tennis and squash helped some, gardening and wood cutting others. Craigie put the compound gardens in order. Various publications appeared. There was music, including an embassy orchestra, and occasional parties. It was possible to go outside for medical and dental treatment, and, in Lady Craigie’s case at least, for shopping. The King’s Birthday dinner took place in a room bedecked with paper Union flags, which her police escort had carefully sorted in one of the shops. The orchestra played, and the MFA sent a film.

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As spring gave way to summer, the Japanese suggested the embassy move to Chuzenji. But most did not want the expense involved, and the Japanese were adamant that all or none went. Craigie became ill and he and his wife were allowed to go to Miyanoshita in early July, where they found many other diplomatic detainees. They returned as final preparations began for repatriation. In accordance with well-understood principles of international law, diplomatic and consular staff expected to be repatriated. The first moves came from the Japanese who proposed on 7 January 1942 that negotiations should begin for the repatriation of all officials, nonpermanent residents, and women and children among permanent residents in Japan, ‘Manchukuo’ and occupied China. This led to long, complex internal negotiations in London, while the United States and Canada began a set of separate negotiations, leading to an abortive attempt at a cordinated movement. Since any exchange would include Allied and Dominion representatives, those governments also had to be consulted. Shipping was a problem. The British Ministry of War Transport was reluctant to make shipping needed for the necessities of war available for the repatriation of civilians. There was no guaranteed ship by the time a reply accepting the proposal was sent to the Japanese on 17 April 1942. Craigie sat in Tokyo, sending petulant telegrams. He was vaguely aware of what was going on, concerned at British slowness, and the apparent success of the US in getting their detainees out ahead of the British. In London, there was some gritting of teeth, but the stress was understood, and soft answers returned. Eventually, in July 1942, all was ready. There were last minute hitches at both ends, as people failed to appear on lists, or, in the case of one Japanese group, were discovered after the evacuation ship had sailed. (It returned to Liverpool to take them off.) In the Tokyo case, London was relieved to learn on 1 August 1942 that the ‘Tatuta Maru’ had left Japan at 0600 Tokyo time on 31 July. Three weeks later, the formal exchange took place at the Portuguese colony of Lourenço Marques. Craigie sent more telegrams, complaining at Japanese behaviour over the exchange, and complicating matters he did not understand. Before long, however, he and his colleagues moved on to London and other destinations. The Tokyo embassy was left empty, looked after by Japanese servants and the Swiss Legation. It survived the war, with virtually no damage, and was occupied by British forces in 1945. But what happened thereafter is another story.

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Embassies in the East will be published by the Curzon Press later in the year and is part of a planned larger series. NOTE ON SOURCES

This paper is based mainly on published and unpublished British records, and contemporary press accounts. In addition, the following publications have been useful. Full references can be supplied if required. Bernard M Allen, The Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Satow, GCMG: A Memoir, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner, 1933). Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, ‘The meeting of John Paris and Japan’, tsuru, vol. 3, no. 1, (September 1973). Isabella L Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An Account of Travels in the interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of NikkÛ, (London: John Murray, second edition 1911) Lady Brassey, A Voyage in the Sunbeam: Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months, (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1878, reprinted London: Century Publishing House, 1984). Sir Hugh Cortazzi, ‘The First British Legation in Japan (1859–1874)’, The Japan Society of London Bulletin, No. 102, (October 1984), pp. 25–50. Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, editors, Britain and Japan, 1859– 1991: Themes and Personalities, ( London: Routledge, 1991). Sir Robert Craigie, Behind the Japanese Mask, (London: Hutchinson and Co, N. D. [1945]), pp. 42–43. Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, British representative in Japan 1865–83, (Richmond, Surrey Japan Library, 1996). Sir Arthur de la Mare, Perverse and Foolish: A Jersey farmer’s son in the British Diplomatic Service, (Jersey, Channel Islands: La Haule Books, 1994). Mrs Hugh Fraser, A Diplomat’s Wife in Japan: Letters from Home to Home, (London: Hutchinson and Co., N.D.) Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect, (London: 1974). Lord Frederic Hamilton, Vanished Pomps, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920). Peter Lowe, ‘The Dilemmas of an Ambassador: Sir Robert Craigie in Tokyo, 1937–1941’, in Gordon Daniels and Peter Lowe, editors, Proceedings of the British Association for Japanese Studies, Vol. II, (1977): History and International Relations, pp. 34–56. Patricia McCabe, Gaijin Botchi: The Foreigners’ Cemetery, Yokohama, (London: British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, 1994). Ian Nish, editor, Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. 1, ( Folkestone, Kent: Japan Library, 1994); vol. 2, (Richmond, Surrey: 1997).

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F. T. Piggott, Broken Thread, (Aldershot, Hants: Gale and Polden, 1950). Katherine Sansom, Sir George Sansom and Japan: A Memoir, (Tallahassee, Florida: The Diplomatic Press, 1972). Sir John Tilley, London to Tokyo, (London, New York and Melbourne: Hutchinson and Co. Ltd., N.D.).

Source: Hoare, edit., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. III. Richmond, England: Japan Library, 1999, pp. 99–107, 361–363.

6

Captain Francis Brinkley (1842–1912): Yatoi, Scholar and Apologist v

When captain Francis (Frank) Brinkley died aged 73 in Tokyo in October 1912, the anonymous commentator in the Annual Registrar wrote that he had been the ‘chief interpreter of Japanese ideas and views to the Western world’, through his journalism and scholarship.1 Brinkley’s long residence in Japan, spanning over forty years, his varied interests, reflected in his published works, his links with some of the great leaders of the Meiji period, and his journalism, all seemed to qualify him as one who would rank with Satow, Aston and Chamberlain as one of the giants of Britain’s involvement in Japan. Today, however, Brinkley’s name, while occasionally remembered in Japan, especially as a journalist – he features in the Kodansha Encyclopaedia of Japan, for example – is hardly known outside a very small circle in the West. His books on art and history have never been reprinted. Only his Dictionary, which in 1896 replaced the earlier dictionary by J. C. Hepburn as a prime tool for foreigners learning Japanese, remains in somewhat limited use as a guide to Meiji usage. THE SOLDIER AND YATOI

Brinkley was born in Ireland, and went to school in Dublin. There are no available details of his family background, although at his death there were references to his coming from a ‘good Irish family’. Although the editor of the Japan Punch, in 1883 lumped him in with Parnell as a ‘self boiled lost potato’, suggesting that he return to join 64

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other potatoes,2 evidence from editorial writing in the Japan Mail, the newspaper which he owned from 1881 until his death, indicates that Brinkley came from a Unionist rather than a Nationalist background; the Mail regularly attacked Irish revolutionaries and Irish ingratitude at British rule, and was particularly scathing about the activities of Irish-American groups. It was also generally unsympathetic to Roman Catholic missionaries, which perhaps points to Brinkley coming from a Protestant background.3 Brinkley joined the army, passed out from the artillery school at Woolwich in south London, and joined the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant. In 1867, he went to Hong Kong as private secretary and ADC to the Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, who was almost certainly a relative.4 He appears to have held this post for only one year, for all records agree that he was in Japan by late 1867. He was not ‘part of the legation guard’, as is sometimes claimed, but was a member of the British garrison stationed at Yokohama since 1863 to protect the foreign community from attack. Although an artillery officer, he was attached to the 10th Regiment of Foot.5 From his earliest days in Japan, Brinkley applied himself to the study of Japanese, and by the early 1870s, when he was asked by the Fukui han to become a gunnery instructor, the British legation noted that he was completely fluent in the language.6 Brinkley was keen to take up the offered post, and asked to be placed on the seconded list. The Foreign Office had no objection; indeed it was the policy of the British minister in Japan, Sir Harry Parkes, to get as many Japanese posts as possible into British hands. The War Office, however, would not agree to such a move at Brinkley’s request; the impetus had to come from the Japanese authorities. Although the files examined show no evidence of such a formal request, presumably one was made, for by the end of 1871, the way was clear for Brinkley’s appointment.7 His name remained on the Army List as a lieutenant on secondment as a drill instructor (sic) employed by the Japanese government. By the time Brinkley was free to take up his appointment, the han had been abolished, but he was instead offered a post with the newlyestablished naval college as an artillery instructor. Later, from 1874, he taught English at the same institute, and from 1878–80, he joined the Public Works Department as a teacher (sometimes described as ‘Professor’) of mathematics in the Engineering College.8 Perhaps he remained most attached to the navy; in later years, his newspaper was certainly a strong supporter of the build-up of the Japanese Navy.

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Brinkley’s yatoi career followed the standard path for Japan’s foreign employees. He moved from one post to another, was reasonably wellpaid although his salary dropped somewhat each time he moved, was accorded a moderate amount of respect, and dismissed when there were suitable Japanese replacements.9 Perhaps understandably, the definition of yatoi in his 1896 Japanese-English Dictionary, was less than fulsome: ‘Yatoi: . . . a government employé (not a regular official); lowest grade of officials . . .’.10 Whatever the drawbacks, Brinkley had time for study and writing, and during these years he established a reputation as a scholar of things Japanese. As a side product of his teaching at the engineering college, he produced a textbook, Go-gaku hitori annai, (‘Lessons in English for Japanese’). Evidence of his ability in Japanese was shown in the various translations he published in the treaty port press, including the ‘Tales of Taikoo’, while Ernest Satow, the Japanese secretary at the British legation, acknowledged his help in compiling a Japanese dictionary.11 The loss of his library, of ‘over a thousand volumes’ and many manuscripts in a fire in 1877, must have reduced his output.12 He was active in other ways. He was a founder member of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1873, and remained a member until his death. For many years, until illness took its toll, he was clearly an active participant in the Society’s affairs. After 1881, he also provided support through his newspaper; the Japan Weekly Mail carried the minutes of the Society’s meetings and often the full text of papers delivered. Brinkley’s only known contribution to the Society’s formal activities was an unpublished paper presented during the 1880–81 season on ‘The history of Japanese keramics’. He also contributed papers to other journals.13 During his period as a yatoi, Brinkley, like many of his contemporaries, acquired a Japanese mistress. She was Sei, the daughter of Wakabayashi Tahei. They had a son, Harry, born in 1878, but Sei died soon after. Later that year, Brinkley concluded a marriage contract with Tanaka Yasu. Although she was a Christian, there was no Christian wedding and no attempt to register the marriage for some years after they had set up house. That he was married to a Japanese and had a Japanese family, was one of the reasons Brinkley would cite later for his positive and supportive view of Japan, but it brought with it its own difficulties. These were two-fold. One related to the status of the marriage. Theoretically, since the arrangements between Brinkley and Tanaka Yasu had not been registered with either the Japanese or the British

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authorities, there was no marriage in the eyes of either country. This was resolved, as far as the Japanese were concerned, when Yasu applied for the marriage to be registered with the Tokyo authorities in 1884. It was more difficult to persuade the British, but in 1890 the British government accepted that the marriage was valid, since Brinkley had gone through a form of marriage recognized as such by the Japanese authorities. The resolution of the Brinkley case had an importance beyond the Brinkley family for hitherto the British authorities had refused to recognize such ‘local law’ marriages. The second problem related to the children. Tanaka Yasu settled the issue of Harry’s status by adopting him as her son, and he was thus entered on her family register, as was the Brinkleys’ daughter, Dorothy, born in 1881. When the marriage was registered by the Japanese, however, Yasu ceased to be the head of a household, and six-year old Harry took on the role. The Brinkleys wanted the children registered as British but this was refused until the marriage was recognized. Then the Japanese authorities refused to recognize the children as Japanese, and for the rest of their days, they remained British citizens.14 JOURNALIST AND APOLOGIST

When Brinkley left Japanese government employment at the end of 1880, he underwent another career change, for he purchased a Yokohama newspaper, the Japan Mail. At the same time, he remained an army officer, not resigning until forced to do so in late 1881 – though he would later claim that his resignation dated from 31 December 1880. In 1883, a correspondent to the Royal Artillery magazine, Broad Arrow, writing from Japan, noted that Brinkley’s name still appeared in the Army List, and enquired whether it was possible to be both a newspaper owner and an army officer. The Broad Arrow editor replied that Brinkley was no longer on the Army List, and the Mail was in ‘capital hands’. Brinkley reprinted this in the Mail, with a note claiming that he had resigned from the Royal Artillery on 31 December 1880, having been eligible for a retirement pension from 23 June 1880.15 In fact, Brinkley’s promotion to Captain and resignation from the Royal Artillery was not carried in the London Gazette until November 1882 (and then only because he had been given the choice of resigning or returning to his regiment). For over two years, therefore, he had owned and edited the Japan Mail while still, in theory at least, in the British army.16 It was perhaps not surprising that some felt Brinkley was not to be trusted.

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In taking over the Japan Mail,17 Brinkley did not entirely sever his links with the Japanese government. The Mail, founded in 1865, and originally called the Japan Times, had acquired a somewhat doubtful reputation. It was a good newspaper in terms of literacy and general content, at least when set against the relatively low standards of Japanese treaty port journalism. Since 1870, however, when the original proprietor had sold it to a consortium made up of Horatio Nelson Lay, the first foreign commissioner of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and W. G Howell, late of Shanghai and Hakodate, there were suspicions that the Japan Mail, as the new owners renamed the Japan Times, had links to the Japanese government. The exact relationship was never clear, and Brinkley denied on several occasions that he received a direct subsidy. But it had been admitted in court in the mid-1870s that the Japanese government subscribed to five hundred copies of the Japan Weekly Mail, no small boost to a newspaper operating in the world of the treaty ports. The fact that the newspaper could boast in 1883 of the largest circulation in Japan, and the long runs of the Mail from the 1880s to c.1906 existing in a number of overseas libraries outside Japan, indicate that this was one way the Japanese government helped Brinkley. Another may have been through payments to allow the Mail to subscribe to Reuters’ telegrams; from 1883 until the late 1890s, only the Mail was able, or willing, to do this. (The benefits of having this exclusive service were undermined by the flagrant copying of the telegrams by both foreign and Japanese newspapers.)18 Contemporaries had few doubts on the score, and however many denials were issued, Brinkley was regarded as in Japanese pay. Whatever his motives, the Mail under Brinkley followed a consistent proJapanese line on all major issues. Whether it was policies towards Korea or China, or questions of more immediate interest to his theoretical readership in the treaty ports, such as treaty revision, or the merits of the British minister in Japan, Sir Harry Parkes, Brinkley favoured the Japanese position. It was this constant support that seemed remarkable to observers. Few were surprised at occasional shifts to a pro-Japanese position; that could be bought by judicious purchase of advertising space. But Brinkley’s steady support for so long a period required another explanation, and again, it was seen as lying in Japanese government funds. As the British vice-consul in Tokyo wrote in 1893 when Brinkley was considering renouncing probate over the will of his friend and fellow supporter of Japan, Major-General Palmer: ‘Some of the assets will be in the nature of claims on the Japanese Government

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which it would be difficult for [Brinkley] to press adequately with due regard to the interests of the estate.’19 As well as supporting the Japanese position through the Japan Mail, Brinkley did so as an occasional correspondent for the London Times from 1885 to 1897, and thereafter from 1897 to 1912, as its permanent Tokyo correspondent. Before Brinkley, the Times permanent correspondent had been his friend Major-General Palmer, and for several years, therefore, the Times advocated similar policies to those supported by the Japan Mail. The link did not go unnoticed. As one newspaper put it, the two might seem to be independent of each other, but ‘the Times’ letters are the reverberation and distant echoes of the Mail’s thunders . . . [T]here is one voice only, and that is the voice of the scholarly editor of the Japan Mail . . .’.20 Brinkley’s importance as a correspondent for the Times is hard to judge. Palmer’s work was certainly valued; the British minister reported in 1890 that the main reason behind his employment on the Yokohama waterworks project in 1887 was his support in the Times. Brinkley was perhaps less useful, since his appointment as correspondent was well-known, as was his ownership of the Mail. He was never the only Times correspondent in Japan; there were others at Yokohama and Kobe, who were often less favourable in their estimate of Japan and Japanese policies. His pro-Japanese views certainly fitted in with the paper’s editorial line during the years 1895–1905, and his support for an Anglo-Japanese Alliance was well-known and vindicated by the conclusion of just such an agreement in 1902. The official history of the Times, however, barely mentions him. More influential on Japanese matters were its China correspondent, G. E. Morrison, and Valentine Chirol, the foreign editor.21 A lesser charge against Brinkley was that of aloofness and distance from his readers. Some argued that although the Mail continued to be published in Yokohama and claimed to speak for the ‘thinking’ foreign community in Japan, or to represent ‘the best views’ of the treaty ports, Brinkley was out of touch with those views. Though there was some truth in the charge, for Brinkley never lived in Yokohama after 1871, and rarely visited the port in later years, he defended himself vigorously. In an editorial in 1891, after the Japan Gazette had raised the issue, the Mail dismissed the implied claim that Yokohama was the centre of the universe. Since the Mail could not afford to employ many reporters, the editor had to collect news himself, and the place for news was Tokyo, not Yokohama. It was also ‘a trifle childish’ to argue that he was

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unaware of the views of foreigners: ‘Tokyo has a foreign community not altogether undeserving of consideration at the hands of an editor.’22 In his later years, however, the charge became more accurate as Brinkley left the day-to-day running of the paper to his managing editor, J. E. Beale. In 1912, the Japan Times, in paying tribute to his long years of support for Japan, also pointed out that by the time of his death, many of the senior Japanese he had known, such as ltō Hirobumi, had passed from the scene, and that Brinkley had become out of touch with modern Japanese thinking. By then, Brinkley was not just out of touch with the foreign community in Yokohama; the London Times’ obituary in 1912 noted that it was thirty years since he had visited Europe. It could have added that it was many years since he had even visited the Chinese ports.23 THE SCHOLAR

Brinkley’s involvement with Japan was not confined to journalism. He had many contacts amongst the senior statesmen who made up the Meiji oligarchy. During one of the Korean crises of the Meiji period, he accompanied the then foreign minister, Inoue Kaoru, to China in 1885. As so often with Brinkley, his role is not clear, but whatever it was, the Japanese government were ready to decorate him, until stopped by British objections. The Japan Punch suggested that he should adopt Japanese costume on such occasions, just as the Korean government’s German adviser, Paul von Moellendorff, had taken to wearing Korean clothes.24 As well as being on good terms with Inoue, Brinkley was believed to have close links with Itō Hirobumi.25 He was also an adviser to Nippon Yūsen Kaisha (NYK), the Japan Mail Steamship Company established in 1885, (as were a number of other prominent Western journalists in Japan), though it is not clear in what capacity or for how long; he was still listed as a foreign adviser in 1906 but by then he was already ill. Neither he nor other foreigners employed as advisers are mentioned in the most recent history of the company, which makes clear that by 1900 even foreign professionals such as ships’ captains were being dismissed from the company.26 Whatever his links with NYK, a company strongly associated with Mitsubishi, for many years he lived in a house in Azabu owned by Baron Mitsui, which he filled with Chinese and Japanese antiques – a visitor shown part of the collection in 1889 felt that ‘Brinkley’s godown [warehouse] had no bottom’.27 At his death, Brinkley’s contribution

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to scholarship was widely regarded as every bit as important as his journalism in educating the world about Japan. He devoted much effort to assembling collections of Japanese and Chinese art and artefacts. Despite the fires that periodically sent him back to the beginning, by the mid-1880s he had a well-established reputation as a connoisseur, always willing to show his collection to those interested. Ceramics were his first love, but he also assembled an important collection of woodblock prints. He had always held sales of parts of his collections, but in the last decade of his life, he seems to have made a systematic effort to sell or give away much of the remainder. His Chinese ceramics were sold to the Iwasaki family, for example, and much of his woodblock collection went to the New York Public Library.28 To some extent Brinkley’s scholarly writings derived from his collections, and he published at least one catalogue based on his holdings. He continued translating, publishing versions of various Noh and Kyogen plays, and the official History of the Empire of Japan, produced by the Education Ministry for the 1893 World’s Columban Exhibition in Chicago. In 1896, he published An unabridged Japanese-English dictionary, a 1687-page work, produced with help from a number of Japanese scholars. Many dictionaries have appeared since 1896, but Brinkley’s remains important as a record of the Japanese language at the end of the Meiji period. As such, it still retains value for scholars, and was reprinted in 1963.29 In 1897, he edited a twelve-volume account of history, art and social customs written by Japanese.30 He produced two other main works. One was a twelve volume account of Japan and China: their history, arts and literature, which appeared between 1901 and 1904. Volumes 1–8 dealt with Japan, 9–12 with China. The work was lavishly illustrated with photographs of places and objects, and there was an original watercolour frontispiece for each volume. The second, published after his death, was A history of the Japanese people from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji period, produced in collaboration with Baron Kikuchi Dairoku (1855–1917), a distinguished scholar and Education Minister from 1901 to 1903. It, too, was big and lavishly illustrated.31 Neither has lasted. Even though Brinkley was an acknowledged art expert, his methods and approach have long been superseded. As for his work as an historian, it was not even held in high regard at the time. Basil Hall Chamberlain wrote of the history of China and Japan that parts of it were interesting, but that the volumes on China could

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be ignored as slight. As for those on Japan, while Brinkley ‘let in light’ on the neglected art history and the social customs of the Japanese, the work as a whole was flawed: . . . in the domain of history proper his loose method, his failure to quote original authorities, and above all his lack of the critical faculty render him an unsafe guide, except for the events of the last forty years whose gradual unfolding he has personally watched.

Chamberlain in practice made more use of Brinkley’s works than this might imply, but it was a damning indictment, published while Brinkley was still alive.32 CONCLUSION

Brinkley died on 22 October 1912. Just before his death, he received the Sacred Order of Merit and the Double Rays of the Order of the Rising Sun in recognition of his services to Japan. (He had previously held the Order of the Scared Treasure, Third Class, a standard award for foreign employees.) The obituaries were fulsome, noting his support for Japan over many years and his scholarly interests, but there were frequent references to a man who had been left behind as the world changed rapidly around him. In his last years, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and had steadily withdrawn from journalism. He dispersed his art collections and saw fewer people. Japan, too, was different, and no longer needed foreign apologists. In 1899, new treaties replaced the ‘unequal treaties’ of Bakumatsu days. The 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance accorded Japan international status undreamed of when Brinkley bought the Mail in 1881. The RussoJapanese War (1904–5) completed acceptance of Japan as one of the ‘powers’. Since 1897, in any case, it had its own English-language newspaper, the Japan Times, to put forward its views.33 Even as a journalist, Brinkley no longer counted. Nor did he count in other ways. Few of his British contemporaries in Japan held him in much esteem. His fellow editors attacked his proJapanese views and mocked his scholarship. Scholars who shared his interests were less vitriolic in public, but equally contemptuous. Basil Hall Chamberlain, writing in 1906, felt that Brinkley was an awful warning of what happened if one got stuck in a rut. Satow generally

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tried to avoid him, and wrote privately after his death that he had not trusted him.34 Few now read his scholarly works, which, lacking the depth of his contemporaries such as Chamberlain and Aston, have long since been replaced. His main monument remains the Japan Mail, still valued as a source for the history of the Meiji period and, thanks to the Japanese government, relatively widely available. As Britain and Japan grew apart in the 1920s and ‘30s, Brinkley’s support for Japan, if remembered at all, was seen in a hostile light, and his reputation has never recovered.

Source: Britain and Japan Biographical Portraits Vol. 4. London: Japan Library, 2002, pp. 111–117, 424–425.

7

William Keswick, 1835–1912: Jardine’s Pioneer in Japan v

William Keswick was an important figure in Jardine-Matheson’s role in China and Japan, and in the London-based Matheson and Company, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards until his death in 1912, yet he has scarcely received the attention that might have been expected from this long involvement in East Asian trade. He is curiously absent from the current Dictionary of National Biography, though several of his Jardines’ relations are so honoured. His Who was Who entry, based on his own account of himself, is amazingly brief, omitting both his wives, and what many would see as his major role in the China Association, for example, though noting his onetime membership of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. His role as a Conservative MP from 1899 and his appointment as JP and High Sheriff for Surrey receive as much prominence as his work in Asia. His years in Japan, where he established Jardine’s presence immediately after the 1858 treaties allowed foreign residence, go wholly unnoticed. William Keswick was born on 1 January 1835, according to his Who was Who entry, though most sources say 1834, in the Scottish lowlands. A nephew of William Jardine, he attended Merchiston’s school in Edinburgh, and went out to China in 1855, the first of five generations of the Keswick family to be associated with Jardines. His younger brother, James Johnstone Keswick, also joined the company in China. By that stage, Jardine, Matheson, which can trace its origins back to 1782 and a bewildering collection of intermediate names, was well-established on the Chinese coast, though faced with major rivals such as Dent 74

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and Company, and was distancing itself from its early role in the more questionable aspects of the China trade.1 Naturally enough, Jardines was interested in the new trading possibilities opening up in East Asia in the 1850s, as the pressure increased on Japan to abandon its isolation. Before the treaties permitted formal trade with Japan, Jardines had traded in Japanese products usually through the Ryukyu islands or Taiwan, although there was also contact with Chinese merchants established at Nagasaki. The trade, officially forbidden by the Japanese authorities, was always small, but no doubt it served to whet appetites.2 The earliest treaties with Japan, concluded by United States’ and British naval officers in 1853 and 1854, had been little concerned with trade. Supplying ships and coaling stations were at the forefront of the sailors’ minds, not the needs of merchants; the latter had to wait for later treaties, beginning with the Dutch and Russian treaties of 1857. These allowed trade at Nagasaki and the northern port of Hakodate. Using these treaties, Western merchants from the China coast began to test the Japanese market. Not surprisingly, Jardines, increasingly seen as among the principal China coast traders, was among these pioneers. William Keswick, now just 24, first visited Nagasaki on a Jardines’ ship in January 1859, returning again in March 1859. He was impressed by the Japan trade’s potential, although in fact early attempts at trade were not very successful. But the quality of Japanese silk, in particular, struck Keswick as good and he was optimistic about the future possibilities. This early trade included the standard staples of the China coast trade; textiles of various sorts, special woods and medicines were bought by the Japanese, while the Westerners bought Japanese coal, dried fish, seaweed, shark skins and rice.3 Later, in summer 1859, Keswick visited Hakodate, the northernmost of the ports open to trade, which he found sadly lacking in both amenities and trade potential.4 it was already obvious that neither Nagasaki nor Hakodate had the hinterlands that would allow them to develop into major trading settlements. They were indeed destined to remain commercial backwaters for the rest of the nineteenth century. The real beginning of the Japan trade had to await the United States and British treaties of 1858. The American treaty came first, negotiated by Townsend Harris, and signed on 4 July 1858. it provided for foreign trade and residence at Kanagawa, near to the capital, Edo, as well as at Nagasaki and Hakodate. The British treaty, the Treaty of Edo,

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was negotiated by the Earl of Elgin and signed on 26 August 1858. it drew on Harris’s treaty but also reflected British experience in China, from where Elgin had come after lengthy negotiations to settle the second Anglo-China war, also known as the ‘Arrow War’. Scarcely had the treaty been signed, indeed, when Elgin returned to China, where the Chinese refusal to accept the ‘Arrow War’ settlement led to two more years of fighting.5 The 1858 treaties came into force on 4 July 1859. By that date, a number of ships were already awaiting entry to the newly-opened port at Kanagawa, bringing with them some twenty merchants. Among the ships was the Jardines’ vessel, Nora, with William Keswick on board. Keswick had with him a cargo of cotton goods, sugar, candy and elastic bands, together with $40,000 Mexican, during this period the standard currency on the China coast. The merchants who arrived at the Kanagawa port found that there was nothing prepared for their arrival and that its anchorage was a poor one. instead, the Japanese had erected a number of houses and jetties, across the bay at a small village called Yokohama. These arrangements were designed to attract the foreign merchants away from Kanagawa. Yokohama had a good deep-water anchorage, which appealed to the foreigners, but it had other advantages that appealed to the Japanese authorities. Kanagawa sat on the Tokaido, the great road connecting Edo with Kyoto, where the Japanese Emperor lived in seclusion, and the Japanese had no desire to see foreigners established there. instead, by digging ditches they had turned Yokohama into an easily controlled enclave, reminiscent of Deshima, the artificial island in Nagasaki harbour that had been home for the visiting merchants of the Netherlands East india Company from the mid-seventeenth century onwards.6 At the same time as the merchants arrived, so did a number of Western diplomats, joining Townsend Harris, whose lonely vigil now came to an end. The diplomats were appalled by the Japanese moves, and strongly advised the merchants against accepting what they saw as a Japanese trick. instead, they argued that Kanagawa was the port named in the treaty, and the foreign settlement should be at that place and not at Yokohama. Their entreaties fell on deaf ears. To the merchants, the advantages of having prepared buildings and access to the better anchorage at Yokohama outweighed the disadvantages of Japanese control. To a man – there were scarcely any women in those early days – they

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accepted the Japanese offer. Among the first to do so was William Keswick of Jardines. He wrote that he could understand the diplomats’ position, but that for those engaged in trade, the advantages of Yokohama far outweighed those of Kanagawa. The latter might be written into the treaty, but it was the former that had the deep water, the jetties and the buildings that were needed to start trading.7 Sir Rutherford Alcock,8 the British representative, and his fellow ministers were not impressed by the merchants’ decision, which played into the Japanese wish to isolate foreigners, but they were powerless to prevent it. The only redress left to British officials was the formal refusal to accept that Yokohama was the treaty port; until the 1880s, therefore, consular despatches were dated from Kanagawa, ignoring the fact that, like his trading fellow countrymen, the consul sat in Yokohama. The decision to occupy the Japanese-built premises at Yokohama was to be one of the many incidents that would build up mutual resentment between merchants and diplomats at Yokohama. in Alcock’s case, this led to an estrangement that lasted until he left Japan for China in 1865. That is to run ahead. in Yokohama itself there was another immediate problem in July 1859. Whatever the advantages of Yokohama over Kanagawa, they were not reflected in the early trade of the new port. The Japanese government might have established a port at Yokohama, and the foreigners might have decided to use it, but major Japanese companies such as Mitsui9 were not at first interested. They took the decision to isolate the foreigners as a sign that expanded trade was not welcome to the Japanese government, and that it would be better not to engage with the new arrivals. Such Japanese merchants as came to Yokohama were operating on a small-scale and were underfunded. They were also restricted in every way by their own authorities, who, having been forced to accept the opening of the ports, were now doing their best to prevent the development of commerce. The result was that trade remained poor. As one historian has written, ‘Seaweed and lacquer boxes’ could not provide the basis for a worthwhile trade.10 Soon there was another dispute involving the merchants, with Jardines, and Keswick, almost certainly taking the lead. This, too, was an attempt to control trade, by currency exchange. Because of the difficulties over exchange that he had faced in his residence in Japan from 1857 onwards, Townsend Harris included in his 1858 treaty a provision whereby the Mexican dollar, could circulate alongside Japanese

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coins on a weight-for-weight basis. However, Japanese merchants would not take Mexican dollars because the Japanese authorities would not allow their use outside the treaty ports. And when the Japanese traders came to exchange Mexican dollars for Japanese currency, they found that they could only do so at a heavily discounted rate. Not surprisingly, the Japanese traders began to refuse Mexican dollars, to the chagrin of those like Keswick, who had brought with him Mexican $40,000 from China. The Japanese did allow some exchange of dollars for Japanese coins, but in such tiny quantities that the foreigners could do little more than buy daily necessities.11 The result was that, apart from some barter, trade came to a standstill for most of July and August 1859. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the Japanese authorities changed their approach, and in early September, large amounts of silver coins became available for exchange. Now trade could properly begin. The foreign merchants brought in more funds from China, so that they could purchase the large quantities of silk and other products that were now being readily offered by the Japanese. There was one other item that suddenly became available, and was eagerly sought by the foreigners, namely Japanese gold coins. The rate of exchange between gold and silver hitherto fixed by the Japanese overvalued silver and undervalued gold. The foreign merchants therefore soon began a brisk trade in Japanese gold coins, and Jardines were once again at the forefront. This ‘Japanese gold rush’ led to many claims of unscrupulous behaviour and huge profits, and put a further distance between Rutherford Alcock and the British merchants, but the reality was that the trade lasted for a relatively short period, probably no more than six weeks, and the profits, while real, were nowhere as vast as some later writers were to claim. Jardines and Keswick were indeed in the forefront of it, but even Jardines did not make a great fortune from the gold trade.12 Although it would be some years before Jardines established a branch office in Japan, relying until 1870 on local agents, by the end of 1859, Keswick seems to have been convinced that a reasonable trade was possible at Yokohama. Early in 1860, therefore, he bought ‘Lot Number One Yokohama’ as the Jardines’ offices. it was well situated on the waterfront, and he was also able to buy lots 22 and 23 behind it, which allowed room for expansion. Despite trading difficulties, despite the hostility of many Japanese, and despite the bad blood between diplomats and merchants, Jardines were in Japan to stay.13

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Having made that decision, which was supported by the company in Shanghai, Keswick was not impressed by the nervousness of Sir Rutherford Alcock in the face of continued Japanese hostility. in particular, he did not think that the removal of the legations from Edo to Yokohama following a series of attacks on premises and personnel, which was very much Alcock’s policy, was a sensible move. Not only did it appear to be giving in to Japanese pressure, but it also brought additional dangers to the foreign community at Yokohama.14 Keswick’s time in Japan was now coming to an end. He may have played a small part in organizing the illegal visit to Britain by a group of young Choshu samurai in 1863, but it is clear that it was S. J. Gower who was the chief member of Jardines’ staff involved in Yokohama. William Keswick’s role may have been conflated with that of his younger brother James, then in Shanghai, who handled the transients at that end.15 By then, William Keswick had become a partner in the company and soon after the students left for Shanghai, he followed them. Until 1886, he was based in Hong Kong or Shanghai, and only seems to have made one return visit to Japan. How closely he followed the Japan trade that he had pioneered is not clear. At the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1867–68, he apparently advised caution, but it is hard to imagine that he did not have some say in the decision to establish a branch of the firm in Japan in 1870 and the rebuilding of the Yokohama premises on a grander scale about the same time.16 Later, he was no doubt kept informed of things Japanese by his younger brother, James Johnstone Keswick, known in the firm as ‘James the bloody polite’ from his gentle disposition. James arrived in Japan in August 1875 and took over the running of the Japan branch in January 1876. He remained in Japan until August 1880, when he returned to Shanghai.17 in 1874, William Keswick became ‘taipan’, or head of Jardine, Matheson and Company, and, in the words of his obituary in the London Times, the ‘most prominent private European in the Far East’. He continued to serve the company in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, and was chairman of the Chambers of Commerce in both places. He also held a number of honorary consular posts, and served on the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Although he had a reputation for being a progressive businessman, in Hong Kong matters he appears to have been somewhat conservative, and he clashed frequently with Sir John Pope-Hennessy,18 Governor of Hong Kong from 1877–82.

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Pope-Hennessy’s view that Japan was a much-wronged country may not have appealed to one who had lived through the excitements and attacks of the early days of treaty relations. in 1886, Keswick left the China coast, never to return, settling at Eastwick Park near Leatherhead in Surrey. He remained closely involved in Jardines’ affairs as a director of Matheson and Company, and in East Asian matters more generally. He was, for example, a founder member of the London Chamber of Commerce, known for its interest in East Asian trade.19 More important was his role in the China Association, by far and away the most important representative body for British traders to China and Japan at the end of the nineteenth century. Soon after its establishment in 1889, Keswick took over the chair of the association from Sir Alfred Dent, and it was he who shaped its early years.20 Most of Keswick’s attention during his chairmanship focused on China, but occasionally, the association turned its attention to Japan. There was, for example, a Yokohama branch of the association, which took a firm line of opposition to the revision of the treaties in Japan’s favour in 1894, a line echoed by Keswick himself at the association’s annual dinner in London on 26 February 1895.21 However, the China Association seems to have been in favour of the Japanese approach to China, which led to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, and was keen on the idea of special ‘spheres of influence’ for foreign countries in China.22 Although Keswick never abandoned his interest in East Asia, he had other things to occupy his attention. After his return from China, he was a Justice of the Peace. in 1898, he became High Sheriff for Surrey, and in 1899, he was selected as the Conservative and Unionist candidate for the Epsom constituency, although ‘he had not up to then taken any very active part in political matters’. He represented the constituency until a few days before his death, when it passed to his son, just as his position as China coast ‘taipan’ had done some years earlier.23 Jardines of course continue in Japan, though Lot Number One, Yokohama, has long ceased to be the company’s headquarters. The original site was destroyed in the 1923 earthquake. Today a stone marks the site where the foreign trade of the city really began, though it is now well back from the waterfront. The story of how Jardines ignored the diplomats and began trading at Yokohama is

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well known, although now few probably know Keswick’s name. His association with Japan may have been relatively short, but his was one of the most important early contributions to the history of Anglo-Japanese relations.

Source: Ian Nish and Yoichi Kibata, eds., The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, Vol. 1: The PoliticalDiplomatic Dimension,1600–1930. Houndmills, England: Macmillan Press, 2000, pp. 107–130.

8

The Era of the Unequal Treaties, 1858–99* v

Although Britain’s contacts with Japan stretched back to the last years of Elizabeth I’s reign, they had made little impact on either government or commercial thinking until the nineteenth century. Memories of the relative poorness of early trade did not incline either merchants or governments to push very hard for its resumption, even though the steady growth of the China trade in the eighteenth century brought Britain ever closer to Japan. Japan was seen as an even more remote and even more difficult market than China, and while for Americans it seemed a logical stepping stone to China, for the British, it was on the road to nowhere. Two developments were to modify that position. As Britain’s relationship with China changed following the end of the East India Company’s monopoly over the China trade in 1834 and even more as a consequence of the first Opium War (1839–42), to many it seemed that the ‘opening of Japan’ was a logical next step. There were also those who believed that, as more and more British ships plied East Asian waters, it would be helpful to British merchant and naval shipping to have unhindered access to at least some Japanese ports. The second development was the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, and subsequent attempts to prevent Russian vessels seeking refuge in Japanese ports. A third factor, though perhaps of lesser importance, was not to be left behind as the United States pressed in on Japan.1 Two treaties were concluded, in 1854 and 1858. The first, like the American treaty of the same year, was negotiated by a naval officer, 82

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Admiral Stirling, and found little favour among British merchants either in China or at home. The second treaty, concluded in haste in the summer of 1858 by the Earl of Elgin, largely derived its language from the second American treaty, and its contents from the British experience in China. British subjects could not be left to the mercy of Japanese laws (though there was to be no question about Japanese being subjected to British laws), the Japanese right to tariff control would be restricted, and trade more generally protected by a most favoured nation clause – this last was the main difference from Harris’s treaty, and one which was to have important repercussions in the future.2 Also, following on from the problems which had arisen because the first Anglo-Chinese treaty had not insisted on the right to a British diplomatic presence in the capital, Edo must be opened to diplomatic residence immediately the treaty came into force. There was thus no separate Japan policy, merely an extension of Britain’s China policy. The insistence on these conditions was to dominate Britain’s relations with Japan for the next 40 years. THE TREATIES IN OPERATION

from 1859 and the opening of the ports to trade, Britain continued to re-create the main features of its China policy in Japan. Until the legation finally moved to the capital in 1875, much effort was expended in making sure that a presence was maintained in Edo (Tokyo after 1868); there would be no repetition of the exclusion policy which the Chinese were able to get away with from 1842 to 1861. The result was constant tension. like other East Asians, the Japanese were familiar with the idea of diplomatic missions; there were periodic ones from Korea to Japan, and the Japanese also sent missions to Seoul. long in the past, but still on record, were exchanges with China.3 Resident missions were something new, and the Japanese were not happy with the idea. The negotiators in 1858 asked Elgin to seek the postponement of a resident envoy in Edo until 1861, He promised to try to do so, but without success. As far as london was concerned, a resident envoy would be based in Edo. The first envoy was Rutherford Alcock, formerly consul in Shanghai and Canton, who was appointed consul general. When he arrived in Japan in 1859, however, he discovered that his fellow representatives were all ministers plenipotentiary, and so he decided that he had better

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be the same. london agreed, and indeed, made him minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, though with no right to further advancement. Alcock selected Tozenji, a temple in Shinagawa, for the new legation. Although well away from the shogun’s castle, it was not immune to attention from samurai unhappy with the presence of foreigners in Edo. The legation’s Japanese interpreter was assassinated at its gates in 1860, and it suffered a full-scale attack in July 1861. By that stage, after a brief withdrawal from Edo following the murder of Henrik Heusken, the Dutch interpreter at the American legation, there were in effect, two British legations, one in Edo and one in Yokohama. This was to remain the case, despite further attacks and the complete destruction of a newly erected building at Gotenyama in January 1863, until the legation finally moved to Tokyo in 1875.4 While Alcock may have hesitated about staying in Edo after the 1861 attack, and certainly never resided in the city permanently, he did not give up the Edo buildings, while his successor. Sir Harry Parkes, who shared the same China consular service background, was adamant that the British representative should reside there. It was to take him ten years to secure a permanent site in the capital, but secure it he did, and it remains the site of the British embassy to this day.5 There were other preoccupations which also derived from the China experience. By 1858, the British had a well-established and increasingly professional consular service in China, both to look after the British community and to implement the legal clauses of the treaties. This concept was now transferred to Japan, with the establishment of a Japan consular service, initially staffed from China, with the addition in the early years of Dutch-speaking interpreters. (These latter officers were quickly replaced for all practical work with the Japanese by Japanese-speaking colleagues, but proved very difficult to remove.) This policy gave Britain a body of skilled interpreters, with a good knowledge of the Japanese language, and as time went by, of Japan and its politics. Probably the best known was Ernest Satow, who would return to Japan as minister in 1895. But he was by no means the only one, as a stream of learned articles and books on Japan (and increasingly Korea as well), by others such as W.G. Aston, J.H. Gubbins and J.H. longford, and later M. Paske-Smith and Sir George Sansom, would testify right up to the end of the service in 1943.6 As well as serving the British government in its dealings with Japan, they also helped in laying the foundation of a wider

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British knowledge of the country, as their writings, lectures and, in some cases, academic posts, spread information about Japan among Britain’s educated classes. With the consular service went an elaborate – and virtually unique among Western countries – system of extraterritoriality, which meant that Britons in Japan were better governed than any other group of foreigners.7 Unfortunately for wider Anglo-Japanese relations, these developments, together with the continued concern that policies pursued in Japan might have an effect on developments in China, created a climate in which British officials were reluctant to concede that the systems used, and the principles behind them, were becoming out of date. Britain thus clung to extraterritoriality in Japan long after other countries, most of which had done little to create an adequate legal structure, were willing to concede its abolition, and when to many, even among the British, it seemed to have become a barrier rather than a help both to increased trade and to access to the interior. The British view was that the Japanese should be pleased that British offenders were likely to be properly dealt with by the British courts in Japan and the related appeal system to the China coast and ultimately to london. But while the Japanese in the early days may have been content to tolerate a system which arguably reduced tension with the foreign powers, the Meiji government after 1868 was less concerned with the justice of the extraterritoriality system than with a desire to get rid of it entirely as an affront to Japanese sovereignty.8 THE GOOD OlD DAYS AND SIR HARRY PARKES

This is to run ahead. The 1860s were a period when the Japanese government was less sure of itself and increasingly threatened from within. To the political and social tensions already existing in Japan before Perry, the arrival of the foreigners now added new complications. With at first little knowledge of how Japan functioned, foreign representatives, including the British ministers Alcock and (from 1865) Parkes, pushed for the full implementation of the treaties. When this in turn produced attacks on foreigners, the usual instinct was to summon naval assistance – the 1860s version of a surgical air strike – and to seek full redress from a government which was rarely able to offer it. There was in reality no British plot to ‘sabotage the shogun’, and the clever

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Mr Satow’s articles in the Japan Times may have been widely read in Japan as ‘Eikoku sakuron’, but they seem to have had no effect on official policy. Intentional or not, however, the net result was a contribution to the undermining of the shogun’s position, the building up of links between some Britons and the clans hostile to the shogun, which were to serve Britain well in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration. Nobody set out to ‘sabotage the shogun’, but in the end the effect was as though that had been the policy.9 linked to this China-dominated approach was a determination that Britain should benefit from Japan’s entry into the modern world, especially after 1868. The prime mover in this was Sir Harry Parkes, British representative from 1865 to 1883, and a man far more moulded in the China coast experience than either his predecessor or any of his successors. Parkes was in his element in the years immediately before and after the Restoration. He was no intellectual, but he was a good linguist, with a considerable command of Chinese and even some Japanese, acquired in difficult circumstances in the 1850s.10 He was also a man of action, not given to much questioning of the circumstances in which he found himself, and happy making snap decisions broadly reflecting what he assumed were london’s policies both as regards political and trade issues. Most of the time he was right about what london wanted, and since it was not until 1871 that the international telegraph reached Japan, even when he was out of line with london’s policies, it was usually too late to do much about it by the time instructions reached him.11 He was also popular with the British merchants. They had never liked Alcock from his first days in Japan, when he had tried to prevent them using the facilities which the Japanese had provided at Yokohama in 1859. In subsequent years, they found his policies vacillating or too accommodating to the Japanese. Relations became so bad, especially after Alcock made public his views of the merchants in The Capital of the Tycoon, published in 1863, that he and all his colleagues were barred from the merchant-run Yokohama club until Alcock left for China in 1865. Parkes too was not always popular in his early years, especially for appearing to ignore merchant views on issues such as the opening of the additional ports provided for in the 1858 treaties. But it was not long before his no-nonsense approach to the Japanese and the belief that he really stood up for British interests, turned him into the hero of the merchant community and at least of the British-run treaty port

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press. In private, Parkes could be as critical of the merchant community as Alcock had been; wisely, he kept such views for his official or private correspondence.12 Parkes at first worked well enough with the Bakufu. Even though he was keen to have the treaties accepted by the emperor, he was equally aware that the forces associated with the emperor were also those apparently most hostile to foreigners and foreign influence. Undoubtedly members of his staff, such as Satow and Algernon Mitford, built up useful links with some of the clans hostile to the shogun, and British merchants such as Thomas Glover developed similar contacts, even if for the more practical reason of selling them weapons and warships. There is little evidence that either his own staff or Glover had much influence on Parkes. Indeed, he was probably unaware of the more extravagant claims about British influence with the future Meiji leaders, which were only published long after his death. Satow, for one, conceded that Parkes probably never knew that he had written ‘Eikoku sakuron’.13 Parkes had established a reputation by 1868 for the dogged pursuit of British interests and for advice to the rulers of Japan which was clearly sometimes delivered in a hectoring and aggressive tone – the same tone, incidentally, which he seems to have used towards staff and even his wife. His own view, shared by many of his fellow countrymen, was that this was largely for Japanese benefit. Parkes was determined that Japan’s new rulers should listen to his advice, accept his interpretation of what was best for Japan, employ Britons wherever possible, and buy British. This was the authentic voice of many nineteenth-century British officials in India or, as the century progressed, in Malaya. The difference was that Parkes was dealing with an independent state, whose rulers – of whatever background – were determined to keep it that way. Parkes was equally determined to make no concession in Japan which might adversely affect Britain’s position in China. The Japanese, for their part, were equally determined that events in China would not be repeated in Japan. Parkes’s concerns about precedents meant that he was entirely opposed to any measure of treaty revision in Japan’s favour. Home in England on leave, he poured scorn on the attempts to open the question made by the Iwakura mission in 1872, though as one of the escorting officers for the mission during its visit to Britain, he was a careful and attentive host.14 On his return to Japan, he was equally condemnatory of the willingness of the Italian government, anxious to restore the

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devastated silk industry, to contemplate trading extraterritoriality for access to the interior in 1873.15 On other matters, too, Parkes was generally opposed to change. He fought against the withdrawal of British troops, which, together with french contingents, had been stationed in Yokohama since 1863, even though R.G. Watson, chargé during Parkes’s absence, felt that there was no need even for a legation guard by 1872, never mind some 500 men of the British army. It was not until 1875 that Parkes agreed that the troops might be withdrawn, though the legation guard was to remain until the 1890s.16 like many of his countrymen, Parkes was unwilling to accept that the Japanese were capable of running, and entitled to run, the postal services in their own country, and fought another long battle against the ending of the system of foreign post offices, despite the fact that most international mail in the 1870s was being transmitted via the fast, Japaneserun, American route.17 It was not surprising, therefore, that Parkes, like Alcock before him, laboured hard to make sure that the system of extraterritoriality worked. There was to be no opportunity for the Japanese to criticize Britain for the failure of its legal system in Japan. He devoted much effort to seeking and getting an elaborate system of courts and powers, believing that this was an obligation which Britain should not avoid, whatever other countries might do. At the same time, he was unwilling to concede that the treaties in any way allowed the Japanese jurisdiction over foreigners, and was adamant that Japanese law did not apply to the British community. He refused to allow Japanese game laws to apply to Britons, prevented the introduction of much needed harbour regulations – though the story that he threatened to line the landing places at Yokohama with British troops to prevent any Japanese interference with British commerce seems apocryphal – and fought the Japanese hard over the question of what rules should apply to travel in the interior of Japan.18 In fact, as far as Britain was concerned, the Japanese won their point about Japanese laws applying to foreigners, on the one occasion when they decided that it was more important to stop a particular action than it was to stand on principle. In 1876, fearful of consequences arising from the continued publication of a Japanese-language newspaper by the British newspaperman, John Reddie Black, the Japanese government did not stop to argue the rights or wrongs of the question of whether Japanese or British law applied. They sought Parkes’s agree-

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ment that he should issue a regulation which prevented such a publication. However, in the course of considering this regulation, the British law Officers of the Crown ruled that Britons in Japan were bound to obey Japanese laws, and that the British minister was bound to accept Japanese laws as the basis of his regulations. Parkes fought long and hard against such an interpretation of the treaties, but ultimately was forced to accept the law Officers’ ruling.19 Parkes’s approach certainly produced short-term gains for Britain, as the British came to dominate the foreign settlements in Japan. Contemporaries accepted it as natural, even if some of them resented such dominance. The British were important in Asia. Their ships, both merchant and military, commanded the seas. They had a large empire in India and a growing presence in what was then called the East Indies, and now is known as Southeast Asia. They formed the largest group on the China coast, with a strong presence in the treaty ports and a permanent position in Hong Kong, and many who had started in Canton or Shanghai now moved on to Nagasaki and Yokohama. Outnumbered only by the Chinese, the British held sway at all the open ports and cities in Japan. By 1885, the British residents totalled 1,200 out of 2,500. Ten years later, the numbers were 1,750 British out of 4,700.20 Not until the 1920s were US citizens to begin outnumbering the British. The British dominated too in other ways. The treaty port press, modelled on that of the China coast, was not only a voice for the foreign community – and of course particularly so for the British community – but was also a major business in its own right, employing several hundred foreigners, and, later, many Japanese. It helped spread the idea of newspapers among the Japanese, as well as introducing somewhat more esoteric publications such as magazines and comic journals. To this day, the Japan Punch, the brainchild of Charles Wirgman, once of the Illustrated London News, is regarded as one of the origins of the Japanese comic industry, and there is a ‘Punchi matsuri’ to mark its significance.21 (Wirgman may have had another role, helping to introduce western art techniques to nineteenth-century Japan and, equally, introducing Japanese artistic concepts to Britain.22) There was also a direct British input to the origins of the modern Japanese-language press, especially from John Reddie Black, though this soon ran up against restrictions. Even more important, however, was that the Japanese, having absorbed the idea of the value of newspapers from foreigners, had by the early 1870s, taken to this new

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product with ease, and there was little need of foreign guidance or assistance. Writing in 1876, in the wake of Black’s disastrous attempt to defy the Japanese government’s wish to keep foreigners out of Japanese-language newspapers, W.G. Aston, of the British consular service, argued that the days of a meaningful foreign involvement with the Japanese-language press were over. Japanese newspapers had already established their own methods and style of working and no longer needed foreigners.23 Whether they did or not was beside the point, perhaps; the Japanese government felt that it was too dangerous to allow foreigners – who rarely spoke or understood Japanese – to run vernacular newspapers, since these would invariably be controlled by their Japanese employees. The majority of the foreign employees, the yatoi, were British.24 They worked in all departments of the Japanese government, including schools and universities, railways, lighthouse building, and the team employed to help draft the Meiji Constitution. British yatoi included some of the most senior, such as Basil Hall Chamberlain, first Professor of Japanese and Philology at Tokyo University; Henry Brunton, builder of lighthouses; Joseph Condor, a prominent architect; francis Piggott, a legal adviser; and a host of others. Parkes took a keen interest in such appointments, and did not hesitate to intervene if he thought that Britons were being mistreated or less than fully used by their Japanese employers.25 No doubt such appointments benefited the Japanese, but increasingly in the 1870s it did not endear Parkes to them. There was also much Japanese apprehension at the dangers posed by such employees, especially when backed by a powerful envoy such as Parkes. The Japanese were well aware, for example, of how the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, under the control of British Inspectors’ General, had become a further means of foreign, especially British, exploitation of China. This was one of the factors which led the Japanese government to keep their foreign employees on a short rein. There were to be no grand dignitaries comparable to the Inspector General of Customs. In truth, many of the foreign employees were not very grand in the first place. As it learnt about the west, Japan for some years employed many low-level foreign employees in jobs such as telegraph operators and engine drivers; once they had trained Japanese successors, however, they were quickly dismissed, despite the cries of concern from the foreign community over the ability of Japanese to understand the safety needs of a railway – not unlike the attitude in Britain in the 1950s

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when President Nasser of Egypt decided to nationalize the Suez Canal. Others might be well paid, have large salaries and good houses, but their role was also to be a limited one, terminated as soon as possible. There was to be no repetition in Japan of the hold which foreigners had obtained in China over important instruments of state. Titles may have been grandiose, salaries generous, but contracts were short and real power often resided elsewhere, as far as most yatoi were concerned. John Reddie Black’s brief experience as an adviser on parliamentary matters was perhaps among the more obvious of such cases, but it was by no means the only one.26 The foreign press and foreign employees were important, but the main purpose of the British establishment of links with Japan was trade. The treaty ports were nothing if not trading posts, and the British diplomats’ function was to encourage and facilitate trade. Although Japan had a limited foreign trade before the 1850s, conducted through the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki, which brought both foreign goods and ideas to Japan despite the exclusion laws, this was small compared with the expansion of trade which was to take place under the new treaties. In the first year after the 1858 treaties came into force, Japan enjoyed a total trade [imports and exports combined) of Mexican $1.5 million.27 By 1869, the total had reached $33.6m. It then almost doubled in the following ten years, and by the end of the century, it had reached Yen 435 million. Even allowing for the decline in the value of money which took place over this period, this was an impressive growth, although it did not match the China trade.28 But it was catching up. As in China, the British dominated the local trade. British textiles formed its backbone until the 1890s, though one newspaper noted in 1874 that there was already a move away from such traditional staples.29 The British traders formed the largest group of foreign residents in the Japanese treaty ports, apart from the Chinese, until the 1920s. Naturally enough, therefore, they tended to dominate the small chambers of commerce which existed even at such out of the way places as Hakodate. And they complained. Trade was never good. It was hindered by the Japanese authorities, by illegal combinations of Japanese merchants, or else, later, by unfair practices carried out by the traders of other countries. No doubt there was some truth in all of these strictures, especially in the early days. Even Satow, in his anonymous articles in the Japan Times in 1866, accepted merchant complaints about restrictions on trade.30

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The reality’ was always more complex. What foreigners thought of as deliberate obstruction was often brought about by the lack of knowledge on the part of those charged with administering unfamiliar rules and regulations. By the mid-1870s, even Parkes, not one to take restrictions on trade lightly, was of the view that most of the barriers to trade which had existed before the Restoration had disappeared. Export restrictions had largely been lifted and attempts at taxing exports had been stopped. foreigners argued that such practices continued but, when asked for direct proof, little or none was forthcoming. In 1871, the British consul at Yokohama sought evidence from the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce of the widespread monopolies which his countrymen claimed were hindering trade, with a view to taking up the matter with the Japanese. There was no reply for two months and, when one did come, it merely reasserted the claim, but produced no evidence. The Chamber of Commerce ‘believed this was the case’.31 Not surprisingly, the consul took no action. A few years later, a request for evidence to back up claims from the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce about counterfeiting of commercial labels also failed to produce any evidence.32 This did not stop the complaints continuing up to the 1890s, even though, in the British case, they rarely received much sympathy from either the British representatives in Tokyo or the foreign Office in london.33 (In fairness to the merchants, however, there was counterfeiting of labels and of goods; but the Japanese did take some action against it.)34 foreigners’ expectations were often unrealistically high and, when they were not met, they cried ‘foul’, often with little justification. The heady years 1865–8 produced a boom in the sale of ships, guns and ammunition to the daimyo. The Restoration and the subsequent abolition of the han, together with terms of trade which provided for large profits for the foreign traders, led to many broken contracts. Some of these went to arbitration; others were settled by the new government. Many British merchants complained, however, when claims for 25 per cent and 30 per cent interest rates were not met by the post-Restoration government. Yet, as the British chargé d’affaires, f.O. Adams, noted, in fact, once the government underwrote the debts, there was no risk. Such reasoning did not stop the complaints, however.35 later, the British merchants in Japan, as elsewhere in the world, were to complain of threats to their trade from new competitors. The

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belief seemed to be that British merchants somehow had a right to the Japanese trade. The Germans, especially after the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, were seen as a particular danger. Anecdotal accounts of unfair German trade flooded the treaty port press in Japan, and were then recycled in the China coast press and in home papers concerned with far Eastern trade. It also featured in correspondence to consuls. Although such stories proved hard to back up with real evidence, the idea of an unfair German trade offensive in Japan persisted among the British community up to 1914. Partly it was the use of new methods; it was argued that the German companies did not use trading houses, but sent salesmen directly into the local market. Moreover, these salesmen were expected to learn their customers’ needs – and even the language – rather than offering goods on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Added to this were changes in the recording methods used by the Japanese customs in 1888, so that goods were no longer listed by final port of shipment but by place of origin. German goods previously listed as ‘British’ because shipped out of liverpool or london by commission houses such as Jardines, now became German. It was something of a shock to find how supposedly ‘British’ trade was no such thing.36 It was not the only shock to the British. The figures for the growth of Japan’s trade masked important changes taking place in the nature of Japan’s overseas trade. Until the late 1870s, foreigners had most of the trade in their hands. In 1877, for example, 96 per cent of Japanese exports and 97 per cent of imports were in the hands of foreign merchants, mostly based in the Japanese treaty ports. By 1900, just after the end of the old treaties, the figures were 63 per cent and 60 per cent respectively, and still declining.37 Steadily throughout the period of the old treaties, the Japanese were taking control of their own trade. It was not a development which found favour with the foreign community. Despite their expressed belief in free trade, they did not wish to see their monopoly threatened. As early as 1874, Okura and Company, the first Japanese company to open an overseas office, was established in london. Others quickly followed, including Mitsui in 1879. from 1884, when the Yokohama Specie Bank became the Japanese government’s agency in london, there was a regular Japanese banking presence at the centre of the world’s capital market.38 By the 1890s, the Japanese were not only beginning to produce textiles on a large scale for domestic use but were in the process of challenging the British dominance in

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China. It was not Japan alone; the Indian empire was engaged in a similar process. But for the British trading community’ in Japan, accustomed to the security of their little enclave in East Asia, this was a major blow. The Americans suffered more in real economic terms, but the psychological damage to Britons in Japan was not something to be ignored.39 Also of concern was the gradual spread of a Japanese merchant community in many ways remarkably similar to the western community in Japan, into other parts of Asia. Thus a handful of Japanese in Singapore in 1871 had become a community as large as the total nonChinese foreign population of Yokohama or Kobe by the end of the Meiji period.40 After 1876, Korea was ‘opened’ to the outside world to somewhat mocking comments from foreigners about Japan copying western patterns of foreign settlements and extraterritoriality. Despite some efforts by companies such as Jardine Matheson to establish a position there, it generally remained largely a Japanese preserve – though Japanese merchants were often still selling British textiles until the 1890s.41 The world was changing about them, and the foreign community did not like it. for though the treaty port community which so dominated Britain’s view of Japan generally failed to notice or, if it did, it mocked, there were other relations developing between Britain and Japan which would eventually outweigh the interests of the foreign settlements. The policy of sending Japanese students abroad, which had begun in the late bakumatsu period, produced Japanese who quickly began to learn that there were different points of view’ from those of the merchants of Yokohama. They found that many of those who seemed so important in Japan were, in fact, small fish at home. This was the theme developed by one such traveller, Baba Tatsui, as early as 1875, in his privately published polemic against the arrogance of the treaty port British.42 It would be a mistake to think that all Japanese travellers to Britain, or the small number who resided there in the nineteenth century, always found a welcome and enjoyed their sojourn. But even those whose impressions were not good still found a yardstick by which to measure the treaty port approach and the policies associated with it. As the 1870s progressed, Japan began to change. The new leaders adopted the customs of the West, built western-style ships and buildings, began the process of becoming an imperial power, toyed with western concepts of religion, social development and constitutional

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government. Purchasing missions travelled abroad, as did enquirers on constitutional practices. Modern western-style military uniforms and, probably more important, military thinking, replaced the samurai and the methods of the seventeenth century. Having made the decision that Japan would not succumb to the west as China had done, the Japanese pursued it with determination and firmness. As a result, the gap between the two pictures of Japan became greater. Those who dealt with Japanese officials on purchasing missions or embryonic Japanese industrialists eager to learn more about engineering techniques or the cotton industry, cared little for the preoccupations of the merchants of Yokohama or Kobe. By the end of the century, the Japanese were in the process of challenging not only the treaty port merchants, but the far more important manufacturing bodies at home in the UK. All of this served further to undermine the position of the treaty port merchant.43 Japanese doubts about the policies and practices of the British in Japan were reinforced by the emergence of voices in the west which rejected the China-derived, gunboat policy which had become firmly associated with Britain by the mid-1870s. Some of these were paid spokesmen for the post-Restoration Japanese government, which, unlike the Bakufu, decided to use hired western writers to publicise its problems. One of the best known in this category was the American journalist E.H. House (1836–1901), who came to Japan as a lecturer in English language and literature in 1871. He was the editor of the Tokio Times from 1877 to 1888, and the author of a number of pamphlets and articles which denounced Parkes and his policies in Japan, often in very violent terms. One article published in the United States was entitled ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’. It was widely acknowledged that House’s dislike of Parkes was a deeply engrained one, which may have gone beyond what was required of him by the Japanese government, though they never disowned him.44 But there were others who helped to publicize the Japanese case both in the treaty port press and wider afield including frank Brinkley, who came to Japan first as a member of the British legation guard, remained as an artillery instructor, then became the long-time editor-proprietor of the Yokohama-based Japan Mail, and Japan correspondent for the london Times until his death in 1912. Even those who disliked him believed that he wrote as he did not solely because he was paid to do so, but because he had a deep and abiding affection for Japan; perhaps also the fact that he had a Japanese wife may have influenced some of his views.45

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Beyond Japan, there were others who presented a favourable view of Japan to the world, and yet were not in Japanese pay. The spread of shipping lines, and the growing practice of ‘globe-trotting’ by prominent people brought to Japan international figures such as the former US president, Ulysses Grant, the British colonial governor, John Pope-Hennessy, and a host of journalists, parliamentarians, and the naturally curious. Many wrote accounts of their visits, usually in far more flattering tones than emerged from Kobe or Yokohama.46 Such accounts led the latter in turn to be highly critical of the views of these transient visitors. Pope-Hennessy, in particular, was widely disliked throughout the treaty ports and colonies of East Asia for being ‘pronative’ – in this case, pro-Chinese; the Japan Mail described him in 1878, before he had ever visited Japan, as following the mistaken policy of a ‘bigoted ultramontane, and a humanitarian doctrinaire, incapable of assimilating the experience of other men’.47 Among the treaty port community, and among some diplomats, none of these developments convinced them that Japan would matter in the future, and until the Sino-Japanese war proved otherwise, there was a widespread belief that China would always be more important than Japan. In 1872, R.G. Watson, British chargé d’affaires, counselled against elaborate plans for the British legation in Tokyo, arguing that Japan would never amount to much, and there would probably be a fall in the number of staff employed in the legation as the years went by.48 Although Parkes in turn argued against any assumption that the legation would not grow and that a large site was needed, he too had doubts about Japan’s future prospects; to him, China would always be the more important country, however it developed.49 A NEW RElATIONSHIP, 1883–99

By the time Parkes departed in 1883 for Peking, where he died two years later, he was the darling of the treaty ports. As Basil Hall Chamberlain put it, under his successors, foreigners would sigh, ‘Oh! for an hour of Sir Harry Parkes!’50 Chamberlain claimed that the Japanese too came to appreciate what Parkes had done for them. The reality was perhaps somewhat different. Japan’s leaders were tired of being lectured and bullied both on matters of direct concern to Britain, such as treaty revision, and on other issues, such as how Japan should conduct its wider foreign relations, over Korea, for example. faced with what they considered British obstruction of Japan’s rights, Japanese

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leaders, even when remaining personally friendly to British diplomats, turned elsewhere for advice and support: as one contemporary put it in relation to Parkes, he was ‘less and less cordially consulted than of old’.51 Britain could not be completely ignored; it was too important a power for that. But its representatives were listened to politely, but other policies were followed. Parkes’s successors were thus left with the burden of hostility which his policies had created, These included solving the issue of treaty revision on increasingly difficult terms, and with a local British constituency in the treaty port community which had come to assume that its interests would dictate wider British policy. In the meantime, other British groups such as missionaries and industrialists at home had developed a voice and wanted change in their government’s policies towards Japan to allow them more opportunity to pursue their interests. As far as many foreigners were concerned, the policies of the 1850s and 1860s which had promised to ‘open’ Japan had failed to do so. Instead, the one Deshima of 1858 had been replaced by a series of other Deshimas. They might be bigger, but it was hard to argue that they were better. There was no sudden change of policy after 1883. There was, however, a change of style. francis Plunkett, who succeeded Parkes in 1883, was a more easy-going man, less given to hectoring. But he had been Parkes’s Secretary of legation in the mid-1870s, and naturally continued something of that approach. His successors in turn, especially Hugh fraser (minister from 1889 until his death in 1894), were less associated with the blustering approach, and less inclined to bully the Japanese.52 It was a slow process. The treaty revision conferences of the 1880s, though they lacked Parkes’s fire and brimstone approach, still handled Japanese aspirations over extraterritoriality in what was seen as a hostile manner. However, there were now changes on the Japanese side. The Japanese government, pointing to a growing public awareness as the 1880s progressed, and to a formal body of public opinion with the establishment of the Diet in 1890, could argue that concessions which might – just – have been acceptable in 1882, were quite out of the question by 1890. All the elaborate proposals for safeguards for foreigners went by the board as the Japanese began to exploit the differences between the powers. By 1894, when Britain was ready to lead the way to sign a new treaty with Japan, there were neither judges nor other safeguards to protect the extraterritorial rights which had once

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seemed so important; instead, what protection remained related solely to British commercial interests.53 It would not be until the mid-1890s, following the British decision in 1893 to abandon the old treaties entirely, and the refusal to take part in the 1895 ‘Triple Intervention’ which the Japanese felt robbed them of their rights in China, together, perhaps, with the return of Satow as minister, that Britain began to regain its former position. CONClUSION

There is no direct line from the treaty port years to the 1930s and 1940s. But the policies and practices of the 1860s and 1870s did not run into 1902; rather they ran into a channel which was hidden for many years, but they were to resurface with terrible repercussions after 1942. Japan and its leaders had options to take; that they chose to go down certain paths was not preordained, except perhaps in the view of more conspiratorial historians.54 It may be that the Satsuma and Choshu samurai carried in their backpacks the seeds of the China incident, and later the Toyota car, but I find it hard to believe. Rather, it seems to me that, when looking back at what had happened since 1859, Japanese of a later period, if so inclined, could draw certain lessons. These were, in no particular order, that; Japan was weak and that, unless it stood up for itself, it was in danger of being swamped by pressure from outside; what was respected in the world was power; to the white nations, their interests came above everything else; a modern nation needed a colonial empire; concessions and a willingness to compromise merely led to a demand for more concessions; and that, although some voices might be vocal in attacking Japan, there might be others, further off, who would not share these views. In the creation of all these views or attitudes, the British, whether at treaty port or official level, had played a major role. Of course, there was more to the period than these rather negative residues. The British had contributed much to the development of Japan in the Meiji period. Ships, railways, telegraphs, coal mines and lighthouses all testified to that, and were widely acknowledged. There was a basic rapport, or so it seemed, between the British and Japanese navies dating from Meiji, and even in the military, the links formed in the 1860s and 1870s could still survive sufficiently into the 1930s to persuade General Piggott as to the basic good intentions of the military, There was even a British political tradition, partly

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fostered by General Piggott’s father, which persisted perhaps longer than many realise.55 On balance, however, the negative and hostile side of the British approach played a more important role than the positive. The concessions to Japanese susceptibilities which finally came in 1894 came too late; the damage had been done. As one french missionary remarked to the newly arrived Sir Ernest Satow in 1895, the treaties should have been revised to take account of Japan’s wishes in 1882. The failure to do so had created a sense of arrogance among foreigners and a sense of grievance among Japanese.56 Unfortunately, if understandably, the attitudes created between 1859 and 1899 on both sides did not disappear with the coming into force of the new treaties. At the most formal level, Japan was still, under the terms of the 1894 commercial treaty with Britain, not fully free of the ‘unequal’ treaties. Not until the Anglo-Japanese Commercial Treaty of 1911 was Japan able to claim full tariff autonomy.57 Other issues left over from the old treaties continued to bedevil relations and confirm prejudices well into the 1930s. This was especially the case with the ‘perpetual leases’ issue, which soured relations until the Japanese unilaterally abolished them in 1937. Although that action did little to endear the Japanese government to the handful of foreigners concerned, the latter had all along refused to accept any compromise or modification of their position, despite a number of earlier offers of settlement.58 lesser grievances could also sour relations. There was a bitter battle in 1909 between the local authorities and the British community at Yokohama, including the consul general, over the question of the cricket ground which occupied the centre of the Yokohama public park. The cricket ground had been leased to the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club, which operated a strict exclusion policy vis-á-vis Japanese. In 1907, the governor of Kanagawa indicated that when the lease expired in 1909, he would not renew it, though the club would be offered another site in the park. This proposal was ignored until the issue arose in 1909, when the British community, led by the consul general – much to the exasperation of the ambassador – claimed that the ground was theirs by treaty right. Neither the embassy nor london supported this view, but, as the ambassador noted, ‘the case acquired an importance, and wasted an amount of time and energy, quite out of all proportion to its merits . . ..’59 A similar false appeal to treaty rights was made in 1911 over the ‘right’ of foreign passenger ships to ply between the former treaty ports.60

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In addition, and perhaps influencing all developments, was a persistent strain of anti-Japanese feeling among the British community in Japan, and even further afield on the China coast, regularly recorded in the first decade of the twentieth century in the British embassy’s annual reports. This feeling waxed and waned; Sir Claude MacDonald noted that, while it had diminished somewhat in 1909, it had increased again in 1910, partly because of the Japanese approach to the question of tariff revision. Thus, despite the euphoria of 1902 and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, there were plenty of reasons why many Japanese and Britons entered the twentieth century with a jaundiced view of each other. Such disillusionments might have been dispelled, but instead were often reinforced by developments in Korea and China in subsequent years. In the end, that was what would count in 1941. Could there have been an alternative policy? Parkes essentially inherited the approach which Alcock adopted to the problems which he faced in Japan after 1859. Both had served their apprenticeship in China, and both were very conscious of the possible effect in China of what they did in Japan. In the Bakumatsu period, therefore, and faced with the evident hostility of so many Japanese, it is hard to see that alternative policies would have been advocated or would have found support in British circles in East Asia or at home. By the mid-1870s, things were changing. Even with an unreformed and apparently hostile China, the British foreign Office felt that the old policies of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ had had their day; they were, for example, no longer willing to contemplate using the doubtfully legal measures against Chinese ‘pirates’ which had been a regular feature of the 1850s and 1860s, especially as the Chinese government had itself begun to take an interest in this ‘modern’ issue.61 Japan was, by the mid-1870s, even in the jaundiced eyes of the treaty ports, further down the reformist or modernization track. Some of Parkes’s fundamental principles with regard to jurisdiction were in the process of being undermined, despite his long rearguard action against a process which he rightly felt struck at the heart of Britain’s hitherto maintained stand on such matters.62 The foreign community had singularly failed at two of the three major treaty ports at least to provide an efficient system of municipal government, and such matters had reverted to the Japanese, a position which would have seemed unthinkable in contemporary China.63

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Yet Sir Harry Parkes clung to the old ways. He refused to see that Japan might be moving beyond the leading string stage, and that the methods and approaches which had worked well in the 1860s were increasingly seen as old-fashioned by the 1870s. As the lapan Mail put it, ‘We do not pretend that Sir Harry Parkes’s policy has kept pace with the changes among which his lot has been cast.’64 There were others who could see that by the 1880s, there was a need for a different set of policies, presented in a different style. Something along these lines was to happen between c.1893 and 1911, but the scars left by the old approach left a difficult legacy.

Source: Hugh Cortazzi, ed., Britain and Japan Biographical Portraits Vol.6. Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2007, pp.182–190, 388–390.

9

Ernest Cyril Comfort: The Other British Aviation Mission and Mitsubishi 1921–19241 v

INTRODUCTION

The end of the 1914–18 war saw Britain at the forefront of aircraft developments. Under the stress of war, the new science of aviation had developed at breakneck speed, and the quality of aircraft, pilots and engineering staff had improved beyond all recognition. Despite these advances, the end of the war removed the need for the large air forces that then existed, and the successful pilots, designers and engineers found themselves out of work in their own countries. But the developments had not gone unnoticed elsewhere, and there were soon opportunities overseas. Thus Cecil Lewis, a noted British fighter pilot, found himself recruited by the Vickers Aircraft Company, which had secured a contract with the warlord government based in Beijing, and spent two years trying to teach Chinese officers to fly.2 Japan too was eager to capitalize on British wartime experience. The 1921 unofficial British aviation mission to Japan led by the Master of Sempill (Colonel William Forbes-Sempill) is well-known, not least because many see it as a foretaste of Sempill’s later alleged leanings towards the Axis powers in the Second World War.3 Far less known is the presence of another, also unofficial yet arguably equally important, British aviation delegation in Japan at the same time. John Ferris hints at its presence in a reference to the British government allowing ‘aircraft manufacturers’ to go to Japan in 1921, though that is not an 102

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accurate description.4 As we shall see, this was not a group sent by British manufacturers, but one recruited from redundant staff from the Sopwith Aircraft Company. This group arrived earlier than the Sempill mission and stayed longer. It was based at the Mitsubishi factory at Nagoya which would become the centre, first of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, and later of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was then the headquarters of the Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Company, established to make aero engines.5 The Sempill mission, which was a substitute for the official delegation that the Japanese had sought, had close contacts with the British embassy, and the ambassador’s annual reports for 1922 and 1923 noted its presence and its problems. yet, although the reports also reported the existence of the Mitsubishi factory, describing it as having ‘the largest actual and potential output [of aircraft] in Japan’, the British staff who had helped make this possible went unmentioned.6 Ernest Comfort, whose oral memoirs form the basis of this paper, makes no reference to any embassy visits or other display of interest in their activities. Sempill knew of the group, however, and apparently tried to exercise some control over their activities, without success.7 According to Comfort, Sempill and his colleagues were not pleased to find that Herbert Smith and his group were already established when they arrived and had designed an aircraft. Sempill may have tried to assert some control over those at Mitsubishi, demanding to inspect the aeroplane that they had built. The Mitsubishi leader, Herbert Smith, who had been designing aircraft for ten years by 1921, would have none of this, and the two teams continued to work separately. This lack of coverage is surprising since both groups were recruited around the same time through the offices of the Japanese embassy in London,8 though the Mitsubishi mission was perhaps less grand than that led by Sempill. Sempill was an aristocrat – he would become Lord Sempill on the death of his father in 1934 – and although his team included some technical staff, it consisted mainly of ex-officers from the Royal Naval Air Service. The group to which Comfort belonged also included ex-officers, but mainly consisted of former technical staff of the Sopwith Aviation Company of Kingston-on-Thames. Sopwith’s founder was Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, a well-known sportsman and yachtsman who was also interested in motor racing. In 1912, he opened his first factory in a disused ice rink. Early designs produced by Sopwith himself and his

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former personal mechanic, Fred Sigirist, were not very exciting, but the company flourished with the advent of war. In total, Sopwith’s company made 16,000 aircraft, and many more were made by subcontractors. Designs seem to have improved after Herbert Smith was appointed chief engineer in 1916. Smith’s designs, which included both the Sopwith Pup and the now better remembered Sopwith Camel, became household names.9 Despite the company’s wartime successes, it was soon in difficulties after the war, as the demand for aircraft dropped sharply. Attempts to develop new aircraft for the fledgling civil aviation market failed; there were just too many surplus aeroplanes available. Staff were laid off, and the technical teams built up during the war were dispersed. Even these measures could not save Sopwith. A merger in 1919 with the ABC Auto Mobile Manufacturing Company, which made engines, proved a failure, and, when Thomas Sopwith became bankrupt, the company was sold, eventually becoming part of Vickers.10 Ernest Comfort, born in Shepherds Bush in west London on 4 September 1895, had been a draughtsman at the Kingston works, and was one of those who found themselves out of a job. When he learnt that Herbert Smith, his former colleague at Kingston, was trying to organize a technical team to go to Japan, he put his name down. Having heard nothing for some time, however, he signed up to work with an ex-military officer who was introducing modern road construction methods to France.11 He had scarcely begun work on this project, which was based on Versailles, when Smith contacted him. Mitsubishi, well on the way to becoming one of Japan’s biggest zaibatsu, and already developing auto mobiles, wanted a team to design aircraft. During the war, Mitsubishi had built French aircraft under licence, but now the company wanted to develop its own models.12 Comfort was in a dilemma. He clearly wanted the chance to practise his drawing skills again, and was also keen to see Japan, but he had just signed a contract to work in France. After some debate, he laid the proposal before his new employer and asked what he should do. Captain Briggs replied that if he were in Comfort’s position, he would go to Japan. Released from his French obligations, Comfort signed up for three years in Japan in November 1920. The team would leave before Christmas, somewhat to the chagrin of Comfort’s mother since his father announced that he, too, would be leaving before Christmas, to take a job in Singapore with a steamship company.

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IN JAPAN

Smith’s party of nine departed for Japan in mid-December 1920, on board the SS Cap Finisterre, a former German vessel that had passed to Japan as reparations. The ship was a large one, with winter gardens and a gymnasium – ‘for the children’, Comfort noted – and since they were travelling first class, and had plenty of money, they were very comfortable. To those who had just come through the austerity of the war years, and the uncertainties of the immediate post-war period, the voyage out seemed like paradise. Comfort enjoyed the various stops on the way, but was glad to reach yokohama in February 1921. Going ashore for a brief period before catching the train for Tokyo, they were met by an American newspaperman, who quizzed them about their jobs. Comfort noted that the Japanese consulate in London had warned them that this might happen, and so they ‘politely told him it was our business’, and moved on. But Comfort would be scathing about Americans and American manners in all future encounters. Their visit to yokohama was brief, and they had to shake off a tailor who wanted to measure their suits so that he could market the latest London fashions, in order to catch a train for Tokyo and then on to Nagoya. Comfort would not see yokohama or Tokyo again until September 1923 immediately after the Kanto earthquake. In Nagoya, they stayed at first in the Nagoya Hotel. They found the rates high and the hotel a ‘bit primitive’, though it is not clear whether this was because ‘few white men were seen in Nagoya’ or because they had grown used to the sybaritic life on board ship. Eventually, however, they moved out of the hotel and began to mess together, rather like their predecessors had done in Meiji days. On arrival, they were met by Mitsubishi officials, who took them to the new engineering works some miles outside the town. These would later become very extensive, but in 1921 were only just beginning to be developed. Power came from a series of diesel engines. The buildings were on reclaimed land, and the process of reclaiming more land for the aerodrome was still going on when they arrived. This would cause problems. On one occasion, a fire broke out in the workshops and the large, heavy British-made fire engine set out to tackle it, only to sink through the thin layer of asphalt into the saturated land beneath. Other works underway included the building of erecting sheds, where the aircraft would be assembled. But the design offices were ready, and the new team were soon at work, under the guidance of Dr Ito, the managing director of the aircraft works. Not that the design offices were ideal.

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They had a galvanized iron roof, and if the temperature reached 85° F outside, it would be at least 95° F inside. Before long, Herbert Smith had produced his first design. A visiting ‘high admiral’ looked at the design, announced that it was just what was wanted, and promptly ordered a hundred to be made. This, Comfort noted, was a bit of a gamble, since until the new machine was constructed, there was no means of knowing if it would even fly. Nevertheless, that night the admiral entertained the foreign designers and draftsmen, plus another hundred or so, to dinner. The centrepiece was a model of the Nagoya coastline made entirely from rice, which spread along the centre of a fifty foot long table. Comfort, who would frequently comment on the skills of the Japanese, described it as ‘marvellous work [showing] intricate workmanship’. They had a raucous evening, ‘drinking only little cups of sake, but when you had 200 of them, it was one big cup of sake!’ Perhaps the amount grew in the telling, but it was clearly an occasion to remember. Work proceeded both on developing the site and the new aircraft. The team helped with both, and Comfort, at least, developed a healthy respect for Japanese working methods and Japanese (sometimes Korean) workers. He noted how heavy machinery came from Kobe by rail, and that the railway extended right into the factory buildings. There were no cranes; heavy girders and other items were manhandled by large gangs of coolies. To facilitate building, the Japanese had established a cement works nearby. Korean women mixed and laid the cement by hand. Comfort noted farther evidence of Japanese resourcefulness when the party experienced their first typhoon in mid-1921. A cloudless sky at four o’clock in the afternoon gave way as the evening progressed to strong winds and heavy rain. By morning, there was much destruction. Several buildings collapsed, there was no electricity, two inches of water covered most of the site, and a quantity of large logs had been scattered all about. To the foreigners, it looked as though major rebuilding would be required. yet soon gangs of labourers set to work to clear the damage and make good the site. The coolies pulled the main workshop back into shape; Comfort thought that in the West, it would have been pulled down but here it was saved and was soon functioning again. What also struck him was that Mitsubishi sent wireless messages to inform their families that all the foreigners were safe. By the end of the first year, the team and their Japanese colleagues had succeeded in building their first fighter aircraft. This seems to have been the Mitsubishi No. 1. On completion, Captain William Jordan,

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one of the team, flew it and found it satisfactory. It then went into production. The embassy noted this development, but the ambassador’s annual report for 1922 was dismissive, and made no mention of the British involvement: The latest machine produced in Japan is the Mitsubishi No. 1, a oneseater scout, 300 h.p., 145 miles an hour speed, two guns, and perhaps six hours’ duration. It is said to be an unpleasant machine to fly; but the Japanese seem well satisfied with it.13

After the Mitsubishi No. 1, the team moved on to other designs, including a two-seater aircraft, designed for reconnaissance work but with a rear seat for a gunner. Comfort recalled many flights in this air craft, piloted by Captain Jordan, who had been in the RNAS. On one flight, they reached 18,000 feet, without oxygen. Comfort wore his suit, overcoat and goggles, but Jordan ‘did not even have an overcoat’. At 120 mph, it was ‘a bit fresh’, but for Comfort, there was nothing like open cockpit flying, with the smell of castor oil, the flames from the exhaust below, and the aircraft’s fabric flapping in the slipstream. They also built a trainer, called the Swallow, another fighter and a triplane torpedo bomber, the IMT two-seater torpedo-bomber. Smith had designed the very successful Sopwith Triplane in 1917 but triplanes went out of fashion soon after.14 This Japanese version proved too large and heavy for carrier operations, and only a small number were built.15 Smith then produced a biplane torpedo bomber, the Mitsubishi 2MT1, which flew for the first time in December 1923. Various versions were produced, and it remained in service with the Japanese naval air force until the 1930s.16 Comfort recalled a demonstration flight before a large group of Japanese dignitaries early in 1923. The aeroplane was loaded with a dummy torpedo of the required weight. Comfort says that it weighed about one ton, but this seems unlikely, since the Japanese Navy’s first successful torpedo weighed only 331 pounds, and the Sempill mission had to use wooden torpedoes because the aircraft could not carry metal ones.17 Captain Jordan took off and successfully dropped the torpedo, which dutifully slid along the runaway, parallel to the VIP stands. Unfortunately, it struck an object, swivelled through 90 degrees and began rolling at a fast pace towards the assembled Japanese, who had to run for their lives. Although Comfort thought that if the torpedo had hit the stand, there might have been loss of life, it was all treated as a great joke,

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and, as usual with the completion of a new project, there was another celebratory party. Comfort claimed that they had grown weary of the regular geisha parties, though they were too polite to say so. At the same time, a Japanese engineer was busy developing a Japanese engine, but as both Comfort and the embassy noted, this indigenous engine was actually based on a number of existing engines collected from all over the world. Nevertheless, it was a sign of the Japanese determination to develop their own designs. The Japanese were also interested in the process of flying off battleships, the forerunner of the aircraft carrier. Although this had been practised towards the end of the First World War, with the Royal Naval Air Service flying Sopwith Pups off platforms mounted above the guns of big battleships, Comfort felt that the Royal Navy had not been very interested – indeed, he claimed that the Royal Navy had generally not seen the potential of aircraft until the Second World War. But the Japanese took a great interest in this development, and eventually approached Captain Jordan about flying off a Japanese battleship. He agreed, but demanded £1000 as payment (perhaps £160,000–170,000 in contemporary terms). The Japanese paid and the flight duly took place successfully from a platform built over the 14-inch guns of a battleship. Later, Major Brackley, who was a test pilot with the Sempill mission, repeated the experiment for free. The British embassy referred in passing to these developments, but again was somewhat dismissive of the Japanese interest in naval aviation. The 1922 annual report commented that, while a Japanese aircraft carrier, HIJMS Hōshō existed, ‘Very few officers realize that the proper place in which to carry ‘planes is a carrier, not the decks or turrets of capital ships and cruisers’.18 A year later, however, the embassy noted that a Mitsubishi No.1 aeroplane had landed on the Hōshō (the flight took place on 24 February 1923 and Jordan was again the pilot), and that this development was likely to give the Japanese greater confidence in developing this new technology.19 There was no mention of how the Mitsubishi aeroplane had come to be developed, yet, according to one historian, this was the real beginning of Japanese naval flying. Jordan having shown the way, Japanese pilots followed.20 The group was due to leave in December 1923, but were asked to stay another six months. By March 1924, Smith, Comfort and John Bewsher, another member of the team, had began preparations to leave, but another of their number, Bert Venn, agreed to stay for two years longer, provided his wife and two sons could join him. The Japanese

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readily agreed, and, according to Comfort, for the next two years the two boys were allowed to do anything that they wanted. It was a further sign of the welcome that they had received. Looking back many years later, Comfort had only positive things to say about his time in Japan. From the very start, they had been made welcome. He recalled the attention that they had received in the early days by curious people in Nagoya. Anything up to twenty people would follow them into shops and elsewhere. Though this could become wearisome, Comfort noted that it was a good guarantee against being cheated by shopkeepers, since the self-appointed entourage would carefully check the foreigners’ change and swiftly point out any discrepancies. But in general, he found that the shops were generous with gifts and reductions. Mitsubishi not only entertained them, but made sure that Western festive occasions were not overlooked. When John Bewsher got married, Mitsubishi laid on a large wedding party. On 22 December 1923, the general manager of the company wrote to Comfort (and one assumes on similar lines to the others): It is with our most sincere friendship to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New year you are meeting again in this country abroad. We are, however, as you know, quite strangers to your customs and can not think of anything better than to show our best compliments in sending you a Turkey-bird, which please accept in its real meaning of our expression of kindness.21

No doubt the said bird was cooked by Johnny the cook, a former ship’s cook, who by that time must have been well-trained in the curious eating and drinking habits of his British charges. They had after all, early on, persuaded him that it might be best to brew tea each time they asked for it, rather than preparing a large pot and regularly re-boiling it during the day. When they left, Mitsubishi gave them tortoiseshell dressing table and other items, and a cheque. The Imperial Japanese Navy gave them cloisonné vases. Mitsubishi also packed and transported all their goods for free. Comfort became friendly with a younger son of Iwasaki Koyata, then head of Mitsubishi, and was invited to stay with him in Tokyo. Like his father, the younger Iwasaki spoke good English, as did his mother and sisters. The friendship was cemented when Comfort managed to design and construct a streamlined body for the younger Iwasaki’s 1912–14 vintage Napier chassis.

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Motor cycling also brought Comfort into contact with the Japanese. He had ordered a Rudge motorcycle through his brother in Britain, without really taking into account the state of the roads, which barely existed outside the city centre. One day, he smashed the crankcase on an out of town tramline, which was raised above ground like a railway. A Japanese bicycle shop owner said he could mend it, but also offered to buy it. Comfort then bought an American motorcycle with higher clearance, and thus began the Mitsubishi Motorcycle Club, a mixed Japanese and foreign group. They mainly rode around the city, but occasionally ventured on to the Tōkaidō, – (Comfort mistakenly called it the Hokkaido) – the main east-west road since Tokugawa days, which was ‘just wide enough for a cart and a motorbike’. And in another generous gesture, his machine was always filled up free of charge with aero spirit. Comfort and his colleagues did not feel threatened in Japan, except in the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake. He and a colleague visited the devastated area a week after the earthquake, and found nothing but desolation. But on return to Nagoya, they became worried by the numbers of refugees who had fled to the area and by the fears among the Japanese that Koreans or others would attack them – Comfort noted rumours about the killing of large numbers of Koreans who were blamed for the earthquake. So they applied to the police to carry revolvers, which they did until they left, though they never had need of them. Comfort’s admiration of the working methods at Mitsubishi was paralleled by admiration for Japanese working methods and style in general, and contrasts with the dismissive attitude so common among his contemporaries. He compared the brilliant floodlighting of buildings in Nagoya and the electric lights in the market with the dingy paraffin lamps that were used in Kingston. He expressed admiration for a system that could produce lawnmowers for the British market retailing at thirty shillings (£1–50 in decimal currency), which no British company could match. He thought that the Nagoya tram system, with sunken rails in the city and railway-like arrangements outside – despite what it had done to his motorcycle! – could have been copied with advantage in Britain. As he summed it up, ‘it all gave food for thought’. Certainly, there was none of supercilious dismissal of the Japanese abilities as engineers and pilots which others have noted in the embassy and services’ view of the Japanese right up to 1941.22

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AFTERWARDS

After leaving Japan, Comfort continued to work in the aviation field. He worked for a time at Saunders Roe on the Isle of Wight. Later, he and John Bewsher joined Vickers Aviation as senior designers. From 1930, Comfort was at Weybridge, working on flying controls which would feature in all the well-known Vickers’ aircraft, including the Wellington bomber, the Viscount, the VC10 and, after Vickers became part of the British Aircraft Corporation, the BAC One Eleven.23 In retirement, he retained happy memories of Japan and the Japanese until his death in Avalon, New South Wales, Australia, on 8 July 1992. Mitsubishi, of course, went on developing aircraft. The factory at Nagoya remained the largest centre for aircraft manufacturing in Japan until destroyed in the Second World War. Like other zaibatsu, Mitsubishi was dissolved in 1946 during the occupation, but the name and something of the ethos has since re-emerged. And Mitsubishi once again makes aircraft.

Source: Hugh Cortazzi, ed., Britain and Japan Biographical Portraits Vol.10. Leiden, Netherlands: Global Oriental, 2013, pp. 130–145.

10

Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria: Britain’s Japan Consular Service in the Japanese Empire, 1883–1941 v

INTRODUCTION

Britain’s Japan Consular Service1 was not designed to operate outside Japan. Its members were trained for work there, with emphasis on acquiring the language and knowledge of the country, its people and its customs. Three factors changed this. In times of need, the availability of trained and capable staff was a great temptation. Second, promotion was always slow. Finally, with the spread of Japanese influence and the establishment of an empire, it made sense to send members of the consular service to these new places. KOREA

The first use of staff in Korea arose from Sir Harry Parkes’ interest in Korea that began when he was Minister in Japan from 1865 to 1883. Parkes’ concern was strategic: to keep Korea out of Russian hands. To this end, in the 1870s, he campaigned for the occupation of Komundo (Port Hamilton), a group of islands off Korea’s southern coast. This was at variance with the Foreign Office view of Britain’s interests in East Asia and Parkes was told that Her Majesty’s Government were not in the habit of appropriating other country’s territory. Meanwhile, two members his staff, Ernest Satow and W.G.Aston, began studying 112

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Korean from the late 1870s because of its links with Japanese, but also providing Parkes with a solid understanding of Korea.2 Vice-Admiral Willis negotiated Britain’s first treaty with Korea in 1882. Aston accompanied him but Willis appears to have paid little attention to his adviser. The result was a treaty generally deemed unsatisfactory. It was abandoned, and under Parkes’ guidance, a new treaty was negotiated in 1883. To effect this, Aston, with Walter Hillier and C.T. Maude from China, went to Korea in 1883. As well as treaty negotiations, Aston leased the land on which the British Embassy still stands. In November 1883, Parkes, now Minister at Beijing, arrived to finalize and sign the new treaty.3 Parkes (and the Treasury) felt there was no need to establish a diplomatic presence in Korea. The minister in Beijing would be sideaccredited, an arrangement that lasted until the late 1890s. However, there was a need for a consular establishment since British merchants were already arriving, and Parkes proposed Aston as consul general. The Treasury would only agree to temporary appointments. Other staff came from China.4 Aston’s appointment did not last long. Attending a banquet at the newly opened Korean post office in December 1884, he and the other guests were caught up in a progressive coup against the conservatives. Forced to flee on a freezing winter’s night to the United States Legation, Aston’s health collapsed. In January 1885, he left Korea. The Chemulp’o vice consul W.R. Carles took over.5 Aston returned for a few months but then left Korea permanently. He spent three years in Tokyo as Japan Secretary, then retired early in 1889. Until his death in 1911, much of his time was devoted to Japanese studies, but he never lost his interest in Korea.6 With Aston’s departure, the Korean posts moved firmly into the orbit of the China service, for whom they were plum postings.7 There were occasional exceptions. When John Jordan, who became minister in Seoul after the establishment of the Great Han Empire in October 1897, went on leave in 1900, John Gubbins from Tokyo replaced him. It is possible that there was nobody of sufficient seniority available from China in the disturbed period just prior to the Boxer outbreak. Gubbins remained until Jordan’s return in November 1901. Gubbins liked Korea, but shared with Aston a low opinion of the government.8 Another exception was Arthur Hyde Lay, who joined the Japan Consular Service in 1887, and who became vice-consul at Chemulp’o in 1902. Until retirement in 1927, he was to spend most of his career in Korea.9

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Japan established a protectorate over Korea in 1905. The foreign legations ceased to exist, reverting to consulates or consulates general. There appears to have been some British procrastination, which worried the Japanese, but this was to make sure that Jordan did not lose out financially rather than a wish to maintain the status quo.10 Despite Japan’s clear dominance of the peninsula and the increasing number of Japanese officials with whom consular officials now had to deal, staff continued to be drawn from the China Consular Service. Only after the 1910 Japanese annexation of Korea did the Japan service take over entirely. The work also changed, since extra-territoriality, abolished in Japan in 1899, now ended in Korea.11 The change saw a reduction in the number of posts in Korea. Chemulp’o, which had become a substantive vice consulate in 1904 and a consulate in 1908, was left vacant on a temporary basis in 1914, but never subsequently filled. Honorary local appointments filled the gap. A local businessman, W.G. Bennett, was consular agent from 1925. The 1928 inspection report described him as popular and a ‘great talker’. Aged seventy-four, he was among British officials repatriated in 1942.12 The Chemulp’o site and that at Pusan, which was never used, were sold in the 1930s.13 The old consular buildings were destroyed in the Korean War and the site later became the present Olympus Hotel. Seoul was not a busy post. Sir E. Crowe, former commercial counsellor in Tokyo, in 1928 wrote that ‘Seoul is a good spot for learning Japanese. There is not too much work and there are more opportunities for getting in touch with Japse. officials than in Japan proper.’14 Unlike most of the Japanese consular posts, there was relatively little commercial work, and it declined after the annexation as the Japanese pursued a policy of advancing Japanese interests. The bulk of the British community were missionaries, who were scattered about the country. They rarely caused problems, unlike the Americans, but dominated the foreign community. Oswald White, consul general in 1928, thought that this was not satisfactory and told Inspector Phillips that he intended to do something about it. Whatever he did, there was no change and missionaries continued to dominate Korea’s Western community until 1941. Crowe was inclined to think that the problem had been White’s predecessor, Consul General Lay (also his brother-in-law although this was not mentioned), who ‘. . . had been too long in Korea & had rather lost interest in commercial work’. Lay, who had been appointed consul general in 1914 served in Korea until retirement in 1927.

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He was something of a scholar, publishing Chinese Characters for the Use of Students of the Japanese Language. He was on the Asiatic Society of Japan’s council and served as corresponding secretary. He also published several long papers in the Transactions.15 In Korea, he helped revive the moribund Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch in 1911. He contributed one paper, on Korean marriage customs, to its Transactions and served twice as its president.16 He was the only British consular officer to acquire a Korean qualification. Yet Satow, like Crowe, also did not find him impressive. In a private letter to the foreign secretary in 1902 that dealt inter alia with a possible promotion for Gubbins, he wrote that ‘. . . Lay, the man who will eventually succeed him [Gubbins] is certainly not worth nearly as much either in the way of pay or rank. He is a good little fellow, but of no capacity.’17 Lay may have lost interest in commercial work, but his interest in Korea continued and in retirement he named his house after the country.18 Inspector Phillips noted that the post kept short hours, which he suggested should be increased. He and London were unimpressed with the recently arrived acting vice consul, Dermot W Kermode. He led a somewhat secluded existence because of poor health and complained of lack of funds, although he had made no effort to pass the interpreters’ examination, which brought a substantial allowance. He said that he had to waste half an hour daily going between his office in his house and the consul general’s house seventy yards away.19 Kermode only remained until November 1928, when he transferred to Yokohama but he features again in this account.20 Although suggestions that Seoul might be downgraded to enable Dalian to be upgraded were not pursued, Seoul was not deemed very important.21 In January 1931, the dynamic Mr White left after three years to become consul general in Kobe. William Royds succeeded him, but left on retirement in 1934. He was in turn succeeded by Gerald Phipps who remained until repatriated in 1942. If the consul general went on leave or fell sick, the post was not always filled. The residence was sometimes empty for months on end; in 1938 it was used to house Britons escaping the fighting in North China. Junior officers might arrive in Seoul to take over the full running of the consulate general however little training they had. Arthur de la Mare never forgot the experience. The houses were cold and ill-equipped; in 1928 the vice consul’s accommodation and the offices only had electricity in the evenings. De la Mare complained of draughts and cold, as did Mr and Mrs Kermode who took over from him in 1939, moving into

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the consul general’s house that had been unoccupied and unheated throughout the winter. Mrs Kermode’s ‘. . . consumption of gin and cigarettes, already assuring her of a very creditable batting average, sent her soaring into the Guinness Book of Records’.22 Fortunately, they did not have to stay long before Phipps returned. It was not all gloom. Seoul might be a backwater but there were opportunities for enjoyment. Many walked the hills and some hunted game. The consul general was an important personage with a good house and garden for entertaining. Being Japanese-speaking was an asset and ensured good relations with Japanese officials at all levels until the late 1930s. Empire Day celebrations in May were the height of the foreign community’s social year. The weather was generally better than for 4 or 14 July and there was always a garden party on the lawns, with tea for the adults and games and ice cream for the children.23 The English Church Mission was situated just outside the gates of the consulate general and, if de la Mare is to be believed, each side supplied the other with its own form of spiritual sustenance, one through prayer, the other through whisky.24 December 1941 brought an end to this world. The foreign community was already reduced; most missionaries left in 1940. The Japanese showed little brutality. Phipps and his wife were interned in their own house. They were joined by Mr Bennett from Chemulp’o. Joan Davidson, a locally engaged typist, had become Mrs Horace G. Underwood on 10 July 1941, and was detained with the Underwood family on the campus of the Chosun Christian College (now Yonsei University). Various books, sporting guns, revolvers, binoculars, petrol and radios were taken, but no attempt made to stop Phipps destroying confidential papers. Thereafter he was not allowed access to the offices. All communications with the local authorities had to be made via the police guards but these ‘. . . were on the whole well-disposed within the limits of their instructions’. The most serious criticism made in Seoul was that ‘. . . [w]anton and unnecessary damage was done to the doors and windows of the buildings by nailing them up’. All those detained were repatriated with other staff via Lourenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo in Mozambique) in July 1942.25 There was a curious postscript. Although the Japan service had ceased to exist, when Britain reopened its consulate general in Seoul in 1946, Dermot Kermode was selected to do so. From the moment he arrived, Kermode complained. The houses and garden were in a terrible condition but it would be too expensive to repair them. His wife

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arrived to find a leaking roof and a damaged kitchen range. Korean workmen would have to do the repairs but could not start before winter was over, even if there were funds for their ‘exorbitant wages’. Water shortages made baths difficult. Entertaining the senior ranks of the American Military Government was impossible since he only had jam jars for glasses. He could not work properly because he had no cyphers and telegrams went to Tokyo for transmission. Yet he turned down all attempts to provide him with a vice consul, arguing that such an officer would have to live with him in the main house and this arrangement might not be understood by senior American officials. When the American Military Government suggested Kermode be made substantive consul general, he told London that he did not have the required seals and documents and could not be expected to do more work. Gradually, the complaints subsided. He left Seoul in 1948 with a CMG. He was later ambassador to Indonesia and Czechoslovakia. On retirement, he received the KCMG and became an Anglican priest. He died in January 1960 as rector of a West Sussex parish.26 TAIWAN

In 1860, Britain opened its first post in Taiwan (then known as Formosa in the West) in Tainan, the capital of the island and the province. In the 1870s, a second post was established at the northern port of Tamsui. Both were staffed from the China Consular Service. They were difficult posts. Staff suffered from sickness and loneliness, lived in primitive conditions and were faced with unruly natives and foreigners.27 Following the Japanese victory over China in 1895, Taiwan became Japanese. The Japan service gradually took over from their Chinese colleagues, with some reluctance. Satow, then minister in Tokyo, had to do some soothing, explaining that the shift from Chinese to Japanese jurisdiction meant that the posts would be more important. Japan service officers should not object, therefore, if they were now to occupy posts that had previously been held by more junior China service officers.28 Reluctantly or not, the posts in Taiwan were filled by the end of 1896, and more positive reports began to arrive. By then it was clear that Tainan was in decline. Taipei (Taihoku in Japanese) had become the capital in 1887 and the Japanese continued with this arrangement. Trade and shipping were far more important at Tamsui than at Tainan.29 In 1911, the Tainan consular post closed for good. Thereafter, Tamsui was the only post. The Tainan premises were sold in 1924.30

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Taipei was, like Seoul, much developed under the Japanese. Tamsui, by contrast, was not a very successful port since a bar prevented large ships from entering. The British Consulate was one of the few prominent buildings and consisted of a 1640s Dutch fort (Hongmao Cheng, or ‘Fortress of the Red-haired Ones’), and standard China Coast buildings. The post was filled on a regular basis, although as with Seoul, the substantive holder of the post was often away and junior officers left in charge. Gerald Phipps, later consul general in Seoul, became consul at Tamsui in 1920 and appears to have held the post for six years. When Mr Phillips inspected it in 1928,31 however, the consul, G.P. Paton was on leave, and R.L. Cowley was acting consul. Cowley joined the Japan service in 1919 and had not been on home leave since then. Two things were against him. He had not passed the interpreter’s exam. He had completed all the language tests by 1922, but had failed to finish the required report on agrarian unrest in Japan that had been assigned to him, finding it difficult to get material, while what he had was dated. The second factor was his marriage to a Russian woman who spoke poor English. The only other member of staff was a capable locally-employed Japanese clerk, a competent watchman, and three lazy boatmen. It was not a busy post. Hours were short and out of hours’ work rare. Taipei was one hour by train or forty-five minutes by car. The Japanese authorities and the British community complained about the inconvenience and some consuls wanted to move to Taipei. T.J. Harrington, consul from 1913 to 1918, argued that since virtually all the work related to firms and people in Taipei, where most of the small British community lived, it would make sense to move. There was no local work at Tamsui; Inspector Phillips noted that no British ship had called there since before 1914. However, Phipps said in 1921 that Tamsui was healthy and that in any case, a branch office was maintained in Taipei where people could be seen if necessary. On visiting the branch office, the inspector was less than impressed: I had a look at this branch office maintained in Sale & Company’s premises. It is a room on the ground floor exactly level with the street and is semi-hidden under the staircase. The room was half aninch in dust and the furniture was of the most dilapidated description. The room is small, dark and has a cellar-like appearance and I was informed that it has only been used once by the present Consul

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and once last year to contain the coffin of Mr Nicholls, British Pro-Consul and Manager of Sale & Company. The whole aspect of the room was mean beyond words and unsuitable for a British Consulate office.32

Yet he did not grasp the nettle of moving to Taipei although he indicated that he thought this might be the best solution. Instead he recommended that a room be hired at the Railway Hotel on the rare occasions when appointments were needed. (He made no suggestion what to do the next time a coffin needed a home.) Sir John Tilley, ambassador in Tokyo, felt that Tamsui was too good a house to give up and that the distance from Taipei was not so important. Most of the consular work consisted of preparing commercial reports and these could be just as easily prepared at Tamsui as elsewhere. If the consul needed to see the Japanese authorities, he could drive in anytime – cars were just coming into general use in the service – while ‘Very few British subjects want to see him.’33 London agreed about the room in Taipei, which was given up. A monthly travelling allowance of Yen 75 was allowed.34 The even temper of life continued until 1941, despite occasional small anti-British demonstrations. In the last political report before the outbreak of war, Dermot Kermode reported that such demonstrations had been somewhat muted and caused little inconvenience.35 What happened in Taiwan in December 1941 is not clear. There is no account in the report of the Clausen Committee on the Japanese treatment of British officials on the outbreak of war, but the acting consul, W.W. McVittie, his wife and child were repatriated in 1942.36 THE PHILIPPINES AND HAWAI’I

A curiosity of the Japan service was that, following the Spanish-American War of 1898, consular posts at Manila in the Philippines and Hawai’i eventually became part of it in 1903 and 1904 respectively.37 There is no clear explanation. D.C.M. Platt says that it was a combination of the recognition of the talents of those in the specialized services and acknowledgement of the limited promotion prospects offered in Japan.38 This may be so, but, as he points out, the posts called for skills that officers in the Japan service might not possess such as a command of Spanish in the Philippines. It also diluted the skills that they did have since the ability to speak Japanese was not much use in either place.

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The arrangement seems to have been purely a management one, and different terms of allowances and other conditions applied to the two posts, even though the cost of living was apparently much as it was in Japan. Neither reported on political or commercial matters to Tokyo; such reports went to Washington or direct to London. The ambassador in Tokyo noted in 1913 that the posts were very much outside the mainstream of the Japan service. Crowe, then commercial counsellor, wrote that he did not supervise their commercial work and had never visited.39 Not everybody wanted to serve in these posts; Arthur Hyde Lay managed to have his appointment as consul at Honolulu turned down in 1912, and later preferred the consul general’s post in Seoul to that in Manila.40 Although the Pacific War began in Hawai’i, the islands were not occupied. Manila was, in January 1942. Staff were able to destroy the archives before they were interned, but were generally well treated. Honorary consuls at a number of places seemed to have disappeared without trace.41 KWANTUNG (GUANDONG) LEASED TERRITORY

The Kwantung (Guandong in pinyin) Leased Territory was a Russian concession on China’s Liaodong Peninsula from 1898 until 1905, and the Russians established Dalny (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Lushan). After Russia’s defeat in 1904–05, the Japanese took it over. Dalny became Dairen, the Japanese reading of the name of a nearby bay; the Chinese was Dalian. The port opened to foreign trade in September 1906 and Britain established a vice consulate soon after. Since the territory was under Japanese control, the officer chosen to head the post was from the Japanese service. This was Harold George Parlett who had joined the service in 1890. He spent several periods at Dalian, as vice consul and later consul. He retired as Japanese Counsellor in 1927.42 The Russians had planned a great city but when Parlett submitted his first trade report, he described a wasteland with a few squalid Chinese and Japanese shops and little more. British trade was largely limited to shipping services and the British American Tobacco Company whose products were better and cheaper than those available in Japan.43 Things improved. The following year there were twelve British businesses and by 1910, the post was important enough to be raised to a full consulate, with Parlett as the first consul.44 Its importance was not just commercial, however, as it kept an eye on Japanese policies in

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North China. In 1912, the trade report noted that the city was much improved, with new streets, building and lighting.45 Accommodation was a problem, despite the new buildings being erected. Prices were high and most rented property was above shops. Parlett found premises but they were over a wine shop. The embassy in Tokyo felt that this was not very dignified and supported his application for a larger rent allowance to rent better premises. But the new offices still seemed somewhat lacking, according to the officer who stood in when Parlett went on leave. The premises were the best possible available but: . . . There is a fowl market almost immediately in front of the office, drawing-room and bed-room windows, and a resulting disturbance of the most annoying nature from early morning until dark. In addition to this nuisance, every tram car . . . passes the Consulate and there are two junctions, one at each corner of the front of the building, and consequently an incessant din of bells and cars stopping and starting and rounding imperfectly constructed curves. The combination of these two nuisances, reinforced by the usual noises of Chinese carts and other vehicles, renders it practically impossible to conduct business in the office during the summer months, when the windows are open. Nor is the inconvenience suffered in the dwelling part of the house any less.46

The Office of Works agreed to erect a purpose-built consulate on the town’s central circle, close to the business quarter. It too had its drawbacks. Parlett complained in 1914 that it was impossible to clean the windows, while Inspector Phillips in 1928 described it as being ‘. . . very small, looks like a cross between an almshouse and a school and it completely spoils the general appearance of the circle’. The consul had no office (!) and had to work in the residential area, the building was dirty and in bad repair. The Japanese had taken offence, Phillips maintained, because the British had ‘. . . erected such an insignificantlooking house upon such a fine site . . . and we have therefore suffered in prestige accordingly’. 47 Phillips was full of praise for Esler Dening, the acting consul, who made good use of his command of Japanese to develop contacts both with the South Manchurian Railway Company and the Japanese Governor of the territory and his staff at Port Arthur (Lushan).48 However, Phillips turned down suggestions that the post replace Seoul as a consulate general, arguing that British interests were not sufficient to justify the change. Phillips’ suggested that the Dalian consul should

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visit Harbin and Mukden (Shenyang) occasionally to compare notes on what the Japanese were doing in North East China, then generally known as Manchuria. During the 1920s Dalian was important for observing the Japanese army. The 1924 trade report noted the arrival of three aircraft that had made the 285–mile journey from Pyongyang in Korea to Dalian in two and a half hours, as well as the spread of broadcasting although the Japanese were discouraging the use of radios that could pick up long-distance broadcasts. In 1928, it became possible to telephone Mukden, Beijing and Tianjin. Relations with the Japanese remained good despite the growing military power. When the consulate introduced Poppy Day in 1924, the South Manchuria Railway was generous in its contribution. There were good contacts with officials and the regular British naval visits were well-received, as were British officials who visited the city.49 From 1930, attitudes changed. Dening, again acting consul, noted at the end of 1931 that the Japanese had become steadily distant from all foreigners for over a year, a tendency that increased after the Manchurian crisis in September 1931. Still polite, the Japanese became even more secretive and declined contact. They were also travelling more, which made them less available.50 Over the following years, there were new themes to report, including anti-British agitation, the steady decline of British trade, and the departure of the British community. The establishment of Manchukuo (Manzhouguo) in 1932 had a direct effect on the consulate. Dalian ceased to be the centre of Japanese influence and power that it had been since 1905, and the Foreign Office instructed Tokyo in 1934 that in future the Dalian report should form part of the Manchukuo report prepared in Mukden.51 The consulate had increasing difficulty engaging with Japanese officials, although some old ties remained; for the 1938 King’s Birthday Party, the head of the South Manchurian Railway flew in and out the same day, joining the 130 others present. Thereafter British numbers dwindled. By 1941, there were only four left to be detained. Norman Brain and Leo Pickles had time to destroy the archives before they were interned in the residence. There they remained, subject to police petty intrusions and rude language, until repatriated.52 MANCHURIA

North East China, known to foreigners as Manchuria although the Chinese do not use the term, was greatly changed by the Japanese

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advance into the region after 1931. The increasing presence of the Japanese put the China service at a disadvantage. As P.D. Coates put it: ‘. . . they did not speak Japanese, they did not understand Japanese ways, and detested the arrogant Japanese military . . . Trying to protect British interests from a position of weakness was a frustrating exercise in futility.’53 The obvious solution was to use the Japan service. In 1934, the idea emerged of a roving member of the Japan service working in Manchuria, with Esler Dening as the favourite candidate, but bureaucratic concerns about accommodation and fears in the China service about the loss of posts and promotions seems to have killed it. Dening was appointed to Harbin but does not seem to have carried out the roving duties.54 From 1933, the posts at Harbin and Mukden (Shenyang) were regularly staffed from Japan. Mukden was formally transferred to the Japan service in 1933. By 1938, the Harbin head of post was from Japan. It was a difficult environment. Britain did not recognize Manchukuo, and insisted on treaty rights that still applied in China. When Japan formally gave up extra-territorial rights in Manchukuo in 1937, the British officials found it even harder to maintain their position. The work was increasingly political, reporting on banditsuppression campaigns – Kim Il Sung appears in one report from Mukden in 1938 – and the activities of other countries. Commercial work steadily declined; Harbin reported in December 1938 that British trade ‘. . . has to all intents and purposes ceased to exist’, and with it went the British community. Social contacts with Japanese officials ceased. Written communications were rarely answered and oral replies abrupt, although officials were often helpful if there was a real problem. Petty harassment was a regular event. The Mukden copies of The Times were ‘mutilated’ by the censors in December 1937. The Japanese military denied involvement but the incident was not repeated.55 In December 1941, both posts destroyed their archives before the Japanese arrived. Two raids on the premises at Harbin netted five wireless sets and thirty-six sporting guns and revolvers. Staff were crowded into the main building, only able to communicate with the Japanese authorities if the police guards agreed, which they rarely did. Dudley Cheke and his deputy at Mukden were physically searched. The police guards wandered about the house at will, pilfering tea and cigarettes.56

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CONCLUSION

The Eden reforms of 1943 finally ended the distinction between the British diplomatic and consular services, completing the work begun in the 1930s to amalgamate the various consular services. In some ways, the Japan service had already shown the way forward. Faced with new challenges first in Korea, then more widely, the staff had proved their ability to adapt and to function like diplomatic officers, testimony to their skills and ability. Another testimony was the number of those who succeeded in occupying the highest posts in the Diplomatic Service, as ambassadors, high commissioners and senior officials in London. It was no mean achievement.57

Source: Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. 10. Folkestone, England: Renaissance Books, 2016, pp. 278–291.

11

John Carey Hall (1844–1921): A Career in the Japan Consular Service v

INTRODUCTION

John Carey Hall never acquired the fame of some of his contemporaries in the Japan consult service.1 Yet he was one of the early student interpreters and was among the longest serving members of the service, holding senior positions at all the main posts. He was particularly attached to Kobe, but ended his career as consul-general in Yokohama. He qualified in Japanese, was called to the Bar and did important legal work at various stages in his career.2 EARLY CAREER

Like many of the China and Japan consular services, Hall was from Ireland. He was born in Coleraine on 22 January 1844, and was one of five brothers. In family memory, he was Presbyterian and a ‘moderate Irish nationalist’.3 He attended Coleraine Academical Institute and then studied at Queen’s College Belfast.4 Applying to the Foreign Office (FO) in August 1867 for a student interpreter post, he wrote that he ‘held a scholarship in each year of [his] undergraduate course, [was] a senior scholar in Ancient Classics and at the last annual examination, had graduated with first class honours in the same subject. . .’ Hall passed and asked to go to Japan, about which he claimed to know as much as the study of books in English would allow. 125

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All the Japan slots were filled, but one of those selected withdrew and Hall took the place.5 Japan would be his home for forty-six years. He arrived early in 1868. He later recalled that the ship had briefly anchored off the port of Hyogo, where the new foreign settlement at Kobe was in the process of being established.6 On arrival in Tokyo, he settled down under the guidance of Ernest Satow, the Japanese Secretary, on a salary of £200 a year. Hall was somewhat handicapped by physical problems. A fall while a student left him partially deaf and he grew deafer as the years went by. His eyesight was poor and also deteriorated over the years.7 Yet he seems to have made a good start. He applied himself to language study.8 Then as a junior assistant he served as acting vice-consul at Tokyo, and become involved in legal work. As early as 1870, he was seconded to the Japanese commission established to devise a new scheme for prisons. He accompanied the assistant chief of the Prison Office, Ohara Shigeya, and two other Japanese officials on a fact-finding tour of prisons in Hong Kong, Singapore and India in 1871.9 He also gave lectures on the English legal system, which were published as a Japanese pamphlet.10 He then took up a substantive post at Kobe (the consular district was then still known as Hyogo, or more usually at the time, Hiogo), under A. J. Gower, the consul, and J. J. Enslie, acting vice-consul. Reminiscing about Kobe in 1918, Hall wrote that Enslie was often away in Osaka, and that Gower, while a ‘genial man’, was ‘no glutton for work’. Hall therefore found himself handling matters that he would not have done at other ports. His first task was to sort out the filing, already well behind, and then to tackle British merchants’ claims against the former feudal domains, the as the former tried to force the new government to meet their claims. Although Kobe had only been open for a short time before the han were abolished, Hall found that thirty claims were on file. Hall said that meant much work and left him no time for leisure so that he did not mix with the foreign community. It may also have been that his deafness was beginning to cut him off from the world. He did, however, become friendly with the Dutch scholar, Kanda Takahira (1830–1898), who was governor of Hyogo and who later became Baron Kanda. Despite the difference in their ranks, they discussed world affairs such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871).11 By 1874, Hall was back in Tokyo, moving up the consular order and occasionally acting at a higher rank. He appears to have been studying the historical background to the Japanese penal code but failed

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to produce any analysis of it. Satow, who had praised Hall’s Japanese ability in 1868, was becoming less impressed.12 Not only had his work on the penal code not appeared but he had shown no interest in other scholarly projects that Satow would have liked him to take up. The work on the penal code did not appear for another thirty years, and he never produced the scholarly studies on Japanese literature that Satow had planned for him.13 He was not adverse to scholarly debate, however, and took Aston, his senior by four years, to task over a paper on the Japanese language at the Asiatic Society of Japan. A couple of years later, he criticized a paper by another noted scholar, Basil Hall Chamberlain.14 Such actions indicated a strong, if not a very tactful, personality. In March 1876, Hall married Agnes, daughter of Charles W. Goodwin, Assistant Judge of the Supreme Court for China and Japan. She was six years his junior. Goodwin had been selected as a judge for the Shanghai-based Supreme Court for China and Japan in 1865 and only came to Japan with his family in 1874.15 The marriage was a happy one. Her son-in-law described her as ‘witty and accomplished, adding that the Halls were ‘a remarkably devoted couple’, while ‘the family as a whole [were] the most loyal and united’ he had ever met.16 There were six children, four girls and two boys. In April 1877, Hall was promoted to First Class Assistant. The Halls were still in Japan in July 1877, but must have soon left on leave, for between 1878 and the end of 1881, Hall was in London, and read for the Bar at the Middle Temple.17 It may have been while reading for the Bar that he became acquainted with Positivism and the group known as the ‘English Positivists’. Positivists believed that the theological age was giving way to a time when a priori or metaphysical thought would be replaced by science and scientific principles. Positivism would be an important feature of his life from the 1880s onwards.18 Hall delayed his departure, making it clear that he would not return until he had been called to the Bar, despite being selected to be acting Japanese secretary – a clear indication that his ability in Japanese was highly regarded – to allow Satow to spend time in Beijing. But much to Satow s irritation, he delayed his return even when called to the Bar in June 1881.19 1882–1895

Hall finally returned to Japan, possibly at the very end of 1881 or early in 1882. He was appointed assistant Japanese secretary on 1 April 1882,

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but spent much of 1882 as acting consul at Nagasaki. Satow remained Japanese secretary and did not get away until early 1883. J. H. Gubbins, from the batch of students next after Hall, took over from him.20 Hall and Gubbins would Box and Cox in the Japanese secretariat for rest of the decade. Gubbins was seen as the better Japanese scholar and eventually took the substantive post. He also apparently got on better with Sir Francis Plunkett, who succeeded Parkes as Minister in 1883. That, and Hall’s failing eyesight, seems to have clinched the matter.21 Hall had several periods as acting consul at Nagasaki and Yokohama. At the latter post, he was regularly called upon to work in the British courts, not just in Yokohama but also in Shanghai, where he was acting assistant judge of the Supreme Court for a year from May 1888. Later, one of his roles as acting consul general at Yokohama was as coroner at the inquest in 1896 on Walter Carew, secretary of the Yokohama United Club. Because of this, he was called as a witness at Mrs Carew’s trial for murder, which he found harrowing.22 Yet he enjoyed being a judge.23 A KOREAN INTERLUDE

While Hall was in charge at Nagasaki in October 1882, Parkes gave him leave ‘for his health’, to accompany HMS Flying Fish on a survey visit to the west coast of Korea. The Koreans had signed their first modem treaty with the Japanese in 1876, and by 1882 were negotiating treaties with Western countries. Parkes, a keen advocate of the opening of Korea, was always anxious to learn more about the country, and the Flying Fish visit was an opportunity to do so. Hall was in Korea from 9–24 October. Chinese and Japanese naval fleets were present on the west coast and the British found both helpful. As well as visiting along the coast, Hall went to Seoul. The country that Hall described hardly seemed inviting. He noted the many islands and huge tides of the west coast and the dismal prospect of the mudflats when the tide was out. Summer heat led to fogs, and the coast was icebound in the winter. Bright clear days in spring and autumn caused mirages. There were few trees, apart from scrubby pines from which all the lower branches were taken for fuel. Religion seemed non-existent and the people avoided foreigners. Travelling from the coast to Seoul via Suwon intensified the dismal impression. Nowhere, even the capital, had a house

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fit for Europeans. Seoul was ‘uninteresting, shabby and squalid’. He concluded that on the whole ‘There is no abundance of anything in the country except magpies.’ Despite the gloom, Parkes found the report interesting and sent it back to London. In his covering despatch, Parkes said that the capital had been seen previously ‘by one Englishman, Captain James of the Japanese [Naval] Service’, whose account Parkes had sent back to London in October 1881. Hall’s report was given wide coverage, appearing in the Royal Geographical Society’s Proceedings and the Asiatic Society of Japan Transactions.24 Hall never returned to Korea. Hall, who moved from Yokohama to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Nagasaki and from Nagasaki to Kobe, and then to Shanghai, may have had little time for serious Japanese studies, although both Satow and Oswald White noted that work demands rarely took up much time. However in 1887, he produced his first known Positivist work, a translation of a French text.25 He could still pick quarrels. In his introduction to A simplified grammar of the Japanese language (1886), Basil Hall Chamberlain thanked Hall and Satow for ‘valuable suggestions’ Despite this Hall seems to have written a hostile review for the Japan Herald and criticised Satow’s scholarship. Satow visiting from Bangkok, took exception to this and they parted on bad terms.26 1895–1902, KOBE

How long this estrangement lasted is not clear but there was no sign of it when Satow returned to Japan as minister in 1895.27 They remained on reasonable terms for the period of Satow’s term as minister, which lasted until 1900. Satow argued on Hall’s behalf on more than one occasion. When Hall was appointed to Kobe, the consulate was in a very poor condition, with the living accommodation unused and the building unpainted. When Hall ordered an unauthorized survey, which irritated the Office of Works, Satow backed him. He also took up Hall’s need for a big house because of his large family, all of whom seem to have been in Japan. Hall was not rich and the large house indicates that all the children were in Japan. The size of the family also meant that Hall could not afford to take leave, another issue that Satow raised.28 While willing to help Hall, Satow was not above the occasional rebuke, especially perhaps when he thought Hall was being somewhat

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pompous or dilatory.29 Hall, for his part, presented himself as a conscientious worker, staying beyond normal office hours to work. He often claimed that his ill-health caused his failing to meet deadlines.30 His deafness did not improve. His sight was made worse if exposed to glare. Other bouts of illness also regularly laid him low and he often took to his bed, sometimes for two or three weeks at a stretch. While at the Kobe consulate between 1896 and 1902, he took a summer house on Rokkosan, the temple-studded mountain behind the treaty port that was very popular as a recreational area. But it was also a cause of health problems.31 Despite his ill health, Hall’s time at Kobe between 1896 and 1902 seems to have been one of the best periods of his career and he clearly made an impact. Hall was not uncritical of the attitudes of his fellow countrymen, who expressed ‘unprincipled demands’ over issues such as the house tax, in the period leading up to the end of the old treaties in 1899 and its immediate aftermath.32 But it was his job to protect their interests as far as he could and this he did. Now his legal training and experience came to the fore and he was particularly assiduous when issues involved legal interpretations, such as the status of the International Hospital. He counselled moderation in criticism. Using his role as chair of the settlement’s municipal council, he persuaded the Kobe foreign community to invite the Meiji Emperor to the settlement when he came in November 1898 to review his fleet. This was the first such invitation and it evidently pleased the emperor. In 1918, looking back over the fifty years since the establishment of the foreign settlement, the Japan Chronicle singled out Hall for his long connection with the port and his achievements there and also asked him to contribute his personal reminiscences.33 While at Kobe, Hall became an active advocate of Positivism, rather than just an occasional contributor to publications, According to the Japan Chronicle, he established a ‘little society for the study of Positivism’ which numbered Robert Young, editor and proprietor of the Chronicle, among its members.34 He left Kobe in 1902. Before his next consular appointment, he was given a task that suited him very well. After the new treaties came into force in 1899, a difference in interpretation developed between the British, French and German governments on the one hand, and the Japanese government on the other, over the perpetual leases at the former treaty ports. Agreement proved impossible, and the issue went to the Hague Tribunal for Arbitration in 1902. Hall was appointed a

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‘Senior Member’ of the commission to prepare the British case, the sort of work that he liked best of all.35 1903–1913, YOKOHAMA

In May 1903, Hall’s work was over and he took up his appointment as consul general at Yokohama, the most senior post in the Japan service. Now nearly sixty, his approach to work did not change. His deafness meant that he mixed little with the local foreign community. He now spent little time in the office, preferring to be with his family. Oswald White noted that he was not exceptional among senior consular offices in spending little time in the office, and that his presence or absence made little difference.36 In April 1906, he took his first home leave in sixteen years. While in London, he asked the FO for an extension of three months, on full pay, pointing out that while in Japan, he had taken very little local leave and had not used any of his home leave entitlement. The Foreign Office put the case to the Treasury, which was not sympathetic but in the end grudgingly gave him five eighths pay for the three months. The FO was not impressed.37 On leave, Hall became involved in the establishment of the China Society. He tried to involve Satow in this but the he was not interested.38 He was a regular attendee at the Positivist Church in London and a contributor to the Positivist Review on China and Japan. He also translated another important work by Pierre Laffitte, which appeared in 1908. Satow, now retired and returned to the Christianity of his youth, was not impressed, writing to Aston that it was ‘pathetic to see how ardent [Hall] still is in the pursuit of his hobby’.39 Hall returned to Japan in 1907. With the ending of extraterritoriality in 1899, consular work had changed. Legal work, once regarded as the most important task, had gone. At least in theory trade was now what mattered. Hall’s forte was legal or quasi-political work. He showed little interest in trade matters. Before 1914, consular staff were not expected to promote British exports or support individual companies. Their task was to provide information about commercial opportunities, mainly through an annual trade report for their district.40 At Yokohama, Ernest Hobart-Hampden, the vice-consul, did all the routine work and most of the rest; Hall was supposed to write the trade report. He always procrastinated and Hobart-Hampden eventually had to do it.

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Hall was sixty-three when he returned from leave but showed no signs of wanting to retire; he probably could not afford to do so. But doubts were beginning to develop about his capabilities, hardly surprising, in Satow’s view.41 More doubts were raised about his abilities in 1909, when against the clear wishes of the embassy, Hah took the side of a small section of the membership of the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club (YCYC) against the Japanese authorities over the issue of the Yokohama Cricket Ground.42 The ambassador blamed Hall for encouraging ‘his small but noisy following’, and his behaviour earned him a severe rebuke from the Foreign Office. Yet Hall survived and was even appointed a CMG. His last years at Yokohama were mixed. His family was growing up and moving away, while his wife was increasingly poor health.43 But Hall the scholar began to emerge. Not only did he work on Positivist material, but he finally produced the Japanese studies that Satow had wanted. Between 1904 and 1913, his work on the feudal penal codes and a study of Dazai on Buddhism appeared in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (TASJ). Even these works were, it seems, partly inspired by his Positivist interests. As in earlier periods in Yokohama, he also served on the Asiatic Society’s council, was vice-president from time to time between 1904 and 1911, and president in 1912–1913.44 He may have hung on because he could expect only a poor pension, with no provision for his wife should he die first.45 But the pressure was on. His reputation for awkwardness was well-established and he was blocking promotion.46 In July 1913, Agnes died in the Yokohama General Hospital. There was no religious service at her funeral but a ‘short and simple but very impressive’ ceremony was held in the Foreigners’ Cemetery.47 Hall remained in Yokohama for another six months but finally retired on his seventieth birthday in January 1914. CONCLUSION

He did not go back to Ireland, but went to live alone in Hampstead in London. He remained active in the China Society and in Positivist circles. His contributions to the Positivist Review became more frequent, especially on China and he featured in a dictionary of rationalists published in 1920.48 Satow remained in contact and put his name as a possible author of a book on consular practices. Hall accepted the commission, but writing to Satow a year later, confessed that he had not started but

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that, fortunately, Oppenheim, the series editor, had told him that the project was postponed indefinitely because of the war. Hall hoped that it would be postponed forever.49 In May 1919, the Japan Chronicle reported that Hall had recently had a paralytic stroke but he recovered. He died in London on 21 October 1921. His ashes were taken to Japan, where they were placed in Agnes’s grave.50

Source: Donna Brunero and Stephanie Villalta Puig, eds. Life in Treaty Port China and Japan. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 271–291.

12

Memories of the Past: The Legacy of Japan’s Treaty Ports v

This chapter is more of an essay than a specialised paper. It looks at the way the Japanese treaty ports, once seen as the forward thrust of an alien world, have been steadily incorporated in the canon of history in Japan. Although some of its ideas have been inspired by works such as The Invention of Tradition1 and some of the writings of Robert Bickers on the Chinese treaty ports, it is not theoretical.2 Rather, it represents the reflections of one trained as a historian. In addition, it also looks at the wider legacy of the treaty ports, in an attempt to assess their role in the development of Japan since the 1860s. This last section is a return to a subject that I only ever properly looked at in an unpublished presentation on “Yokohama – key to modern Japan?” that I gave at the University of Sheffield in May 1972 and to which I had always intended to return one day. Here, I consider it in the context of the positive way the Japanese view the treaty ports. I did not return to the subject until now for a variety of reasons. By 1972, my career had largely moved away from things Japanese. As a member of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Research Department, my focus shifted to China and, from the 1980s onwards, to the Korean Peninsula. Only in the 1990s did I ever spend much time on Japan, mainly concerned with issues such as the treatment of prisoners of war between 1941 and 1945 and on post-war Japanese apologies. Treaty ports played no part in this work, even if the historical background some-times proved useful. The treaty ports never entirely 134

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disappeared from my life, and I produced a few academic papers about them. Later, I found myself playing a role in Sir Hugh Cortazzi’s major project on Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, writing about subjects such as Britain’s Japan consular service, newspapers and foreign employees.3 A break from the office in 1992–1993 at last allowed me some time finally to focus on turning my PhD into a book. This involved a certain amount of updating, but relatively little fresh work had appeared on the subject. Where I failed was not to take sufficient account of the great increase in works on the ports in China and the new themes and issues being considered. Perhaps it was this that led one reviewer to say that the book had a somewhat dated air about it.4 One difference between China and Japan in this field was that there was not a great deal of new information emerging about the Japan ports and settlements, while the opening up of archives in China added a new dimension to historical studies. And of course, the major Chinese settlements, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin, were bigger and lasted longer. There was, frankly, more to say about China and more to explore. Analysis of the Japan ports will probably never match that of China, but the last 20 years have seen them come more into focus. As well as traditional areas such as treaty revision and extraterritoriality, one now finds studies of Chinatowns, cuisine, the Jewish community and much more. To work on the Japanese treaty ports is no longer the isolated experience it once was. Japan was never as cut off from the outside world as was sometimes asserted in the nineteenth century. It had links, albeit tightly controlled ones, with its neighbours, China, Ryūkyū and Korea. As with Korea, China was especially important for Japan, particularly for its cultural traditions, which were steadily absorbed over the centuries. This process did not stop with Tokugawa rule.5 Formal exchanges often served to cover trade, but there was also plenty of ordinary trade as well, sometimes mixed up with piracy or privateering. But both diplomacy and trade operated by east Asian standards and diverged notably from the systems that increasingly governed such activities in the Western world. Fourteenth or fifteenth century emissaries and merchants would have found plenty in common with their east Asian counterparts; their eighteenth century successors did not. It is true that as east Asia passed from a period of war and turbulence into a more settled state at the beginning of the seventeenth century, controls on trade and other forms of contact became common. even then, however, there were always outsiders who made their way to Japan and made a living out of what they did.6

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It was the growing outside pressure on Japan from the mideighteenth century onwards that led east Asian countries to turn in on themselves and attempt to exclude the intruders. Such attempts failed. In the 40 years after 1840, the three east Asian nations were compelled to allow foreign trade and to accept the establishment of foreign communities on their territory. The treaty port system developed out of the colonial enclaves that european countries created as they pushed into Asia from the fifteenth century onwards. This was true in both physical and mental ways. A distinctive “treaty port architecture”, some of which survives to this day, which owed much to Western-style buildings in India and Southeast Asia, could be found from Western China to Korea and Japan. The clubs, newspapers and various forms of entertainment were a common feature, recreating in miniature home life but again modified by the Indian or Sumatran experience. The treaty ports were not colonies, in that the host country retained formal sovereignty, but that often counted for little as far as foreigners’ attitudes were concerned. The foreign settlements, often at first at least distinct enclaves cut off from the “native town”, thought of themselves as separate entities. extraterritoriality, especially as seen locally rather than in capitals, fostered this illusion. englishmen, Frenchmen or Americans were, as far as they were concerned, quite outside the local legal system.7 The system and style of the ports opened in Japan at the end of the 1850s derived largely from British India and, following its defeat at the hands of the British in 1842, from China. The earliest treaties with Japan, negotiated by naval officers with shipping needs in mind, failed to address the issue of trade, and were rapidly replaced by more comprehensive documents that provided for trade, residence and the protection of extraterritoriality. These had little to do with any Japanese experience and reflected developments in China, where the Second Opium War (1856–1860 – also known as the Arrow war) increased the Western sense of superiority and entitlement.8 Some trading took place before the treaties came into force in July 1859. That, plus an inflow of “adventurers” from the China Coast ports, contributed the air of slight lawlessness that would attach itself to Yokohama in particular. Many had expected that Nagasaki would be the prime port in Japan, given its long tradition of links with the outside world. But many of those who went there quickly moved on. Nagasaki was too far from the centre and the great commercial cities. It remained a pleasant backwater, popular with the small foreign

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community and later the Chinese, but no more. A small Russian community added to the sense of being different. The northern port of Hakodate, also home to a Russian community, was equally off the beaten track. A few foreigners lived there, but there was no real foreign settlement. Hakodate mainly served the North Pacific whaling ships and later the pelagic seal fishers. It was the new port of Yokohama that, by 1861, was clearly the main foreign settlement. Of course, as diplomats and consuls pointed out from the beginning, there should have been no settlement at Yokohama. Kanagawa was the place named in the treaty. But the Japanese were worried that Kanagawa, which stood on the Tokaido, the main east–west road thronged with feudal lords and their armed retinues going to and from edo and Kyoto, many of whom opposed the presence of foreigners anywhere in the country, was too likely to lead to clashes to be safe. So a new town was constructed at the nearby village of Yokohama. There were diplomatic protests, amid fears that the new town would become effectively another Deshima, with contact between Japanese and foreigners severely restricted. But the Japanese persisted, using the bait of ready-constructed buildings, low rents and no upset charges. It was also true that Yokohama offered access to deeper water than Kanagawa, thus allowing ships to come close inshore. While the diplomats fumed, the foreigners established themselves in the new town, with Jardine Matheson, the principal British firm on the China coast, leading the way at No. 1 Yokohama, although it remained only an agency until 1870.9 The foreign approach was typical. While no doubt companies such as Jardines saw themselves as being in Japan for the long term, many individual foreigners at the start, at least, thought of themselves as essentially transient. The first British minister to Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock, recorded a conversation from his time in China that he thought summed up foreign merchant attitudes in both China and Japan: “In two or three years at farthest, I hope to realize a fortune and get away; and what can it matter to me if all Shanghai disappear afterwards in fire or flood?”10 In time, this would change, and an established core of foreign residents and their families could be found in the main ports, with some maintaining Japanese links right up to the out-break of the Pacific War in 1941 and even post war.11 The original opening of the additional ports of Niigata and Hyogo, and the cities of edo and Osaka, should have taken place by 1863 but was postponed because of Japanese concerns that it would

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add complications to internal politics, while the opening of edo, in particular, would add to anti-foreign feeling. The anti-foreign feeling had not dissipated by the time they were opened in 1868, and the struggle for power that marked the end of Tokugawa rule and the “Restoration” of the emperor added to nervousness. The handful of foreigners at Hakodate found themselves nervous spectators at the naval battle that finally saw the defeat of the Tokugawa forces, an event that did little to increase their sense of security. Only Hyogo, or rather the nearby village of Kobe, where the settlement was established, was a success, perhaps aided by the insistence of Sir Harry Parkes that there was to be no repeat of the experience at Yokohama and that the new settlement should have proper funding. Whatever the reason for that success, however, it undermined Osaka, since traders preferred the port as a place of residence. Osaka became a missionary centre rather than a place of trade. Niigata attracted few foreigners and no foreign trade because its harbour was behind a sandbar, preventing all but small boats coming in close. edo’s foreign settlement at Tsukiji was undermined by the Japanese government’s willingness to allow its foreign employees to live anywhere in the city and, as at Osaka, traders preferred Yokohama. Like Osaka, the settlement area became an enclave for foreign missionaries, with churches and schools predominating.12 Yokohama thrived as a trading port, with the usual outward trappings of such places. But it was not a happy community. The early tensions between foreign officials and foreign residents regularly resurfaced. Alcock and his staff were banned from the Yokohama Club after he published what were regarded as disparaging comments in his account of his first three years.13 Consuls received criticism for not taking the merchants’ side in trading disputes, for not understanding trade and for writing unnecessary reports that were critical of traders and trading methods. When the merchant community was not fighting the consuls, it was scrapping over the expenses of going to law or the scurrilous comments of newspaper editors.14 Before long, the disadvantages of having no upset fund to provide a proper infrastructure for the foreign settlement began to show in poor drainage and unkempt roads. The greatest problem, however, was tension between the Japanese and the foreign communities. This occurred at times at all ports, but Yokohama seemed to suffer the most. Perhaps local officials close to edo were more nervous than their counterparts at distant Nagasaki or Hakodate and thus inclined to be more officious. Perhaps the

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foreigners at Yokohama were a far more mixed bunch than elsewhere, eager to make their money and go. And finally, the proximity both to edo and to the Tokaido brought the problems that the Japanese had feared. There were too many proud armed Japanese men in the area, many of whom seemed to hate foreigners, whom they were more than willing to attack. Foreigners might be jostled, and occasionally killed, elsewhere – Sir Harry Parkes and his entourage came under attack at the opening of Hyogo (Kobe) in March 1868, and the last killing took place at Hakodate in 1874 – but Yokohama was the main centre of danger. Memoirs, guide books and travel accounts listed the killings. The most notorious was the attack on Charles Richardson at the village of Namamugi in 1862, but there were many more.15 early Western photographers seemed to dwell on pictures of heavily armed Japanese. These, and gory photographs or engravings derived from them, of those killed and of the executions that followed, circulated among the foreign community and among a wider audience elsewhere through publications such as the Illustrated London News.16 The presence of foreign troops at Yokohama from the mid-1860s to the mid-1870s, together with a general sense among foreigners of being isolated from the “civilised world”, created an atmosphere of fear and apprehension for Japanese and foreigners alike. Language difficulties added to the problem, with few Japanese speaking any language but their own and few foreigners learning much Japanese beyond the curious “pidgin Japanese” enshrined in the “Yokohama dialect”, although this has been disputed.17 Yet in spite of the fears and tension, the two sides were intrigued by each other. Many accounts note that while some Japanese were clearly very hostile to foreigners, others came to stare at them and to observe their behaviour. In the early days, they were likely to be chased away by Japanese officials or worried foreigners, but as time passed, such reactions diminished. Foreigners travelling outside the ports would find themselves surrounded by curious villagers, especially if they were eating or washing. Many woke up to find that holes had been poked through the paper windows of their inns. Foreigners displayed equal curiosity about the Japanese and sought opportunities to visit scenic spots and to view life away from the settlements. Again, surviving photographs provide abundant evidence of such interest. Before the days of cheap personal cameras, the prints made by professional photographers circulated in large numbers, sometimes as single prints, but more often in handsome albums, often bound in silk or lacquer boards. Their survival

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testifies to the widespread interest in the subjects. It would not be long before the Japanese, who had at first been suspicious of cameras, would take to this new means of recording people and places and, indeed, would soon surpass their early mentors. Before many years had passed, Japanese photographers could be found all over the China coast and in Korea, as well as in Japan itself, though they faced stiff competition from Chinese photographers.18 Before the photographs, Japan had a thriving tradition of recording events in colourful woodblock prints. The art of making such prints dated from the early seventeenth century, and was perfected by 1800.19 At Nagasaki, there developed a new style of print, devoted to the doings of the Dutch and the Chinese, with pictures of ships, of people dining, playing billiards and otherwise going about their daily lives. The foreigners might have seemed exotic and the prints often included foreign words in Roman letters to indicate their strangeness, but there was no hostility in the depictions. Travellers to Nagasaki bought them as souvenirs, and they may have had a use to the Japanese authorities for the light they cast on foreigners. The production of such prints lasted into the treaty port period, with fine pictures of the Russian Admiral Putiatin visiting the port in August– November 1853.20 Not surprisingly, therefore, from the 1850s onwards, a new genre of “Yokohama ukiyōe” (prints of the Yokohama floating world) emerged and remained popular into the 1870s. The earliest examples tended to show foreigners in a rather grotesque manner – Commodore Perry was almost demonic in some, while the “black ships” in which he arrived, towered over the Japanese boats in edo Bay, belching smoke and fire. Yet it was not long before the treatment became more gentle and accurate. As with Nagasaki, domestic scenes became popular – husbands and wives, women and children, people with dogs. Many prints showed foreign buildings such as consulates, trading houses and banks. Plans and maps of Yokohama and its harbour were another popular theme. Foreign recreational habits were of great interest, with prints showing the “People of the Five Nations” – those that first signed treaties with Japan – watching ships’ bands playing on the Bund or else parading themselves. With the stationing of British and French troops at Yokohama from 1865, another rich source of prints was mined, with officers on horseback, troops in scarlet and white, and a plentiful supply of flags, not always accurately displayed. There was also a new element, for Japanese also featured in these prints,

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usually as observers of the passing scene but sometimes as active participants in the affairs of foreigners. The foreign settlements and their inhabitants were becoming less an alien and disliked presence and more a part of everyday life.21 The process continued. The events of the Restoration years worried foreigners at the time, but it was soon obvious that a change was under way. The new rulers of Japan, while soon as determined as their predecessors to amend or, eventually, end the treaties, even if perhaps increasingly aware of how difficult this process might be, did not translate this into animosity towards the foreigners actually present in the country. With the disarming of the samurai class, they also introduced changes that made life less dangerous for foreigners. As we have seen, the attacks on foreigners did not stop immediately. But so much had the situation improved by the time of Consul Haber’s death at Hakodate in 1874 that it did not affect the decision to withdraw foreign troops from Yokohama. Japan was clearly no longer considered a dangerous place. As time passed, the Japanese got used to the foreigners. Wearing foreign-style clothes, first seen among the Japanese military in the 1860s, became common after the Restoration, at least in the cities, especially when the emperor himself began to appear in Western-style dress. To some foreigners, the choice of foreign clothes might seem odd, but at least they were recognisably not traditional Japanese costume.22 In some ways, the settlements began to disappear from the Japanese consciousness after 1868. The prints changed, with the Meiji emperor, developments in Toyko, as edo had become, and national events occupying centre stage. Gradually, as the century moved on, this began to change. The issue of treaty revision became a major issue, which in turn focused attention back on the foreigners in the country from 1882 onwards. As foreign opposition to Japanese demands developed, there was some return of inter-communal hostility, particularly at Yokohama. This reached its height in 1890 when it became clear that there would be no mixed court or foreign judges in Japan. When the first of the new treaties was signed with Britain in July 1894, there were dark murmurings from the foreign press and much talk of the “Good old days and Sir Harry Parkes”.23 But it all came to nothing and five years later, when the new treaties came into force, the fears proved unfounded. This was partly helped by the determination on both sides to make things work. Despite all the earlier alarms, foreigners were not swept off to jail or singled out

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for attack. Joint committees helped to smooth the way, and in the settlements, there was no disruption of foreigners’ lives or property. Inevitably, there were a few problems, especially at Yokohama. There a dispute developed over the cricket ground. This was a prime site, to which Japanese were not normally admitted, in what had been the public gardens. The local authorities wished to repossess the cricket ground and offered an alternative site, which the cricket club rejected, insisting on rights that no longer existed – indeed, such rights may never have existed. The dispute was eventually settled satisfactorily. The British embassy’s view was that was the situation had been made worse by the actions of John Carey Hall, the British Consul-General. Hall was reprimanded by London, but not replaced.24 Those five years also saw evidence that the settlements were very much accepted as part of Japan’s recent history. Kobe led the way, with a two-volume history of the port since its establishment published in 1897.25 It is not surprising that Yokohama, whose 50th anniversary fell just as the revised treaties came into force, does not seem to have marked it. In 1908, however, for the 60th anniversary, the city government published a volume in english.26 Such works, sometimes in english and sometimes in Japanese, continued to appear until the 1930s. And while photographs and woodblock prints might no longer be published and circulated quite as frequently as they had been in the past, a new form of pictorial art appeared with the arrival of picture postcards. The earliest ones were issued by the Japanese Post Office, but from 1900, commercial companies were allowed to produce such postcards. The buildings and activities of the former foreign settlements were a popular theme, surviving as a genre into the 1930s. Numerous collections can be found on the internet and a number of books testify to their continued popularity.27 Now that the former foreign settlements were freely open to movement, they again became popular places to visit. Japanese flocked to the foreign restaurants, for, by 1900, foreign food had become quite well known and had even begun to change Japanese eating habits. even more exotic than Western food, which must often have seemed bland and stodgy, was Chinese food. As a result, the “Chinatowns” that existed in Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki enjoyed a boom. From being viewed as slightly dangerous places – which perhaps added to the pleasure of going there – they became popular centres, a position that they retained well into the 1930s.28 In 1916, Yokohama erected a memorial to the opening of the port, which survives to this day.29

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The 1923 Kanto earthquake destroyed much of Yokohama’s foreign settlement and killed a number of long-term foreign inhabitants. What survived, such as the Foreign Cemetery, was preserved and restored (Fig. 12.1). Chinatown had been particularly badly hit, but it reemerged and continued to be a major attraction until the increased tensions between Japan and China in the 1930s. As a consequence, commemorative occasions such as the 75th opening of Yokohama in 1934 passed quietly. elsewhere, the remaining settlements were still treated as part of Japan’s heritage. Then came the war and the heavy bombing of Japan’s cities, which destroyed much of what remained of the settlements – some 70% of the Kobe settlement buildings were destroyed, with heavy devastation at Osaka and Tokyo. There was little to destroy in Yokohama that dated from before 1923, but some corners did survive, including the Foreign Cemetery. At Nagasaki, a number of buildings from treaty port days remained after the atomic bomb attack of 1945, including the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Oura and the house of the British merchant Thomas Glover. This now forms the basis of the “Glover Garden” to which other buildings from around the city have been added. Together, they now form an important feature of the city’s tourist industry, not least because some link them to the “Madame Butterfly” story (Fig. 11.2).30 Hakodate never had a foreign settlement as such. Foreign buildings were scattered all over the city and some survived the rather limited attacks that took place. A defeated Japan in 1945 had other things to think about apart from tourism. But after 1952, when the country regained its independence, things began to change. In the light of post-war occupation and the new foreign presence in the country, the earlier period of close involvement with foreigners assumed a new significance. Much scholarly material on the settlements, such as Yokohama city government’s multivolume history prepared for the centenary in 1959, was published.31 After so much destruction, it was perhaps understandable that buildings from the foreign settlements should be preserved and cherished. But this interest in the recent past did not stop at preserving buildings or producing historical works. There had always been some coverage of the treaty port period in Japanese museums, but as Japan approached the centenary of the end of the old treaties, new ones began to appear, while others expanded their coverage. A favourite site for such museums was old buildings dating from the treaty port period or closely related to it. These included former banks at Kobe and Yokohama and the Glover House at Nagasaki.32 Another useful source of historic sites

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was former British consular buildings, which were no longer needed, as the British official presence in Japan shrunk after the Pacific War. Thus, the Yokohama Archives of History, established in 1981, occupies the former British Yokohama consulate-general buildings, which date from the late 1920s. It has become one of the foremost centres for the study of the treaty ports, with a widespread collection of materials in Japanese and other languages. Its staff are particularly knowledgeable, and it is widely used by scholars. It has an active programme of exhibitions and publishes a wide range of material.33 It is not the only treaty port– related centre in the city, however. The Yamate (Bluff) Museum and the surrounding area show life in the most select part of the city, which was a major centre for foreigners until the 1923 earthquake. Most of the buildings are post 1923, but the small museum is situated in the Yamate Jubankan restaurant, the only building to survive the earthquake. The Yokohama Foreign Cemetery is in the same area.34 A small private museum has been created at Namamugi, to mark where Charles Richardson was killed in 1862. Nearby, there are also monuments to the spot where he was attacked and to where he died.35 Hakodate turned the former British consulate, built in 1913, into the “Opening Port Memorial Hall” in 1992. It is available for weddings, and includes a tearoom and a shop “brimming with British atmosphere”, according to its publicity brochure. even Shimonoseki, though not opened to foreign trade until after the end of the old treaties, has taken over the former British consulate – only opened in 1901, with the buildings dating from 1906 – and uses it as a historical centre.36 While not strictly a treaty port museum, the former summer villa of the British embassy near Lake Chuzenji, originally built in 1896 for Sir ernest Satow, then British minister, has been reopened as a tearoom and centre about Satow and his long involvement with Japan.37 Such places figure prominently in Japanese and foreign guidebooks and on sites such as Trip Advisor, and appear equally popular with both groups. Whatever hostility to foreigners there once might have been has long been dissipated and the Japanese see the treaty ports and their physical remains as part of their history. There seems to be none of the ambivalence that can be found in China.38 One factor is that while the Japanese might resent the “unequal treaties”, they could at least claim that they had negotiated them as equals and could argue for their revision on the same basis. Another reason for the different Japanese attitude was the relatively short existence of the Japanese settlements, compared to China. While the latter, or at

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least a number of them, lasted 100 years, Japan succeeded in taking over its settlements in 40 years. The intrusiveness of the Chinese ports on Chinese life was also far greater than in Japan, thanks to the terms that the Japanese were able to extract after the 1894– 1895 Sino-Japanese War. Until the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the war, the foreign presence in China, while greater than the foreign presence in Japan, was not dissimilar in its behaviour or in its ability to trade. Shimonoseki changed that. In particular, the opening of the Yangzi River to foreign shipping and the ability to engage in manufacturing after 1895 were major differences. The Boxer Uprising of 1900 also made much difference to what foreigners were able to do in China than they had been in Japan. As Japan edged out of the treaty port system, it was responsible for an intensification of that system in China, which continued after other countries were prepared to modify their traditional position.39 Today, for whatever the reason, there is no doubt that in Japan, the treaty ports and foreign settlements have been absorbed into the country’s traditional culture and are seen positively.40 But assessing their real importance in the development of modern Japan remains difficult. Could a few thousand foreigners spread over four cities really have had much influence? There clearly were some influences on clothes, food and buildings. even in these areas, however, as important as the foreign influence might have been, it was much more likely that it was the Japanese government’s efforts and policies that mattered. After 1868, the Japanese central and local governments built intensively in Western style, often far away from the foreign settlements.41 Senior figures, from the emperor down, wore Western clothes. The armed forces, newly reorganised after the Restoration, wore Western-style uniforms. These uniforms, seen all over the country and far from the treaty ports, are much more likely to have influenced local people than anything from Yokohama or Kobe. And as, noted above, the Japanese did not lose control of manufacturing or access to the interior of the country. Thus, they limited foreign influence. Neither did they lose control of customs, as happened in China. Foreign shipping companies were marginalised. Tokyo and Osaka were important cities before the foreigners came and the handful of foreigners who did dwell there tended to be unrepresentative of the foreign community in general. Nagasaki’s huge shipyards owed little to foreigners by the 1880s. Kobe and Yokohama were in a different category and one can make the case for the importance of their role. even in those two ports, the limitations

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imposed on foreign activities and the reluctance of foreigners to give up their extraterritorial rights, a move that would have provided better access to the interior and therefore to the real Japanese economy, meant that the role of the foreign settlements was always limited.42 Whatever the real importance of the ports in the making of modern Japan, for many Japanese they are an important part of their history, still retaining some of that exoticism that led their nineteenth century forebears rich and poor, high and low, to make the journey to Nagasaki or Yokohama, to behold these strange beings. The “sites of memory”, such as the physical remains of the ports and the museums created to celebrate them, can be linked to the Japanese tradition of museum-going that took hold in the late nineteenth century under the advocacy of people such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and other modernisers.43 “Celebrate” is deliberately chosen. The Japanese could equally stress the quasi-colonial nature of their experience, the foreign use of force or the routine displays of arrogance. This is what has tended to be the stress in China.44 each country draws on a similar past but presents it differently. Thus is tradition invented. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alcock, Rutherford.  The Capital of the Tycoon: A Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence in Japan, 2 vols. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1863. Aso, Noriko.  Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Auslin, Michael.  Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Beasley, W.G. Great Britain and the Opening of Japan. London: Luzac, 1951. Bennett, Terry.  Photography in Japan 1853–1912. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2006a. ———, comp.  Japan and the Illustrated London News; Complete Record of Reported Events 1853–1899. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental 2006b. ———.  History of Photography in China, 3 vols. London: Quaritch, 2009, 2010, 2013. Bickers, Robert. Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination. London: Allen Lane, 2017. Bickers, Robert, and Isabella Jackson, eds. Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power. Abingdon, england: Routledge, 2016. Cassel, Pär Kristoffer. Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth Century Japan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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Chamberlain, Basil Hall, and W.B. Mason. Handbook for Travellers in Japan, 9th revised ed. London: John Murray, 1913. Clark, Douglas. Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842–1943), 3 vols. Hong Kong: earnshaw Books, 2015. Cwiertka, Katarzyna J. “eating the World: Restaurant Culture in early Twentieth Century Japan.” European Journal of East Asian Studies 2, no. 1 (March 2003): 89–116. ———. Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity. London: Reaktion Books, 2006. Duus, Peter, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, eds. The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Finn, Dallas. Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan. New York: Wetherill, 1995. Fraser, Mrs Hugh. A Diplomat’s Wife in Japan, 2 vols. London: Hutchinson, 1899. Frédéric, Louis.  Japan: An Encyclopedia. Translated by Käthe Roth. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. Feuerwerker, Albert. “Japanese Imperialism in China: A Commentary.” In The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937, ed. Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, 431–38. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Galbraith, Mike. “Cricket in Late edo and Meiji Japan.” In Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits  Vol. IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, 135–47. Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2015. Han, eric C. Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama 1894–1972. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Hoare, J.e. Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899. Folkestone: Surrey, 1994. ———. Embassies in the East. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999a. ———. “Treaty Ports and Treaty Revision: Delusions of Grandeur?” In The Revision of Japan’s Early Commercial Treaties, 15–24. London: LSe STICeRD Discussion No. IS/99?377, 1999b. ———. “John Carey Hall 1844–1921”, In  Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Vol. X, 278–91. Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2016. Hobsbawm, eric, and Terence Ranger, eds.  The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Hosono, Masanobu.  Nagasaki Prints and Early Copperplates. Translated and Adapted by Lloyd R. Craighill. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978. Jansen, Marius B. Japan and Its World: Two Centuries of Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. ———. China in the Tokugawa World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Japan Times 30 June 2016; 25 July 2016.

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Masserella, Derek. A World Elsewhere: Europe’s Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. McOmie, William. The Opening of Japan 1853–1855. Folkestone, england: Global Oriental, 2006. McKay, Alexander. Scottish Samurai: Thomas Blake Glover 1838–1911. edinburgh: Canongate, 1993. Murata, Seiji.  Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi  (The 30–Year History of Kobe Open Port), 2 vols. Kobe: Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi kinenkai. 1898. Reprinted in a facsimile edition, Kobe: Chugai Publishers, 1966. Notelhelfer, F.G. “Review.” Monumenta Nipponica 50, no. 3 (Autumn 1955): 403–06. Read, Hugo, ed. Consul in Japan: Oswald White’s Memoir: ‘All Ambition Spent’. Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017. Roberts, Christopher.  The British Courts and Extra–territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899. Leiden, The Netherlands: Global Oriental, 2014. Ryall, John. “The Namamugi Incident.” Acumen: The Magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, August 2012, at https://bccjacumen.com, accessed 10 July 2017. Satow, e.M. A Diplomat in Japan: An Inner History of the Japanese Reformation. London: Seeley Service, 1921. Scidmore, eliza R.  Jinrikisha Days in Japan, revised ed. London: Harper Brothers, 1902. Tamba Tsuneo. Yokohama ukiyo–e/Reflections on the Culture of Yokohama in the Days of the Port Opening. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1962. ———. Nishiki ni miru Meiji tenno to Meiji jidai (“The Meiji Emperor and the Meiji Period as Seen in Colour Prints”). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1966. Toby, Ronald P. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984. United Kingdom National Archives Foreign Office records, FO 262/236: Japan: embassy and Consular records. Wakita, Mio. “Sites of ‘Disconnectedness’: The Port City of Yokohama, Souvenir Photography, and its Audience.” Transcultural Studies no. 2 (2013), at  http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/issue/ view/1369 Yokohama-shi. The City of Yokohama, Past and Present. Yokohama: Yokohama Publishing Office, 1908. Yonemura, Ann. Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth Century Japan. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1990. Yoshida Mitsukuni, Tanaka Ikko, and Sesoko Tsune, eds. The Hybrid Culture: What Happened When East and West Met. Hiroshima, Japan: Mazda, 1984.

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WeB PAGeS

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_ object_ details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1536500 1&objec tid=783270 http://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/colonial_cases/less_ developed/china_and_japan/ http://www.kaikou.city.yokohama.jp/en/reading-room.html http://www. kyu-eikoku-ryoujikan.com/english/ http://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/ culture/institution/museum/ http://www.oldphotosjapan.com/ http://www.oldtokyo.com/ http://photojpn.org/PPC/gui/intro.html http:// travel.at-nagasaki.jp/en/what-to-see/11/

Source: Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, vol.58, (1983), pp. 1–34.

13

The Centenary of Korea-British Diplomatic Relations: Aspects of British Interest and Involvement in Korea 1600–1983* v

INTRODUCTION

At the end of October 1883, Sir Harry Smith Parkes, long the doyen of British diplomats in East Asia, arrived in Seoul to complete the negotiations for a treaty which was to replace that negotiated in 1882. That had aroused widespread opposition and had finally been abandoned. The negotiations in Seoul were successful, and a new Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation was signed in the Kyo˘ngbok Palace on 26 November 1883. Parkes left Seoul the next day, before the Han River froze for the winter, but he was to return the following April to exchange ratifications. Thus began formal relations between Korea and Britain. To mark the anniversary, numerous events were planned. The first ever official visit by a member of the British Royal Family took place in May, when His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester came at the same time as the Royal Ballet. There was a second Royal visit in October, when the Duke of Kent led a British Overseas Trade Board mission to Korea. Other British visitors to Korea included the novelist Iris Murdoch, the playwright Arnold *

This article was presented before the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch on November 9, 1983 in commemoration of the Korean-British centennial. 150

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Wesker and the economist Professor Frank Hahn. From both countries, there were ministerial and other official exchanges. If the Royal Ballet is the major British cultural manifestation to mark the centenary, the exhibition of Korean art in london from February 1984 is a fitting reminder of Korea’s cultural importance. In addition to these high-level contacts, there have been numerous others, covering the whole range of contacts between the two countries. This paper traces the history of British interest in Korea from long before Parkes’s treaty to the present. It seems particularly appropriate that such a paper should be given to a Royal Asiatic Society audience, for the British in Korea were very much in the forefront of the move to found the RAS, and were certainly in the forefront of its activities until the Pacific War. Since then, the changes in Britain’s position in East Asia have been reflected in the RAS, no less than in other fields. The paper does not claim to be a piece of original research. Others have covered the ground, sometimes indeed in front of RAS audiences1. But it does include some new material, and attempts to bring the story up to the present, which has not been done before. KOREAN-BRITISH RElATIONS BEFORE THE TREATy

British interest in Korea dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century. News of Korea, and its reputed wealth, reached Europe through the Portuguese, and appears to have first been made known to the English in Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation, published between 1598–1600. It may have been this compilation which aroused the interest of Sir Edward Michelborne, a founder member of the East India Company established in 1600, and which led him to seek a charter from King James I to enable him to trade with various eastern countries, including Korea. Michelborne set out for the east, but he got no further than the Malay peninsula.2 As the East India Company itself became established in East Asia, it was natural that its members should take an interest in Korea. The setting up of a factory at Hirado in Japan in 1613 not only brought members of the Company close to Korea, but also raised the possibility of actual contact with Korean envoys in Japan. In spite of high hopes, and even knowledge of Korean products such as ginseng, however, nothing came of these early attempts, which ended with the withdrawal

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of the English from Hirado in 1623.3 The East India Company turned its attention to China, though there was a brief flurry of interest in Korea again in 1702. But that too quickly died.4 It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that British interest was again awakened. The growth of the China trade led to an increase in British (and other western) shipping in East Asian waters, which in turn led to the need for survey work. It was this need which lay behind Captain William Broughton’s voyage around the North Pacific and the Asian region in HMS Providence, from 1794 to 1798, and which brought him to Korea’s northeastern coast in 1797.5 Broughton’s account of his voyage, published in 1804, sparked off further interest in Korea, and in 1816, HMS Alceste and HMS Lyra engaged in survey work off the west coast of Korea. Attempts to land were discouraged. The Korean officials encountered made it clear that they would be in great trouble if the foreigners persisted. Two accounts of this voyage were published.6 During the next forty years, the number of British and other foreign ships in Korean waters increased year by year. In 1832 the East India Company, whose control over Britain’s China trade was rapidly slipping away, sent a ship along the northern shores of China in search of new trade. Not only did this ship, the Lord Amherst, visit Korea, but it had on board the Rev. Charles (or Karl) Gutzlaff, who hoped to explore the possibilities for Christian missionary work, as well as the prospects for trade. Gutzlaff succeeded in distributing some Bibles, but the visit to Korea was not generally successful, the Koreans displaying the same sort of hostility they had shown in 18167.7 No further attempts at trade took place, but the survey work went on. Increased China trade after the Opium War of 1839–1842, and the opening of Japan to the west in the 1850’s, also added to the shipping in or near Korea. By the early 1970’s, British naval vessels were regularly visiting Port Hamilton (Ko˘mun-do) off the south of Korea, and there were those who advocated its permanent occupation by Britain.8 The British government declined to do so in 1875, however, since “. . .it was not desirable to set to other nations the example of occupying places to which Great Britain had no title. . .”.9 The British were disappointed in trade and not inclined to annexation; instead, missionary interest, never followed up after Gutzlaff’s 1832 visit, began to revive in the 1860’s.10 A Welsh missionary in China, the Rev. R. J. Thomas, beset by personal worries, found his way to Chefoo in the autumn of 1865. There he met Koreans, and began to study the

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language. He also visited Korea, and distributed Bibles. His Korean contacts promised to take him to meet senior officials if he returned the following year, and thus it was that he took passage on the ill-fated American ship, the General Sherman, in September 1866. The ship was under charter to the British company, Meadows and Co., of Tientsin, and there are those who suggest that Thomas’s involvement, like that of Gutzlaff some thirty years before, was not entirely concerned with spreading the gospel. Whatever his motives, Thomas, like all on the General Sherman, was killed when the ship tried to force the barriers on the Taedong river below Pyo˘ngyang in September 1866. Although this was to be a contributory factor to America’s “little war” with Korea in 1871, the British government took no action.11 The next major British missionary involvement with Korea came via Scots missionaries in Manchuria. The Rev. John Ross and his brotherin-law, Rev. John Mclntyre, made the acquaintance of Koreans across the yalu border in the early 1870’s. Ross in particular seems to have felt that it was essential to learn Korean in order to talk with the Koreans whom he met, and in order to produce Bible translations. His efforts were successful. By 1879, the Gospel of St. luke had been translated, and work was underway on the rest of the Bible. Ross’s translations was later deemed to be too full of provincialisms and Sino-Korean words, but it was widely used after 1879, and opinions today are less harsh than they once were. Ross continued to work with Koreans in Manchuria until his retirement in 1910. He died in Edinburgh in 1915.12 By this stage, the opening of Korea to the outside world was well advanced. There had been the French expedition of 1866, the American of 1871, and finally the Japanese success with the Treaty of Kanghwa in 1876. The British authorities had watched these developments with interest, but did not seem inclined to take any initiative themselves. There were exceptions, as we have seen, but, as far as Korea was concerned, the British were very reluctant imperialists. However, the British were busy gathering information about Korea. Sir Harry Parkes, British Minister in Tokyo from 1865, had long had an interest in Korea, and his had been one of the most prominent voices advocating the occupation of Port Hamilton. It may well have been his interest which prompted a number of his consular officers in Japan to begin Korean studies. Certainly, even before 1883, some of these had begun to acquire the language, and to publish works on Korea.13 The Minister in China, Sir Thomas Wade, also had a history of interest in Korea.

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The first British diplomat to visit Korea was Joseph longford, then Consul at Nagasaki, in 1875. longford met the same hostility as had earlier visitors.14 The most comprehensive account of Korea before 1882 came from W. D. Spence, of the British Consulate in Shanghai, who was allowed to accompany the Duke of Genoa in July 1880. Before he went, Spence, having rejected books by Ross and others as worthless, received what he regarded as more useful works from W.G. Aston, Consul at Kobe, who was by then well advanced in the study of Korea and the Korean language.15 Parkes and his government were also learning about Korean politics from Koreans in Japan, including Kim Ok-kyun.16 TREATy MAKING 1882–1883

While the British were content to let the Japanese “open” Korea, they were more concerned by Russian and American moves in the same direction. Anglo-Russian rivalry was a major factor in international affairs, and the British feared that the Russians, by establishing themselves in Korea, would pose a threat to British imperial interests.17 In the American case, the British concern was largely over what were believed to be mistaken ideas about trade and tariffs, most recently shown in Japan.18 Thus when the British learnt that the Americans intended sending Commodore Shufeldt to Korea to negotiate a treaty, they deemed it prudent to send Vice-Admiral Willis, Commander-in-Chief of the China station, to Korean waters, to monitor American moves. Willis was also given discretion to negotiate a treaty, if he thought it necessary. Given previous British experience of the diplomatic negotiations of naval officers in East Asia, this was a surprising move.19 Following Shufeldt’s successful completion of negotiations at Inch’o˘n in May 1882, Willis concluded a treaty at the same place a few days later. Although Willis was accompanied by Aston, his treaty owed nothing to Aston’s experience or knowledge. Instead, he took over Shufeldt’s treaty. The only addition was a letter from King Kojong to Queen Victoria, which cast doubts on the Korean ability to make treaties independently of China and was not regarded as useful.20 Willis’s treaty aroused a storm of opposition. It was well known by 1882 that British goods were available within Korea, and British merchants in the East argued that the proposed treaty, which contained the same high tariffs as the American one, would do nothing to help the growth of trade. The Secretary of the yokohama Chamber of Commerce,

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for example, wrote that “. . .little or no commerce could be conducted by British merchants under this treaty. . .”.21 Parkes, though he had been in favour of sending Willis to Korea, also expressed his disapproval of the treaty. Willis’s own protective attitude to his treaty, and the steady souring of his relations with Parkes, added an extra dimension to the debate.22 As Parkes and Willis exchanged barely polite letters, a steady stream of diplomatic officers visited Korea. At first they sought ways to modifying Willis’s treaty, but gradually it became clear that a completely new treaty would be necessary to meet the British objectives and to take account of the objections. The German government, whose representative had concluded a treaty similar to Shufeldt’s, was also persuaded to abandon it and to reopen negotiations.23 These negotiations came to fruition in November 1883. Parkes, now Minister to China, arrived in Seoul with Aston from Japan, and Walter Hillier and C. T. Maude, both from the China consular service. They were joined in Korea by Herr Zappe, German Consul-General at yokohama, who had been appointed German plenipotentiary, and who was an old friend of Parkes’s, from Japan days. The negotiations were tough, but came to a successful conclusion, from a British and German point of view, with the signing of the new treaty on 26 November. Parkes had found his companions congenial, and had found both Seoul and its people congenial.24 There are many analyses of this treaty, and there is no need to go over its terms here. Parkes’s efforts were highly praised by london, and widely welcomed by the foreign communities in East Asia. Sir Philip Currie, the Under-Secretary concerned in the Foreign Office, wrote that: “your treaty has given entire satisfaction, and we are very grateful for the admirable way in which you have managed the business. . .”25 In many ways, as Parkes himself admitted, the treaty had less to do with Korea than with other British interests in China and Japan. Certainly Parkes took the opportunity offered by the negotiations to avoid problems which had arisen in those countries because of careless or unclear drafting.26 Although Shufeldt’s treaty holds a symbolic importance, as Korea’s first with a western country, it was Parkes’s treaty which formed the basis on which American and other foreigners lived in Korea until 1910.27 IMPlEMENTING THE TREATy 1884–1890

Parkes returned in April 1884, to exchange ratifications of the treaty. On that occasion, he was accompanied by his eldest daughter, Marion – his wife had died while he was Minister in Japan – and she, together

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with the wife of the United States’ representative, was received by the Queen and the ladies of the court. This was to be Parkes’s last visit, for he died in 1885.28 Meanwhile, steps were in hand to implement the treaty. Even before November 1883, there were a number of British citizens in Korea. Some were employed by the Korean government, while others were engaged in various commercial activities. Jardine Matheson, for example, the most famous British trading company in China and Japan, had interests in both mining and shipping before the treaty.29 Problems were also beginning to arise which required the involvement of British consular officers. The British already had the most comprehensive legal system of any western power in East Asia, and this was extended to Korea by the Order in Council of 26 June 1884, which was to come into force in October 1884.30 There was also the question of how this system was to be administered and the form of British representation in Korea. The treaty allowed the appointment of diplomatic and consular representatives, and the British authorities were anxious that this should be done. But there was the question of cost, coupled with uncertainty about how trade would develop and what size British community might establish itself in Korea and where. In these circumstances, Parkes argued that “. . .it would be unnecessary, at the outset at least of our intercourse with Corea, to incur the expense of appointing to that country a special legation.” Instead he proposed that he should be accredited as British Minister to Korea, while continuing to reside in Peking, and that a number of temporary appointments should be made to consular posts in Korea. The Koreans and the Chinese would both be willing to accept such an arrangement.31 It was a proposal which fell on fruitful ground in london, where the Treasury was already making it clear that it was most reluctant to make any new money available for the setting up of diplomatic or consular establishments in Korea.32 It is also a proposal which has caused much confusion in assessments of British views of Korea’s relations with China ever since. It is frequently asserted that this arrangement, which was to last until almost the turn of the century, was made in order to take account of Chinese claims to suzerainty over Korea. Parkes and his colleagues who negotiated the 1883 treaty were of course well aware of the Chinese and Korean positions on this matter, but one reason for the rejection of Admiral Willis’s treaty was precisely because Willis had, whether knowingly or not, conceded the Chinese position. Though the

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British position may have been obscured by later actions – for example, during the Port Hamilton affair of 1885–87 – the original position taken by Parkes is clear. Sir Robert Hart, Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, who was in favour of supporting the Chinese claim over the status of Korea, noted in March 1885, just after Parkes’s death: “. . .he had insisted on the King of Corea describing himself (which he did not want to do) as independent (which he is not). . .”33 There were more immediate concerns, however. Parkes, no doubt anticipating the acceptance of his proposal in london, set in motion the search for suitable premises from which the British would operate. W. G. Aston, who was Parkes’s proposed candidate for the post of acting Consul-General, began the search even before the exchange of ratifications. In May 1884, soon after King Kojong had allowed foreigners to settle on land inside the Seoul city walls, Aston concluded an agreement to buy a tract of land in Cho˘ng-dong, in the area of a decayed former royal palace. The land, bought for Mexican $1200 – then worth some £225 – is the land on which the British Embassy still stands today. In addition, during 1883 Aston had obtained first refusal on a number of other sites at the places now opened to foreign trade.34 There was some reluctance on the part of the Treasury to spend any money on Korea, but they were eventually persuaded that Aston had a bargain. So offices and living quarters were set up in the 10 or 12 Korean-style houses on the site, and the British legation began to function. At Chemulp’o also a consular post was functioning soon after the exchange of ratifications, under an acting vice-consul. The first of these vice-consuls was W. R. Carles, from the China consular service, who was to spend much time in Korea, and who published a book about the country. Chemulp’o had scarcely existed before 1882, and it was impossible to find anything suitable for either consular offices or a residence. Parkes suggested the construction of a special building in Shanghai but in fact the first premises used seem to have been an old public house or saloon, the “Royal Oak,” which was purchased in Nagasaki and brought over on the Jardines’ steamship, the Nanzing, in September 1884. Great efforts were also made to ensure that there was a consular jail, another sign of the British determination to provide for the good government of their community.35 The British were the prime movers behind efforts to have the new foreign settlements in Korea established on a proper footing. Here, as in treaty making, Parkes, Aston and the others brought with them years

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of experience in China and Japan, and a determination to learn from mistakes which they thought had occured in the setting up of foreign settlements. This approach was one which did not always find favour with their colleagues. Indeed, one American official claimed that the British insistence on proper regulations for land holding at Chemulp’o was “. . .an attempt to freeze out other foreigners by the investment of the more abundant English capital in the far east.”36 If that was the object, it was unsuccessful. Parkes had been under no illusions when he had set about renegotiating the 1882 treaty that Korea would prove to be a great source of new trade. Korea’s long seclusion, he noted in June 1883, and the “consequent stagnation of industry which this has occasioned. . .” meant that the economy was largely self-contained.37 He did not add, though he might have done, that the existing trade in British goods was already well taken care of by Chinese and Japanese merchants. Jardines, whose expectations were quickly disappointed, pulled out early on, and none of the other major British trading companies attempted the Korean market. Such British trade as there was was small-scale. As a consequence, numbers of Britons, too, remained small, though the British residents were the main group of westerners well into the twentieth century.38 For the diplomats, there were plenty of other things to keep them occupied during the turbulent years of the ‘80’s. During the Post Office coup in December 1884, Aston, his colleagues and family all took refuge in the American legation.39 Dashing about the streets in the depths of the winter had a serious effect on Aston’s already poor health, and he was unable to work for some six months.40 Even without such excitements, there were problems to be sorted out for British employees of the Korean government, for British merchants and for the occasional traveller who met with hostility. After the signing of the Italian treaty in June 1884, the British also looked after Italian interests. There was also the immense amount of work created by the British occupation of Port Hamilton. By 1885, lord Derby’s view of the propriety of Britain occupying bits of Korea had given way to a decision to occupy Port Hamilton, in a move which, it was claimed, would prevent the Russians taking a port on Korea’s northeastern coast. Whether or not the Russians ever intended to act as others said they would is open to question. What is not open to question is that the British Navy, on the instructions of the Cabinet, sent three ships to Port Hamilton in April 1885, although at first the British flag was not hoisted over the islands. This move took place without any consultation with Korea.

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Neither were the Chinese or Japanese governments informed, though, as quickly became apparent, both considered that this was a matter which directly concerned their interests.41 The story of the diplomatic manoeuvres which followed this action have been well told elsewhere, though, surprisingly, there is as yet no full-length study of the subject.42 What matters in this paper is that for nearly two years, British sailors and marines lived at Port Hamilton. The islands then had few Korean inhabitants, but those who were there seem generally to have been friendly. They were willing to make land available for buildings and, occasionally, to work. The British erected barracks, a hospital and some other buildings, as well as several jetties. Attempts to close off some of the harbour entrances by booms and other devices were unsuccessful. A cable was laid to Hong Kong, but there were great difficulties in keeping it in operation.43 For those stationed on the islands, life cannot have been very exciting. They had occasional visitors from Seoul and elsewhere, and from time to time the regular garrison was reinforced by visiting ships. But life in general must have been dull, and dangerous in the autumn and winter gales. An enterprising Japanese, no doubt well aware of the habits of sailors the world over, brought in five Japanese women in May 1886. Strong – and probably illegal – measures were taken to get him and his ladies off the islands, especially after one marine died when a boat turned over as a party of marines returned after visiting the makeshift brothel.44 By then there were already growing doubts in British official circles about the wisdom of the continued occupation of the islands. The commander of British naval forces on the China station, Vice-Admiral Vesey Hamilton, who visited the islands at the end of May 1886, sent back a report in which he said that he could not see “. . .a single point in [the occupation’s] favour, and very many objections against it.” Rather than strengthening the British naval presence in East Asian waters, it weakened it, for it tied up too many men, ships and stores. The anchorage was not good, and there seemed to be no commercial advantage.45 For these practical reasons, and because of the continued diplomatic complications caused by the occupation, plus a reduction in AngloRussian tension, the decision was taken late in 1886 to end the occupation. A Chinese undertaking that they would allow no foreign occupation of any Korean port was a further major consideration. The decision was announced in Parliament on 2 and 3 February, and on 28 February 1887 the Admiralty received a cable from Vice-Admiral

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Hamilton: “Flag hauled down Port Hamilton 27th. Cable under charge of Chief.”46 A suggestion that a Korean official should be taken to the islands to witness the British withdrawal, which came from the British Minister in Peking, was turned down by the Admiral “. . .as from their not very cleanly habits these officials were far from acceptable guests on board a man-of-war. . .”47 The British left Port Hamilton, as they had come, with no official Korean involvement. All that now remains of the occupation is a grave dating from 1886. Another grave dates from 1903, for British and other foreign ships continued to visit the islands regularly after 1887. The local inhabitants say that other graves were destroyed during the Japanese colonial period. It is also said that the remains of one of the British jetties lies at the base of an existing jetty. But, the grave apart, nothing can be seen which dates from 1885–1887. In the 1970’s, the British government agreed to lease the land on which the graves stand, and to mark the centenary of Korean-British diplomatic relations, a commemorative plaque was erected in 1983, paid for partly by the British government, and by various Korean and British societies.48 Thus, by the end of the 1880’s, British interest in Korea, and belief in its strategic importance, had led to actual occupation. Further signs of British interest in the country were also available. The consular establishment in Korea had remained on a temporary basis, with staff drawn from either the Japan or China consular services, receiving only additional allowances for serving in Korea. By the late 1880’s, this arrangement was no longer satisfactory. The needs for new buildings in Seoul to replace the existing buildings – which Aston had described in 1884 as all being “. . .of wood, old and in an indifferent state of repair”49 – had been recognised for some years, but the Treasury had refused to sanction the erection of new buildings as long as the temporary arrangements of 1884 continued. Now, in 1888, the Minister in Peking, still of course side-accredited to Seoul, put forward a proposal whereby Seoul and Chemulp’o would become substantive posts. This in turn led to the Treasury’s approval for the erection of new buildings in Seoul, to serve both as the legation and the Consulate-General. It also led to a decision to provide more satisfactory accommodation at Chemulp’o.50 In 1890–91, therefore, the majority of the old buildings on the Seoul site were torn down, and work began on a set of standard nineteenth-century British official buildings, to provide residential and office accommodation. There were conflicting views about the merits

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of the buildings, but they were seen by contemporaries as a sure sign of continued British interest in Korea.51 At Chemulp’o, where a site was purchased in 1887, work went on more slowly, and it was not until 1897 that the buildings there were completed.52 THE BRITISH CONSOlIDATE 1890–1900

Further evidence of this British interest, both official and private, was forthcoming in the 1890’s. Additional consular sites were selected at Chinnamp’o, Mokp’o, Pusan and Masanp’o, as these ports were opened. Although in some cases buildings were leased with the sites, there were never permanent establishments at these places. Consular officers visited from time to time, however, and the sites were kept well into the twentieth century.53 The turbulent years of the 1890’s saw British marines brought up to Seoul from time to time, in order to protect the legation. The officers and men were often a welcome addition to the small foreign community.54 Other visitors were also important. Chemulp’o was a regular port of call for the British naval detachments in East Asian waters, and not infrequently, senior naval officers went up to Seoul. Many British sailors are buried in the Inch’o˘n Foreign Cemetery, including eighteen of those lost when one of the boats from HMS Edgar capsized in November 1895.55 There were of course happier occasions. In May 1893, the British Minister at Peking, Nicholas O’Conor, sailed up the Han river to Seoul, to present his credentials as British Minister to Korea, the first Minister to do so since Sir Harry Parkes in 1884. He stayed a week and as well as his formal audience at the Palace, he gave a grand dinner to mark the Queen’s birthday.56 In 1897, his successor, Sir Claude MacDonald, also presented his credentials in Seoul.57 Two other important visitors during the 1890’s were the celebrated lady traveller Mrs. Bishop and the future lord Curzon. Both wrote valuable books about Korea, with Mrs. Bishop in particular arguing for a much stronger British presence in a “. . .country rich in underdeveloped resources and valuable harbours, and whose possession by a hostile power would be a serious threat to [British] interests in the Far East. . .”58 One of Mrs. Bishop’s biggest complaints was the lack of British commercial activity in Korea. Sir Harry Parkes’s predictions had on the whole proved accurate. It was not that British goods did not reach Korea. They did and in reasonable quantities, but the trade remained

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as it had been in 1882, in the hands of Chinese, and especially after 1894–1895, Japanese merchants. The British merchants established in China and Japan showed no inclination to develop the Korean market. Not that they were alone in this, for the total number of foreign firms established in Korea by the mid-1890’s was pitifully small. However, in 1896, the British firm of Holme, Ringer and Company, set up originally at Nagasaki in the 1860’s, established a branch at Chemulp’o, the first British firm of any standing to test the Korean market since Jardines in 1883–4.59 Before long they were acting as agents for other British companies including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and, somewhat later, the Glasgow-based Singer Sewing Machine Company.60 There was another area of British commercial interest – gold mining. This scarcely got under way before the turn of the century, but the British were as keen as other foreigners to obtain concessions from the Korean government, though it was not always British companies which exploited the concessions obtained.61 It was also the 1890’s which saw the establishment of a British missionary presence in Korea. Given the interest in Korea aroused through contact in Manchuria, it is not surprising that a number of missionary societies sought to have special clauses inserted in the 1883 treaty to facilitate missionary work. In fact, no special arrangements were made, Parkes and others believing that the treaty system would allow a certain amount of missionary work and that any attempt to seek a special status for missionaries would only meet with Korean objections. But although the Anglican church in Japan and China took an early interest in the possibility of establishing a mission in Korea, nothing happened for some years. There were a number of Britons working with American and other groups, but no formal British missionary presence in Korea until 1890. It was then, following the recommendation in 1887 of the Anglican Bishops of North China and Tokyo, that an Anglican missionary bishop, Charles J. Corfe, arrived in Korea. He purchased various pieces of land, including one just in front of the British legation, and set about organising his mission.62 It had been difficult to get this project under way. There were some doubts in Anglican circles about the stretching of resources which Corfe’s mission would represent, and also about appearing to compete for converts in a country where there was already a well-established Roman Catholic mission. Corfe had also found great problems recruiting others to work in Korea. Nevertheless, Corfe persisted, and by 1900, the Anglican mission was a well-established and highly-regarded

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one. Corfe set high standards. He insisted on the need to learn the vernacular, and did not attempt the conversion of Koreans until he and his colleagues were able to operate in the Korean language. Instead, the mission concentrated on its three small hospitals, two in Seoul and one at Chemulp’o and on other activities such as its printing press, which did secular printing as well as work for the mission. In addition Corfe began a programme which was unique among missions in Korea, of missionary work among the Japanese.63 The 1890’s also saw a marked increase in the number of Britons employed in one section or another of the Korean government. Probably the earliest such employee was W. Du Flon Hutchinson, who acted as Secretary to P. G. von Möllendorf from 1883–1885. Hutchinson then left Korea to run an English school on Taiwan, but returned in 1892 as a teacher in the naval school established on Kanghwa island. He later transferred to Seoul.64 Other teachers included Messrs. Hallifax and Frampton. For a short time, in the late 1880’s, a British engineer was in charge of the electric lighting in the Royal Palace. In 1896, Mr. Stripling, formerly of the Shanghai police force, became adviser to the Korean government’s newly formed police department.65 The most famous of these British advisers were those in the Korean customs service. The Korean customs service was in a somewhat anomalous position until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, for it was to all intents and purposes part of the Chinese customs service. Not only were all its personnel appointed by the British head of the Chinese service, Sir Robert Hart, but they and the ports at which they served appeared in the Chinese customs’ published lists. After 1895, there was a change. Although in practice, all appointments were made in Peking, matters relating to Korea no longer appeared in the Chinese customs’ publications.66 There were British members of the Korean customs from its inception, but the most famous of them was J. Mcleavy Brown, an Ulsterman like Hart, who was Chief Commissioner of Customs in Korea, with one short break, from 1893 to 1905, and who also acted as chief financial adviser to the King of Korea from 1896. Not only was he responsible for helping to put Korea’s finances on a reasonably sound footing, but he was widely credited with responsibility for much of the improvements which took place in Seoul around the turn of the century. It was Mcleavy Brown who designed Pagoda Park and who set in hand the work on the Stone Palace in the To˘ksu Palace.67

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THE ANGlO-JAPANESE AllIANCE AND THE JAPANESE TAKEOVER OF KOREA

By the end of the nineteenth century, British interest in Korea seemed strong. The British government had thought Korea important enough in 1885–1887 to occupy Port Hamilton as a preventive measure. It was jealous of the rights of British traders and of British employees of the Korean government. Although its position on Chinese claims over Korea was perhaps ambiguous, its original treaty position had been designed to assert Korea’s independence. Publicly, the British position was to encourage Korean independence, and there were those who argued firmly that Britain should increase its commitment to Korea by increasing its diplomatic and consular coverage.68 The growing signs of Korea’s willingness to take its place in the world, e.g. by the despatch of diplomatic envoys, were welcomed.69 In 1898, the British position seemed to be reinforced, for a decision was made to break the link between British representation in Peking and that in Seoul. The then Consul-General, John Jordan, was at first appointed chargé d’affaires, and then in 1901, Minister Resident.70 yet this post was to last only until 1905. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, by 1900, and even more so by the outbreak of the RussoJapanese War in 1904, Britain had come to believe that its interests in Korea were so slight that they were not worth a struggle. Britain’s continued preoccupation with Russia had led to a search for new allies, and in 1902 to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The logic of that Alliance was that it was better to have Japan in Korea than Russia, a position further emphasised when the Alliance was renewed in 1905. Although the British position was no different, in effect, from that adopted by other countries, including the United States, the sanction given to the Japanese takeover by the two Anglo-Japanese Alliances, has caused much bitterness to Koreans ever since.71 There were few changes for the British community after 1905, when Japan established a protectorate over Korea. The British legation formally closed but it re-opened immediately as a Consulate-General, whose exact status was to remain somewhat anomalous for a few years longer.72 Japanese pressure was brought to bear to oust Mcleavy Brown from the customs service,73 but at least one other Briton continued to work for the customs for several more years. Indeed, by 1910, the British community, excluding known Canadians and Australians, who were then and indeed until the Pacific War listed as British, still numbered

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well over a hundred. As well as the customs, other Korean government departments employed Britons at least up to 1910. There were still teachers in government establishments, and others were employed in areas such as the waterworks. In trade and industry, too, the years 1905–1910 saw a modest increase rather than a decrease in the number of British companies operating or represented in Korea. The BritishAmerican Tobacco Company set up a factory under British management at Chemulp’o. Other Britons were employed in more humble capacities, such as governess and hotel keeper. Even the constable at the United States’ Consulate-General in 1910 was British.74 The years immediately after 1905 saw an expansion of British missionary activity. The Anglican mission continued to grow at a slow pace. Corfe left in 1904, the burden of trying to learn Korean, and the lack of funds and interest in Britain for his mission, proving too much for him to bear any longer. His place was taken by the second Anglican bishop, Arthur Turner, whose approach and interests were different.75 The Anglicans were joined in 1908 by quite a different brand of missionary, the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army’s message first reached Korea through Koreans in Japan, and when the first representatives arrived in Korea, they were amazed and delighted by the reception they received. When it was realised that some of this Korean pleasure was the result of a mistaken interpretation of the form which “salvation” would take, the delight faded. Criticism from other missionary groups at what was seen as the naivety of the Salvation Army also led to some early soul-searching. But the newcomers persisted and survived.76 Not all Britons accepted the Japanese takeover, although in general, most foreigners accepted the change after 1905. But one or two did not. Most prominent of these was a British journalist, Ernest Bethell. Bethell originally arrived in Korea in 1904 to cover the Russo-Japanese War for a British newspaper. He decided to stay on, and began his own local newspaper, which appeared at first as a bilingual publication. The English name was the Korean Daily News, and in Korean it was Daehan Maeil Shinbo. Not knowing Korean himself, Bethell relied on his Korean colleagues to produce the Korean-language version of the newspaper. Bethell early on took an anti-Japanese stance, which was perhaps stronger in Korean than in English, for he had, in effect, no control over what appeared in the Korean-language edition of his paper. The Japanese authorities, stung by Bethell’s constant attacks, sought redress through the British consular courts still operating in Korea.

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Bethell was convicted, and eventually spent a spell in jail in Shanghai. On release, he returned to Korea, where he died in 1909. He is buried in the Seoul Foreigners’ Cemetery, and his grave, defaced during the Japanese colonial period, has become a place of pilgrimage.77 THE JAPANESE COlONIAl PERIOD 1910–1941

In 1963, Mr. Whitwell gave it as his opinion that after 1910, the subject of British involvement in Korea “. . .seems to shrink and become less interesting.”78 That is a view which I do not share. There were of course changes after 1910. As Whitwell pointed out, the Japanese, having made Korea a colony, were not keen to share it with others. But the British community did not fade away. Inevitably, with Korea no longer an independent country, but an appendage of Japan, the focus shifted, but there is much of interest about the British in the colonial period, and probably much more to be discovered by research in a variety of archives. Among the first changes after 1910 was abolition of extraterritoriality and the other privileges which foreigners, including Britons, had enjoyed in Korea since the 1880’s. Although some were concerned at this change, for most it made as little difference as had the similar changes in Japan in 1899. The Japanese courts and Japanese officials were, on the whole, careful of foreigners.79 These changes led the British government to look carefully at its representation in Korea. The somewhat unusual position in which the Seoul Consul-General had been left after 1905 was rectified in 1910–1912. Thereafter, Seoul was part of the British consular service in Japan, staffed by Japanese-speaking officers and certainly in the late 1930’s, and probably before, with Japanese locally-employed clerks.80 The transfer to the Japan service also led to a close look at Chemulp’o and at the other places where there was consular property. Chemulp’o had been made a substantive vice-consulate in 1904 and a consulate in 1908. But even then, there were doubts about its continued usefulness. Although it was true that such British trade as there was generally came through Chemulp’o, this had proved to be never very much. Major trade rivals such as the United States and Germany had not felt a need to maintain consular posts there. There was some hesitancy about abandoning the post altogether, however, and in 1914, it was decided to leave it vacant for the moment. In the event, Chemulp’o was never reopened as a British consular post, and the

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site and buildings were sold in the 1920’s. The building survived the Pacific War, doing duty as a community arts centre in the late 1940’s. During the Inch’o˘n landing in September 1950, “British Consulate Hill” was a major objective, and the old building was destroyed. Today the Olympus Hotel stands on the site.81 During the 1920’s, the other sites which had been leased or purchased for possible use, were all disposed of. For a time, it looked as though Pusan might be retained, because of the potential of that port, but in the end, that too went.82 The official British presence after 1914 was confined to a Consul-General, plus two or three assistants in Seoul and, occasionally, an unpaid honorary appointment elsewhere.83 Britain’s official presence may have been reduced after 1910, but Britain’s official interest in Korea was not. The British government, having accepted the Japanese moves to assert control over Korea after 1905, had not taken a very serious view of allegations of Japanese atrocities during the period when the Japanese were consolidating their position. But some twelve years later, at the time of the March First Movement in 1919, the British authorities were far less tolerant of Japan’s behaviour in Korea.84 later, in the 1930’s, as tension grew between Japan and the western powers, the British watched with concern the growing Japanese rigidity and xenophobia which hit Koreans, and often the poorest Koreans, even more than they affected the foreigners at whom they were supposedly aimed.85 British trade and traders did not disappear from Korea after 1910, but some found it difficult to operate. The British American Tobacco Company withdrew in 1914 after the introduction of the tobacco tax.86 Holme Ringer and Company closed its Chemulp’o branch but there were at least two other British general trading companies up until the Pacific War. One was W. G. Bennett and Company, which held a number of important agencies, including that for lloyds. The other belonged to H. W. Davidson, last British employee of the Korean customs after the Japanese takeover and supervisor of the building of the Stone Palace in the To˘ksu Palace. Others ran small businesses at a variety of places throughout Korea.87 In mining, too, British interest remained strong right up to 1940. The Chosen Mining Corporation was registered in london, and at least one of the other major mining enterprises, the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company, although nominally American, was in fact partly dependent on British capital, and also imported its equipment from Britain. Only at the end of the 1930’s, with growing Japanese pressure,

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did these companies abandon the operations they had been conducting since at least the turn of the century.88 Missionary activity also showed no signs of a decline during the colonial period. No new groups joined those already established, and some of the small British missionary organisations withdrew from Korea.89 The British and Foreign Bible Society, whose interest in Korea went back to the beginnings of missionary activity, became the sole publications agency for several Bible societies in 1919. It operated in Korea until, like other missionary organisations, its foreign staff were forced to withdraw in 1940.90 The two major British missionary groups, the Anglicans and the Salvation Army, not only remained active but expanded their respective activities until they too, were compelled to withdraw. The second Anglican Bishop, Bishop Turner, died in 1910. He was succeeded by Mark Trollope, who had been the first priest to follow Corfe in 1890. Trollope was a scholarly man of considerable dynamism. (Not the least of his achievements was the resurrection of the RAS, which after an initial spurt of activity, had fallen on evil days. Trollope did much to reactivate it, and was its president for many years.)91 He set about building up the church in his charge with great energy. He continued the work among the Japanese, encouraged expansion into areas not previously covered, ordained the first Korean Anglican clergy, established a theological college, and laid the foundations for an Anglican religious sisterhood. All this was achieved against the same lack of resources which had beset his predecessors.92 In addition, Trollope, having decided that the Anglican church needed a cathedral, sought and obtained the required funds. The foundation stone was laid in 1922 and the cathedral consecrated in 1926. It was fitting that when Trollope died in 1930, permission was sought and obtained for his remains to be placed in the crypt of the cathedral he had built.93 In addition to these rather grand scale activities, the Anglicans continued to build attractive Korean-style churches, and ran small country hospitals in places where few other missionaries operated. Trollope’s successor, Bishop Cooper, continued his work. The wholly Korean order of Anglican nuns, the Society of the Holy Cross, received its first fully-professed member at the beginning of 1932, and several others were added in the next few years.94 Bishop Cooper also took various measures to ensure better financial arrangements for the church.95 By 1935, there were some 7,000 baptised members, 27 priests and 54 catechists.96

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The Salvation Army had a similar story of activity. From its somewhat hesitant beginnings, it grew rapidly. Although there were officers from many countries, the British continued to be the main foreign group. As well as evangelisation, it quickly took on the sort of social work for which it had already become famous. It began winter relief work in 1918 among destitute boys in Seoul, and this led to the establishment of a “Beggar Boys Industrial School.” In 1926, it established, with the Federal Council of Missions, an institution “. . .for the rescue of fallen women. . . euphemistically called ‘The Women’s Industrial Home.’”97 Both these missionary bodies took the decision after 1910 not to oppose the Japanese takeover of Korea. In this their approach differed from that of many other missionaries. This does not mean that they were indifferent to developments in Korea, but rather that they did not think that overt political activity formed any part of their function. This did not stop them expressing their opposition to Japanese policies, either in reports back to Britain to their headquarters or sometimes to the British government. How effective these unpublicised efforts were in influencing policy makers in either Britain or Japan it is hard to say, but the fact that the attempts were made should not be forgotten.98 THE COMING OF THE WAR 1940–41

By 1940, the war clouds were gathering in Korea as elsewhere. There were Japanese-inspired anti-British demonstrations in Seoul. In the countryside, the Anglican mission hospitals found it more and more difficult to operate. The “shrine question,” and the whole problem of the relationship between Christianity and Japanese demands affected the British missionaries and their flocks, just as they did all other Christians. Japanese suspicions of the military flavour of the Salvation Army, always there but dormant during most of the colonial period, now flourished again.99 As tension grew, the British missionaries, like most others, decided that it was best for expatriates to leave, a move which was encouraged by the British Consul-General. The Anglicans left behind one of their number, Arthur Chadwell, who had been imprisoned by the Japanese in retaliation for the imprisonment of a Japanese in Shanghai.100 When war came in December 1941, there were officially 58 British subjects in Korea.101 Exactly how this figure was arrived at is impossible to say, but it would have included Canadians, Australians and other empire and

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commonwealth citizens, and may also have included Irish missionaries. There were also two British consular officials, their wives and a typist. This latter group was detained on the compound in Seoul, while the others were usually held, in varying degrees of discomfort, in the areas where they had initially been detained. In summer 1942, all were repatriated via Portuguese Africa.102 THE BRITISH RETURN 1945–1950

Korea did not play a great part in British planning during the second world war. Though until 1941 Britain was still the most important western power in East Asia, this was no longer the case by 1945. The British forces fighting in Burma were joined at one time by a Korean unit from Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, but otherwise there was little or no contact between Britons and Koreans.103 Korea did of course begin to feature in the Great Power discussions which began in 1943, as the focus of the war shifted from Europe to Asia. None of the participants in those discussions seem to have given much thought to Korea or indeed to other parts of the Japanese Empire until then. Britain’s role vis-à-vis Korea seems to have been limited to opposition to the idea of a long period of trusteeship before independence. It was thus at British insistence that the reference to Korea becoming free and independent “in due course,” became part of the allies’ stand on Japan’s colonies. This had more to do with Britain’s own colonial empire than with concern for Korea.104 British forces played only a small part in the occupation of Japan and none at all in Korea. Nor did Britain play any part in administering Korea below the 38th parallel. But Britain was anxious to reestablish its representation in Korea, and this was encouraged by the Americans. An official visited from Tokyo in December 1945. This led to the appointment of a British naval officer for liaison duties and to look after British official property. Consular work proper, which was then effectively limited to looking after the property of British subjects, remained with the Swiss representative, as it had during the war.105 Although the original plan was for the naval officer, lt. lury, R.N.V.R., to take up his post in December 1945, it was not in fact until mid-February 1946 that he arrived in Seoul. lury had been charged to set in hand repairs to the residence and the offices, which had deteriorated badly during the war, but he did not have time to do much before he was replaced in May 1946, by D.W. Kermode, a consular officer. Kermode was

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“British liaison officer.” rather than a consular officer, until the Americans agreed to recognise consular officers in the autumn of 1946.106 He must have seemed a good choice for a rather difficult task, for he had originally joined the Japan consular service in 1922. But he clearly found the conditions under which he had to work very trying. He asked for a considerable number of staff to help him, but raised frequent objections to those offered. Faced with a constant barrage of complaints from Seoul – which were even raised in the House of Commons in london, following a visit by Fitzroy Maclean, M.P. – one of Kermode’s colleagues in london noted that “… Mr. Kermode liked to have a grievance to nursed.”107 Even as Mr. Kermode’s complaints were being aired in Parliament, things began to improve. As well as occasional visitors, a more permanent British community began to reestablish itself. The expatriate Anglican missionaries had been anxious to return to Korea as soon as the war ended, but it was not until autumn 1946 that first Bishop Cooper and then Fr. Charles Hunt reached Seoul. They found the Anglican church still functioning well, in spite of the war. The cathedral was in good condition, as were many of the country churches, though that in Kanghwa town had lost one of its bells, taken by the Japanese for scrap, since it had been cast in England.108 The Salvation Army sent an officer from Japan about the same time, but it was not until 1947 that Commissioner lord’s arrival marked the permanent return of foreign Salvationists. like the Anglicans, lord found his Korean colleagues in good shape.109 For both, of course, there was the sadness of the country’s division and the loss of contact with those in the north. The years 1946–50 thus saw a gradual reestablishment of the Britons in Korea. The Consulate-General was repaired and functioned normally. Following the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948, it again became a legation, with Capt. Vyvyan Holt appointed the first Minister in March 1949. (A Korean legation was opened in london about the same time.) By 1949, there was once again a British commercial presence, with both Jardines and Swires represented.110 The Britons, like most foreigners outside the American net, lived a somewhat hand-to-mouth existence, especially in the early days. Everything was run down after the years of war. Repairs were costly, and difficult to finance. Indeed, financing was to prove a great complication in many instances. Thus some of the Anglican church’s funding in 1948 came from money collected in Korea to finance the Korean team for the london Olympics, the team’s expenses in london being met

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by the Church of England. All concerned were happy and no exchange control regulations were broken.111 THE KOREAN WAR 1950–1953

A member of the Far Eastern Department of the Foreign Office said in 1945 that “Korea. . . is not worth the bones of a single British grenadier.”112 But when war came to Korea in June 1950, the British response was altogether different. The British government at once condemned the North Korean action. The Prime Minister took account of criticisms which had been levelled at President Syngman Rhee’s government, but said that this was beside the point: “I am not concerned to defend the [Korean] Government, or to estimate if it is a good or bad Government, but I never knew that an occasion for assaulting someone peacefully pursuing his way was that his character was not very good. . .”113 In spite of military commitments elsewhere, the British quickly provided forces for the United Nations Command. British ships were in action off the north in July, and the first British ground forces landed at Pusan on 29 August 1950. British ships took part in the Inch’o˘n landing in September 1950, and the British 27th Infantry Brigade entered Pyo˘ngyang in October 1950. By the end of that same month, British troops were at T’aech’o˘n, some forty-five miles from the yalu River, and the furthest point north they reached during the war. The British land forces operated independently, as did other British Commonwealth forces, until the summer of 1951. Then all the Commonwealth land forces joined to form the First Commonwealth Division.114 During the course of the Korean conflict, and immediately afterwards, over 1,000 British servicemen lost their lives. Many more were wounded or captured. There were, of course, many engagements involving British forces, but the most famous was the stand of the First Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment during the battle of the Imjin river in April 1951. In that engagement, which lasted from 22 to 25 April, this battalion, supported by C Troop 170th Independent Mortar Brigade, Royal Artillery, held off some 30,000 men of the Chinese 63rd Army. The action left the “Glosters” with some 59 dead and 526 prisoners. It held up the Chinese advance for a sufficient length of time to allow the main UN forces to regroup for the defence of Seoul. Only 67 officers and men escaped capture, and 34 died as prisoners of war. The Chinese 63rd Army was withdrawn from the battle and did not fight again in Korea.115

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The British had been quick to respond to the invasion of the Republic of Korea, but as the war progressed, doubts arose about the way in which the UN Commander, General MacArthur, was conducting it. In particular, the British government, which had extended diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China in January 1950, was concerned at the drive to the yalu and at the airing of the possibility of using nuclear weapons. At the same time, the unanimity which had appeared immediately after 25 June 1950 in British political circles, began to break down as the war continued. MacArthur’s dismissal helped to restore Anglo-American agreement to some extent, but as the war dragged on, voices of dissent grew louder in Britain.116 At the outbreak of the war in June 1950, the British Minister was still Vyvyan Holt, appointed in 1949. He did not leave the city, believing that it was his duty to remain and that his diplomatic position would protect him. Two other members of his staff also stayed.117 Others who remained in Seoul included the Anglicans, Bishop Cooper, Fr. Hunt, Sister Mary Clare (the only one of the Sisters of St. Peter to return to Korea after the Pacific War), and Commissioner lord of the Salvation Army. In July 1950, they were all detained by the North Koreans and were taken on the notorious death march. Fr. Hunt and Sister Mary Clare died during this ordeal. Another expatriate Anglican, Fr. William lee, disappeared without trace from Inch’o˘n in 1950, as did many Korean Anglicans and Salvationists. It was not until early 1953 that it was confirmed that Holt and the others had survived. These survivors were released just before the 1953 armistice.118 Two other casualties of the war should also be mentioned. These were the war correspondents, Ian Morrison of The Times and Christopher Buckley of the Daily Telegraph, who were killed, together with an Indian officer, on 12 August 1950.119 Following Holt’s capture, the British legation moved first to Taegu and then to Pusan, where it remained until the end of the war. It was headed at first by a chargé d’affaires, but from 1952 a new Minister was appointed.120 POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION 1953–1957

Though the war went on, Britain and the Republic of Korea continued to do normal business, though it had to be conducted in the crowded conditions of Pusan. One sign of normality was the visit of the Korean Prime Minister, Mr. Paik Too-Chin, to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, even before the end of the war.121

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It was not only the diplomats who functioned at Pusan. The Anglican mission, deprived of its Bishop, did so also, under an assistant Bishop, Arthur Chadwell. To their other works, the Anglicans, like all other missionary bodies, now added urgent relief work. The needs of the refugees also brought new British organisations to Korea, such as the Save The Children Fund.122 The prospect of the end of the war allowed both the missionaries and the legation to return to Seoul. The Anglican headquarters moved back there from Pusan in March 1953. The cathedral had survived, but both it and the buildings nearby, including the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, were in urgent need of repairs.123 Again, as in 1946, finance was a major problem. Bishop Cooper, somewhat restored after his detention in North Korea, returned to his diocese in November 1953. The strains he had undergone, however, proved too much for him, and a year later he resigned as Bishop.124 The legation buildings, too, survived the war, though damaged. There was some reluctance on the part of the Office of Works to begin repairs for fear that a renewal of the fighting might take place, but eventually, following the move of the Korean government back to Seoul, the work was set in hand.125 By autumn 1953 the main buildings were usable, and the legation formally reopened in Seoul on 27 January 1954. The first social function to be held after the return was an informal reception, attended. by the Foreign Minister, among others, on 12 February. That year, the Queen’s Birthday Party was again held in Seoul.126 As reconstruction got under way, so life returned to something like normal. British relief organisations were still active in Korea, and British government aid was also forthcoming. A provisional Air Services Agreement was signed between Korea and Britain in 1954, which provided for flights between Korea and Hong Kong. 1954 also saw the resumption of normal commercial activity, though on a very small scale at first. It also saw the establishment of the Korean-British Society, to further friendship between the two countries.127 THE PRESENT 1957–1983

Perhaps a twenty-year span is a long time to count as the present, yet in some ways it makes sense. The raising of the two countries’ diplomatic missions to Embassies in 1957 can be seen as the symbolic opening of new relations. All the elements which had been present in

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Korean-British relations since the 1880’s remained, but recent years have seen some changes. Perhaps least changed is the diplomatic side. In both Britain and Korea, the size of diplomatic missions had increased, but there have been no fundamental changes except that, in the British case, a new dimension was added in 1973 with the opening of a British Council office in Korea.128 During the period 1969–1980 there was an additional form of British official presence in Korea – technical assistance teams. These included advisers at the Ulsan Institute of Technology, which was established in 1969 partly with British financial and equipment assistance, and others engaged in a variety of rural development projects, a geological survey and a medical research project. All have now come to an end, though there is still a residual British involvement with Ulsan Institute of Technology. As well as this type of assistance, British finance and technology from the private sector played a major role in at least two important areas of Korea’s recent development – shipbuilding and the automobile industry.129 Reviving an old tradition, British banks have established themselves in Korea in large numbers and have recently begun to operate in Pusan as well as in Seoul. Recent years have seen the establishment of a number of joint venture companies, a trend which seems likely to grow. Two-way trade, minimal in the 1960’s, has expanded rapidly in the last ten years, with the balance heavily in Korea’s favour. A British Chamber of Commerce was established in Seoul in 1982.130 Britain has been a major supporter of the Republic of Korea in the international scene. The Commonwealth connection has enabled Britain to assist the Republic of Korea to establish links with a large number of former British colonies as they have reached independence. At the United Nations and in other international arenas, Britain has been a firm supporter of the Republic of Korea. Cultural links between the two countries have been close. A number of Koreans studied in Britain even during the colonial period and since the end of the Korean War the number has increased considerably. As well as scholars of English literature, who understandably wish to go to Britain, many Korean engineers and scientists have attended British universities, especially to study subjects such as aeronautical and nuclear engineering. There have even been a few historians, though rather more political scientists.131 In Britain, the great promise of the early days was not kept up as far as Korean studies were concerned. Though many of the early diplomats and missionaries did good work in the field of language, history,

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botany and other areas, Korean studies did not take off in Britain. In recent years, however, that has begun to change. Partly as a spinoff from Chinese and Japanese studies, or from occasional visits to Korea by people with other interests, Korean studies are now beginning to take root in the British academic world. For the most part, they are confined to language, history and political science, but there are some more exotic developments, such as the study of Korea music. A British Association for Korean Studies was established in 1982.132 More traditional links also continue. Both the Salvation Army and the Anglican church remain active in Korea, but there have been major changes in their links with Britain. The Salvation Army still has occasional British officers, but its expatriate officers are now more likely to come from elsewhere in the world and, in any case, it finds the majority of its officers from among Koreans. The last British Anglican Bishop, Richard Rutt, left Korea in 1974 after twenty years. The Anglican church now has only two Britons working with it, plus two other expatriates. Its links with Canterbury remain strong. Two Archbishops of Canterbury have visited Korea since the Korean War, and many Korean Anglican clergymen have studied at the Church of England’s theological colleges in Britain. Interest in “the English Church Mission to Korea” is still kept alive in Britain, most notably through the quarterly Morning Calm, whose origins date back to the very first years of the mission. Recent years have seen newcomers from Britain to the Korean missionary field. One of these is the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, successor to the China Inland Mission. Its links with Korea go back to 1951, and the establishment of the evangelical Far Eastern Broadcasting Corporation on Cheju-do, but its real work began in the 1960’s.133 Mention might also be made of the one non-Protestant religious worker – she did not claim to be a missionary – Miss younger, who worked with Roman Catholic organisations in Korea during the 1960’s.134 One other group of people interested in Korea also deserve a mention, the Korean war veterans. They visit, and in some cases their interest in Korea has developed well beyond their own involvement in the war.135 CONClUSION

This is inevitably only a sketch of a vast subject. As I have indicated, there is plenty of scope for more work to be done on a whole variety

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of issues in Korean-British relations. This is particularly true the closer one gets to the present, though it is then of course that the wealth of material available can become swamping. As the archives have opened on the Korean War years, there has been something of a boom in studies of that period in Britain, and no doubt the fruits of that work will soon begin to hit bookshops all around the world. But there are many other subjects of equal fascination which deserve attention. Some of these go back to the very first days of Korean-British relations, such as the question of why the British decided to accredit their Minister in Peking to Seoul. What is needed is careful reinterpretation of the archives, not unsubstantiated assertions. There is also a need for proper studies of the British and other roles during the colonial period, again with dispassion and a desire to find as much of the truth as is possible, rather than to make a polemical case. Similarly, there is a need, and plenty of scope, for studies of the British and other contributions to Korea’s recent development. Since the end of the Pacific War Koreans have, understandably, tended to focus on the relationship with the United States and with Japan, and have lumped everything else together. What is needed now is a look again at other countries’ contributions. In the British case, that is no small amount, as I hope I have shown in however an inadequate way.

Source: Transactions Korea Branch Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 61 (1986), pp.1–14.

14

The Anglican Cathedral Seoul 1926–1986 v

May 1986 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the consecration of

the Anglican pro-cathedral of St. Mary and St. Nicholas, the central church of the Anglican community in Korea. This great church is situated on the edge of Seoul’s old foreign quarter, Cho˘ ng-dong, and is an imposing brick and granite building. Once it stood out clear from its surroundings, but today it is in among the highrise hotels and the tall office blocks which are so characteristic of modern Seoul. It is not a well-known landmark. Many of Seoul’s citizens whether Christians or not are familiar with the Roman Catholic cathedral in Myo˘ng-dong, and also with the newer churches south of the Han River, but very few are even aware of the Anglican cathedral’s existence and even fewer know how to find it. Crowds of people visit sights such as the National Museum or To˘ ksu Palace every day, but in 1983, an official of the Anglican cathedral noted that only about fifteen visitors came to the cathedral each day. Yet on Sundays and festivals, several hundred Koreans come to worship. There is also a small but devoted group of foreign Anglicans (or Episcopalians as they are generally known in the United States) who attend the Sunday mass in the cathedral crypt.1 The general lack of knowledge about the cathedral is reflected in guide-books and other tourist aids. Indeed, few guide-books mention the cathedral at all, and those that do are frequently not very informative or sometimes wrong. Even Seoul city authorities, who have designated the cathedral as “Local Tangible Property No. 35,” have erected an incorrect notice outside the building. 178

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This neglect is a pity. The cathedral has long been regarded as one of the most attractive western-style buildings in East Asia. The story of how it came to be built, and its survival during the troubled times of the past sixty years is an interesting one both in itself and as part of the wider history of the Anglican church in Korea. Together with the nineteenth-century buildings of the nearby British Embassy compound and To˘ ksu Palace, the cathedral forms part of an older Seoul that has almost vanished. The Anglican church began to take an interest in Korea from 1880, and the Korean Anglican mission dates from the appointment of Charles John Corfe, a former British naval chaplain, as bishop of Korea (or Corea as he and most of his contemporaries spelt it) by the archbishop of Canterbury in 1889. The decision to make such an appointment arose from a visit to Korea in 1887 by the Anglican bishops of Tokyo and North China. It was perhaps the confidence of nineteenth-century Anglican missionaries which led one of the visitors, Bishop Bickersteth of Tokyo, to foresee a future Anglican church established in Korea with its own cathedral in Seoul before an Anglican mission had begun to function there.2 The reality was that Corfe’s fledgling church was in no position to support a cathedral during his episcopacy or for many years afterwards. His policy for himself and his missionary colleagues was to concentrate their energies on learning the Korean language before beginning the task of making converts. Even when the work of conversion began, Corfe emphasized the need for a well-trained few rather than large numbers who might only half understand what they were supposed to believe. These few and the small number of foreign Anglicans could worship adequately in the small churches erected in Seoul, Chemulpo (now Inch’o˘ n) and Kanghwa island. This small Anglican community expanded during the episcopacy of Corfe’s successor, Bishop Turner. Both men believed that the Anglicans in Korea should minister to all people there. The Anglican church therefore came to be almost alone in having Korean, Japanese and western congregations. Although they were all Anglicans, however, they did not generally worship together. By 1910, Turner and his colleagues believed that the Anglican community was able to support the erection and upkeep of a large central church, where the various nationalities could all meet together under one roof on at least some occasions. Thus in August of that year, the Korean Mission Field reported that the Anglican mission intended to erect a cathedral and commented that “with the usual

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good taste of their denomination in matters of architecture and art, [they] will follow the general lines of Korean architecture in the structure. . ..”3 In the event, both predictions proved incorrect. Bishop Turner died before he could put his plans into action. His death led to the postponement of the cathedral project for the time being. When it was revived under his successor some years later, any idea of a building based on traditional Korean architecture had been abandoned. Turner’s successor was Mark Trollope, one of the first Anglicans to join Corfe in Korea. during his years with the Korean mission, he had acquired a reputation for getting things done. He had also been responsible for building what was and is one of the most attractive churches in Korea, the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Kanghwa town. This church completed in 1900, was an imaginative blend of traditional Korean temple and palace style of construction and layout with the needs of a Christian place of worship. With a reputation as a builder of churches already established, it was natural that Trollope should take on the cathedral project. There was now an added incentive, in the fund collected to erect a memorial to Bishop Turner. It was this fund which was to become the basis of the cathedral construction fund. The outbreak of the first world war in 1914 effectively postponed the project for several years. But Trollope did not lose sight of it. In August 1915, he spelt out his thoughts on the subject in his “Charge” or instruction to his clergy. These now included Koreans and Trollope took account of their susceptibilities. He disclaimed any intention of fixing finally where the central church of the Korean Anglican community should be. That was for the Koreans themselves to decide when in due course they took over the complete running of the church. In the meantime, there should be a temporary central church in Seoul, which would be a “pro-Cathedral.”4 This term was to be a source of some confusion in subsequent years, and Trollope on one occasion felt the need to explain that it stood for “pro temporary Cathedral,” not as some apparently claimed, “Protestant Cathedral.”5 In July 1918, as the war in Europe showed signs of ending, Trollope again turned his attention to the question of the cathedral. Space was available at the mission’s site in Cho˘ng-dong, following the reconstruction of a boys’ home run by the mission. Although the mission possessed other possible sites in Seoul, this was the best, “adjoining the Bishop’s residence on the great high road through Seoul from the railway station to the governor-general’s official residence.” There was

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already a small church on the site, the “Church of the Advent,” used particularly by the foreign community.6 In order to begin raising additional funds, Trollope consulted an old acquaintance, the architect Arthur S. dixon, on his proposed church. They had met when Trollope had been the priest in charge of the church of St. Alban the Martyr in Birmingham while dixon was establishing a reputation as a church architect in and around that city. They seem to have got on well, for dixon drew up the plans for the Seoul cathedral without charge and also made two trips to Korea at his own expense to supervise the work once it started.7 It was dixon’s drawings which formed the basis for Trollope’s appeal for funds for the great undertaking. From the very beginning, Trollope decided not to build in Korean style. Without specifying what the problems were, he told the supporters of the Korean mission in Britain that “The difficulties in the way of adopting the indigenous architecture of these lands – a task we have essayed with some small measure of success in Kanghwa – are possibly well-nigh insuperable. . ..” Instead Trollope, who had a great nostalgia for the undivided church, decided that what was needed was a building which would in some way reflect universal Christian values of beauty and art. He also hoped that his church would become a model for all Korean church building. At the same time, the new cathedral must fit into the modern city which Seoul was rapidly becoming under Japanese influence. He therefore decided to build in the “Romanesque, Lombardic or ‘Norman’ style. . ..”8 That decision taken, money was the next problem. In 1918, the memorial fund for Bishop Turner stood at some £5000 (US$20,000 at the then rate of exchange), but that would not go very far. Prices in Korea as elsewhere had increased dramatically as a result of the war. The British Embassy in Tokyo reported in december 1919, for example, that differences in exchange rates alone compared to pre-war days meant about a twenty-four percent decrease in the value of British currency, even before local inflation was taken into account.9 dixon’s plans would cost about £50,000 if executed in their entirety. This was too much. But even the modified version with which Trollope proposed to begin would take some £18,000 to £20,000. These were large sums, and there was no possibility that the small Korean church could raise them. Trollope therefore saw no choice but to appeal outside Korea.10 Undaunted by the problems of fund-raising, Trollope announced that work would start on the crypt which would form the memorial to Bishop Turner. It could also serve as a place of worship until the

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whole church was completed. Trollope pointed to the tradition of the great medieval churches, some of which had taken centuries to complete, and to the more recent example of Lancing College in Sussex, the school founded in 1848 which both Corfe and he had attended, and where the chapel had taken forty years to finish. The appeal for outside funds met with success from three main sources. The Anglo-Catholic conference of 1920 responded with a donation of £5000. To this was added a further £5000 from the Wills’, Bequest, a fund set up under the will of H. W. Wills, a member of a prominent British tobacco company. Money also came from the Marriott Bequest, established in 1896, one of whose purposes was to provide funds for church building overseas. And always, in addition to these large amounts, there was a steady trickle of private donations. Although the money from these various sources was to come in sporadic bursts, with the result that much of the bishop’s correspondence from 1921 to 1926 was taken up with chasing funds or bemoaning their non-arrival, Trollope could see his way forward. Work therefore commenced.11 By September 1922, the foundations of the crypt were finished and the walls had begun to rise. Work was much slowed up by the rains in July and August, and Trollope at one time thought that it would not be sufficently advanced to hold the planned ceremony of laying the foundation stone on 24 September. But, rain or no rain, the work kept up, and what had been planned as a simple ceremony for the Anglican faithful grew into something much grander. The Anglican bishops from Peking and Shantung were joined by the bishop of Osaka. There were American priests from Japan, a Chinese priest who had also come from Shantung, plus the Korean, British and Japanese clergy of the Korean mission itself. The ceremony was also attended by the Japanese governor general, Baron Saito, the governor of the province, the mayor of Seoul, the British consul-general, and other consular representatives. Though rain fell at one point, the ceremony was a great success, as were a series of celebratory tea-parties and “at homes” held to mark the event.12 After the excitements of that day, the more humdrum task of building continued. By mid-summer 1923, the outline of the main church was taking shape; the roof went on that autumn. For Trollope, it was all something of a strain. To his constant worries about money were added concern over the laborers and the primitive conditions in which they worked. As with most other major building projects in Korea at that time, the actual construction work was in the hands of a Chinese

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contractor, who managed a mixed Chinese and Korean workforce. Supervising the contractor was a young British architect, Leslie C. Brooke, who, understandably, knew neither Korean nor Chinese. He was aided by the bishop and the other Anglican priests, but it was a difficult task, not helped by the contractor’s equally understandable unfamiliarity with either the construction or the purpose of cathedrals.13 Yet by July 1924, the crypt was finished and the main shell of the cathedral proper was almost ready. At this stage, Trollope’s concern shifted somewhat, for he began to fear that he would be left with nothing but a shell. Funds to finish and furnish the building were now needed, and seemed unlikely to be forthcoming. Yet these problems too were overcome. The trickle of donations continued; amongst them were funds for the high altar, which came from fourteen of the bishops and archbishops of England and Scotland.14 On 3 May 1926, the new cathedral was consecrated. The day chosen was Holy Cross day, which Bishop Corfe had selected in 1889 as the festival day of the Korean mission. The dedication of the new cathedral was to Mary, the mother of Jesus – perhaps again a sign of Trollope’s concern with the traditions and beliefs of an undivided and universal church – and St. Nicholas, who as patron saint of sailors and children, had been a particular favorite of Bishop Corfe. It was no coincidence that Lancing College chapel was similarly dedicated. This ceremony was a far more modest affair than that of 1922. Only members of the Anglican community were invited. Trollope explained that this “semi-privacy” was decided upon for a number of reasons. One member of the mission, Fr. Hodges, had died a week or so earlier. The last Korean emperor had also died in April and his death had led to an upsurge of patriotic feeling among Koreans; clearly this was no time to bring Koreans and Japanese officials together. The disturbed state of China made it difficult for visitors to come from there. Trollope also wrote that his own health was poor, and that he did not wish to receive large numbers of visitors. So it was a quiet, domestic ceremony, with only the bishop of Kobe representing the outside world.15 The new building was much admired. Soon after its consecration, one British resident wrote: “The Cathedral itself is a handsome granite building, Byzantine in style. . . it stands up resolute and serene against the blue Korean sky. The choir is faced with Irish marble, and the alcove behind the altar has recently been inlaid with mosic. Its mere size is significant when

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you consider that its congregation consists of little more than the thirty boys from the hostel and perhaps as many girls from the convent.” The writer, a teacher named H. B. drake, somewhat played down the size of the congregation; though small, it was still larger than his account implied. From the earliest days, the main church was used for Korean services, while the much smaller Japanese and western congregations used the crypt. Together these amounted to more than the handful described by drake.16 The cathedral was now in use, and Trollope went home on leave, exhausted by his recent labors. But though his great church was functioning, it remained incomplete. The nave was only half the projected length, and the cathedral lacked its planned transepts. Furnishing and decorating too were not easy tasks; the mosaics mentioned by drake, which were carried out by a British craftsman, were not cheap. Other minor but expensive problems included a fire early in 1930 which destroyed much of the altar linen. Sister Mary Clare, one of the Anglican sisters, whose convent then and now adjoins the cathedral, managed to raise the not inconsiderable sum of £120 for replacements. More important, perhaps, in marking the coming of age of the Anglican church in Korea, was the visit of the bishop of London late in 1926. He took high mass in the nave and evensong in the crypt. He also complained about the cold of the new cathedral; he got little sympathy from the western clergy, who felt that a Korean winter could hardly be said to have begun in december!17 Bishop Trollope died in November 1930. He had gone to London for the Lambeth Conference, since 1867 the regular forum of all bishops of the Anglican communion. On his way back to Korea, the ship on which he was travelling was in a collision at Kobe in Japan and Trollope suffered a fatal heart attack. His remains were brought back to Seoul and laid in state in the cathedral he had built. In keeping with a long established Christian tradition that a bishop who builds a cathedral is buried in it, permission was sought to inter the body in the crypt. This was granted, and so took place the only known burial inside Seoul’s ancient city walls since the founding of the city in 1392. Again in keeping with tradition, Trollope’s tomb is marked by a fine ornamental brass, which depicts him in his robes, holding the cathedral in one hand and his crozier, symbol of his office, in the other.18 The following years were peaceful, with no changes to the cathedral. Then in late 1940, as tensions grew in East Asia, all western missionaries including the Anglicans withdrew from Korea under growing

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Japanese harrassment, leaving their local congregations to manage as best they could. despite the wartime pressures on Christians, the Anglicans of Seoul, both Korean and Japanese, still managed to use the cathedral for worship, and the building was generally left alone by the Japanese authorities. Like the rest of the city, it suffered from nelect and a general lack of maintenance. during the war no news of the Anglican community nor of the cathedral reached the outside world. But soon after Japan’s defeat, a letter arrived in London, addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury, from Sgt. J. g. Mills, a member of the United States’ forces which had landed in Korea in September 1945. Soon after reaching Seoul, Sgt. Mills had come upon the cathedral by chance. He had found a Korean priest, a Japanese priest and the Japanese bishop who had been left in charge in 1940. From them he learned that throughout the war, some hundred Koreans had continued to worship at the cathedral, while about ten Japanese had braved government opposition to attend services. Mills added that the cathedral itself was “in excellent condition. . .” as was the bishop’s house. Other buildings, however, were in a poor state.19 A month after Sgt. Mills’, report, a solemn Eucharist of Thanksgiving was held in the cathedral, with five American generals among the congregation.20 With the end of the war, the Japanese congregation disappeared. There were at first few Westerners to replace them, and the cathedral was mainly used by Koreans. But by the time the first foreign clergy were able to return to Korea in the autumn of 1946, the position had begun to change. It was not long therefore before Bishop Cooper and Fr. Hunt were again using the crypt for non-Korean services.21 Then came the Korean war in June 1950. Bishop Cooper, Fr. Hunt and Sister Mary Clare were captured by the North Koreans. All three were taken on the “death March” into North Korea. Only Cooper survived. Other Anglicans, both Korean and Western, disappeared without trace. The cathedral survived. After Seoul fell in the panic of June-July 1950, the North Koreans used the building as a storehouse for the large quantity of Western furniture which they collected from all over the city. Much of this may have been destined to go north, together with the collection of the National Museum, then in nearby To˘ ksu Palace, which with other art treasures was found boxed ready for departure when Seoul was retaken by U.N. forces in September. The collected furniture was then distributed, on the basis of need rather than

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ownership, to the small band of diplomats and others who returned to the city. during the January 1951 evacuation of Seoul, and again when it was retaken by the U.N. forces, the cathedral served as a refuge for those seeking shelter from the fighting.22 The war dispersed the Anglican faithful and clergy from Seoul. Bishop Chadwell, deputizing for Bishop Cooper, was in Pusan with most of the clergy until 1953. But a form of worship continued in the cathedral all through the war. Even during periods of North Korean occupation, the churchwarden Yi Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth stayed put. They lived in the crypt, where they said matins and evensong whenever possible. More surprisingly, they were often able to ring the bells for the Angelus.23 Bishop Chadwell returned to Seoul in March 1953, in advance of most of the Korean government and the diplomatic corps. He found the cathedral still structurally sound, but in need of much repair. By the end of the year, however, Chadwell reported that the roof was “reasonably watertight, all the outside cement work and drainage. . . renewed. . .” The processional cross had been rediscovered and was once again in use. Services too were also back to normal. Though at first the congregations had been so small that all services were held in the crypt, by mid-summer 1953, the nave was again in use.24 Bishop Cooper, along with a number of others taken in 1950, was released in April 1953, and in November of that year he returned to his diocese. But captivity had taken its toll, and he resigned a year later. He retired to England, where he died in 1960. Under his successors, who are now Korean, the Anglican church has continued to grow and expand, though perhaps not as spectacularly as some other denominations. The cathedral shows few outward signs of the Korean war, apart from a few bullet marks. The main reminder of the conflict is a number of war memorials. One British regiment is commemorated by a plaque in the crypt, while near the high altar is a series of simple photographs of those priests and nuns who died or disappeared in the war. The most notable monument is a stained glass window over the nave. It is to the memory of those who fell from the British Commonwealth division, and shows St. george and the dragon. It was made by a British craftsman, and unveiled by the then President of the Republic of Korea, Yun Po-sun, on 3 September 1961, the thirty-fifth anniversary of the cathedral’s consecration.25 Another addition to the cathedral, of more recent vintage, was a pipe organ. Built in Britain especially for the cathedral and installed

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in 1985, the organ, which replaced various earlier, inadequate models, was built by Harrison and Harrison Ltd. of durham in the north of England, a company with a long tradition in this field, who have also in the past built organs for the Shanghai Anglican cathedral in 1925 and that in Tokyo in 1980. The new organ, delivered in October 1985, was dedicated by the bishop of Seoul on 21 december 1985.26 The cathedral has not become the model for other church building as Trollope had hoped; the limitations of the model for Korean churches at a time of great poverty were recognized almost as soon as the cathedral was erected.27 Today, when there is much more money available, most Korean churches, of whatever denomination, remain architecturally nondescript. Neither has the cathedral ever been finished. Although still holding the original plans, the Anglican church in Korea has never had the funds to complete the building. While the full effect of Trollope’s great church may never now be achieved, because of the tall buildings all around, there can be no doubt that its completion would add to the attraction of central Seoul. Perhaps now, over sixty years after the consecration, the project might be set in hand. Note (2023). The cathedral was finally completed in 1996, seventy years after its consecration.

Source: Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, vol. II (1993), pp. 2–28.

15

British Public opinion and the Korean War: A preliminary survey v

There are a number of books on the subject of the effects of the two great wars of this century on British memory, and other books have dealt with subjects such as propaganda on and deception as they concerned both the enemy and the home front. No such studies exist on the Korean war, though later conflicts involving Britain, especially Suez in 1956 and the Falklands incident of 1982, have attracted a lot of attention. This paper, while by no means the definitive study of British public opinion and the Korean war, can serve as a preliminary look at the subject, especially in the early part of the conflict. It is a subject which has long held an interest for me. I can remember as a small child becoming aware of the world outside my immediate family on two occasions. The first was a radio report of the death of Tommy Handley, a well-known British comedian, who had come to prominence during the Second World War. This was in 1949. The next was an account, again on the radio, of a refugee column in Korea, probably in late 1950 or early 1951. I can now no longer be sure who the reporter was but, having read his accounts of the war and heard extracts from some of his broadcasts, I suspect that it was René Cutforth, who went to Korea in late 1950 as the BBC’s special reporter.1 Interestingly enough, in the light of some of the evidence below, I have no memory of any newspaper coverage of the Korean war, though I do remember the Daily Mirror headline “Whose finger on the trigger?” used in the 1951 general election campaign. 188

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That radio broadcast sank into my subconscious, only to be revived by going to Korea and beginning to take an interest in Korean-British relations. However, there seems to be a general lack of material to help trace British public attitudes to the Korean war. There have always been a number of assertions about what the British people thought about Korea, some of which are mentioned below, but there seems to be nothing which records private views rather than public claims. Then almost by chance, I came across a useful source of original material which, so far as I know, has never been used for Korea. This material forms part of the Mass-observation Archive at the university of Sussex. I am grateful to the trustees of the Archive for permission to use material from the collection, and to the archivist, dorothy Sheridan, for help in understanding the origins and organisation of the material. Mass-observation was the brainchild of a group of young radicals in the mid-1930s, which sought to conduct a massive investigation into all aspects of British social life. Its project caught the imagination of many prominent social scientists in Britain, mostly of a left-wing persuasion, It published a series of books some of which have been reprinted in recent years. However, the high hopes of the early years were perhaps not fully realised, and although a great amount of material was collected, not all of it was published before the outbreak of war in 1939. For the duration of the war, most of Mass-observation’s efforts were devoted to work for the Ministry of Information or other government departments. Social science investigation began again in 1945, but from the late 1940s the organisation gradually became more and more an ordinary market research organisation. In 1970, the Massobservation papers were brought to the university of Sussex, and the present Archive established.2 The collections relating to Korea consist of one box of papers, which together make up four files, and which were the raw material which Mass observation collected in the period July-october 1950. They relate, therefore, only to the early stages of the Korean war, but are nevertheless a useful guide to public opinion at a number of important points. In addition, there is one set of “directive Replies” – for January and February 1951. The four files record the views of people selected at random, while the directive replies are answers provided on a regular basis by a volunteer panel, a rather more self-selected group. It is not clear if any of this material was ever used. In addition, I have looked at some Foreign office material, now at the Public Record office at Kew, a selection of BBC archive material held at Caversham, and a

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wide selection of memoirs, diaries and other published material. I have also sampled some contemporary newspapers and magazines. There is clearly much more of this type of material available, and it is also possible that other collections of raw material, perhaps covering the whole Korean war period may be found, for example in the Central office of Information papers. Published studies on the Korean war using British government archival material, however, do not show many signs of this. The outbreak of the Korean war must have come as a considerable surprise to most people in Britain in June 1950. Korea was not a place which was very well-known, and there were few traditional links with the country. Such links as there were had been broken by the Pacific war and organisations that had a history of involvement with Korea, such as the Anglican Church and the Salvation Army, were just in the process of re-establishing ties. The Korean war dealt a further blow. outside the missionary organisations and, perhaps, art circles, there were no British scholars of Korea. Within British government circles, Korean “expertise” was confined to a few members of the former Japan Consular Service, who had served in Korea briefly and who tended to see the country through Japanese prejudices. There were few British visitors and no British newspaper had a resident correspondent in the country. There had been some British-authored books about Korea, but it was hard to find any dated later than 1930 dealing with political issues; in 1950, the most recent British publications was old Korea (london, 1946) by the artist elizabeth Keith. It was a charming publication, but it related to a period several years before the Pacific war and carefully avoided contemporary issues. one or two articles had appeared in journals such as Chatham House’s The World Today, and Korea featured briefly in the same organisation’s Survey of International Relations and The Annual Register. But that was all. For up-to-date information, readers had to turn to an American scholar, George McCune, whose posthumous Korea Today appeared just as the war broke out. From these various sources, a well-read person might have been aware that Korea was a possible trouble spot in Asia, and that there had emerged two separate regimes following the division of the country to effect the surrender of Japanese forces in 1945. British newspapers had reported that there had been sporadic border clashes between a communist north and a free south. British officials watched Korea, of course, though as a minor drama compared to the great events elsewhere in Asia. The Foreign Secretary, ernest Bevin, travelling to Colombo early

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in 1950, must have surprised the officers and men of HMS “Kenya” and his own officials when he warned them that in Korea – out of the news for many months – there was a precarious situation which could lead to war. But Korea was a long way away, and there were many other international issues which took precedence in most people’s minds. To take the years 1948–50, for example, there were active crises over Berlin, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Palestine/Israel, India/ Pakistan, China, Netherlands/Indonesia and Malaya. In many of these, Britain had a direct and clearly defined interest and British troops were involved. Add to these a variety of domestic crises, and it seems fair to conclude that few in Britain would have dissented from the opinion of the then head of the Far eastern department in the Foreign office that Korea was “not worth the bones of a single British grenadier.”3 Initial coverage of the war showed up the past neglect of Korea. In its first reports on the fighting, The Times carried maps which showed most Korean towns with Japanese place-names, though these had been quickly abandoned in Korea after 1945. The Times’ photographs illustrating the story were hardly more reassuring, since they showed Seoul and Kaesong in the 1920s or 1930s at the latest. even as late as September 1950, The Times was still carrying a map of Seoul using Japanese names. Writing in 1954, the British political journalist Guy Wint noted that the outbreak of the war had less effect in europe than in the united States. In the latter, the news, coming in on a Sunday morning, struck many Americans as closely paralleling Pearl Harbour some seven years earlier. “By contrast. . .most europeans were at first little shaken by the news. Korea seemed a long way off – much further than Berlin, and had not the world survived the crisis of the Berlin blockade?” Malcolm Muggeridge, then deputy editor on the Daily Telegraph, on holiday in Italy speculated in his diary as to whether this was the beginning of another world war. If so, how were he and his wife to get back to their children? But he does not seem to have done anything about it. dora Russell, a fierce opponent of the war, wrote many years later in her autobiography that in Britain “. . .no one understood what it was all about.”4 The official British reaction followed the American government’s lead. Korea was seen as yet another challenge by the Soviet union to the West, and one which had to be opposed. The Times quoted the Prime Minister, Mr Attlee: “After the bitter experience of the past thirtyfive years, salvation is dependent on prompt and effective measures to

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resist aggression.” A BBC radio broadcast on 27 June, reprinted in The Listener, gave a brief sketch of recent Korean history and attributed all blame for the conflict to the north Koreans.5 As A.J.P. Taylor put it in 1956, “. . .the British Government joined in the Korean war with Conservative approval to vindicate the doctrine of collective security which the National Government had betrayed in 1935.”6 Mass-observation began to collect opinions and views on the war within a couple of days of its outbreak. Some of these testified to the initial confusion. one young man on a london-bound train was noted on 28 June saying that the Russians had invaded Karachi. When corrected by his friend, he said that he “knew it began with a K.” A few days later, a small group of eight people, all working class, were interviewed in london. Most displayed a resigned acceptance that the Russians were behind the war, and that it was right to “draw the line somewhere.” one 55-year old man said, “If we don’t stop it, Russia will swamp the world because it’s definitely Russia’s intention to swamp the world – she makes no secret of it. . .” There was some dissent, however. Two men, one 35 and one 50, said it was wrong to become involved, and that America seemed to want war. Another man, 60, described the American action as right, but held out little hope of success, since what had triggered the conflict was a new “spirit of national independence” among peoples “subjected for hundreds and hundreds of years to serving other people”. Some concern was expressed over the atomic bomb, which one 60-year old man blamed, somewhat obscurely, on the British aircraft manufacturer lord Brabazon and the former Permanent under Secretary at the Foreign office, lord Vansittart. Two women interviewed gave opposing views. one aged 29 said that it was something which had to be done; the other, aged 50, said that she and her friends were all terrified at the prospect of another war – this concern among older women was also echoed in some male replies. It is now impossible to tell, but it may be that for the first woman, 18 at the outbreak of the Second World War, war had become an accepted part of normal life; for the second (and those of a similar age) it was an intrusion to be feared. one other notable theme, which is found among those who supported action in Korea as well as those who opposed it, is a considerable degree of hostility towards the united States, often described as overbearing and bullying not just to Korea but to Britain as well. British self-confidence was still high: the 29-year old woman “hoped they (the Americans] go down the pan until our boys get

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there.” others were more resigned, expressing the view that British help would probably be needed to sort out American problems. Many of these same themes were found again in early July 1950. By then, north Korean forces were sweeping down the peninsula. The united Nations had, in the absence of the Soviet union, condemned them, endorsed united States’ action and sought wider support for action in Korea. despite earlier Foreign office comments about the value of Korea and pressing needs elsewhere, British ground forces had been promised; Royal Air Force Sunderland flying boats were already in operation by early July and British naval forces in east Asia had been placed at the united States’ disposal.7 even on the left-wing of British politics, there was little public hostility to the war; the then journalistic vanguard of the left, Tribune, was willing to concede that the American action was right, and the Trades’ union Congress endorsed the government’s decision in August 1950. even Monica Felton, regarded as a well-known fellow-traveller of the left, was to tell children in Prague as late as April 1951 that, “the majority [of British people] believe – honestly and without any doubt – that this war was started by an act of aggression by the government of north Korea.”8 As far as the opinion polls were concerned, most of those interviewed continued to accept that Britain had little choice but to support action in Korea. A Gallup poll in the News Chronicle of 5 July 1950 noted that two out of three approved the government’s policy on Korea. This approval was highest among Conservative and liberal supporters, but even labour supporters turned in 62% in favour, with 18% against and 17% abstaining or declaring “don’t know”.9 The same poll noted that only one percent of those questioned claimed not to have heard anything about the war. Yet the war does not seem to have engaged attention as might have been expected. While the radio had gained tremendous importance as a source of news during the Second World War newspapers, though still short of newsprint, had regained some of their pre-war preeminence by 1950. Six newsagents in the london district of Fulham reported in the second week of July 1950 that there was no increase in the total sale of newspapers, although they were selling out earlier in the day than was usual in the annual holiday time. one said that his customers’ attitude about British involvement was one of resignation, but that “its too far away for them to make head or tail of it.” Most customers bought newspapers primarily for the sports pages ( – many would say that they still do).

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Another newsagent in the same area, not one of the six, noted one new development: the British Communist Party newspaper, then called the Daily Worker, was selling well. The interviewer said that he supposed the reason for this was “this Korea business”, to which the newsagent’s reply was that, “. . .people want to know the other side of things.” Certainly in some of these early interviews, there were caustic references to the “capitalist press”, but another reason may have been that the Daily Worker was the only British newspaper which had its own correspondent in Korea, This was Alan Winnington, who had been in Peking when the war broke out and who followed the north Korean forces down the peninsula. His reports gave the Daily Worker an interest other papers could not match, especially in the early days of the conflict, when most had to rely on agency reports, often from Japan rather than Korea itself. There may also have been the expectation that a communist newspaper might help to understand the causes of a war which was being presented as part of an international communist scheme.10 In mid-July, Mass-observation conducted a survey on public attitudes to the war. It showed no substantial change. The survey involved a sample of about 150 people, mostly taken in london. From the answers, some 90 could be said to be in favour of the uN action, fifteen against, and about 45 claimed not to know or were not interested. A five-point questionnaire was used, beginning with “What is the most important issue today?” and including views on the Americans and the Russians. A number of people gave no answer at all, or claimed not to know since they had not read a newspaper. one said it was the weather, while another said she “didn’t know. Ask my mother, she’ll tell you.” others were more enthusiastic, seeing American setbacks as merely temporary. A few adopted a “plague on both their houses” attitude, saying that the north and south Koreans should be allowed to settle differences on their own. A medical student aged 25 was one of the few to express the idea that the north Koreans might have been provoked into attacking. By this time, the war had been underway a month. It was already beginning to affect people’s lives. The united Kingdom had re-introduced conscription in 1947, and although in the first instance there was an apparently successful call for volunteers to Korea, “National Service” – i.e. conscription – was to be extended from 18 months to two years, with three and a half years for reserves. Reservists were called up, and those already serving found their terms extended. Most people accepted that these things had to be; as a recent writer has put it:

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“. . .we had all lived in a war-time boyhood, half-expecting to fight the Nazis: it might be said that we needed National Service to express our pent-up, expectant militarism. . .”11 As the summer moved on, so Korea became better known, the first British casualties occurred when the cruiser HMS “Jamaica” was hit while shelling north Korean installations on the east coast; a sailor and five soldiers were killed, and three others wounded. British journalists began to arrive. The illustrated Picture Post ran an eleven-page feature titled “War in Korea” on 29 July 1950, based on material from the journalist Stephen Simmons and photographer Haywood Magee; Simmons was killed the following month, when the military transport plane in which he was travelling crashed off southern Japan. August also saw the deaths of two other British correspondents, when Ian Morrison of The Times and Christopher Buckley of the Daily Telegraph, plus an Indian observer officer, were blown up. The arrival of the journalists also introduced a new element, for stories began to come back confirming that the south Korean government under Syngman Rhee was hardly a model democracy. Not that this came as a surprise for, despite later claims, few in Britain or the united States appear to have been starry-eyed about south Korean politics. Such reports, however, began to feed opposition to the war, which was beginning to develop in some parts of the labour Party and on the left.12 When Mass-observation again surveyed public opinion in london in mid-August 1950, there were other items of news to complete with Korea, A new royal baby, Princess Anne, was born on 15 August, and this took pride of place with some, while others listed the baby as joint first with the war. The war still seemed remote to most, and the issues confused. of the 150 asked, the fifty-six who expressed a favourable view were clearly in a large majority against the twenty who were opposed. But over seventy said they were not interested in or did not know about the war; many of these mentioned the royal baby. They may have become somewhat more confused than usual because they were also asked what should happen to Taiwan, one lady blamed all the problems in Korea and elsewhere in east Asia on Chiang Kai-shek, who should be handed over to the Russians since “he is the cause of all the disturbances.” others too felt that the Taiwan issue and Korea were interconnected, but seemed uncertain how this had come about. General MacArthur’s role was also somewhat dimly perceived. A toolmaker from earls Court perhaps summed up the confusion well: “I think it

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is something that should never have come about, but it is something that had to come.” Perhaps not surprisingly, Picture Post reported in a feature on the men volunteering for military service on 26 August 1950 that none were interested in Korea or the issues involved; all said they had joined for excitement. At the same time, the belief that the Americans were poor fighters who would need to be rescued by the British was widespread and not confined to supporters of any one party, nor to people in any one social group. Yet both BBC television reports – this was the first war in which television began to make an impact – and cinema newsreels tended to stress that it was the united States and south Korean forces which had so far borne the brunt of the fighting and were continuing to do so. British public opinion, however, could not be persuaded that British involvement was the best hope of success for the uN cause.13 Mass-observation next sought views on Korea in late october 1950. British ground troops had now been in action since the end of August – the first casualty had been a 19-year old private, killed on patrol a week after arrival.14 MacArthur had staged the highly successful Inch’on landing in mid-September, with British ships in action during the bombardment, and with James Cameron among the war correspondents who went ashore in the wake of the landing. Picture Post carried Cameron’s account of the landing and its aftermath plus graphic pictures of the death and destruction which occurred, thus bringing the war very close. Following the landing, the uN forces took Seoul and began the drive north. By the end of the first week in october, the conflict had moved on from its starting point, and the question of crossing the 38th parallel had been settled, despite doubts on the part of Britain and some countries. Beyond, both literally and figuratively, lay China and the possibility of a wider war, but MacArthur was euphoric and there was talk of ending the war by Christmas.15 domestically, there were also important developments. Both the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the exchequer were ill, and the latter resigned shortly before this survey was made. The effects of the war were making themselves felt too. Inflation, spurred by the after-effects of the 1949 devaluation of the pound and the war’s creation of a demand for raw materials, began to take off in late 1950. opposition to the war, though still not strong, was perhaps becoming more vocal. In late october, there was to be a Soviet-supported peace conference in Sheffield, which led to angry exchanges between the government and the conference’s British supporters, some of whom were members of the labour Party.

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When the government made clear its determination to stop the entry of known communists, the conference venue was shifted to Warsaw, and recriminations continued.16 The first two questions in the october survey dealt with the resignation of the Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps, the remainder with Korea. Those interviewed were asked what was meant by the 38th parallel, what they thought of uN forces crossing it, how they felt about the Korean situation generally, and what they thought of MacArthur. Again, the number who appeared to know very little about Korea was high, but of those who did know there was still considerable support for the war.17 MacArthur still clearly aroused mixed feelings. A housewife in Pimlico said she “thought him sometimes a bit bombastic,” though adding, somewhat inconsequentially, “. . . but then, as I’m english it doesn’t affect me.” A butcher commented that MacArthur was “a general that keeps safe and Japan’s a lovely place for a holiday.” A lady doctor from Fulham, who said she was a communist, described MacArthur as “one of the most blatant military maniacs.” The same doctor did not think much of the war either, condemning the indiscriminate bombing of women and children, and describing it as one of the greatest devastations “since the old colonial wars.” Another lady, this time a liberal supporter, when asked about the 38th parallel said that she half supported the move and was half against it, but on the whole felt that the decision to cross was not right: “We’ve rather left ourselves open now. We can hardly blame the Chinese in Tibet now can we?” She was one of the few people to link what was happening in Korea with other events, though another communist, a plasterer from Hammersmith, claimed that crossing the parallel was “very similar to the aggression of Mussolini in Italy.” There is no further survey material in the Mass-observation Archive. The only other set of material is “directive replies” for January-February 1951, As mentioned earlier, the people who compiled this were selfselected, in that they had volunteered to complete a questionnaire on a regular basis. The questions asked varied, but this seems to be the only time that Korea was raised. By then, the high hopes of success in Korea had been dashed following massive Chinese intervention as uN troops approached the Yalu river. It was widely believed in Britain that use of the atomic bomb had only been stopped by the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in early december 1950. uN forces had retreated south of Seoul, and though the line stabilized about 25 January 1951, there was no certainty that it would be held. other reports out of

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Korea were causing disquiet in Britain. Alan Winnington’s despatches to the Daily Worker about alleged south Korean atrocities were now being matched by other reports carried by newspapers of both left and right. There had been a major row at Picture Post between the editor, Tom Hopkinson and the owner, edward Hulton, over the latter’s refusal to allow the publication of James Cameron’s account of atrocities, which ended with Hopkinson’s dismissal. under uS pressure, Britain announced a massive rearmament programme at the end of January, with £4,700 million pledged, and no obvious indication of where it was to be found.18 The small group of 18 who commented on Korea in 1951 did so therefore against a backdrop of doubts about the war. This is reflected in their comments and also surfaces in the Gallup Poll survey conducted at the same time.19 even those who accepted that the united Nations had been right to intervene in Korea were opposed to the decision to cross the parallel. only two gave unqualified support to this decision. MacArthur was regarded as impetuous and determined for a showdown; one lady remarked that Americans seemed to lack finesse in dealing with complicated issues. As in some of the earlier comments about American reverses, there is sometimes an element of ‘apparent pleasure in the American plight.20 There was much hostility to Syngman Rhee, whose government was generally seen as worse than that of north Korea, though no evidence was produced. Two quoted an “old Korean” who was supposed to have said that “To a blade of grass, it matters not if horse or cow eat it.” This probably reflects a newspaper story, though one of those who quoted it said that although he did not trust newspapers, the uN had “HAd to intervene.” It is a pity that there is no further material. The war went on for nearly two and half years longer, and its effects continued to be felt in Britain; the 1951 budget, which attempted to meet the costs of rearmament, introduced health service charges and led to the Bevanite split in the labour party. In october 1951, a Conservative government under Winston Churchill replaced Mr Attlee’s. Contrary to what many expected, this government reduced spending on rearmament – though much damage had already been done to the economy – and showed no disposition to do more on Korea than had their predecessors. Indeed Churchill, who had criticised the government in 1950 for not sending more troops to Korea, was by 1951 claiming that he had never wished to see more than a token force sent. In 1952, after he became Prime Minister, he was willing to quote

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General Bradley’s comment about the danger of Korea leading to the “wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” Korea barely featured in the 1951 election, though rearmament did.21 Campaigns against the war continued. They were given a new lease of life with the dismissal of MacArthur in April 1951, and then with the “Germ Warfare” issue which began in a tentative way in 1951, but did not really get underway until 1952. Among the leaders in these various campaigns were the Britain-China Friendship Society. This included the former diplomat and China expert Sir John Pratt, who wrote pamphlets to prove that south Korea had started the war, and the scientist Joseph Needham. even their support, however, does not seem to have been enough to convince many people of the rightness of their cause. There was also a “Peace with China” group, with the then editor of the New Statesman, Kingsley Martin, prominent among its members. The germ warfare issue made little impact; despite the testimony of a scientist such as Needham, few appear to have found the evidence presented proved the claims. The labour MP Richard Crossman, noted for the anti-American tone of some of the articles he contributed to the left-wing New Statesman, was at first willing to give some credit to the germ warfare claims, but became sceptical when he learnt of the way Needham and his colleagues had collected evidence from captured uN airmen, As a former interrogator himself, he thought that those who had gone to investigate the charges had had the wool pulled over their eyes.22 Criticism of the Rhee government continued to be made from time to time, and there were occasional stories alleging uS and British forces’ involvement in atrocities against civilians. The publication of books giving accounts of Korea by the journalists René Cutforth and Reginald Thompson focused attention on such stories for a short time, but this did not last. A number of other books which might have added to the concern, such as Julian Tunstall’s I Fought in Korea, appeared just before or after the truce and made little impact. In fact, after the brief excitement of the battle of the Imjin river and the stand of the Glosters at Solma-ri (or “Gloster Valley” as it became known in Britain) in April 1951, and even more after the battle line stabilised in the summer, interest in the war appears to have faded. There were old problems to face, such as the continuing struggle against the communists in Malaya, and there were also new crises to attract attention: Iran in 1951 and the beginning of the Mau Mau campaign in Kenya in 1952. Press attention waned, only occasionally reviving.

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Mass-observation clearly never felt the need to look at the issue again, and published diaries show a marked fall off in references to Korea after mid-1951. The published Gallup Poll material from the same period showed a clear wish to get out of Korea. While the war meant the continuation of austerity, it did not affect people obviously in other ways. The Festival of Britain opened in May 1951; a proposal to cancel it as inappropriate while the war was on was quietly dropped. The war was, however, believed to have cut the number of expected American visitors.23 Twenty thousand British serviceman served in Korea, 10% of them National Servicemen, though the figure reached as much as 60% in individual units. They and their families were obviously affected. But casualties were comparatively low – though Britain lost far more in Korea than in the Falklands – and there were other more glamorous places to be serving. Those who served in Korea seemed confused about why they were there and who they were fighting; a concerned army major in the War office wrote to the Foreign office in September 1950 to express concern about a soldier interviewed by Radio Newsreel prior to his departure who clearly had no idea why he was going. The major felt that this gave a bad impression and asked the Foreign office to take it up with the BBC. Before anything was done, however, the major found that the broadcast had been cleared by an army public relations officer, and asked that no action should be taken. The journalist Neal Ascherson has recalled the silence of his group of National Servicemen when many of them learnt that they were to go to Korea.24 No doubt some of that confusion was transmitted back home and may well have helped the growth of a widespread dissatisfaction with National Service as a concept. A public opinion poll in 1949 showed 57% in favour of it and 33% against; by 1953, these figures were reversed. Korea must have been a factor in that change. Many servicemen felt that they had been forgotten, with film stars, sportsmen, or mountaineers – news of the conquest of everest in 1953 seemed to those in Korea to swamp news of the armistice, for example – more highly regarded than those defending “freedom”. As one returning serviceman put it: “Returning home, one felt one had been on a trip to the moon.”25 BBC TV, trying to interview returning British prisoners of war, found such great official opposition that the attempt was abandoned, while a programme on the stocks since 1951 to mark the end of the war fell flat when finally broadcast in the autumn of 1953: the Korean war was something to be forgotten.26

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If no real attempt was made by the government to explain the war and Britain’s part in it to the soldiers and sailors who went there, it is perhaps not surprising that little was done at home. The end of the Second World War had seen the rapid disbandment of the Ministry of Information, no doubt with a sigh of relief from those – and they were many – who did not like to see Britain engaged in propaganda. Speeches in parliament and in constituencies were the way government policies were to be made known, not through posters and leaflets. Various collections of papers relating to Korea were laid before parliament during the course of the war, but these did not reach a wide audience. otherwise the Central office of Information confined its work on Korea to the preparation of reference material which explained the war, but not in a way that would be widely available. There was also cause for confusion in the very status of the conflict: was it or was it not a war? No declaration of war was made, and in a sense, how could it be, since north Korea was not recognised as a state. Winnington’s journalism and some of his actions were described as treason in parliament, but no charges were brought against him or his editor, nor against others who could be said to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy. (Winnington was not however able to renew his British passport for several years.) “Fighting communism” was also a difficult concept. The Soviet union was seen as behind events in Korea, but normal diplomatic and other relations continued, A few professed communists lost their jobs, but there was no systematic attempt to hunt out members of the party, even after the disappearance of Burgess and Maclean in 1951. The people, however, took their own decision; the Korean war years saw membership of the British Communist Party drop from 43,000 in 1948 to 36,000 in 1952. Sales of the Daily Worker slumped and the party did badly in the 1951 election.27 The Korean war is not well remembered, either in Britain or the united States. on the left, a few books on Korea appeared in 1953–54, but they seem to have made little impact, though Monica Felton’s visit to north Korea cost her her job with the Stevenage development Corporation, only since 1986 has Britain erected a national war memorial to those who died, and only now is an official history of the war to appear. Perhaps the reasons for this lie in the confused circumstances behind the conflict. What is required is further research, to sift through the confusion. This field, public opinion, would be a good field in which to begin such research.

Source: Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, vol. 9, (2004), pp. 57–87.

16

A Brush with History: Opening the British Embassy Pyongyang, 2001–02 v

On the morning of 12 December 2000, at a brief signing ceremony in the office of the Permanent Undersecretary, Sir John Kerr, in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London, Britain and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea) signed a document in which they agreed to exchange diplomatic missions. The signatories were Sir John Kerr for the United Kingdom, and Mr Kim Chun Guk, head of the European Department of the DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) for the DPRK. Within minutes, the news of this development had appeared on the FCO’s website, and was being announced throughout the world. Given the past history of lack of contact between the two countries, some expressed surprise at the apparent speed of developing relations. Among international news services, only Radio China International noted that Britain was the first Western permanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council to establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK.1 This essay, which partly derives from presentations to workshops run by the British Association for Korean Studies in December 2001 and December 2002, is both a short history of how that ceremony came about and a very personal account of what came next. Where possible, I have provided references to published or available sources, but for some matters in which I was personally involved, this has not always been possible. The views expressed are my own, and do not necessarily represent British government policy. 202

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BACKGROUND: BRItAIN’S RELAtIONSHIP WItH tHE DPRK 1948–2000

Before 2000, Britain and the DPRK had tended to ignore each other. Indeed, before the Second World War, and the subsequent division of the Korean peninsula, British involvement in the northern half of the peninsula had been minimal. Britain had briefly maintained a proconsul at Wonsan, and there was some missionary activity. The main British interest at that period was gold mining.2 Following the 1945 division of the Korean peninsula, and the emergence of two separate Korean states by 1948, Britain, in common with most Western countries, had recognised the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea) as the “only legitimate government” on the peninsula. This recognition did not extend to the ROK’s claim to the whole peninsula, but nevertheless Britain had no dealings with the authorities north of the 38th parallel. The Korean War (1950–53), though it made no legal difference, reinforced the position taken in 1948. However, like most other countries fighting with the United Nations’ forces in Korea, Britain raised no objections when the fighting was extended north of the 38th parallel in September 1950. The British foreign secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin, indeed seemed to envisage that the peninsula would now be reunified. Addressing the United Nations’ General Assembly on 25 September 1950, he said that “[t]here must no longer be South Koreans and North Koreans, but just Koreans, who must be encouraged to work together to rebuild their country with the advice and support of the United Nations.”3 In the event, the possible dilemma of what to do when the DPRK disappeared did not arise. The intervention of the Chinese, the eventual stabilisation of the fighting in the area of the 38th parallel, and the 27 July 1953 Armistice Agreement meant that there was no need for Britain to face the issue of what, if anything, formally existed in the northern half of the peninsula. The adoption of a resolution on 27 October 1950 that established the United Nations Commission on the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (UNCURK) settled the question. UNCURK’s mandate was the “establishment of a unified, independent and democratic Government in the sovereign state of Korea”. Britain’s legal view thereafter was that the existence of UNCURK meant there could be no British recognition of the DPRK. This remained the view of other Western governments as well.4

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Britain provided aid and assistance to the ROK after the Korean War, and British troops remained on the peninsula as part of the Commonwealth Division until 1957. Thereafter, a token British force, an ‘Honour Guard’, was attached to the UN Command Headquarters in Seoul until 1993. Britain played a leading role in the economic development of the ROK under President Park Chung Hee from the mid-1960s onwards, and was a firm supporter of the ROK’s position at the United Nations.5 In the official communiqué issued during the first-ever visit to the ROK in October 1965 by a British foreign secretary, Mr Michael Stewart, the then holder of that office, “reaffirmed the British Government’s continuing support for the Republic of Korea and assured Dr Lee [tong-won, the ROK Foreign Minister] that the present co-operation for the maintenance of security and prosperity remained a firm commitment on the part of the British Government.”6 As a consequence, Britain had few contacts with the DPRK. British officials were not allowed to meet their DPRK counterparts, and could not visit the country. DPRK officials were not normally permitted to visit Britain. trade was minimal. Very few DPRK cultural or sporting groups were allowed to come to Britain, and none seems to have gone in the opposite direction to the DPRK. The main exception was the DPRK team’s participation in the 1966 football World Cup held in Britain. Despite strenuous objections from the ROK, and under pressure from the International Football Association Federation, Britain agreed to allow the team to come. Efforts were made to prevent their flying the DPRK national flag, but their surprise defeat of Italy made them local heroes.7 This proved an exception; as late as 1984, Britain was still prepared to refuse entry to athletes from the DPRK.8 The position changed in 1973. The 1960s had been a worrying period for both Koreas, as each saw its main ally draw closer to its main enemy. Rapprochement, first between the Soviet Union and the United States, and then between China and the United States, led to the first tentative contacts between the two Koreas since the end of the Korean War. Red Cross talks in 1971 were followed by government to government talks, which in turn led to the signing of a series of agreements between the two countries. President Park Chung Hee of the ROK announced on 23 June 1973 that henceforward the ROK would not oppose the establishment of diplomatic relations between the DPRK and third countries, and would no longer break off diplomatic relations

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with countries that had established such relations. At the same time, the end of the colonial empires had brought into existence a host of new states that did not feel bound by the constraints of the past. In such circumstances, the continuation of a body meant to bring about Korean re-unification from outside was seen as irrelevant, and the United Nations wound up UNCURK on 21 November 1973 by a consensus resolution.9 This freed the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the DPRK by countries that had hitherto believed that UNCURK prevented such a move. In addition, the early 1970s had seen an unprecedented drive by the DPRK for economic relations with Western countries, as North Korea tried to move away from its dependence on the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe. As a result of these changes, the Nordic countries established diplomatic relations with the DPRK in 1974, and were followed by Australia and Portugal. Not all these countries opened embassies in Pyongyang. Austria and Finland contented themselves with trade offices. The Swedes and the Australians did open embassies, however. In neither case was it regarded as a very successful move. For the Swedes, pressure to open an embassy came from the disgruntled Swedish business community. This group, working on the principle that no Communist country had ever defaulted on its debts up until then and that the DPRK would be no exception, had ignored the increasing difficulty in getting money out of the North Koreans. By autumn 1974, the demands for redress led the Swedish government to formally open a diplomatic mission in Pyongyang. The Swedish ambassador in Beijing remained also the ambassador to Pyongyang, but a chargé d’affaires, Erik Cornell, was sent to open an office in the DPRK capital. He failed in his original task, and a quarter of a century later, the debt issue still affects Swedish-DPRK relations.10 Australian motives for opening an embassy were more political than economic. Following the December 1972 election, the new Australian Labour Party government embarked on a more reformist foreign policy than its predecessors’. In time, this included establishing diplomatic relations with the DPRK, in 1974. In May 1975, Australia opened its embassy in Pyongyang. Although the ambassador remained sideaccredited from Beijing, Australia decided to have a small office in Pyongyang. But Australia’s new foreign policy did not extend to supporting a pro-DPRK resolution at the United Nations in the autumn of 1975. When this became clear in October 1975, the DPRK embassy

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withdrew without warning from Canberra, and the Australian embassy was expelled soon afterwards.11 Britain observed these developments. Although there was some DPRK debt to Britain, it was never sufficient to influence British policy in general. Neither the Conservative government of Edward Heath nor the Labour government of Harold Wilson showed much interest in the DPRK. Some British businessmen, such as Sir John Keswick of Jardine Matheson, thought that there were trading possibilities. Under Sir John’s auspices, a Britain-DPRK trade Council operated for a few years in the mid-1970s; but the expected trade did not materialise, and the council faded away. John Gittings of the Guardian newspaper, an Australian, Dr Gavin McCormack, and Aidan Foster-Carter, both of the University of Leeds, were the only scholars to take the DPRK’s claims about itself seriously. McCormack was one of the leading lights behind a ‘British Committee for Supporting North Korea’, whose existence did not survive his departure for Australia. Some Labour MPs took some interest in the DPRK, which boasted that it operated a real socialist system. A few of them organised a pro-DPRK parliamentary group. Its support never extended much beyond the far left wing of the party, however, and it had no influence on official policy towards the DPRK. There also existed in Britain small groups of supporters of the DPRK and its ideology, but they had no hold on policy-making.12 For a short time in the 1970s, the British government did seem prepared to consider at least extending diplomatic recognition to the DPRK, but the experiences of countries that did, and events such as the killing of two United States’ officers at Panmunjom in 1976, eventually led to a decision that whether or not the DPRK met Britain’s legal criteria for recognition, there would be no move to recognise on political grounds. Thus in October 1984, the minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr Richard Luce, said in reply to a written parliamentary question that Britain had “no plans to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea, which we do not recognise as a state”. A month later, when asked why Britain took this position, he replied that “[t]here are exceptional circumstances in Korea, arising in part from the involvement of the United Nations in the Korean Question, which leads the government, along with all previous governments, to the view that the recognition of North Korea as a state would not be appropriate.”13 The then prime minister, Mrs (now Lady) Thatcher, visiting Seoul in May 1986, sounded somewhat more positive. What Britain might

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do was not mentioned, but at a press conference during the visit, the prime minister endorsed President Chun Doo Hwan’s view that the two Koreas should simultaneously enter the United Nations, and that it would be a good move if the allies of each side were to engage in cross-recognition, whereby the Soviet Union and China would recognise the ROK, while the United States and Japan would do the same for the DPRK.14 The late 1980s saw an increase in contacts between Britain and the DPRK. The Bristol-based company, Regent travel, began organising tourist visits to the DPRK in 1986.15 A British singer took part in the April 1987 Pyongyang Festival, an annual event to honour the birthday of the DPRK president, Kim Il Sung. A number of Britons went to the DPRK for the 1989 World youth Festival. The leader of Derbyshire County Council and also chairman of Derbyshire First Enterprises, David Bookbinder, began visiting in search of openings in the mining industry. The BBC’s Beijing correspondent, James Miles, visited in 1989, and found a surprising number of people who claimed to listen to BBC World Service broadcasts. A delegation of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly came to London in 1989, to attend an Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting. At the invitation of individual members of parliament, a number of political delegations visited Britain. As a result, groups such as Plaid Cymru found themselves listed as supporters of the DPRK’s international position, whether they liked it or not.16 A Labour life-peer, Lord taylor of Blackburn, whose extensive interests in the oil and electricity industries led him to make a number of visits to the DPRK, began campaigning for better trade and diplomatic links, including the establishment of a DPRK trade office in London. But when he raised the issue in parliament, his call met with only a negative response from the government: Britain did not recognise the DPRK, and had no plans to do so.17 Such contacts were all unofficial, but the early 1990s would see a change. Several developments led eventually to British recognition of the DPRK, although diplomatic relations would still remain a long way off. After years of apparently unquestioning support of the DPRK internationally, both China and the Soviet Union moved towards a closer relationship with the ROK. In September 1990, the ROK and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. Although it would not be until 1992 that China followed the same path, it was clear after Chinese attendance at the Seoul 1986 Asian Games and the 1988

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Olympics that the old hostility between China and the ROK was at an end. In addition, not only had the DPRK refrained from disrupting the Seoul Olympics, but soon afterwards, the two Koreas began talking in a way not seen since the 1970s. The ROK also began to encourage more contacts between its supporters and the DPRK as a means of ending the stalemate. At the same time, the ROK pressed forward on the issue of admission to the United Nations, sure that neither the Soviet Union nor China would now veto such a move. The DPRK for a time maintained its long-standing hostility to separate entry to the United Nations, on the grounds that this would further perpetuate the division of the peninsula. When it became quite clear, however, that the ROK would press ahead unilaterally, the DPRK gave in. Both Koreas therefore joined the United Nations in September 1991. Britain supported this move, and voted for the admission of both Koreas. In doing so, the decision was effectively taken to recognise the DPRK as a state, since only states can enter the United Nations. But at the same time, it was made clear that recognition did not mean diplomatic relations.18 yet Britain was cautiously moving forward. In November 1988, British officials for the first time were permitted to talk to DPRK officials in neutral settings; from my own experience in Beijing at the time, this did not make very much difference, for the DPRK officials were still very wary of any contact with us. More significant was the agreement in April 1991 that two British officials, one from the FCO’s Parliamentary Relations Unit and one from the British embassy in Seoul, could accompany the British delegation to the IPU meeting in Pyongyang. These two thus became the first British officials to step on to DPRK soil since April 1953, when the detained members of the Seoul legation were repatriated after nearly three years in captivity. While in Pyongyang, the two officials were able to meet with the DPRK-UK Friendship Association and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials.19 From May 1991, there was also a permanent DPRK presence in Britain, with the establishment of a DPRK mission to the Londonbased International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The DPRK had been pressing for this for some years, but there was a certain amount of scepticism in Britain about the extent of the DPRK interest in maritime matters. Similar missions to other United Nations-related agencies, for example to the UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris, or to the Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome, had been seen as attempts to have a quasi-diplomatic presence

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in those capitals. It was made quite clear to the two DPRK officials sent to London that their brief related only to IMO matters, and they would not be allowed to engage in anything resembling diplomatic practices.20 Although it was obvious that Britain was not yet ready for diplomatic relations, the 1991 move on recognition made it easier for contacts to develop. As the 1990s progressed, Britain, like many other states, grew increasingly concerned about the DPRK attitude towards nuclear issues. Later, the onset of famine in the DPRK led to both private and public involvement with the humanitarian programme that developed after the DPRK appealed in 1995 for international assistance. There were thus issues on which Britain wished to have discussions with the DPRK. So when two DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials visiting Europe in 1992 enquired whether they might come to Britain, they received a positive answer, and in June 1992, an unprecedented exchange of views between British and DPRK officials took place at the FCO in London.21 Such talks were to take place approximately every eighteen months for the following eight years. London was the most frequent venue, but there were also meetings in Geneva and, eventually, Pyongyang. From personal experience, they could be difficult occasions, as each side presented its concerns to the other without much meeting of minds. In the beginning, they were conducted in an atmosphere of some frostiness. yet the talks were valuable in letting each side learn something of the other’s preoccupations, and, slowly, establishing a little human rapport. It was perhaps no coincidence that the leader on the DPRK side was that same Mr Kim Chun Guk who in December 2000 would sign the document recording the establishment of diplomatic relations. Such an outcome did not seem likely for most of the 1990s. Growing anxiety over the DPRK’s nuclear programme was one major obstacle towards better relations, but there was also concern about deteriorating relations between the two Koreas. Britain welcomed the election in the ROK of President Kim Dae Jung in 1997. He was in many ways an old friend of Britain and had spent six months at Cambridge University after his failure to win the 1992 presidential election. His first overseas visit after becoming president was to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in April 1998, held in London. Understandably, therefore, British ministers supported his new policy towards the DPRK – the ‘Sunshine Policy’. But given British concerns on nuclear and proliferation issues,

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it was equally understandable that the support given to closer links with the DPRK was rather wary. Despite the new ROK government’s positive encouragement to its friends and allies to develop links with the DPRK, Britain remained cautious about any move towards establishing diplomatic relations. As late as January 2000, the official position was once again made clear in a Written Answer to a question from John Maples MP, given by John Battle, the FCO minister of state responsible for Asia, in the House of Commons: At present, the United Kingdom is not planning to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea. We actively seek dialogue with North Korea and continue to press North Korea for progress on issues of international concern, such as missile proliferation and human rights abuses. Our future stance will largely depend on North Korean willingness to discuss these long standing concerns.22

Elsewhere, there was more movement. As well as the growing contacts between the two Koreas, Italy established diplomatic relations with the DPRK in January 2000, while Australia re-established them in early May 2000. The DPRK seemed finally to understand international concerns about missile proliferation, which paved the way for the resumption of normalisation talks with Japan and generally improved the international atmosphere. Even United States-DPRK relations appeared to be on the move.23 A CHANGE OF POLICy

These developments led Britain to keep under review its policy towards the DPRK but there was no immediate push for change. What proved to be the catalyst was the unprecedented summit meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas in June 2000. Subsequent revelations have shown that this was not achieved quite as effortlessly as it was originally presented, and that much money was passed across to the DPRK to get the desired result. But however it was done, the meeting in Pyongyang in June 2000 was a remarkable achievement. For the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the top leaders of the two countries met. Not only did they meet, but the personal chemistry also seemed good, and real progress appeared to be possible on a number of issues. Whatever scepticism there was about motives, politicians around the world welcomed this new

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development. It looked at last as though the old stand-off on the Korean peninsula might be coming to an end, and the last Cold War issue might be resolved. Britain was no exception to the general euphoria. The same Mr Battle who had said in January that there would be no diplomatic relations, now praised the imagination and wisdom of the two leaders: “I am greatly encouraged by news of the successful Summit meeting between President Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong-il. The Summit is a testimony to the vision and dedication of both leaders, and a significant achievement for Korean and international efforts to ease tensions on the peninsula.”24 He went on to say that Kim Dae Jung had always had Britain’s full support in his policy of engagement with the DPRK, and that Britain remained fully committed to that policy. Other British statements followed a similar line, though the prime minister, then tony Blair, apparently struck a cautious note at a meeting of the Group of Eight world leaders a month later.25 The general trend remained positive, however. In May 2000, the then head of the FCO’s North East Asia and Pacific Department, Mr Peter Carter, visited the DPRK as part of the regular round of political contacts. DPRK officials did all possible to make his visit a success, and Carter was able to reach agreement on direct aid to the DPRK in the form of an English-language teaching programme recruited by the British Council but funded by the FCO. From September 2000, therefore, two British teachers became the first-known Westerners to teach in DPRK universities, at Kim Il Sung University and Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies.26 During that summer, the DPRK foreign minister wrote to those European countries that had not so far established diplomatic relations, suggesting that now might be the time to do so. None responded. However, the British prime minister and foreign secretary on their way to Seoul for the third ASEM meeting in October 2000 appear to have had a change of heart. Almost immediately on arrival, the foreign secretary, Robin Cook, announced that Britain had decided to establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK. How the decision was reached I do not know, but it came as a surprise to most of us working on Korean matters in the FCO. But the deed was done, and a positive response was now sent to the DPRK foreign minister.27 In announcing the decision, Mr Cook made clear that it had been taken because of the progress made between the two Koreas,

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and particularly the summit. He also made it clear that diplomatic recognition did not imply any approval of the DPRK‘s policies on matters such as human rights: diplomatic relations were a way of doing business, not a mark of approval or a reward. In an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4, the foreign secretary noted that Britain had a number of issues of concern about the DPRK: “If we have diplomatic relations we have a better channel for promoting our dialogue on that and exploring our concerns.” The prime minister was equally positive. According to the London Guardian, he said that “momentous developments [were] underway on the Korean peninsula. The [June 2000] summit has created the real opportunity for lasting peace and reconciliation.”28 IMPLEMENtING tHE DECISION, JANUARy-JUNE 2001

There was no immediate follow-up. But when the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that it would like to send a delegation to London in December 2000, as part of the by now regular political discussions, the FCO accepted, even though Peter Carter’s visit in May 2000 had also been part of the same series. It was agreed that the question of diplomatic relations would be added to the regular topics for discussion. Three Koreans arrived: Kim Chun Guk, MFA director for Europe, Thae yong Ho, section chief in the European Department, and Pak Kang Son, UK desk officer. The British side was led by Rosalind Marsden, director for Asia-Pacific, and included Peter Carter, Sir Stephen Brown, former ambassador in Seoul, myself, then head of the North Asia and Pacific Research group, and other officials as needed. The first part of the meeting was taken up with the type of regular exchange that Britain and the DPRK had been having for the previous seven years, including the current situation on the Korean peninsula and in Europe, and human rights issues. The meeting then turned to the question of diplomatic relations. Progress was remarkably swift. The DPRK officials confirmed that a future British embassy in Pyongyang could have a dedicated satellite-based communications system, and that British diplomats would be allowed to travel outside Pyongyang provided they gave the requisite notice. After some initial hesitation, it was also accepted that, as an interim measure, a British chargé d’affaires could be based in Seoul while steps were taken to set up an embassy in Pyongyang. For their part, the DPRK officials sought British assistance in establishing an embassy in London, and said that they too would initially appoint a non-resident chargé d’affaires, to be based in either

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Stockholm or Geneva. On that understanding, the agreed document was signed on 12 December 2000. Despite some expectations that there would be media criticism of the move, none materialised. The agreement on diplomatic relations had come rather faster than anybody had expected, and no arrangements were in place to implement the undertaking. However, as the only known person in the FCO who had expressed a willingness to go to the DPRK, I was now approached and asked if I would become chargé d’affaires for an indefinite period, to establish the embassy. As far as I was concerned, there was only one answer. It would be a temporary arrangement, but the general view seemed to be that I could expect to do the job for a year. However, nothing was to be said in public until both Koreas had agreed. January 2001 saw a flurry of meetings. Initially, it looked as though lack of money would be a problem, but it was agreed that there should be four UK-based staff in due course. In addition, in order to take forward the December agreement, a delegation would go to Beijing, Pyongyang and Seoul later in January to present me to the Koreans and to begin the process of establishing an embassy. The same delegation would also make tentative plans for a visit by Sir John Kerr, planned for March 2001. The practical arrangements proved surprisingly easy, and on 21 January, the delegation, led by Rosalind Marsden, and including Peter Carter, Stephen Brown and myself, left for Beijing. In Beijing, which like Pyongyang, was in the grip of the coldest winter for fifty years, much effort went into purchasing warm clothing, and Antony Stokes joined us from the embassy in Seoul. Then it was on to Pyongyang. The reception was warm, even if the weather remained bitterly cold and the charms of the Koryo hotel somewhat limited. The DPRK had no problems with my appointment and the officials made no difficulty about our wish formally to inform the ROK before making a public announcement. We were also able to establish good contacts with the foreign community; the Swedish embassy proved particularly helpful, as they were to do on many further occasions. As well as discussing current political issues, where a strong antiUnited States feeling was already evident, the delegation made good progress on Sir John Kerr’s proposed visit, and also began work on selecting possible sites for the British embassy. The DPRK were clearly keen that any link with Seoul should be shortlived, and promised all assistance in finding premises in Pyongyang. We were shown what we

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all agreed was a good option, the former Swedish embassy offices, most recently used by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), but currently empty. We were also shown some typical diplomatic apartments, very much in the style of what some of us knew from Beijing (or Moscow). The Koreans made it clear, however, that all such accommodation was at a premium and that they would not be able to guarantee that we could be adequately housed. Other highlights of the visit included meetings with the British teachers, a visit to the opera, the willingness of the British chargé d’affaires-designate to sing at a Lunar New year party organised by the MFA for the European residents of Pyongyang (and this on the day of our arrival!), and the sight of the whole delegation dancing on the bar at the Random Access Club (RAC) at the World Food Programme (WFP) offices on the night before their departure for Beijing and Seoul. In Seoul, the ROK proved equally content with my appointment, which was announced by the FCO on 29 January 2001. The ROK press also showed some interest.29 On return to London, I began the preparations that would be required for a posting, including seeking medical clearance and other practical matters. Gradually, May emerged as the best time to plan to take up residence in Seoul. The FCO was still struggling with the funding issue, and there was also some uncertainty about my exact status. My grade manager informed me on one occasion that mine was not a normal posting; rather, I was “an administrative measure devised by the command. . .”. Apparently he meant the slot I occupied rather than me personally, but it was an unusual way of putting things. I returned to Pyongyang in late February 2001, in advance of Sir John Kerr’s visit. The weather had but marginally improved; the temperature remained around freezing at best for the whole time I was there. Indeed, the first night I arrived, I almost gave up in despair. Marooned in the yanggakdo hotel – the Koryo was in use for meetings of separated families – I gazed out on snowy darkness. Fortunately, Dr Hazel Smith and one of the staff of German Agro-Action, the German non-governmental organisation (NGO), arrived to rescue me! Until they came, Pyongyang had seemed very remote. In the course of the following two weeks, Antony Stokes from Seoul, my wife, Susan Pares, and Andy Cornell and Mike tibbs, colleagues from the FCO Estates Strategy group, joined me. Gordon Slavin, from the British Council in Beijing, also came to liaise with the British teachers. In addition, Elizabeth Wright, then of the BBC World Service, with whom I had shared a room in the FCO nearly

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thirty years before, Beth McKillop from the British Library, Dr Robert Anderson, Director of the British Museum, and Jane Portal from the British Museum’s Department of Oriental Antiquities, all travelled to Pyongyang at that time. The British presence in Pyongyang was suddenly rather pronounced! A dinner party that I gave for visiting and resident Britons saw some eighteen people around the table – and not all the visitors could be present. Work now moved forward on the embassy front. I was shown a number of additional apartments, none very suitable. But once Messrs tibbs and Cornell arrived, they wasted no time, but began to look seriously at what was on offer. They felt that the original building that we had been shown, the former Swedish offices, would make a good residence for the head of post, but was not really suitable for both residential and office accommodation, as the Koreans seemed to envisage. They were also not very impressed by the apartments that seemed likely to be available. They were able to put these concerns across in professional to professional discussions with their DPRK counterparts, and as a result, were shown a set of buildings that had clearly been designed as an embassy, but never used as such. These buildings, together with the old Swedish mission, seemed likely to give us enough office and staff residential space for some time to come. In the meantime, it was understood that we would have office space in the German embassy – the former East German embassy – that had originally been designated for the abortive United States liaison office. Since the building, which dated from the mid-1960s, contained the Germans, the Swedish offices and the Italian aid agency, this looked like a good piece of European Union co-operation.30 With help from Susan and others, I was also able to do some work on cost of living and allowance matters. Sir John Kerr arrived on 10 March. There followed extensive political discussions with DPRK officials, including, with some difficulty, a senior military officer, as well as a visit to a WFP project, and some cultural activities. It also became clear that the DPRK had perhaps over-optimistic expectations of the amount of British aid that was likely to be forthcoming, both for English-language training and for other sorts of assistance. During the visit, we held what was the first major British reception in Pyongyang. The novelty meant that we attracted a very large gathering of Koreans and foreigners, and the food barely held out. In addition, Sir John looked at the proposed embassy buildings. He decided that the new offer was a good one, but that we would want more than just the main office block that was being put forward. He did not oppose

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the acquisition of the former Swedish offices, but clearly felt that this was less important than the three buildings on the new site. And in a decision that had a direct effect on my position, he made it clear that we should open up in Pyongyang as soon as possible, using the German premises as offices and putting staff into hotels until such time as the other buildings could be prepared for use. This, it was estimated, should not be too long, since as well as the offices, the Germans were also prepared to lease staff accommodation, though this too would require work to be done. Sir John made it clear to the Koreans that the further expansion of the British embassy would mean the introduction of satellite communications, to which they made no objection – I had begun to suspect, however, from my discussions with them, that what the DPRK officials understood by satellite communications was not the same as what we were proposing. Sir John left Pyongyang on 13 March, together with Susan and myself, Antony Stokes and the British Library and British Museum group. We all found ourselves carrying large pots or pictures that Jane Portal had acquired for the British Museum’s collection. Some nifty diplomatic footwork at Beijing airport ensured that Jane was not compelled to have them all x-rayed before we were allowed out!31 After a few days in Beijing, where we found that there was already some concern in the embassy that the opening of Pyongyang would mean extra work for them, Susan and I went on to Seoul, where we found much media interest in our Pyongyang experiences. Alas! The main stories were due to appear on 22 March 2001, but Chung Ju-yung, the founder of the Hyundai group, died the night before, and I was largely driven off the front page. But there was sufficient coverage to show that there was no ROK hostility to the developing links with the DPRK, which I was able to tie in closely with the improvement in ROK-DPRK relations since 1997.32 Back in London, all was activity. The decision that we would open as soon as possible in Pyongyang was a relief in some ways, since life there would be on a far simpler scale than if I was going to Seoul. But there were still many things to do. Money now seemed less of a problem, and cars were ordered from Japan. Family matters had to be sorted out, dental examinations undergone, and so on. One of the best developments was the arrival on the scene of Eilidh Kennedy, who had volunteered to be my temporary management officer, and who proved lively and full of new ideas. Another was the appointment of a project officer, Robert Fitchett, whose job was to ‘manage’ the Pyongyang project.

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His role was to represent our interests to the FCO, and the FCO’s interests to us. A certain amount of briefing was required. There was also the Joint East Asia Associations’ Conference in Edinburgh to attend, where I presented a paper based on my experiences up to that time with the DPRK. Finally, I left London on 5 May, bound initially for Boston and my elderly aunt, the last surviving relative from my parents’ generation. After a few days in Washington, I arrived in Seoul on 10 May, to another round of media activity – there was less competition this time, and European relations with the DPRK were high on the local agenda, following the visit of an EU delegation led by the Swedish prime minister to Pyongyang on 2 May. Even so, some of the grandiose claims that were attributed to me were unlikely to be fulfilled.33 One unexpected but welcome diversion was giving a speech to the annual ceremony to commemorate the British journalist, Ernest Bethell, whose early 20th-century campaigns against Japanese domination in Korea are well remembered. May-June 2001 would prove to be a busy period. I arrived on my own, to find that Mr Pak Kang Son was no longer the UK desk officer, having been replaced by Mr So Choi since my last visit. Mr So was already known to me, since we had met at the FCO’s conference centre, Wilton Park, in February 2001, when he had been a member of a DPRK team taking part in a conference.34 Mr Thae, as before, remained as a fixture on our horizon. A few days after I arrived, Eilidh and Robert Fitchett came. The latter was on a week’s visit, to familiarise himself with Pyongyang on the ground. This would be useful, we thought, as work on the embassy progressed. A week later, Messrs tibbs and Cornell arrived again, to take forward planning on the proposed embassy premises and to see what work needed to be done in the temporary offices. They would be frequent visitors right up to the time of our final departure. Soon after my return, the Koreans had withdrawn the offer of the old Swedish offices, so we were now limited to the new site that they had proposed, plus whatever staff apartments we might be able to rent. (The old Swedish offices would become the World Health Organisation offices later in 2001, so I would attend meetings in what had been planned as the ambassador’s dining room!) From the beginning, we faced the problem that DPRK officials tended to see us as a visiting delegation, rather than as we saw ourselves, the advance guard of the embassy. They were quite happy to arrange sightseeing or similar activities but less keen on our acting as

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an established diplomatic entity, or undertaking commercial visits. We had great difficulty in persuading them to issue us with diplomatic identity cards, even though we knew that our DPRK counterparts in London had been able to claim their ID cards from the moment that they had arrived there. (The fact was that the ID cards were virtually never required, and we could probably have managed without them; but there was a principle involved.) We would get there in the end, but it was hard work. In general, we found it easier to get work-related calls when the Koreans wanted something; a huge list of aid requests had begun to build up by now. Working out of the Koryo hotel was also less than satisfactory, as was our dependence on hired cars. The biggest problem, however, turned out to be the question of communications. Now that we were on the point of beginning work on converting buildings for our use, it was essential that there should be no doubt that we should be able to operate our satellite-based communications system. The MFA now became cagey, saying that the matter was out of their hands, but pointing out that other embassies and the UN agencies were able to have e-mail via servers in China or through the international airline link, SItA. Explanations about the difference between what was acceptable to our host government and what we needed fell on very stony ground, and I was eventually referred to the Ministry of Communications. Here there was no doubt; DPRK law forbade the use of satellite communications except by state authorities, and we could not operate such communications. And the answer ‘no’ came not once, but four times. At that stage we had committed ourselves to nothing, so it was easy enough to stop the work on the proposed premises, especially since most of the essential measuring and other tasks were done. However, to make the point, I called Messrs tibbs and Cornell off the site, and we all went to a collective farm instead. For the rest of their stay, they concentrated on work on the offices, and on the two temporary apartments that the Germans were willing to make available. They also began to look more seriously at the possibility of developing a derelict block on the German compound, which they thought could be used for both an ambassadorial residence and for staff apartments. The Koreans expressed some concern that we would not proceed with the premises we had been offered, but remained adamant that there could be no change on the communications issue. But the German embassy was held outright, and there was nothing stopping it from leasing part of its buildings to others. And so it was there that the brass plaques of

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the British Embassy were fixed to the walls – one inside the building, and one on the outside wall.35 Determined to show that we were a real embassy, we held the firstever Queen’s Birthday Party (QBP) in Pyongyang on 2 June 2001. As with our March reception, we tried to get away from the stilted formula that marked so many national day receptions in Pyongyang. to some extent it worked, though it was clear that not everybody was happy at standing rather than sitting during the evening. The lack of long speeches was seen as a welcome development, however. The event also engendered some publicity for what was then the newest of British embassies. In addition to the QBP, we held an exhibition of science and technology publications from Britain, and attended a ‘Friendly Get-together’ organised by the Committee for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Korean-British Friendship Association. We had arrived.36 Meanwhile, practical needs required much attention. Both Eilidh and I intended to leave in mid-June, returning the following month. By now London had decided that the embassy would be formally opened by Christopher Hum (now ambassador in Beijing), who was the then Chief Clerk, or head of the administration. For this, we had the two brass plaques but little else. Korean staff had to be sought from the General Service Bureau for the Affairs of Diplomatic Missions (known generally as the GSB), and we had to negotiate with the same people for telephones. Furniture was ordered, but until it arrived, we were to make do with what remained of the old East German furniture stock. Some ten years on from the closure of the East German embassy, there was not a lot left, and much of it tended to fall apart when picked up. But we managed to salvage enough to make habitable two offices and a reception room for the interpreter. Work on the telephones needed assistance from Beijing, and it was arranged that one of the resident engineers would come to do this.37 One of the many issues that Eilidh sorted out was that of allowances. However, solving one problem created another, at least for me. According to London, I had neither medical nor dental clearance, and without those, not only would I get no allowances, but I should not even be at post. A flurry of activity produced the dental clearance, and the medical report. Unfortunately, the latter had been put away without action and without anybody noticing that there appeared to be a problem. Frantic phone calls to London to assure them that I had never felt better – true, as it happened – cut no ice. When I arrived back in

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London on 19 June, my carefully arranged programme was thrown into chaos by the need for medical examinations and tests. Meanwhile, Eilidh stayed on, sorting out telephones and other matters, though she too left on 23 June. As well as the medical tests, there were more briefings and meetings, plus some ‘media exposure training’. For the latter, I was lucky enough to have a morning’s session with Harvey Thomas, widely credited with having improved Lady Thatcher’s contacts with the media. I hope he did the same for me. Until the go-ahead on the medical side was given, however, a question mark hung over my return to Pyongyang, and of course, over allowances. (Long afterwards, I learnt from a ‘reliable source’ that unless I had actually dropped down dead, I would go to Pyongyang since there was at that stage nobody to replace me. . . .) Finally, I was cleared, with strict injunctions to report anything amiss, and a couple of new sets of tablets to take, and Susan and I left for Beijing on 24 July. We had one night there, and flew on to Pyongyang via Shenyang on 27 July. At the airport, we were met by Eilidh, who had arrived earlier in the week and by our cars and drivers. Flying the flag proudly on car no.l, we set off for the embassy! AN EMBASSy At LASt, JULy 2001 ONWARDS

There was to be no rest. On 28 July, Christopher Hum arrived for the formal opening ceremony to be held on 30 July. Like all visitors, he also wanted a more extensive programme, so we made calls and went on field trips over the weekend. Then on an overcast and muggy morning, with large numbers of diplomatic colleagues, the British community, and a small delegation of Koreans led by Vice-Minister Choe Su Hon, we gathered in front of the German chancery (office) building for speeches and flag-raising. The MFA had indicated that the Vice-Minister would be quite happy to dress informally, without jackets and ties, but the Chief Clerk felt we should be properly attired for this occasion. It was a contingent dripping with sweat, therefore, that made speeches. We had decided not to do a conducted tour of the very ramshackle offices, but we drank champagne and ate canapés instead. Christopher left the next day, and our new life began with a very enjoyable dinner with Glyn Ford, a Labour Party member of the European Parliament, and a regular visitor to the DPRK.38 The building where we now had our offices had suffered from years of neglect. On most days, there was no water from around 10am until

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perhaps 4pm, since the East Germans had not installed a storage tank – we had to remember not to use the lavatories! The lights were weird and wonderful. Most of our first week was spent waiting for the next set of lights to start burning and then explode. Frequent power cuts reduced the pressure on the lighting. Even without power cuts, the voltage, at perhaps 180 volts rather than the theoretical 220, and the cycles, perhaps 43 or 44 hertz (later there would be spells of 40–41 hertz) instead of the official 60, sent machinery haywire at regular intervals. We could retreat to our hotel, with hot water available from 7 to 9am and from 6 to 10pm, but the power cuts pursued us there as well. In the summer, we could often not run the air conditioners, while in winter the heating barely functioned – the pipes and radiators were rusted and the pumps inefficient. As winter progressed, we turned to space heaters but these too had their drawbacks. Chinese-made, they were often badly assembled and gave off shocks. They also put a strain on the electricity, to the consternation of the German officer in charge of housekeeping. Our diplomatic community was small, some twenty-three missions, the same number as when the Swedes opened in 1975, although the composition had changed.39 The Russians and the Chinese were big and kept themselves to themselves. Of the others, the Indonesians and the Poles were the largest, at about six staff. Most embassies were in Pyongyang to show solidarity and friendship, whether of the socialist or the non-aligned kind. Some, such as Cambodia and Egypt, were once close to the DPRK because of personal rapport between their leaders and the late President Kim Il Sung. Those links did not survive Kim’s death in 1994; his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, was not interested. Some may have had military purposes; Egypt again, and possibly Iran, Pakistan and Libya. India and Pakistan both admitted that for each of them their role was to watch the other. Even our fellow Europeans were not quite what they seemed. The Swedes, who established relations in 1973, and closed in 1994, re-opened in 1995, mainly to act for the United States. With only two staff, they have not been able to do much beyond that, except that they have proved unfailingly helpful to all visiting Western diplomats. The Germans were an interest section until March 2001. Large by local standards, with five people, they were not allowed to have formal links with Koreans or other embassies. This would change during our time in Pyongyang, especially after the arrival of an ambassador in January 2002. Then there were the United Nations organisations. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and WFP each had around fifty expatriates

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working for them, and there were a number of resident NGOs, closely associated with the UN bodies. While many UN staff had diplomatic status, the Koreans appeared to treat the UN organisations somewhat differently from other diplomatic missions. The very tight controls of the past had gone. Aid workers were no longer confined to the Koryo hotel in Pyongyang, but were still watched carefully, a process aided by the presence of many Korean ‘national officers’ in all UN organisations. The UN officials had to work with their Korean hosts, which made it difficult to push too hard. Despite receiving massive aid, the Koreans still viewed the UN, and even more the NGOs, with suspicion. The UN bodies wanted to modify the Koreans’ attitude, and they made up the largest single group of foreigners in the country. But they had to tread carefully if they wished to continue their programmes. The Koreans were wary of us; indeed, they were wary of all diplomats, and had in the past done their best to control and corral them. At one time, the embassies were more or less in the centre of Pyongyang, near the party and state organs, but today only the Chinese and the Russians remained there. The rest had long since been moved either to Munsu-dong, some six kilometres from the centre, where we now were, or Munhung-dong, a little further away, where we had been looking to go. The Koreans would have liked us to stay in our enclaves, preferably without contact with each other; if they gave something to one embassy, they always suggested that it should not be mentioned to others. Munsu-dong had a club and a shop for diplomats, so in theory there was no need to go anywhere else, apart from the older diplomatic club beside the taedong river. Communication was by Note, directed at the appropriate geographical department in the MFA or to the Protocol or Consular Departments. We issued 132 Notes between May and December 2001. They were rarely answered in writing when we first arrived, though this was beginning to change before we left; something did or did not happen. All too often, it was the latter. Long lead-ins were demanded for travel or other activities at first but this too was beginning to change by the time I left. Some found their courtesy calls arranged with alacrity, with scarcely time to draw breath. Others moved in slower time, especially if anything out of the ordinary was requested. Protests were met by assertions that this was how it was done in the DPRK, and appeals to international norms fell on the deafest of deaf ears. Attempts to bypass the MFA by direct approaches to other organs or ministries were not welcome, though they sometimes worked.

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Control was the name of the game, and control extended to all areas. Visiting delegations had their days filled with programmes that allowed for little or no deviation. Strenuous attempts were made to prevent visiting groups from meeting with their own diplomats. There were normally no briefings and no press conferences. If you requested information, you would be told to look at the press. Even Korean speakers could learn little, since they could not have easy contact with ordinary Koreans. Links with the outside world were also limited. Clearly in the past, some embassies used radio; the masts are much in evidence. Grudgingly, the Koreans have allowed the use of e-mail, either through SItA, the airport system, or via a Chinese server. But lines were poor and contacts sometimes difficult. The Internet was unavailable, since low voltages and servers outside Korea made it a difficult and expensive task to log on. The Koreans banned the use of satellite communications, including satellite phones. Mobile phones and other forms of wireless communications were also not allowed. telephone directories were not available so local staff had to ring the MFA for numbers. We could not have contact telephone numbers for our staff. Theoretically, the MFA provided an emergency contact service for out-of-hours crises, but nobody has been able to raise a response on the number provided. A further form of control was the imposition of DPRK norms as much as possible. Thus diplomatic missions were expected to present flowers to Kim Il Sung’s statue on formal occasions, and no major state anniversary was complete without a 9am visit to the Great Leader’s mausoleum. Failure to do so meant close questioning by the local GSB staff, whose main role was to keep a check on our activities. As far as we could tell, none of the embassies felt it was any part of their role to challenge this strange world that the Koreans had created. Some bemoaned the lack of opportunities to travel, but did not do much about it, apart from blaming the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps for not pressurising the Koreans. The exception was visiting the mausoleum, where there had been minor rebellions. The previous Nigerian ambassador announced that seeing a corpse on 1 January would mean a bad year ahead. The Egyptian ambassador on one occasion announced at a dinner that unfortunately, he thought that he was going to be ill next day. He was. Into all this, the British had now come. Others greeted us with high hopes of bringing new ideas and a fresh approach. The diplomatic community may have been small, but it was friendly, with political differences put aside, a welcome change from Erik Cornell’s experiences

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in the 1970s.40 One colleague from the Middle East was a devoted follower of the Royal Family, and constantly pestered me for information on their doings. Representatives of former British colonies must have embarrassed any Koreans listening as they sang the praises of the British imperialists, who had brought good government and efficient services to their countries. We had made a stand over communications, and were sticking to it. All applauded, even if nobody else was trying the same thing, and few held out much hope of success. Our ELt programme was seen as successful and popular. In practice, while foreign visitors and especially journalists were often subject to very tight control, diplomats were free enough in and around Pyongyang. In May and June 2001, Eilidh and I had spent hours wandering about the town in the evenings and at weekends, without once being stopped or questioned. Later, once we had the embassy cars, we were able to extend our journeys into the surrounding countryside and even further afield, without problems. Nobody raised any objections when I took the BBC’s Brian Barron around the town in my car, even though he stopped to film from time to time. He also did a very sympathetic interview, putting a positive spin on Britain‘s relations with the DPRK.41 Even when we needed permission to travel, we found it relatively easy to acquire this. On one occasion, with less than twelve hours’ notice, and without an interpreter, I accompanied the BBC’s Seoul correspondent to the east coast to look at flood damage. Other journeys were often arranged equally swiftly. In general, as far as we were concerned, the rules seemed more relaxed than they had been for others in the past. Another way in which we induced the Koreans to modify their position was by inviting academics and journalists as guests of the embassy. Not only did this work in terms of getting visas, but we found that DPRK officials would actually help with the programmes for such visitors. We found that we could help scholars in particular in other ways too. The Koreans proved co-operative over tracking down films – and without charge – for one academic, and the Grand People’s Study House eventually produced some beautifully copied and bound editions of the journal Chosun Munhwa (Korean Culture), for another. Later, we were able to provide direct support and assistance to the second British Library/British Museum visit to the DPRK in May-June 2002. These various efforts contributed to the preparation of papers presented at BAKS study days in December 2001 and December 2002.

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These were perhaps small victories, but they did at least show that DPRK behaviour could be modified. Eilidh had battles over her driving test – she eventually won, getting a licence without any test. There were also some problems with clearing containers until the Koreans learnt that a) we were not going to bribe them to do their job; and b) Ms Kennedy did not give up easily. For much of autumn 2001, we camped out in our East Germanfurnished offices. Susan, meanwhile, had found work with UNICEF, which introduced us to another group of contacts. An embassy outing for all of us to Nampo and the seaside was a great success; we would repeat it the following year, and also have bowling expeditions. In September, after one disagreement too many with the Koryo hotel, we moved to the Potanggang hotel. The Potanggang is somewhat older than the Koryo, but it had locking doors and understood the need to clean the rooms occasionally. It also had a better, if more expensive restaurant, where for £30 it was possible to buy a decent bottle of Chablis. . .. Susan and I lived in great splendour, with a vast sitting room and a small dining room. Only as the winter drew on did the drawback of no heating in either room become obvious. A steady stream of visitors, both official and private, provided plenty to do. Occasionally, they attracted some publicity from the Koreans, though it was hard to tell what the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) would cover and what it would not. From the Beijing embassy, we had regular visits from the engineers sorting out our telephones and faxes, and the embassy nurse, Jayne Senior, came to advise on medical matters. Other visitors included the head of the North East Asia and Pacific Department of the FCO, and an exploratory trade delegation from the British Consultancy Board. This required much work and coincided with one of our worst-ever battles over containers. Some of the group expressed an interest in following up on the visit, but only the International Mining Corporation was able to do so and then much later. I also began to get some of the over fifty calls I had asked for but on which, apart from a call on the Korean Workers’ Party, the Koreans had taken no action from July to September. These varied in value, but in general I felt that I was learning something about how the DPRK worked – at least at the theoretical level. Field trips with the UN groups or NGOs also added to our knowledge. I have seen more DPRK hospitals than I care to count! But I also took part in UNICEF’s immunisation campaign, saw farms and villages, and was able to make some

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personal assessments of conditions in rural areas. And from time to time, we escaped to Beijing, taking and collecting mail. Contacts with London could be frustrating, as the fax machines suffered badly from the frequent power cuts. During British Summer time, there was generally a window of opportunity when we could talk to the newly arriving staff in London just before we prepared to go home. But communications remained an annoyance. As to what happened to the letters, faxes and notes that I sent back to London, I do not know. Often they seemed to fall into a black hole, with no action taken, not even onward copying. So information that I later learnt would have been of interest to Australian and other foreign ministries sat, I suspect, unread because not in e-mail form. Nevertheless, friends and colleagues did not forget us. Many wrote to say that they had seen me being interviewed by Brian Barron, and were puzzled as to why it was taking place in a taxi – so much for our magnificent and comfortable toyota Landcruisers! I must have received at least six copies of Peter Hitchens’ comparison between the alleged personality cult of the prime minister and that of Kim Jong Il.42 Our builders, headed by Vernon Schofield, arrived in November. Most of their time would be spent on preparing our temporary apartments, but they also began work on the offices. They were a cheerful group, mixed British, Australian and Ugandan, all multi-skilled, and a welcome addition to the small local community. Once they started work on the offices, there was a distinct improvement. A large water tank meant that there was water for the lavatories and for a washing machine. Electric lights stopped exploding, which was just as well since a couple of our office rooms could not be used after dark by now, since all the lights had failed. But it also meant that we were living in the middle of a building site, with dust and noise everywhere. November saw the arrival of a new Polish ambassador, who immediately enrolled himself in the ranks of the more active embassies. For our part, we were preparing for what we had decided, optimistically, to call a British Week, to mark the first anniversary of diplomatic relations. We also decided to throw in St Andrew’s Night for good measure, and Susan began teaching Scottish dancing at the club. (The best dancer turned out to be the German logistics officer with WFP, who had learnt while in Rome at WFP headquarters.) Eilidh tracked down a band that would play for nothing. Orders went to London for books for an exhibition (promised since March, but which had up until then failed to arrive), a British Council-sponsored Innovations exhibition,

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and films. tough negotiations took place over the films. In the end the Koreans agreed that we could show them in English, but they would decide the Korean audience. A suggestion that ‘Wallace and Gromit’ should be shown to children got nowhere, since the Ministry of Education refused all requests for a meeting. But venues were booked for all planned events in the fond hope that they would all materialise. There was clearly some Korean apprehension about the dinner-dance concept, but in general we were promised full co-operation. From this we escaped for three weeks in London in November-December 2001. Our time in London was hectic, but I was pleased to be told that the embassy was doing a good job in what everybody realised were very difficult circumstances. British Week was originally planned to start on 3 December. However, since we were not due back until 4 December, we postponed it by a week. And since we had a number of events, we decided to make it two weeks. It was just as well. On 6 December, forsaking the increasingly cold Potanggang, we moved into the temporary apartments. Ours was finished, but Eilidh’s was not. She was determined to move before she left on 15 December, however, and to have a farewell party. That night, for the first time ever, the German generator failed, and we all woke up very cold. But in general, we were to find that the new apartments were comfortable and well equipped. Eilidh had her party through most of Sunday, 9 December, with most of the foreign community present at one time or another. For our part, our first entertainment in the new apartment was a dinner party for Caroline Gluck of the BBC and Peter Smurfit of the Far Eastern Economic Review, both of whom were in Pyongyang as our guests. My failure to realise that in the DPRK tomatoes are tinned in sugar produced the worst ratatouille ever! The FCO’s Public Diplomacy Department had warned us that events such as ours “need careful and early planning”. I fear that neither Eilidh nor I were very good at careful and early planning, but we had put in our orders for the exhibitions and the films in October, had been assured that everything would be with us by 4 December, and we were full of optimism. In fact, only the Innovations exhibition had arrived by the time of our return, and without the 2000 leaflets that were to accompany it. No sign of the books, although these too were supposed to be on their way, as were the films, but again, they had not arrived. Frantic calls to London led to more promises, but we now had a very anxious Friendship Society, with venues booked and nothing to show. On the positive side, the Koreans had become quite enthusiastic about

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the dinner and the dancing, and had borrowed some tapes and music to learn more. In the meanwhile, we had lost the band, for they had put in their visa applications a day late. Came the day. Hugo Shorter, the deputy head of the FCO’s North East Asia and Pacific Department was visiting, so we billed him as there for the celebrations. Having not done anything before, the Koreans sprang an anniversary dinner the night before ours, giving the British community and us six hours notice. Not surprisingly, many did not turn up. Our dinner the following night was by general consensus of foreigners and Koreans probably the best there had ever been in Pyongyang. It began conventionally enough, with speeches from ViceMinister Kim yong II, standing in for Vice-Minister Choe, then in London, and myself. But my speech was a light thank-you rather than the solemn fare on such occasions. There was much whisky. The haggis was pronounced excellent by all who ate it, foreigners and Koreans, including the vice-minister. We then had some singing, with contributions from the head of the European Department, Mr Kim Chun Guk, who has a good voice. Next was to be dancing, but we were pre-empted by the Koreans, who announced that there would be a Korean dance performance. Four professionals then performed Korean dances, followed by ‘Scottish dancing’. They had clearly studied the video very carefully, and the music had been transcribed using electronic instruments. The result was indescribable. The Friendship Committee, whose work this was, were very pleased, and suggested, hopefully, that we might like to pay for the performance. Our own amateur dancing, by contrast, was more shambolic but more accurate and fun, and there were even Koreans on the floor. It was 9.30pm before the vice-minister left, and the party went on for some time afterwards, unheard of normally. Another first was that we had all our Korean staff, from interpreters to the cleaner, as guests. Came the dawn. The joint Innovations and book exhibition was due to open at 11am on Thursday, 13 December. When nothing came on the 11 December flight, it was clear that the books were not going to arrive in time. Eilidh improvised by gathering every booklet and pamphlet we had in the embassy and sending them off to the Friendship Committee. The result was not too bad. The committee had taken a very large room at the Grand People’s Study House and the staff had done their best to make what was available look respectable. It was clear, however, that there was disappointment at the meagreness of what was on display. There was also concern that there were still no

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films. Friday morning, 14 December, brought the delivery of the 170 books originally asked for in March, and firmly booked in August, and the 2000 Innovations leaflets, asked for in September. (The leaflets had been shuttled back and forth between the British Council and the FCO’s bag room, which kept refusing to take them because they had no barcodes.) We sorted the books into the various categories and sent the lot off to the Friendship Committee. There were still no films but things were looking better. Saturday, 15 December saw the departure of Eilidh at the end of her temporary duty, Hugo Shorter, the BBC’s Caroline Gluck, and the builders. I now had to face British Week alone. On Monday, I was summoned to the Friendship Committee to explain the non-arrival of the films – not an easy task, since I had been assured by London that the films had left and should have reached me, and of course I had no idea why they had not. I also received notification that they had not been overimpressed by the books, and that the Innovations and book exhibition would close the next day. On asking what was wrong with the books, I was told that there were only about 70, which was not sufficient for a proper display. A quick visit to the exhibition hall at the Grand People’s Study House showed that well over half the books had not made it from the Friendship Committee. It was a pity because our unannounced visit revealed that many people were in fact looking at both books and exhibition. A couple of rather frosty discussions with the Friendship Committee saw all the books returned to us – they had been “borrowed by scholars”. British Week was by no means over. On 19 December, the films arrived. The Friendship Society was silent for a couple of days and then informed me that we were invited to the opening ceremony of the British film festival at 5pm on 25 December. We declined, and instead attended a second opening on 26 December. It was well below zero, and we sat in coats, hats and gloves to watch ‘Notting Hill’, with a deadpan Korean version read out just loud enough to drown out the dialogue. All in all, we were told that 1700 people saw the various films between 25 and 30 December. Certainly, for weeks afterwards, when I called on universities and institutions, people said that they had enjoyed our films. But it was still not the end of British Week. On 9 January 2002,1 sat in my office and watched in disbelief as the drivers brought in twelve very large diplomatic bags. These contained 1600 special wallets, overprinted ‘British Embassy Pyongyang’, ordered in October, which had

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been ready for despatch in mid-November, and had been promised for the beginning of December. I never did find out why they were delayed. Despite all the problems, the event was a success. No other embassy, not even the Chinese and the Russians, had done anything like it before, and it made a big impact. KCNA ran three stories on the anniversary of diplomatic relations and on British Week, which was also covered in Rodong Shinmun.43 It was perhaps just as well that British Week went on as long as it did, for with the departure of Eilidh and the builders, the embassy became a very quiet place. There was plenty to do, for I now had to do Eilidh’s work as well as my own. With just two of us, and with absences for various reasons, we had always had to be flexible, and I had, somewhat late in the day, already learnt how to tie up a diplomatic bag. But now whatever there was to do was all mine, and being on my own meant that there would be no escape to Beijing until Eilidh’s successor, Jim Warren, arrived. Christmas and New year proved surprisingly good fun. The winter was not as savage as the previous year, and the small number of foreigners who remained in Pyongyang did a good job of entertaining each other. Christmas day was spent with our German colleagues; we contributed more haggis and a Christmas pudding, both very popular. A fair amount of time was spent refurnishing the offices, for new furniture had arrived. I cannot say that I was sorry to see the old go, but it had served its purpose. It was too cold and dangerous for travel outside Pyongyang, but I was able to do some calls within the city – after long delays, the Koreans were now arranging these thick and fast, and I was even able to see a general, which had hitherto proved too difficult. I also began a project to look at religion in the DPRK. Now that we were in our apartment, we were able to do some more informal entertaining. Among those who came were Vice-Minister Choe, who seemed quite at home and happily adopted the self-service principle, for our dining area was too small for a waiter. Meanwhile, London was silent, apart from a thank-you note from Hugo Shorter. Eventually, after three weeks’ silence, I telephoned just to make sure all was all right. I was assured that it was. Jim Warren arrived on 28 January. Like Eilidh, he was Scottish, and he was to prove equally doughty in tackling the Koreans. He brought with him the first confidential mail to reach us since the beginning of December. It was a surprisingly thin collection, failing to include even the material on Vice-Minister Choe’s visit to London in early December.

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Jim’s arrival allowed us to escape, and we spent a week in Beijing and Seoul over the Lunar New year. Once again, the press in Seoul were very eager to see me, and the embassy there arranged a full programme of interviews and briefings. Since my visit came but a few days after the US President George Bush had made his ‘axis of evil’ speech, there was much interest in preliminary DPRK reactions. As I had seen both a representative of the People’s Army and Vice-Minister Choe just before leaving, I was able to report that their comments to me had been relatively low-key, emphasising that whatever Mr Bush said, the DPRK was anxious to resume a dialogue with the United States. This was taken as reassuring, and was widely reported.44 In answer to a question from the press about DPRK knowledge of the outside world, I mentioned that officials whom we met often had seen Western films and videos. A very accurate account of what I had said appeared in the London Financial Times’, unfortunately, the sub-editor chose to head the report, ‘Sound of Music counters “axis of evil” image’, while the FT’s web-page had ‘More “Sound of Music” than “axis of evil” in Pyongyang’. This would return to haunt me!45 We returned via Shenyang and a very cold visit to the Manchu ‘Forbidden City’, and again plunged into a round of calls, dinners and all the rest of diplomatic activities. Vernon and the builders returned on 26 February, and we were again on a building site. Most of their effort was now concentrated on refurbishing our accommodation block, but there was also much more to be done to the offices. Once again, dust and noise filled our days. Visitors who came to sign the condolence book for HM The Queen Mother in April only reached the haven of calm that was my office after clambering through the construction work on the landing outside it. (We had received official notice of the Queen Mother’s death, but no instructions on what to do. Still, that was an improvement on Princess Margaret’s death. As far as I know, the Pyongyang embassy to this day has not received formal notification that Princess Margaret has died.) As the weather improved, so official and private visitors began to flow into Pyongyang once more, and we could again go travelling further afield. Our courier trip to Beijing in March brought an unpleasant surprise in the form of a very critical letter from London – it was now that the ‘Sound of Music’ and the ‘axis of evil’ came back to plague me, though this was not all that was covered! After several attempts, I finally drafted a reply to my satisfaction, but decided in the end not to send it. Since the drafter of the original letter had by then moved on, this

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was probably a wiser move than I could have anticipated. But it left a nasty taste, especially when I learnt later that most of those concerned in London did not appear to share the same view. April 2002 brought ‘Arirang’, a mass display and performance of music, dancing and gymnastics, and for once the Koreans seemed positively keen to have journalists visiting. They also agreed to a visit from the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a breakthrough in overcoming some years of resistance to contact with the Institute. We further extended our ELt programme by sending a group of doctors and other medical workers to the UK for language training, but the bankruptcy of the British NGO, Children’s Aid Direct (CAD), caused problems. CAD owed large and unrecoverable sums to Chinese and DPRK companies. The bankruptcy had no direct effect on relations with the UK, but there were difficult moments for the European Community’s Humanitarian Office and its British head. London’s attitude was, quite rightly, that CAD was not an official body and had no British money in it. In May, the embassy staff increased, with the arrival of John and Naomi Dunne. They had to be accommodated in a hotel, but they were cheered by the evident progress being made on the apartment block. By the time the next arrivals, the Duncans, reached Pyongyang at the end of July, they were able to move straight into their accommodation. The 2002 QBP, which also marked The Queen’s Jubilee, took place on 1 June. In keeping with the tradition that British parties were different, we hired the river steamer ‘Pyongyang No. 1’, and cruised and dined on the taedong river, to music supplied by the Pyongyang Conservatoire. We had wanted young musicians from the Music and Dance University but this was turned down, at the last minute, on the grounds that the Conservatoire was more suitable for an embassy function. Our wishes did not count, but at least there was no charge. Our guest of honour was the Minister for Foreign trade, who had visited Britain in March. In my speech, I reminded the Koreans that there were still a few problems before there could be a British ambassador in Pyongyang, and also that we were there in the spirit of the June 2000 summit. We had been worried that the Protocol Department would object to the venue, but we need not have been. The Koreans were delighted to come, since not many of them had ever been on the river. Mr Ri, the minister, said to me privately that it would be a good idea if all receptions were as informal as ours. As well as the minister, we had four vice-ministers, and a huge turnout at the director level. Robert Anderson and Jane Portal from

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the British Museum, and Beth McKillop from the British Library, were our main outside guests. And for the last time, we made it to KCNA.47 A tRIUMPH AND AN ENDING, JUNE-OCtOBER 2002

The MFA informed us at the end of June that it had been agreed that we could install satellite communications. It was perhaps not appreciated in London how big a victory this was, but it seemed to surprise the MFA. It was very much welcomed by other missions and the UN organisations, which pressed for, and got, the same concession. What it meant was expressed by the WFP head in Pyongyang from whom I received the following message just after our return to the UK in December 2002: Jim: As promised, this is the FIRSt e-mail message being sent from the new WFP VSAt facility in Pyongyang. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find your own e-mail address, so must depend on the good offices of John to forward it to you (our techie lads were far too excited to wait even a few more minutes!). Hoped to say something profound – one small message for man, one giant – but couldn’t come up with anything appropriate. I guess a BIG tHANKS will have to do. you will be remembered for this. Best regards to you and Susan, No longer Internet challenged in Pingpong, Rick.48

The remainder of our time in Pyongyang sped by, but there was little space for reflection. The flow of visitors did not abate. In early August, along with my Polish and German colleagues, I attended the concretepouring ceremony for the KEDO nuclear reactors on the east coast. The tone of the foreign speeches was not optimistic. We had the pleasure of hosting a party for the 1966 World Cup team and the VeryMuchSo company that produced ‘The Game of Their Lives’. The documentary won a special prize at that autumn’s Pyongyang film festival, which also saw six other British films on show. Indeed, the Asian premiere of Ealing Studios’ ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ took place at the festival, and we were able to arrange a special showing of the film as one of our farewell events. A mixed Korean and foreign audience seemed to enjoy both the film and the drinks provided. Just two weeks before we left, we were able to move into the newly finished residence. While unusual for ambassadorial residences in that

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it was semi-detached, it had been designed and built to the highest specifications. We were sorry that we had such a short time in it, but were glad that we had seen it to completion. We were even gladder since the Germans had started to redo the other buildings, beginning with the one in which were our temporary apartments. Drills under the bed at 7am were not much fun. The concession on satellite communications meant that further work was needed in the offices. So my last week as chargé, like so many others, passed to the sound of hammers and drills. Our main farewell party was to have been a combined circus and dinner evening, but the Protocol Department intervened, and suddenly the circus was uncooperative. We might have changed some attitudes, but there was clearly a long way to go. On 11 October, we danced on the bar, to rapturous applause, at the RAC. A more sedate farewell dinner took place on 14 October at the Nationalities Restaurant, where we had a slight victory over the Protocol Department by refusing to organise a top table. On 15 October, we left Pyongyang for the airport at 7.40am for the last time with the flag flying. two hours later, at 9.40, as the Air Koryo flight passed over the yalu river into China, my time as British chargé d’affaires Pyongyang was over.

Source: 38North, 5 October 2016. https://www.38north.org/2016/10/jhoare100516/

17

Potboiler Press: British Media and North Korea v

British news coverage of North Korea suffers for two primary reasons: an insular attitude toward the outside world and the British public’s relative lack of interest in Korean affairs. The result is a triviadominated approach that emphasizes the weirdest stories over substantive issues. This state of affairs seems unlikely to change as British media are addicted to this style. Falling customer numbers and revenues mean that there is less money available to provide more informed coverage. The rest of the world is of little interest compared with the success of British sports or the antics of celebrities. Korea, little known in Britain except to those with a direct interest, is unlikely to displace such stories. THOUGHTS ON THE BRITISH MEDIA

The current media age is remarkable. Probably never before has so much news and information flashed around the world, reaching vast audiences. Where once speedy knowledge and analysis of the news was confined to a privileged few, now it is available for all. However, while modern communications produce masses of information and analysis, much of what is presented as news is gossip or trivia, lacking substance and importance. Tabloids and some websites may be the worst but they are not the only offenders. In Britain, even major news outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Telegraph will present news in bite-sized pieces that, as often as not, take a mocking or jokey 235

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tone. The tabloids, for their part, report on most of what passes for foreign news in a flippant tone, with xenophobia never far from the surface. This happens even when a story, such as the recent defection of the London–based North Korean diplomat, Thae Yong Ho, appears to have possible serious repercussions. Thae’s alleged addiction to golf and his wife’s to shopping played as large a role in the reporting as did any political significance of the move. The main emphasis in British coverage of North Korea is on the odd and the peculiar. For instance, haircuts are a perennial favorite subject: Kim Jong Un’s hair is regularly mocked, even though the style seems to be common all over northern Europe. The supposed compulsory styles forced on young men is frequent feature, even if there is plenty of evidence that many different styles can be seen throughout the country. Even Thae’s defection was linked to the haircut story. In 2012, British media reported on the finding of a “unicorn lair” in North Korea, with The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph framing the story not as a myth but as an indication that North Koreans really believed in unicorns. In July this year, the Daily Mail reported that Kim Jong Un was devastated by international sanctions on luxury goods because of his love of Swiss cheese and watches. We also have had giant rabbits, catfish and a regular diet of weird leaders doing odd things – all are jumbled together whether true or not. Other examples include The Times reporting that two officials were executed with anti-aircraft guns for falling asleep during a meeting, while the Daily Mail said construction workers were forced to take crystal meth to meet construction deadlines. On August 5, the Daily Star ran the story, “Vladimir Putin is set to send his fist crashing down on Kim Jong-un,” even though the story was, in fact, reporting on South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s planned visit to Moscow. A similar case was a story by the Daily Express about North Korea extending conscription to its female population, citing in the article that 22 million North Koreans died after a famine and food crisis (the population of North Korea is around 25 million). Why bother checking? They are foreign and a long way off. It was not always so. I first learned about Korea at the age of seven or eight via the BBC, which, at the time, was Britain’s only radio broadcaster. Later, I learned about British politics from the Daily Mirror, which was known for its sharp staccato style, cartoons and light reporting, but it had a more serious and international side as well. At school, with a 30 minute train journey morning and evening, I switched to the

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Telegraph. I ignored the politics; it was the solid reporting that grabbed my attention. In my university years, liberal political views got the better of me, and The Guardian – by then, based in London – became and remains my newspaper of choice. For all of these, the most there was by way of entertainment rather than reporting or editorial comment was a crossword puzzle or a chess problem. Well-founded radio and television news supplemented newspaper reading. Other traditions existed, however. Many Sunday newspapers were notably lighter in content, with sex, crime and scandal being of greater prominence. Not for nothing was the News of the World (nicknamed “The Screws of the World” among the knowing). Weekly magazines such as Tit-Bits (1881–1989) provided amusing stories and information. Comics also flourished; one well-established tradition was the exotic scary story involving “Orientals,” a term usually used for Chinese. But all of this was separate from what was considered “real journalism.” By 1961, changes were underway. Postwar austerity was long gone. Newspapers had plenty of advertising and plenty of newsprint. There was money for foreign correspondents. Competition from television – the BBC had lost its monopoly in 1955 – meant that newspapers were expected not only to provide more in-depth reporting, but also to be more entertaining. Color supplements appeared – a far cry from that spin-off from The Times, The Times Literary Supplement – and reporting became less formal. All papers began to devote more space to lighter pieces and the distinctions once maintained in the “quality papers” between news and commentary became blurred. In the 1990s, as times became harder and the competition from new media increased, the trivialization of news became more pronounced. Cute pictures and amusing stories were what were wanted. Foreign news, often complex and difficult, was steadily reduced, while rising costs meant cutting back on overseas correspondents. Eventually, the doings of film stars became more newsworthy than the coverage of wars and tensions far away. Then there was the British attitude to foreigners. Britain may have once had a vast empire and the British may holiday abroad, but the recent referendum campaign over Britain’s membership in the European Union showed the depths of suspicion and apparent dislike in the media of our nearest neighbors. (One who contributed greatly to this approach when he was The Times’ correspondent in Brussels was Boris Johnson, the present British Foreign Secretary. The paper eventually

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sacked him for making up stories.) This attitude is worse the farther away one goes. KOREA: “FAR AWAY AND UNKNOWN” (TO US AT LEAST)

British news coverage of Korea is shaped by the fact that the peninsula was never historically of great political or economic importance to Britain; China and Japan were far more important. (Winston Churchill is reported to have exclaimed at one point: “Korea? I never heard of the bloody place until I was 70!”) Occasionally, there was brief interest in Korea, usually for imperial reasons, but it never lasted long.1 For instance, Britain had diplomatic and consular relations with Korea from 1883 to 1941, and the first consul-general, W.G. Aston, became an established scholar of the language. But after Aston left in 1885, only one other British official took the trouble to qualify in Korean until the late 1950s. British trade with Korea, after some initial interest, was negligible. Its missionary role in the country did not compare to the US presence.2 British activity was concentrated in and around Seoul; the north of the country was almost unknown territory. Few books about Korea appeared in Britain, and newspaper coverage was rare. Moreover, no British university taught Korean or paid much attention to Korean history, apart from its art history. After World War II, the British returned to Korea in 1946, reopening a consulate-general in Seoul. Missionaries and traders followed, but US influence in South Korea was even stronger than before. North Korea was effectively off limits; no Britons went there until the Korean War. Britain’s involvement in the war had much more to do with the US wish for international support and pressure than with any actual British interest in Korea. British views of Syngman Rhee were unenthusiastic, but its support – at least in public – for the United States and the South Korea did not waver. The war and immediate postwar developments ended any likelihood of British involvement with North Korea. Britain engaged with the South to a limited extent, but the North was unknown and seen as unknowable. Except at times of crisis, such as the ROK military coups in 1961 and 1979, the British media devoted little attention to any part of Korea.3 Occasional Korean-language advertisements planted by North Korea in British newspapers made no sense to a British audience and merely underscored the oddity of the peninsula. North Korea generally attracted little attention. When it did get coverage, it was seen as

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strange and unfathomable.4 Events such as the 1983 bomb attack on South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan in Yangon (Rangoon) indicated that the North Korea was dangerous,5 but such developments took place far from Britain. By then, a few Britons were traveling to the North, but they were often from tiny left-wing groups and made little or no impact on the mainstream media or the wider public. Pyongyang’s links with the Irish Republican Army might have been seen as more serious, but few knew about them at the time. As the DPRK opened cautiously to tourism in the 1980s, British journalists who previously were not usually allowed in the country began to go as tourists. Among the first was the then-head of the BBC’s World Service China section, who found the country in the mid-1980s to be wealthier than China. An unfortunate tradition then began to take hold. Journalists entered the country under a series of guises. During the famine years of the 1990s, such visits became more frequent but the quality of coverage did not improve. Some who should have known better wrote their stories before they went and were surprised that the North Koreans took offense. This created the situation that we now have. Because journalists enter the DPRK in a clandestine fashion, their reporting has inevitably become hole-in-corner. Typical of this group was the BBC’s John Sweeney, who passed himself off as a university professor and whose predictable and banal reportage was only matched by a tendentious book. Few have any deep understanding of the country; as far as I know, only one British journalist has a Korean-language qualification. They overegg accounts of what is routine as something special, out of the ordinary – in a word, bizarre. Some do seek expert advice but are often disappointed when the advice does not confirm their preformed picture. Photographs of even the most routine nature are billed as “secret insights into the Hermit Kingdom.” When I was in Pyongyang (2001–02) one reporter published an account of an arms deal based on seeing some North Koreans and what looked like Middle Eastern visitors dining in the Koryo Hotel. They were apparently talking in Arabic and Korean. That he knew neither language was no handicap. But he was very bitter when the North Koreans refused him a second visa. CONCLUSION

Such journalism is not confined to the British media, of course, but it does seem to have a strong hold among British journalists and I fear the

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pattern is too well established to change. Serious stories do sometimes appear. From 2000 to 2002, the BBC correspondent in Seoul, Caroline Gluck, made frequent visits to North Korea and reported on a wide range of issues. She could be critical, but she never reported what she had not seen personally. More recently, The Guardian’s Beijing correspondent, Tania Branigan, produced good reporting and comment on North Korea. But these examples are likely to remain the exception.

Source: Geir Helgesen and Rachel Harrison, eds. East-West Reflections on Demonization: North Korea now, China next? Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2020, pp. 47–67.

18

Reflections on North Korea: Myths and Reality v

INTRODUCTION

In December 2000, Britain and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea) signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations. It had been no easy journey. From the formal establishment of two states on the Korean Peninsula in 1948, Britain had been a firm supporter of the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea). This support had been maintained even when there were grave doubts about the policies of the Presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee. The Scandinavian countries regarded the dissolution of the Korean War-era United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea in 1973 as a removal of any legal barrier to recognizing the North, an interpretation shared by Britain’s senior legal officers, but Britain continued to deny recognition to the North. There was some modification of this position after the two Koreas joined the United Nations in 1991, at which point Britain recognized the DPRK as a state. Nevertheless, ministers on both sides of the political spectrum declined to go any further and, even as late as July 2000, a proposal from officials for a change in policy was firmly turned down. Yet the international relationship with North Korea was changing rapidly. Early in 2000, Italy had broken European Union ranks and established relations. South Korea, especially after the June 2000 NorthSouth Summit, was keen that more countries should open relations with the North to end its isolation. The DPRK itself was reaching out. 241

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These factors all contributed to a change of position by ministers at the time of the Europe–Asia meeting in Seoul in September 2000. The December signing (agreeing to establish diplomatic relations) led to the question of whether and how the relationship would be carried forward. Although it was decided that Britain would not open an embassy in Pyongyang, it was felt there should be at least one dedicated person to take relations forward. At that point, I was the only person at the right grade in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) who had expressed a wish to go to North Korea if we ever established relations. Now I was taken at my word and I readily agreed. LIFE BEFORE PYONGYANG

In 1981 I was asked to go to the embassy in Seoul as head of chancery1 and consul. We spent nearly four enjoyable years there. My wife, Susan Pares, taught English at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs training institute, then worked with the overseas service of the Korean Broadcasting System and wrote a regular column in a local newspaper. Our daughter, three when we arrived, started school and had a great time, even if she later said that she could not understand what we did. Eventually she concluded that since one of us had a striped jersey and we both went out regularly in the evenings, we must be burglars. Fortunately, she never revealed our secret. These were the years of Chun Doo-hwan, the ROK’s second military dictator. Politics was a dull affair but there was plenty to do, with visits, routine reporting and learning to know a new society. In 1982–83, we celebrated 100 years of diplomatic relations, conveniently ignoring the break between 1905 and 1948 and the absence of any links with the North. It got me writing on Britain and Korea both for the press and for local academic journals. During the late 1970s, the then-ambassador had been an unambiguous supporter of the military dictatorship and would hear nothing against its policies, especially vis-à-vis the DPRK. This had changed by the time I arrived, but the North was still regarded as a threat. There was a nightly curfew, though it ended in 1982. Leaflets scattered by balloons regularly turned up in our garden; I still have a few. North Korean midget submarines were active and occasionally caught. The crews either committed suicide or were killed in fire fights. I knew several of those blown up in Rangoon in 1983. I made some 30 visits to Panmunjom, where the palpable tension added to the sense of menace.

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We left in Spring 1985, just after Kim Dae-jung’s return, but continued as a commentators on Korea and produced our first joint book, somewhat unimaginatively titled Korea: An Introduction. NORTH KOREA

In 1998, I finally made it to North Korea. Britain held the EU chair and I was the political adviser to an EU humanitarian team led by Britain’s Department for International Development to assess DPRK requests for aid. After day trips in and around Pyongyang, we split into groups. Mine went first to flooded areas on the West Coast, and then across to the East Coast to see the consequences of economic decline. None of us had been to North Korea and I was the only one who had worked on the country, so there was a steep learning curve and occasional clashes with our guides. We had been assured in Pyongyang that we would be able to see markets but once on the road, we soon learnt that they would be seen only from a distance. In Wonsan, two of our number skipped a visit to the hospital to slip away to an obvious street market. As the rest of us emerged, they were being escorted back. There followed an argument between our senior guide – a cultivated man with a considerable knowledge of Shakespeare – and me over the bad behaviour of our group. We were told it was highly dangerous to go off alone since people might attack us. This would have been more convincing if ‘the people,’ including some who had seen the altercation in the market, had not stood on the other side of the road cheering us on. But all our pleading fell on stony ground. I fear that our final report, delivered in draft to the Korean side, was a disappointment. While we had seen flood damage, economic decline and clear evidence of food shortages in some areas, those who had been in other world disaster areas were not convinced that things were as bad as had been claimed. That first introduction was what led me to say that if I was asked, I would go to Pyongyang again. In January 2001, I got my wish. A party of officials visited London that month to explore how we would implement our new relationship. The Koreans were happy that I was nominated as chargé d’affaires. Many of the people I had met in 1998 were still there, which proved most helpful. That winter was bitterly cold, revealing the lack of lighting and heating and poor maintenance of roads and vehicles. That was a short visit. I returned at the end of February to carry on the process of getting to know the North Koreans and to prepare for a planned visit in mid-March by the administrative

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head of the FCO, Sir John Kerr, the permanent undersecretary. The office had also agreed that Susan could visit, at public expense, to see what she might be letting herself in for. Operating out of the Koryo Hotel and preparing a visit via unclassified fax and telephone was not easy, but it worked. My contacts at the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) were Kim Chun Guk and Thae Yong Ho, both of whom I had by then met several times, including during the 2000 negotiations in London. Sir John was known to them as he had signed the agreement on diplomatic relations, and they were pleased to have a senior British visitor. A good programme meant that Sir John was happy too. The Korean side smoothed out difficulties so that we saw sights normally off limits, including the Koguryo tombs just outside Pyongyang. And Kerr made a major decision: we would open a post in Pyongyang, which I would head. But, he warned me, times were changing and he thought that ministers were likely to take their tone from the new US administration of George W. Bush, whose hostility to North Korea was already clear. I did not return to London until the end of March 2001. By then it seemed that enthusiasm for relations with North Korea had markedly diminished. There would be no fresh aid for the DPRK. But the post would remain open. I completed briefing, finished off medical visits and left for Pyongyang via Seoul and Beijing in late May. The Korean MFA was openly friendly, although it was soon clear that we would get no privileges because of that. Pyongyang was a very formal place, full of protocol. Conducting business was cumbersome for all; as in China until the early 1980s, the Diplomatic Note ruled. It was almost as if the telephone had not been invented. We lived in the Koryo Hotel and worked at the German embassy, in the former East German embassy. As well as the Germans, who also had residential accommodation, the Swedish embassy had an office there, while the Italians maintained an aid office; there was no Italian embassy. We had half of the first floor. This had been earmarked for the US liaison office that was envisaged under the 1994 Agreed Framework, but the US was no longer interested. Until new office furniture arrived, we made do with old East German tables and chairs. Fortunately, there were plenty of these, since they showed an alarming tendency to disintegrate. We had more serious problems. Our main task was to get the embassy established and running. One important component in that was communications, for which we were still completely dependent on

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an unclassified telephone and fax system, albeit now one we controlled, not the Koryo Hotel. The December 2000 agreement had clearly stated that we could secure the satellite-based communications that were being rolled out to all British diplomatic posts. When I raised the issue, I was told that it was impossible under DPRK law. The MFA denied that the agreement said anything different. Whatever we had thought, to them phone and fax were what was allowed. The message was regularly repeated from people from other ministries. We were also working on more permanent residential and office accommodation. The MFA had identified one property as serving both purposes. Our estates staff colleagues thought it might be able to become one or the other, but not both. If we could not have communications, there seemed little point in going ahead with hiring an office, so I stopped the survey work and told London we should not proceed. This was accepted, to the chagrin of the MFA who would have got the rent. The estates staff in the meantime decided that a semi-derelict accommodation block on the German compound was available and could be adapted for residential needs. Then there were our diplomatic ID cards. We were told to apply for these but when we filled in the forms, we were told we had done so incorrectly. After this happened three times, I told the MFA at a meeting on another subject that we felt perfectly safe without ID cards. Since it seemed to be a problem, we had no wish to proceed. The cards duly arrived the next day, dated the day of our first application. And of course, we never had to show them. (We would later have a similar problem with driving licenses, which also turned out to be no problem. In any case, when I sat next to him at a reception, the head of the Pyongyang traffic police told me: ‘Just drive. Nobody is going to stop you.’) This pattern repeated itself, no doubt to see whether we could be broken into their ways. A shipment of furniture was held all day at the docks over alleged ‘South Korean writing’ on the container but probably really to see if we would pay a bribe. We didn’t and it was released. We had added an additional teacher to our programme of training for university English teachers, something the Koreans were very keen on. But we were told that there was no accommodation and she would have to live in a hotel separate from the other teachers. I said no accommodation, no teacher. An apartment was suddenly available. Books supplied for an exhibition, which were destined eventually for the Grand People’s Study House, the national library, began to disappear during the exhibition. A frosty meeting with the official

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British friendship society got them all back. The same organization asked to be paid for arranging a dance performance at our British Week celebration even though nobody had asked them to do so. Life was not all problems. The Koreans were always helpful over visitors even providing briefings for the journalists and academics who came as my guests. Family visitors were also entertained – the MFA clearly liked picnics. And about a year after the battle over communications had begun, we won. Having told them that I thought that, without secure communications, they ran the risk of us withdrawing, my old friend Kim Chun Guk called me over at a party and told me that we could have our communications, which was confirmed immediately in a Diplomatic Note. Not only had we succeeded where others such as the World Food Programme had failed, but we had won for everybody. I got fulsome thanks from colleagues. (Alas! Our budget for communications had already been spent, so the world-wide system could not be installed immediately. As with the ambassador’s residence, my successor benefitted.) Being in North Korea was a most informative experience. Whatever the reality of life for ordinary people – and these were the years when much more information began to filter out through defectors – they did not behave as downtrodden slaves. They argued with police and other officials. They worried about their children just as parents did everywhere. They were cautious and careful among foreigners, but courteous and friendly when relaxed. While there were plaques everywhere commemorating visits by Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, the heavy political references that one used to find in China were conspicuously absent. The outside world may have been viewed with suspicion, but everyone from officials in Pyongyang to farmers far off in the countryside would try to drag you into the dancing and drinking sessions that seemed to mark most weekends. Travelling around, one could see why foreigners might be treated with suspicion – the handful of buildings that dated from before the Korean war were mute testimony to the destructiveness of that conflict and the country’s helplessness in the face of Western firepower. It was thought-provoking. We left Pyongyang in October 2002 and I retired from the Diplomatic Service soon after. Retiring did not break my links with either Korea. I wrote, lectured and broadcast about both, as well as taught. This included establishing and teaching a course on North Korea for five years. Susan and I wrote North Korea in the 21st Century:

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An Interpretative Guide soon after we returned. We went back to North Korea together in 2004 and 2011, and I went on my own in 2018. MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW?

Ever since leaving Seoul in 1985, I have pondered the myths and assertions about North Korea. A word of caution: Kim Jong Il told visiting South Korean journalists in 2000 that anybody who presented themselves as an expert on his country was a fool. I am inclined to agree. It is not that we know nothing about the country. The days when it was a deep mystery have long passed, if they ever really existed. Even when it was far more closed off than today, information did come out. But it was often seen through hostile lenses. This was especially true in South Korea, but happened elsewhere too. Since the 1980s, much has changed. More foreigners travel there and more North Koreans travel abroad. The diplomatic community in Pyongyang may still be small but they work together, and they are on the spot. Many embassies have several Korean speakers. International aid agencies have staff who get to remote parts of the country. New information and insights have come from defectors/refugees. Yet none of these really penetrate the inner workings of the system. One or two diplomats got close to Kim Jong Il; the Russian ambassador went hunting with him. Scholars from the former Communist countries often have a clear technical understanding of the system, but not necessarily how North Korea works in reality. Indeed, just when it seems obvious how things work in the country, a new twist throws you off balance and certainties are swept aside. The number of disproved predictions about future policy or the chances of the country’s survival is legion. North Korea is adept at allowing visitors to see only what it wants them to see. To attempt to get around this, you must keep your eyes and ears open and not take things at face value. Probe as much as you can, but be careful. Do not be rude and above all do not break the rules, however trivial they seem. What would cause no problems in most countries may not be treated with much tolerance in North Korea, especially if they are worried or – as some Americans have found to their cost in recent years – want to make a point. Demonizing North Korea is easy. For many commentators, it is the default mode. They do not analyse the country nor try to understand it. It is evil and its policies are wrong. The most famous exponents of this view were probably US President George W. Bush and his senior colleagues. They boasted that they did not negotiate

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with evil but destroyed it. For them, there was no question that any agreement negotiated with North Korea was a mistake and should be abandoned. So, the Agreed Framework, which had capped the most active and dangerous North Korean nuclear programme, was dumped. Unfortunately, the need to deal with the reality of a North Korean nuclear program proved stronger than the unwillingness to negotiate. But it was too late, and North Korea appears to be a nuclear weapons state. The Bush team were by no means alone. North Korea arouses strong emotions. The strength of those emotions can spill over into vitriolic exchanges on social media, in conventional media and even in academia. Nuance disappears, black and white prevails. If a negative interpretation can be found, let’s go with it, seems to be the approach.2 The process begins early. Few use the country’s official title – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – or even the abbreviation DPRK. Some avoid the official usage because they do not want to give legitimacy to a state that, in their view, has no right to exist. To them, there should be no division on the Korean Peninsula. Korea was one for over 1,000 years. It was not divided, even under the Japanese colonial administration. For many people with little knowledge of history, the North is blamed for the division. The emergence of two separate states started in 1945, well before the Korean War when the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on the initial division, to take the Japanese surrender. The Cold War intervened, and the two powers oversaw the development of separate states on the peninsula. The leaders of both states, each with a history of opposing Japanese colonialism, albeit in different ways, wanted unification. Each state denied the other’s right to existence. (To some degree, they still do, summit meetings notwithstanding.) Belligerent noises and threats came from both. The North struck first. Although the smaller in population, it had the means to do so thanks to the Soviet decision to give it an army. The US made a different decision. South Korea had a lightly armed super police force that proved no match for the North. Without outside intervention, the problem of Korean unification would have been solved in 1950. But intervention there was. The war settled nothing but left two even more hostile states facing each other across the division line; initial hostility had been made worse by the bitterness of war. Relations between the two Koreas was not helped by the rest of the world. During the war, the United Nations had set up a Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (UNCURK) that pledged to bring about what the name denoted, unification. This followed

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on from its 1948 declaration that the South was the ‘only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula.’ Although the wording did not say that the South Korean government was the only government on the peninsula, it acted as though that was the meaning, as did Western countries. Only in the early 1970s, with the first substantive contacts between the two Koreas since the war and the winding-up of UNCURK, did the position change and Western countries began to open diplomatic links with the North. From the war onwards, the default Western mode for referring to the two Koreas was ‘Korea’ for the South and ‘North Korea’ for the North. The implication, clearly, was that the South was the real Korea. (In the Soviet Union and other communist countries, it was the other way around, ‘Korea’ meant North Korea, and the South was always ‘south Korea’. Something similar happened in the case of divided Germany and Vietnam.) The North was odd, an aberration. Of course, there were ways in which the North contributed to this image. It was a tough totalitarian regime that maintained a fierce independence. Few visited it. Even among the socialist states, it seemed a difficult partner, grasping and needy and going its own way. The North was seen both as a threat and a strange, bizarre place. Both themes persist. Exaggerated claims about its military might abound. Its rhetoric is indeed ferocious. Yet it is in reality cautious, behaving like many small states surrounded by much bigger and more powerful ones. When not dealing with its alleged threat to world peace, press reports on the North are dominated by what is seen as its weird nature. In recent years, these themes have included the claim that the North believes in unicorns, or focused on the strangeness of the leader’s hairstyle, while in July 2016, the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, reported that Kim Jong Un was devastated by international sanctions on luxury goods because of his love of Swiss cheese and watches. We have had giant rabbits, catfish and a regular diet of bizarre leaders doing odd things – all are jumbled together, whether true or not.3 To many, it is the worst country in the world in a host of areas from human rights (yet look at some African or Middle Eastern countries) to architecture (most former Soviet cities could compete on that score). A persistent theme is that the North is doomed to collapse any day now. Even the failure of this to happen so far does not stop the predictions. As with those who believe the end of the world is near, if it does not happen at the predicted time, it will certainly do so next time – or the time after that. In 1949, the British Cabinet noted a report from

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the Seoul Legation that the North Korean army was disaffected, there was widespread starvation in the country, and that the regime was on the point of collapse. Forty years later, the British commentator Aidan Foster-Carter wrote, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, that North Korea would be next, if not in two years, certainly in five. When that did not happen, he twice more gave it five years, then stopped predicting. This ‘collapsist’ view was always based on the mistaken belief that the North Korean regime was alien and imposed from outside. This was very much a stock theme in South Korean accounts until the mid-1980s. The North was a puppet state, run by the Soviet Union. It had rejected Korean traditions in favour of Soviet or Chinese ones. Its people were ‘commies’ or ‘reds’, not Koreans. (Again, the mirror image of the South in the North, was not dissimilar – South Koreans had sold out to American influence and were US puppets.) Soviet forces had liberated the north of the peninsula in 1945. The Soviet Union may have enabled the Communist forces to dominate the area and undoubtedly played a major role in the establishment of North Korea. Dependence on Soviet guns to maintain its position was ended by 1949. It was China that saved it during the Korean War, not the Soviet Union. Unlike the states of Eastern Europe, from the 1950s onwards it moved to a more independent position, drawing as much on Korea’s historical past and even on the practices of the Japanese colonial administration to give the state legitimacy. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which caused the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, worried the North, but it did not have the same effect here as it did on the European states. The fact is that the North has survived despite war, invasion, the longest sanctions’ regime in the world, economic collapse, the end of its main trading relationships, famines, floods and drought. Unification is still held out as a goal by both Koreas, but it is hard to see it happening. Despite all the talk over the years and the proposals put forward to end the division, most real effort has gone into building up separate states. Nearly 75 years of division have left only a few very elderly people with any experience of living in a united Korea. Even that Korea was dominated by Japan, so nobody now living knows an independent united Korea. The North still emphasizes unification, but on its terms. In the South, there is much indifference to the idea. People do not want to give up their current lifestyle to help the poverty-stricken North. Direct memories of the Korean War may have faded, but fear of the North regularly revives. The famine

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years of the 1990s showed that the North was no paradise. Most of its much-vaunted achievements were well in the past, indeed if they had ever existed outside the pages of glossy magazines. The costs of unification in Germany proved far greater than anybody had expected. Even the mantra of 1990 – ‘Unification but not till I have my second car’ – has faded so that now it is only ‘No Unification’. The complication for North Korea is in some ways like that faced by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1989–90. Hungary or Poland could change government without fear of challenge, once the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made it clear that the Soviet Union would no longer support the Communist leadership. East Germany was different. Until 1945, it had been part of a unified Germany. Its people had been exposed to the German Federal Republic (West Germany) through radio, television and direct contact. Many wanted a return to a united Germany. There was opposition from other countries that had fought Germany in World War II and feared a united Germany would be too powerful. This was overcome, and the two German states merged into one. But an East–West divide persists. Although they had not fought each other, as the Koreas had, divisions had grown between the two Germanys that proved hard to overcome. East Germany had a smaller population than the West. Its economy, although widely regarded as the strongest in the former Soviet sphere of influence, lagged well behind. Its industries were old-fashioned compared to the West. In some areas, it is true, it was ahead. Social security and health provisions were more evenly distributed in the East, based on need rather than the ability to pay. There was one other problem in the relationship. Suspicions of the East in the now-dominant West led to many job losses amongst those who had worked for the East German regime. Some were tried and sentenced for having carried out state policies. All this resonates with North Korea. The elite are aware of what happened in East Germany, in Libya and Iraq. Some know that there are voices in South Korea that call for revenge, not reconciliation. At best, the senior leadership sees unification as leading to loss of status and loss of jobs. At worst they see the prospect of prison or death. Avoiding such outcomes keeps them loyal to the system and its leader. The bottles of brandy, the watches or even the fast cars that Kim supposedly gives out from time to time may have some influence, but probably not much. Not many of us will voluntarily give up a privileged position for one of uncertainty. Even some high-ranking defectors, particularly those who

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took up residence in the South, have found it difficult to adjust to their changed status. Training and skills acquired in North Korea may not be of value in their new lives. But ultimately, they must remain united. [At best, the senior leadership sees unification as leading to loss of status and loss of jobs. At worst they see the prospect of prison or death. Avoiding such outcomes keeps them loyal to the system and its leader.]

Even if the worst did not happen, the North Korea leaders have had many indications over the years that the South projects a quasi-colonial attitude towards their country. This became abundantly clear during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye presidencies (2008–13, 2013–17) South Korean companies and government see the North, if not quite virgin territory, as ready for exploitation. The South will help with developing existing resources and looks forward to exploiting a literate and obedient workforce. This does not bode well. Unification thus seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Perhaps one day, when all those who experienced the Korean War years have passed on and when the two sides get to know each other better, it may happen. But there is a long way to go. So, there is little choice but to deal with the North as it is, not as one might hope that it might be. Here it would help if one got away from the overheated discussions on the threat from the North. Nobody would deny that the North has been an irritant to its neighbours, but beyond the South it is not a threat to their existence. Even in the case of South Korea, 2019 is not 1949. The balance of power has shifted to the South in most matters. The possession of nuclear weapons does not give a real advantage. The use of such weapons on the peninsula could have damaging effects on the North itself; radiation is no respecter of borders, and any use would probably ensure massive retaliation and the end of North Korea. A real threat to the US or, even more unlikely, to Europe, seems far-fetched. A potential threat is, of course, useful in justifying US military spending and forward bases. In the past, US officials did not deny that North Korea was often used when the real worry was China. Today, they are less circumspect. The North is an irritant but cannot threaten the existence of the US, whatever its wilder claims. Former US Secretary of Defence William Perry pointed out the huge discrepancy between the North and the US. If North Korea were to use any of its small nuclear arsenal against the US, it would face a counterattack that would certainly mean the end of the regime and possibly the complete

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destruction of the country. (This would be President Donald Trump’s fire and fury with a vengeance.) And while the North has shown that it will practice brinkmanship, it has not shown itself suicidal. Kim Jong Un has made threats and paraded warlike scenes. The armistice agreement has been denounced. Declarations of war are regularly flung about. But nothing happens. The North still respects the armistice. There have been so many DPRK assertions that this or that development is an act of war that it is hard to take them seriously. Kim in the control room would look more authentic if the computers were plugged in and the telephones were connected. Or even if the map on the wall did not look suspiciously like a blown-up airline route map rather than the rocket trajectories against the US that it claimed to be. While it helps if this makes foreigners think twice about risking an attack on the North, what is often forgotten is that such pictures are primarily for internal consumption, showing a leader in control and standing up to the North’s enemies. That North Korea does not stick to its treaties and agreements is by now another well-established mantra. The DPRK is certainly a tough negotiator. Like other East Asian countries, it is usually more attached to the general spirit of a document than to the precise text. If, however, it is to its advantage to be more precise, it will be. What its negotiators do expect is that there will be equal and mutual advantage. If there is backtracking or a lack of reciprocity, to the North that excuses it from meeting its side of the bargain. Essentially that is what happened over the 1994 Agreed Framework. The North believed that it had stuck to the agreement since it had capped and halted its plutonium-based nuclear program. That was all that was covered in the agreement. When the US did not seem to be pursuing its side of the agreement – by 2002, it was estimated that the project to supply light-water reactors was eight years behind schedule and the Bush administration was showing signs of hostility – the North began pursuing an alternative route towards its original goal. The US could have raised its concerns quietly under the terms of the Agreed Framework, as happened in the Clinton administration. But, ‘to confront evil’, it chose a different path. This choice was not wise; it opened the way to the situation we have today. Yet the lesson was not learned, and agreements continue to founder because of a wish to add new conditions or to change the terms. For most of the period since 1945, North Korea was seen as an awkward nuisance at best or as a potential source of trouble at worst. Rather than engage with it in the hope of effecting change, it was isolated. It is hard

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to argue that such a policy was successful, given what happened during the short period (1998–2002) when South Korea and the US followed a different approach. Yes, it cost money, but there were real achievements. A nuclear program was capped. The South began to build a new relationship with its neighbour, as did the US and many other countries. For some in the US, the hunt for the missing in action (MIA) during the Korean War allowed them a degree of closure, but it was also an important confidence-building measure between two military organizations that were on the worst possible terms. Even Japan began to benefit. Nobody got all they wanted from the improved relationship, but it was the start of a process. If the momentum of the Clinton years had been kept up, who knows where it might have led? President George W. Bush, however, returned to the demonization of the past, typified by John Bolton’s boast in his 2007 autobiography, Surrender Is Not an Option, that he had driven a stake through the heart of the Agreed Framework. A fine boast, but it did not kill the DPRK nuclear programme, but hastened it, with the first nuclear test in 2006. Frantic efforts under the second Bush administration failed to halt it, while the Obama administration gave up trying. Then came Donald Trump. He had sent mixed signals while campaigning, offering to meet Kim Jong Un. In office, he became increasingly hostile, mocking Kim Jong Un as ‘Little Rocket Man’ and threatening North Korea with annihilation. The response was a flurry of DPRK threats. Yet while the rhetoric became strident, the North was, as usual, pulling back. Threats were not matched by actions. As early as July 2017, while the insults and threats flew, Kim Jong Un indicated that, as the DPRK was now a nuclear power with the means of delivery, further testing was not necessary – although it might be resumed if need be. This was repeated in Kim’s 2018 New Year’s message, with an offer to attend the Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea. Although dismissed by many as ‘North Korea up to its old tricks’, this was to lead to what appeared to be a major breakthrough. Kim Jong Un did not attend the Olympics but sent his sister Kim Yo Jong, who was ostentatiously boycotted by US Vice-President Mike Pence who defended his action on the grounds that the United States does not stand with ‘murderous dictatorships’. South Korea’s President Moon Jie-in received an invitation to visit North Korea. In the following months, Kim also met the Chinese leader for the first time, as well as meeting Moon several times and signing a number of significant

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agreements. And whatever Mr Pence’s view, President Trump eagerly seized upon an invitation to meet Kim. That meeting, in June 2018 in Singapore, appeared to go well. Trump, who clearly heard what he wanted to hear, claimed that there would be complete North Korean denuclearization and announced that he was cancelling a number of joint US-South Korean military exercises. The North made gestures towards dismantling parts of its nuclear and missile related system but was clearly hoping for some relaxation of the sanctions regime, which had been steadily tightened during 2017. By the end of 2018, both the US and North Korea were bemoaning the lack of real progress. Yet talks behind the scene led to another US–North Korea summit in Hanoi in February 2019. Both sides seemed optimistic, indicating a pre-meeting agreement. Yet on the morning of the second day, the talks abruptly ended without an agreement, lunch or a communique. Trump and his entourage, which included John Bolton, then-national security adviser, returned home, while Kim Jong Un carried out a planned state visit to Vietnam. The recriminations began almost immediately. The North Koreans said that the United States had made unacceptable new demands on the pace of denuclearization and other issues. The Americans claimed that the North Koreans had demanded the full lifting of US sanctions. Each rejected the other’s claims. There was a brief moment in June when Trump met Kim at Panmunjom – with a rather-neglected President Moon taking part in a photo shoot – but the Hanoi summit seemed the effective end of the process that had begun in January 2018. To the United States administration, the fault lay entirely with the North Koreans. Bolton argued that it showed that the DPRK could not be trusted. Others were not so sure. The president seemed to believe that his relationship with Kim Jong Un was still strong. Although formally still committed to the UN sanctions regime, Russia and China turned an increasingly blind eye to evasions by their nationals. The standoff continues (March 2020). While North Korea has said that its self-imposed moratoria on long-range missile and nuclear testing is over, it has not in fact done either. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Clearly there remains a glimmer of hope that all is not lost, but it requires some more imaginative thinking than we are used to. The first need is to accept that the DPRK is here to stay and to act accordingly.

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It is not East Germany, Eastern Europe or even the former Soviet Union. Unification offers little for the elite. At best they would lose their status, at worst their lives. Isolation and sanctions have not and are not likely to make North Korea more co-operative. The effort devoted to them would more profitably be expended on providing training and exposure to the outside world. Show the elite that there are other ways of doing things than those currently used in their country. Patience is required. Do not expect overnight change. Get to know the North Koreans. The US should make a real effort to establish a presence in the country, to improve knowledge and to impart it. This was done in Moscow and Beijing; there seems no reason why it should not be done in Pyongyang. Do not expect the nuclear issue to be solved quickly. Work in stages. A cap is better than a continued development programme. The end of the latter should remain the long-term goal, but that does not reduce the benefit of progress on intermediate stages. Stress the positive.

Source: 38North, 11 December 2020. https://www.38north.org/2020/12/jhoare121120/ Accessed 6 March 2021.

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Twenty Years a-Stagnating – The Lost Opportunity of Britain’s Relationship With the DPRK v

It has been twenty years since Britain and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to establish diplomatic relations.1 Both sides had very different expectations from the outset – Britain thought it might influence the DPRK toward becoming a better member of the world community. The DPRK, for its part, thought that the British move indicated a growing importance of their country internationally, a willingness to provide training and assistance, and, perhaps, a counterbalance to the United States. However, none of this has come to pass, and as of now, there are few indications that will change. IN THE BEGINNING

On December 12, 2000, the most senior official of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO), Sir John Kerr, and the head of the European Department of the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Kim Chun Guk, signed a document in London establishing diplomatic relations. Britain had established diplomatic relations with the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1949, but it refused to even formally recognize the DPRK until it voted for the admission of both Koreas to the United Nations (UN) in September 1991. Even then, Britain kept North Korea at arms’ length, in deference to what it believed were the wishes of the ROK and United States. There 257

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were occasional low-level political talks that were probably unsatisfactory on both sides. In essence, the British side would criticize the North over nuclear issues and human rights, which the latter rejected. As late as the summer of 2000, British ministers turned down a proposal from the DPRK foreign minister to establish diplomatic relations. But the ground was shifting at that time. Inter-Korean relations were rapidly improving, with a first-ever summit between the two leaders, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong Il, in June 2000. Like most countries, Britain welcomed this, but paid little attention at first to the parallel suggestion from the ROK that its friends should bolster this development by establishing diplomatic relations with the DPRK. British ministers remained reluctant on this front until that autumn. On their way to Seoul for the Asia-Europe meeting, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook decided to establish formal relations with the DPRK to boost South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s policy aimed at building peace on the peninsula. Somewhat to the surprise of the advance party in Seoul, who had been briefing colleagues and the ROK government no such move was likely, the decision was announced upon their arrival. SETTING UP AN EMBASSY

The ministers seemed, however, to lose interest in the issue even as officials began to implement the new policy. Following the December 12 signing, a delegation led by the FCDO’s director for Asia visited Pyongyang in January 2001 to look at accommodations and other practical matters for setting up an embassy. Although after this trip, London decided not to post a representative to Pyongyang but to attach a chargé d’affaires for the DPRK to the embassy in Seoul instead, who was then expected to make periodic visits to Pyongyang from Seoul – hardly the most practical of arrangements. I was formally appointed to this position in February. My first task was to go to Pyongyang to prepare for a visit by Sir John Kerr in March. The DPRK officials were pleased and helpful. They accepted, for example, that Kerr would not lay flowers in front of the large Kim Il Sung statue on Mansudae Hill, and while I was there, no visiting British official was ever asked to do so. At the same time, a small cultural delegation led by the director of the British Museum also visited, as did my wife. Thus, in addition to the usual round of official talks, which seemed to go well, we were able to make several interesting cultural visits, including to the Complex of Koguryo Tombs

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near Pyongyang. All seemed well. And for me, there was a bonus: Kerr believed there was no point in me being based in Seoul and that I should be in Pyongyang. But storm clouds quickly set in over that decision. For starters, there was no funding for Pyongyang; anything needed would have to be shaved off from other budgets. A small task force had looked at possible aid to the DPRK, concluding that one million pounds ($1.3 million) would be an adequate amount, in addition to the humanitarian assistance Britain had already committed via the UN and the European Union (EU). However, this proposal was turned down, although a small amount was found for a program begun in 2000 to place experienced British teachers in DPRK universities, mainly training prospective English teachers. Furthermore, even as he had decided that we would open an embassy in Pyongyang, Kerr warned me that the atmosphere in London had become more hostile toward the DPRK, following the new US approach to North Korea under President George W. Bush, who characterized the North as part of the “axis of evil.” Britain, with no particular interest in the DPRK, would follow the American lead. Despite these challenges, I moved to Pyongyang in May 2001 and quickly found that expectations were high.2 I was told how pleased they were that, with diplomatic relations established, the DPRK was entitled to British aid. I explained gently that there was a difference between entitlement and eligibility, although that did not stop the proposals. To help, the British Embassy in Seoul made available to us a number of their FCDO-funded scholarships. But even that produced problems. A DPRK proposal to send architects was rejected, but a group of agricultural scientists was accepted, London deeming them a more suitable cause. They would, of course, have to pass an English test first. I was assured that all six had excellent English skills, but none passed. There was much special pleading, but the matter was out of the hands of the FCDO. The following year, the MFA put forward two candidates, but only one passed the English test. This meant that even the one who did pass, Thae Yong Ho, could not go since the North Koreans were required to travel in pairs. Much later, Pyongyang got its own small allocation of scholarships, and a few North Koreans did make it to Britain. But this exchange foundered as nuclear tensions grew. Although a member of the Department for International Development (DFID, now also part of the FCDO) led an EU aid assessment group to the DPRK in 1998, DFID now made it clear that it had

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no interest in the country. The same was true for the British Council. It recruited the teachers to work in the DPRK universities, but did not take over funding the program until much later. Until then, the FCDO continued to meet the program costs. The teaching program was the only regular bilateral aid at first. When I left Pyongyang in October 2002, there were four teachers, each in different universities. Money was also found to bring people who used English in their work for short language improvement courses in Britain. The first groups went from the MFA, but the representation was subsequently extended to a much wider range of organizations. Most found it an interesting and enlightening experience. To many, it was an eye-opener. Some had to work or play games with South Koreans participating in similar courses. They could watch television in their free time. And a Sussex shopkeeper addressing them as “Ducks” was deemed a great delight. Soft diplomacy in action! For a brief period, the FCDO even helped fund an economics training course at Warwick University. All this was welcomed, but it did not match the DPRK’s expectations. Meanwhile, there were battles on the ground in Pyongyang. Some were minor: We had trouble getting diplomatic ID cards until we said we felt safe and did not need them. They appeared the next day. Driving tests provided a similar game. We tried to book them for several weeks with no success until my colleague said she would drive anyway. The next day, her license arrived while I was told that heads of post did not need tests. Much more serious was the issue of communications. The December 2000 agreement had said that we could have secure satellite-based communications. In Pyongyang, however, I was told that this was not possible. They claimed no other mission had such communications, and DPRK law did not allow it. They regularly turned down similar requests from embassies and UN agencies, and there could be no exception for us. For a year, we raised the issue at every conceivable occasion, to no avail. Eventually, at a reception one night, I took aside Kim Chun Guk and Thae Yong Ho – of the European Department – and without instructions, told them very clearly that if there was no movement on the issue, there would certainly never be a visa-issuing facility in Pyongyang (they disliked having to apply for British visas in Beijing). I also said I would suggest to London that there was little point in keeping the embassy open if we could not function properly.

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The following day, Kim told me that we could have our communications. A formal diplomatic note followed. Our small victory led to other missions and international agencies getting permission as well. Approval was even given to install telephones in vehicles – this was important for the UN agencies, especially since it allowed them to keep in touch with staff operating in remote parts of the country. After I left Pyongyang, I received a thank-you email from the World Food Programme head in the DPRK thanking me. The FCDO said nothing, and the communications budget had run out of money. Only after I left were computers actually installed. FROSTY RECEPTION IN LONDON?

Despite little evidence that we intended to pursue a more friendly policy, DPRK officials still seemed to believe that was the case. A number of DPRK delegations visited Britain, but it was hard to get ministers to engage with them. As I had found in Seoul and Beijing in the 1980s, British ministers had high expectations about the level at which they should be received abroad but rarely reciprocated with visitors to Britain. There were few visits of UK officials in the other direction. The first – and only – British minister to visit the DPRK was Bill Rammell from the FCDO in 2004. By then, nuclear issues were a major concern. Whatever the DPRK had been expecting from him, they got an upbraiding on nuclear and human rights issues instead. By this time, British policy was firmly aligned with that of the United States. My EU colleagues occasionally criticized me for adopting a pro-US stance on too many issues, just as the FCDO was accusing me of being anti-American.3 But the EU approach eventually shifted toward the US position on the DPRK’s nuclear and missile development and human rights as well. While Britain and its EU partners talked in terms of “critical engagement,” there was increasing criticism and decreasing engagement. This reality was recognized by the staff of the DPRK embassy in London, which opened in 2003 with Ri Yong Ho, later foreign minister, as the first ambassador. Unfortunately, and despite much advice, the embassy was set up a long way from central London, making access to the government and diplomatic community difficult. The opening ceremony was quite well-attended, but no British minister came then or on any other occasion as far as I know. Instead, the majority of attendees were long-time British supporters of the DPRK, such as members of

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small Marxist-Leninist groups and professed students of the Juche idea. They did not mix easily with the officials and business people who were involved in a more professional capacity with the DPRK, but became frequent visitors to embassy functions. Gradually, the embassy seemed to give up on attempting to make contacts more widely. When the embassy first opened, the signs seemed good. To see the ambassador – in full white tie and tails – returning from presenting his credentials to the Queen at Buckingham Palace in a horse-drawn carriage was quite an event, as was the two Korean ambassadors holding hands and chatting amicably at the Queen’s annual reception for the London Diplomatic Corps. But after North Korea’s nuclear test in 2006 and especially after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in the ROK in 2008, such contacts ceased. Successive DPRK ambassadors complained about their level of contact with the FCDO, claiming that they rarely, if ever, met with ministers, and that communications with senior officials were difficult; they also claimed, I suspect inaccurately, that this treatment contrasted unfavorably with the situation of the British Embassy in Pyongyang. DETERIORATING RELATIONS

UK-DPRK relations seemed on a steady decline after 2008. Britain was a firm supporter of international sanctions in response to North Korea’s nuclear developments. Two former British ambassadors, one to Pyongyang and the other to Seoul, successively headed the UN Panel of Experts set up to monitor the UN sanctions regime. Back in 2004, Bill Rammell had said publicly that the DPRK was no military threat to Britain, but as the North’s nuclear program made advancements, senior British politicians began to argue otherwise. If challenged on the issue, DPRK officials laughed off the suggestion, insisting that they needed nuclear weapons for the same reason as Britain – to guarantee freedom from attack. Over the next several years, there were fewer and fewer visits between the two countries. After the election of US President Donald Trump and the increasingly belligerent verbal exchanges that ensued between the United States and the DPRK in 2017 over North Korea’s aggressive testing regime, Britain halted the long-standing educational links, withdrawing its teachers from North Korea on safety grounds. Political uncertainty, sanctions and the closing of the North’s borders against COVID-19 have all acted to end the small British business interest in the country.

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The British Embassy in Pyongyang was closed in May 2020 as it was impossible to operate amid DPRK fears about COVID-19. For the time being, the relationship is in limbo. The British position is that, when circumstances allow, the educational program will resume, and the embassy staff will return. However, this will depend on many factors. The British economy has suffered badly from COVID19 and may be seeking economies in the short term – there is already talk of cutting the overall aid budget and embassies could be another target. The nuclear issue and the DPRK’s response to COVID-19 may also discourage people from going to work there. Whether the DPRK continues to maintain an embassy in London – which also handles relations with the Republic of Ireland and the EU – is also hard to know, especially with Britain due to leave the EU on December 31, 2020, the North Korean’s continued sense of being discriminated against, and the high cost of living in London. Pyongyang may feel that perhaps it is not worth carrying on. A WASTED OPPORTUNITY?

Perhaps if fear of COVID-19 had not led the DPRK to retreat from international contacts, I would feel less pessimistic. After all, one aim of opening an embassy in Pyongyang was to encourage the DPRK to engage more with the world. The embassy worked hard on this, and, like other embassies and the UN agencies, had also contributed to increasing understanding and knowledge about the country. Yet, it was at best a half-hearted and underfunded endeavor. On what would normally be a milestone anniversary in state relations, I suspect not many glasses will be raised this December 12!

Source: The Pacific Review, vol. 7, no.1 (1994), pp. 67–78.

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Building politics: The British Embassy Peking, 1949–1992 v

The Peking1 Embassy is today, in staff terms, one of Britain’s larger embassies. As well as a senior ambassador, there is a minister, three counsellors and a host of other officers. Yet the offices are cramped and overcrowded, contrasting poorly with Tokyo and Seoul, to say nothing of the grandeurs of Washington, Paris or Moscow. It was not always so, and how the present situation came about is one theme of this essay. Another is the curious manner in which the Chinese and British (and indeed most foreigners) wish to keep to their own ways has conspired to reduce mutual understanding and has led foreigners to accept a ghetto-like existence. This, while in theory designed for protection, has in practice left the foreigners exposed to the occasional outbreaks of anti-foreign feeling which mark China’s recent history. Underneath all runs the tension in Sino-British relations. For the Chinese, the British were the imperialists. Until 1959, the British Embassy compound, in the heart of Peking, was a potent symbol of past humiliations. The Chinese were determined to eradicate this presence. They succeeded in 1959, although the old antagonism seems unlikely to disappear at least until the last symbol of British imperialism, Hong Kong, is restored to China in 1997. This is not an essay in grand history or politics. Rather, it is an examination of the way in which relationships between states are affected by matters to which few normally give much consideration. Perhaps diplomatic relations are as much a matter of bluff as anything else. If so, it does matter whether the ambassador sweeps out to negotiations from a majestic compound in the heart of the city or slips away 264

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from an office well away from what matters. But Peking is changing, and China’s diplomatic and economic successes in recent years may finally end the isolation of foreigners. THE MoVIng CEnTRE

The British Embassy in Peking is nowadays mainly housed in two Chinese-built, western-style buildings on guanghualu in the Jianguomenwai district of Peking. one is the Ambassador’s Residence, the other contains most sections of the embassy. (The cultural section – staffed from the British Council which is not formally permitted to operate in China – has moved to a new office block near the Sheraton great Wall Hotel, on the city’s third ring road.) Most staff live in apartments provided by the diplomatic Service Bureau, although some senior officers have recently moved into a joint venture housing complex called East lake Villas. The Jianguomenwai district, once an area of factories and poor housing on the eastern edge of Peking, now has joint venture hotels, office blocks and a sub-culture of bars and restaurants catering both to foreigners and China’s new rich. Advertisements refer to it as the new commercial centre of Peking. That cities move their centres is well known and Peking is no exception.2 over the centuries there have been many shifts on the site of the present capital of China. Each new dynasty made changes, some subtle, some dramatic, to put its stamp on the capital. The creation of the Forbidden City under the Ming appeared to have stabilized the city’s heart, yet other focal points developed both under the Ming and under the Qing. There were more changes under both the nationalists and the People’s Republic of China after 1949. The latter set out to create a new, socialist, city. In the process, China’s new leaders also sought to end some of the humiliations of the past. Possibly with Moscow’s Red Square in mind, the new centre was to be based on a massive square in front of the Forbidden City. To create this, large numbers of existing buildings had to be cleared either for the square itself, for access roads, or to provide sites for the new monumental buildings with which it was planned to surround the square. This led to the end of the legation Quarter, the diplomatic enclave established in the nineteenth century, but China’s new leaders continued the tradition of isolating foreigners from the native population by setting up new diplomatic enclaves outside the city walls.

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THE lEgATIon QUARTER, 1861–1949

There were a number of western attempts to establish diplomatic missions in Peking from the later eighteenth century, but it was not until the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858 at the end of the second AngloChinese war that the Chinese conceded such a right. Even then, the Chinese promptly tried to take back what they had been forced to give. lord Elgin, the British plenipotentiary, was prevented from travelling from Tianjin to Peking to exchange ratifications of the treaty. It was only after further fighting and after the 1858 Treaty had been reinforced by the Convention of Peking in 1860, that the right of diplomatic residence in Peking on western terms was firmly established. Britain and France moved swiftly to implement the treaty arrangements.3 The British and French were each assigned an imperial palace or ‘fu’, normally reserved for the imperial family, as legations. These were situated southeast of the Forbidden City, in an area already associated with foreigners. There was to be found the long-established Russian orthodox Church. nearby was the hostel where the Korean, Annamese, Burmese and Mongolian envoys on tribute missions were lodged and coached in imperial etiquette for their presentation at court. The British were given the ‘liangkungfu’, the palace of the duke of liang, an impoverished descendant of the Kangxi emperor. like the duke, the whole area had fallen from its former glory and much work was required to make the liangkungfu habitable.4 over the next thirty years, additional plots of land were purchased and more buildings erected as the mission grew. Residents and visitors were impressed by the ‘oriental splendours’ of the buildings, with their wide courtyards, exotic decorations and marble lions. The compound provided amusements, including a library, skittles’ alley, a chapel, and a gymnasium. later a fives court and a theatre were added. Chinese traders came to sell curios, ponies or anything else that was required. The legation was ‘a little world in itself ’, with no need to venture outside.5 The diplomatic community were cut off from the Chinese world about them, with the two sides meeting on only the most formal occasions. The seige of the legations in 1900 during the ‘Boxer rebellion’ re-enforced foreigners’ wish to isolate themselves from their Chinese neighbours. The 1901 Boxer Protocol aimed to provide total protection for the legation Quarter. The result was a diplomatic enclave without parallel in the world. no Chinese could live in the quarter. It enjoyed its own system of municipal government. It was walled on all sides.

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The city wall lay to the south and the quarter’s own walls and gates were on the other three sides, with an open space – ‘the glacis’ – beyond. The Protocol permitted the stationing of foreign troops as legation guards and made elaborate arrangements to maintain contact with the coast. All the legations took the opportunity to acquire additional land, often for military barracks.6 This system lasted until the Pacific War. It made the legation Quarter a tourist attraction, to which western guidebooks sometimes devoted more attention than to traditional sights.7 Even after the nationalist government moved the capital to nanjing in 1928, the legation Quarter, with its special regime and guards, continued to function. In the British case, most diplomatic staff were based in Peking until the late 1930s, with a token presence in nanjing.8 The onset of the Sino-Japanese War brought minor restrictions though the legation Quarter was not damaged. once the fighting moved further south, life in the legation Quarter returned to something like normal. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese used the British legation as a holding centre for British diplomats until their repatriation in 1942. Thereafter the remnants of the British community in north China were held there.9 In 1943, Britain and the United States abandoned the extraterritoriality clauses of the old treaties in a gesture to their wartime ally. The Boxer Protocol was one of these treaties, but the new 1943 treaties provided for the continued right of occupation of the legations. After the war, the British returned to the legation Quarter with surprising ease. Since the nationalist capital remained at nanjing, parts of the British compound were let out. life fell into the old pattern until the civil war swept the communists into Peking in the summer of 1949.10 THE TAKEoVER oF THE BRITISH EMBASSY CoMPoUnd, 1949–59

on 1 october 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on the Tiananmen rostrum in Peking, once again the capital. The British government recognized the Republic on 6 January 1950, expecting the immediate establishment of diplomatic relations. But the Chinese merely took note. The staff in nanjing joined their colleagues in Peking as The British diplomatic Mission to negotiate diplomatic Relations’. Talks had made little progress by the time the Korean War began in June 1950 and were then suspended indefinitely. The British Embassy operated in a half world which lasted until 1954.11 Staff were allowed some diplomatic privileges, but British

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diplomatic notes were received without acknowledgement. The mission had to listen to the radio or scan the press for replies. only the chargé d’affaires was invited to Chinese functions, and British diplomats were ignored by Chinese officials at other embassy parties. In addition, the prevailing sounds of the new China were all around. loudspeakers broadcast revolutionary music, while the Chinese noisily reasserted control over the old legation area by building in the glacis. no wonder that Humphrey Trevelyan, arriving as chargé d’affaires in 1953, thought that he had ‘been admitted to a superior mental home provided with every comfort, but having no contact with the outside world beyond the limits of the British Embassy compound’.12 despite the difficulties, social life of a sort continued. At Christmas there were carol parties, while all ‘friendly’ missions joined in Scottish dancing or the occasional film show. It was not until mid-1954 that the position of the mission was put on a more regular basis. The Chinese attitude began to improve with the approach of the geneva Conference on Indo-China and Korea. They remained unwilling to move to full diplomatic relations, partly because the British maintained a consular post on Taiwan, but the then foreign secretary, Sir Anthony Eden, and the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, agreed in the margins of the geneva Conference that there should be recognized diplomatic offices in their respective capitals. The Chinese proposed to send an officer to london with the same status as Trevelyan in Peking. Relations were thus formally established at chargé d’affaires level.13 The British in Peking were still low in the pecking order, but had improved on their previous position. Meanwhile, the days of the legation Quarter were numbered. on the day after Britain’s formal recognition of the new government, the Military Control Commission posted notices on the British, United States, French and netherlands compounds stating that as a result of the abolition of unequal treaties all foreign military compounds were to be taken over. The last three had no occupants and the Chinese moved in immediately. This left the British and Soviet compounds. on 3 March 1950, a Sino-Soviet exchange of notes restored the Soviet military compound to the Chinese, leaving only the British occupying a Boxer-linked military compound. In london, the Foreign office and the office of Works felt that the title was too tenuous to justify resistance and the compound was taken over in April. With it went the swimming-pool and tennis courts. The Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese police authority, established itself on the site.14 The process

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of attrition continued in the following years, as the Chinese gradually snipped away bits of various compounds. The southwest corner of the British compound was taken at five days’ notice in 1953. With it went the new tennis courts, a paddock, coal yards and three garages, while access to other garages and the power house was cut off. The Chinese made no secret of their plans for Peking. They were already building a new diplomatic enclave to the east of the city and Trevelyan was told in 1954 that they intended to repossess the legation Quarter. It was not a prospect which filled him with much enthusiasm; he described the new area chosen as ‘A new diplomatic ghetto . . . on an unattractive site among the factories on the east side outside the city walls . . .’15 The British were not invited to view the new quarter, but learnt the details from colleagues. In 1956, for example, the Finns visited the new site, where they had seen a soundly built house. Unfortunately, the Chinese idea was that the ambassador would have the ground floor, with a drawing room and dining room. Upstairs other staff and their families would live on a dormitory basis. The Finns reported that they, the Bulgarians and even the Albanians had all said that this would not be suitable for western missions.16 despite the clear indications of Chinese intentions, the Peking mission and the Foreign office in london behaved as though there was no threat to British interests. Trevelyan’s successor, Con o’neill, was worried that if Peking became a fully-fledged embassy – an unlikely prospect in 1955 – there would not be enough space for the new staff required. others expressed concern that the more junior staff did not have sufficient room for studying and entertaining. o’neill also fought hard against moving into the former number one house, now damaged by damp and general neglect, which he believed should be converted into students’ quarters. A visit by a Foreign office official in december 1955 confirmed that there were problems. Some of the buildings were crammed with goods from former consular posts all over China or belonging to people longdeparted. In keeping with the spirit of new China, much of the former stableyard was used as a coal dump. The inspector agreed with o’neill that the former head of post’s house was better converted into students’ quarters. It was unlikely that any future ambassador would wish to live in ‘a monstrous and wildly expensive piece of Chinoiserie . . .’ Even with that change, however, there would barely be sufficient accommodation. An additional problem was the Chinese refusal to allow British diplomats to use the limited hotel space available since they

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had a compound which should be sufficient.17 The Ministry of Works remained sceptical and in May 1956 sent one of their own regional architects, Mr Tough from Singapore, to investigate. It was not a happy visit. o’neill refused to deal with him directly, would not consider anything except his own proposals, and refused to listen to counterarguments. Mrs o’neill hinted that she and her husband were terrified at the prospect of the expense of running a dilapidated wreck. Tough felt he could not trust the secretarial staff in Peking to type his report, and confided his views to a private letter from Hong Kong. A colleague in london noted that staff in Peking had ‘behaved like spoilt children throughout . . .’18 But discussion on future housing on the compound were soon to be irrelevant. By mid-1958, there was little doubt of Chinese determination to get the British out. Town plans published by the city government and sent to london showed clearly that extensive rebuilding was planned in the city centre to mark the tenth anniversary of the communist victory. In london, the wisdom of trying to keep the old compound had to be balanced against the risk of being left with little choice if the Chinese suddenly insisted on a move. But the Foreign office was ‘in favour of masterly inaction’, and no plans had been made when, on 21 January 1959, the British and Soviet missions received diplomatic notes demanding that they vacate their existing premises by 31 May 1959.19 The implication was that the British and the Russians were on the same footing. In fact, the Chinese were well aware that the Russians had been constructing new premises for some years, while the British had done nothing. There was consternation in london. ‘Masterful inactivity’ had not proved an effective policy. Instructions were sent that no move could be made before october 1959 at the earliest. The Peking view was that unless there was some threat of which they were unaware which could be used against the Chinese, there would be no change in their position. Much energy was spent examining the legal basis on which the compound was held to see if there were grounds to oppose the Chinese. The Foreign office view was that the title to the compound, which now rested solely on article 3(iii) of the 1943 treaty, was ‘not so clear that we could take a firm stand . . . even if it were considered politically desirable to adopt this basis at all . . .’20 officials and ministers at both Works and the Treasury were unhappy at this unwillingness to fight since the compound’s assets were worth at least one million pounds, while the Chinese alternatives seemed so poor by comparison. But nobody could see any way to fight the Chinese demand.

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There followed frantic activity to obtain premises in the new diplomatic quarter. The Chinese offered ‘for use as temporary accommodation’ two newly-built two-storey houses opposite the Albanian embassy for offices and the head of post’s residence. The rent for these premises would be Rmb 1,150 per month (£2,000 per annum) each. Senior staff would be accommodated in blocks of flats fronting the main east-west road and junior staff in other blocks behind. The buildings were described as rather severe in appearance, ‘representing a some-what semi-public building of UK pattern . . .’ While unsatisfactory for long-term occupancy, they would do for the present. For the future, the Chinese were asked to provide a twelve-acre site. It was planned to take over the new premises at the beginning of May to allow for some structural alterations. In the meantime, a huge clearout began. Volumes of archives, some from the earliest days of the mission, were shipped back to the Public Record office in london. They included the archive of the Canton local government, captured in 1858, which had lain neglected in the roof of the chapel. There were commemorative plaques brought from various treaty ports which had been placed in the chapel. Some went to relatives; several of the remainder were eventually mounted on the walls of the new residence garden, where the chapel’s baptismal font also found a home. There were two brass cannons, with extra barrels, dating from 1860, which had stood in front of the number one house until the early 1950s. These were sold to the Chinese; it was noted in london that scrap metal was fetching a good price in China at the height of the great leap Forward. Most of the other goods were also sold.21 The British were due to leave by 31 May 1959 but there was a reprieve. The new premises could not be prepared in time, and it was not until late September 1959 that the compound was finally given up. There was some sadness, but also a feeling that the move might allow a new relationship to develop. negotiations for compensation continued for several months. Eventually, the Chinese agreed to pay £250,000 for the compound, slightly less than half the sum (£550,000) sought originally. The Chinese agreed not to charge rent for the new premises until the compensation was paid.22 oUTSIdE THE WAllS, 1959–92

It was a much smaller world that the British now inhabited. Even after the various losses, the old compound had covered many acres.

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now the offices and residence each occupied but one and a half acres. While a few people were able to live in ordinary Chinese houses until the Cultural Revolution, most staff now lived in Chinese-designed flats in a nearby compound then known as the Waijiao dalou, later as Qijiayuan. These flats were very different from the old houses. Winifred Stevenson, one of those forced to move, wrote that ‘the new flat is far smaller than the old house and servants on top of one . . . It’s not beautiful, more or less council house within and without . . . The Chinese have obviously tried to build European flats, copying without understanding half the arrangements . . But a couple of years later, the then head of post claimed that staff had no complaints about accommodation, apart from the furniture.23 Most quickly adapted to the new arrangements. Since the majority of postings were for two years, there was a rapid turnover, and those who had known the old compound quickly diminished. As well as those installed in the residence garden, a few other reminders of the past found homes in the office compound. The jubilee bell gave its name to the social club, and the brass eagle lectern, donated by the Americans in thanks after the Boxer rebellion, appeared from time to time in the entrance area. It was now more difficult to keep in touch with what went on in the city centre. In other ways life continued as before. The Stevensons, newly established in their quasi-council flat, found social life in the autumn and winter of 1959–60 quite exhausting. on a more everyday level, there remained the Peking restaurants, and it was still possible to visit scenic spots around the city. The Chinese created a new International Club on the edge of the new diplomatic quarter, hoping to satisfy both foreigners’ need for entertainment and their own wish for control.24 The relatively even tenor of life in the British mission was rudely shattered with the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. AntiBritish demonstrations were not unknown in post-1949 China. Middle East questions, in particular, had frequently led to protests in the 1950s. But these were to be as nothing to the fury which erupted in 1967. The British were by no means the only diplomatic mission to come under Chinese attack in those years; the Indians, Indonesians and others all experienced the fury of Chinese mobs. But when the effects of the Cultural Revolution spilled over into Hong Kong in the summer of 1967, the consequences for the British mission in Peking (and for the small residual office in Shanghai) were more devastating than anything that had gone before, or was to come later.

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It began in early May 1967, when a labour dispute in Hong Kong led to protests in Peking. The British prime minister, Harold Wilson, was burnt in effigy outside the mission. Further to the west, the Reuters correspondent, Anthony grey, whose office was the only other permanent British presence in Peking, found his house decked with antiBritish slogans. There too, Wilson hung in effigy. during three days in mid-May, perhaps one million people demonstrated outside the British mission. In a further move against British interests in China, on 22 May, the Chinese announced the closure of the Shanghai branch office of the Peking mission – they had always refused it the formal status of a consulate general.25 The first demonstrations were followed by a week’s lull but they then began again. British flats were plastered with slogans and some had their windows whitewashed. Paint was thrown at staff vehicles. The mission’s Chinese staff went on strike. The Arab-Israeli Six day war in June led to further Chinese demonstrations, and to an attack on the mission itself by Arabs living in Peking. The Queen’s Birthday Party on 9 June saw a demonstration designed to prevent guests attending; only a small number braved the demonstrators. There followed a further lull. Then in mid-July, as tensions mounted once more in Hong Kong, the British again became the Red guards’ target. on 19 July, a new China news Agency journalist in Hong Kong was sent to jail and two days later Anthony grey was placed under house arrest. His detention was to last some two years. on 17 August, three Hong Kong communist newspapers were suspended from publication, pending criminal proceedings against members of their staff. on 19 August, Hong Kong police supported by troops raided the offices of the three newspapers. on 20 August, the British chargé d’affaires, donald Hopson, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry at 22.30 to receive a protest note. It demanded the lifting of the newspaper ban and the release of detained journalists and newspaper executives within forty-eight hours. otherwise ‘the British government must be held responsible for the consequences . . .’ In london on 21 August, the Chinese chargé, Shen Ping, was told that Britain held his government responsible for the safety of the British mission.26 The Chinese ultimatum was due to expire at 22.30 on 22 August. during 21 August, some 200 Chinese soldiers surrounded the British mission, while Chinese press organizations held demonstrations outside. Food and mattresses were brought into the offices, in case staff

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needed to stay overnight. on the morning of 22 August, most staff came to work as normal. As they did so, a small crowd of Red guards began gathering outside the mission. Hopson and his senior staff were inveigled down to the terrace to a meeting with the Chinese staff. For some two and a half hours, in the hot August sun, the Chinese demanded that Hopson ‘bow his head and admit his guilť. Eventually, they departed after Hopson had agreed to receive a protest. At lunch time, the gates were closed and none of the British staff were allowed out or in. Twenty-three people, eighteen men and five women, were thus trapped inside the compound. As the crowd grew noisier outside, the destruction of classified papers got under way. It was clear that the expiry of the ultimatum was likely to see the crowd in a fury, and plans had been made to retreat to the strongest part of the offices if necessary. In the meantime, some planned to play bridge, others to watch a film. When the attack came, at 22.45, fifteen minutes after the expiry of the ultimatum, the building came under a furious onslaught which lasted about ninety minutes. Fires were started around the building to force the occupants out. Those inside retreated to the safe area but were eventually forced to leave the building altogether. They were physically manhandled and kicked. Some of the women were sexually assaulted. The Albanian embassy opposite closed its gates to those escaping and its staff jeered at them. others helped where possible. Around 02.30 on 23 August, all those who had been in the building had either found safety in other missions or had been rescued from their attackers by the police and the People’s liberation Army (PlA). during the night, other British diplomats were threatened with attack in the diplomatic compound, but the PlA intervened to prevent this. The attack left one first secretary in bed for two weeks with concussion. All had bruises and many had lost watches and other possessions. The Japanese news agency, Kyodo, reported that ten fire engines had arrived too late to save the burning building. The new China news Agency, which said that ten thousand Red guards had demonstrated against the British, reported that ‘. . The enraged demonstrators took strong actions against the British chargé d’affaire’s office’. By morning, the office was a burnt-out shell and the residence was looted and empty.27 There followed a period of frenetic diplomatic activity. Britain imposed restrictions on the Chinese mission in london. on 29 August, in two separate incidents in london, Chinese diplomats spilled onto the streets wielding axes against protesters, and a number of Chinese

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officials and london policemen were treated in hospital. The Chinese retaliated by limiting all movement of the British in Peking to the area between the offices/residence and their apartments, and cancelling all exit visas. After a plea from Hopson, five school children spending the summer with their parents were allowed to leave on 10 September. Some of the Chinese restrictions were lifted in november 1967, following relaxations in london, but it was not until July 1968 that the Chinese began to issue exit visas.28 The premier, Zhou Enlai, later told John denson, then chargé d’affaires, that the attack was the work of ‘extremist elements,’ the nearest the Chinese came to a formal apology, and indicated that it had never been official policy. Zhou appears to have opposed the attack and may have tried to stop it. But the Foreign Ministry was in the hands of Red guards, who were not amenable to control. The alleged principal instigator of the 22 August attack was one Wang li, a diplomat returned from Indonesia anxious to prove his revolutionary credentials. It was later hinted that he had been tried and executed for his role in 1967.29 The burnt-out office building stood as a reminder of the Cultural Revolution for some four years. It was used as a storehouse once the worst of the damage had been cleared up. during the clearing up, the brass lectern given by the Americans in 1902, which had been thought destroyed, was found and proved repairable. At first, an office was set up in one of the first secretaries’ flats, but in december 1967, the looted residence, still structurally sound, became the offices. Hopson moved in with Percy Cradock, his number two, for three months, and then into a flat of his own. As Sino-British relations improved, the Chinese rebuilt the office building as before, at their own expense – another form of apology? – and it was re-occupied in 1972. That same year, full diplomatic relations were finally established between Britain and the People s Republic of China. Thereafter, SinoBritish relations were unprecedently good, culminating in the Queen’s visit in 1986. during these years, the British Embassy expanded as new sections were added. This led to new building on the office compound, in particular a set of purpose built offices for the cultural section which were opened in 1983. Another development was an earthquake shelter, erected at the rear of the compound. This was deemed necessary after the extensive damage to buildings in Peking during the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. The earthquake shelter also provided an ‘amenities hall’, with a stage and a lighting room. other amenities include an outdoor

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swimming pool, two tennis courts and a squash court. The embassy pub, the Bell, moved to new premises attached to the amenities hall in 1983. By 1990, the compound was clearly too small. A decision was made to move the cultural section. In June 1991 it began to rent premises in the new landmark Centre on the third ring road. This freed space to better house the consular and visa section and allowed other sections of the embassy to expand. It also allowed Chinese visitors to visit the cultural section of the Embassy without having to run the gauntlet of Chinese police for the first time since 1949. From time to time, the question of whether to build an entirely new embassy is raised. So far this option has been rejected and there seems little likelihood that the British will move out of their ‘temporary accommodation’ in the foreseeable future. Watching the Canadian and Australian governments ‘throwing money into a hole in the ground’, as one Canadian official put it, while building their own embassies, has not been reassuring. Staff housing has moved beyond the old Waijiao dalou. during the 1970s, the Chinese developed new diplomatic housing at the Jianguomenwai intersection, and many staff have been housed there over the years. In the late 1980s, another new diplomatic housing development saw staff moving to Tayuan, some two miles away. Finally, in 1990, two counsellors were rehoused in joint venture housing at East lake Villas, the first move out of officially provided housing since the early 1960s. They were subsequently joined by the minister, a new post established at the end of 1991. For a brief moment in 1989, there were fears that foreigners might again come under attack in the aftermath of the events of 4 June. once more staff found themselves destroying papers in a hurry. It was not that diplomats or other foreigners believed that they were a prime target but after Fang lizhi, the dissident scientist, took refuge in the United States’ Embassy in Jianguomenwai, there were clear signs of a policy of intimidation of foreigners. Tanks, with guns uncovered and pointing at diplomatic flats, were set up on the flyover near the Jianguomenwai compound. There was no obvious military requirement for such a move. From 4 June onwards, lorry-loads of troops periodically swept through the Jianguomenwai area – but not other diplomatic enclaves – firing warning shots. on 7 June, troops entering the city from the east fired on the Jianguomenwai compound, claiming that they had come under sniper fire. Although some embassy property was hit by bullets, nobody was injured. For most embassies, including the British, this incident was a major factor in confirming the decision to evacuate some staff

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and dependants from a city where all shops were closed and the military appeared out of control.30 The immediate tension eased after deng Xiaoping’s reappearance on television on 9 June but sporadic firing continued in Peking until the autumn. For several months, the People’s Armed Police who guard embassy buildings in Peking, patrolled in steel helmets and carried automatic weapons. In due course, however, following a protest by former President nixon, this ceased. There was much speculation as to whether the weapons were ever loaded. The assumption was that they were probably not; the young conscripts carrying them regularly pointed them at each other, and later, as they got bored with the whole exercise, had to be restrained from allowing foreign children to play with them. Martial law continued in force until January 1990 and at first there were road blocks at various points around the city, whose gun-waving officers appeared to care little for diplomatic privileges. (It was somewhat disconcerting to be ordered off my fourteenth floor balcony in Jianguomenwai in early July 1989 by a pistol-waving officer in charge of the road block on the ring road below.) despite the occasionally comic touches as 4 June receded, the sense of being under siege in China had once again returned to haunt foreigners. The Chinese authorities have never formally accepted responsibility for the shooting incident on 7 June but the Foreign Ministry later paid bills for redecoration and dry cleaning without demur. REFlECTIonS

Today, the old legation quarter is still recognizable despite much new construction. Several of the more dilapidated buildings in the area have been rehabilitated. It no longer features in guidebooks, however, and the Chinese authorities do not draw attention to it. But this may change. In recent years, there have been occasional signs that some Chinese are beginning to see the area as part of China’s history not just an imperialist outpost on China’s territory, and thus worth preserving.31 Some of the former diplomatic compounds are accessible, but the British is not. Requests by former residents such as the British foreign secretary, douglas Hurd, in 1991 to visit have been politely refused. occasional glimpses inside the gates are possible from the road, and one can sometimes get an overview from the Museum of Chinese History though zealous custodians will draw the curtains if too obvious an interest is shown. It is a gesture which somehow fits well with the past.

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It would be over-simplistic to claim that the relative isolation of the British (and indeed other foreigners) in Peking was a major reason for misunderstanding. Yet it has been a factor. By isolating foreigners from day to day contact with China, successive Chinese governments have sought to avoid western ‘contamination’ of China. In doing so, they have also added to western failure to understand China. not that the foreigners, or at least some of them, were unhappy at being isolated. The prevailing attitude towards the Chinese and other East Asian peoples among foreigners until well into the twentieth century was that found in a treaty port newspaper editorial in 1870: ‘[T]o old residents in the East the actions of neither Chinese or [sic] Japanese would be considered worthy of a paragraph . . .’32 Add to such attitudes the dirt and noise of a Chinese city together with periodic outbreaks of hostility towards foreigners and it is easy to see why many preferred to retreat to the safe haven of the legations. Even today, the safe haven of an embassy swimming-pool, commissariat, or a hotel bar, is favoured by many over the bustle of Wangfujing’s teeming shoppers or backstreet restaurants. In some ways, this has until very recently led to westerners living in even more isolation from their Chinese neighbours than was the case in the past. As Humphrey Trevelyan noted, it does make a difference to the ability to judge the mood and behaviour of the people of a country whether ‘your evening walk was to liu-li ch’ang [Peking’s traditional antique and bookshop centre, now much restored] or to Hampstead Heath’.33 By moving diplomats to the outskirts of the city, the Chinese deliberately tried to reduce that ability. But changes in recent years have begun to end this isolation, as the business heart of Peking has moved east. There are signs that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ diplomatic Service Bureau is no longer able to cope with the increased numbers of diplomats in the city and will soon no longer be able to control where they live and work. Already several embassies, including the British, have moved part of their operations out of government-supplied premises. Pressure on residential accommodation has forced the Chinese to allow foreigners to move to joint-venture housing such as East lake Villas, while a few nondiplomats have even managed to rent housing among ordinary Chinese. There is still a ghetto aura in these developments but they mark a move away from the tight isolation of the past. If they continue, they will help gradually to increase contact and, in the end, understanding. ‘Market forces’ may, in the end, prove as potent in this context as in others, in helping to change China.

Source: Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds. The Diplomatic Corps as an Institution in International Society. Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, pp. 105–124.

21

Diplomacy in the East: Seoul, Beijing and Pyongyang 1981–2002 v

I was not a normal diplomat. I joined the British Diplomatic Service in September 1969 as a member of the Research Department, and remained formally a member of that cadre until I retired in January 2003. This Department was staffed by area specialists, as is its successor, Research Analysts. Their specializations might take them on overseas postings, but unlike mainstream officers, they would return to London to continue working in their area of expertise.1 My specialisation was East Asia and I completed my PhD just after joining the Diplomatic Service. I spent most of my time working on Chinese foreign policy. However, my grounding in diplomacy came from my doctoral thesis. Understanding and explaining the ways of the western powers in Japan in the 19th century, together with the mysteries of extraterritoriality and similar topics generated by their activities, provided the only theoretical training in the conduct of diplomacy that I ever received. SEOUL: 1981–85

I was appointed Head of Chancery and Consul for Seoul, Republic of South Korea (ROK) in January 1981. Seoul’s diplomatic community in the early 1980s was somewhat distorted. Until 1905, Korea had been an independent kingdom, which had been reluctantly forced to open its doors to foreigners from the 1870s onwards. The Japanese had led 279

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the way in 1876, to be followed by the United States in 1882 and then a number of European countries. Korea was less important than either China or Japan in terms of trade, and the western foreign community was always small. When Japan declared a protectorate over Korea in 1905, the western presence declined even further, and the legations closed. Some, including the British, reopened as consular posts, which continued after Korea became a Japanese colony in 1910. These posts remained small, and all were left vacant for long periods. The British consulate-general, in the heart of the city, occupied a position on a slight hill and was very much the centre of western social life until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led to the internment and eventual repatriation of the staff.2 Postwar Korea was very different. The peninsula was divided, and eventually two separate states emerged, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea), backed by the Soviet Union, and the ROK, backed by the United States. Despite a United Nations resolution that recognized the ROK as the only legitimate government on the peninsula, the Soviet Union and its allies recognized the DPRK, western states only the ROK. Britain revived its Seoul consulate general in 1946. This became a legation in 1949, but Britain had no consular or diplomatic relations with the DPRK.3 In June 1950, the Korean War overwhelmed the fledgling legation. The British Minister, Vyvyan Holt, George Blake (a later to be notorious member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6), and other foreigners were captured and held until 1953, when the survivors were released.4 New staff were appointed to the legation, which spent the rest of the war years in the southern port of Pusan, where the ROK government had established itself. After the end of the war, the diplomatic community moved back to Seoul. It was a relatively small body, and remained so until the 1990s. There were no communist states represented, and many other countries chose to side-accredit a representative from a neighbouring country, usually Japan. The United States embassy was by far the biggest, and there was also a huge American military presence. Whatever the formal position, the United States ambassador and his embassy were the pinnacle of diplomacy in the ROK. They had access at a level and a frequency that was denied to the rest of the diplomatic corps, a privilege reinforced by the military presence. The US ambassador in 1981 was Richard ‘Dixie’ Walker, a conservative academic appointed by President Reagan.5 I met him rarely but came to respect his very capable

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staff, who covered all aspects of ROK politics with a thoroughness that the rest of us could only envy. The relative smallness of the community meant that members of most embassies came across each other regularly at receptions and other functions. This could have its disadvantages. Britain did not recognize the ‘Republic of China’ (ROC) and we were not supposed to have contact with its diplomats. Our position was well established, since we had recognized the rival People’s Republic of China (PRC) in January 1950, but many of us found ourselves regularly seated next to ‘ROC’ diplomats at functions. Our instructions allowed us in such circumstances to make small talk but nothing more. A couple of hours of small talk is not always easy to maintain! No doubt there were occasional formal meetings of the ambassadors, but I have no recollection of these or of what they might have done. Neither can I remember the Doyen of the Corps ever taking any action. There was little need. The ROK government did not make life difficult for diplomats. During the years of the curfew, which only ended in January 1982, diplomats were exempt from its provisions – though one had to be careful of policemen who were unaware of this exemption. Parking infringements and other motoring offences were ignored. If by chance the ROK police did stop a diplomatic vehicle, they would usually profusely apologize and wave it on. The only exceptions to this leniency related to the regular air raid practices and the occasional blackout exercises. Failure to comply with these revealed a much tougher side to the Koreans. I also found the Koreans much less formal than I had expected, and despite being a first secretary, I had relatively easy access to viceministers and directors-general. Perhaps the PhD helped in a society that attached much importance to learning and to titles. The biggest surprise I had was a telephone call from the then ROK foreign minister, who opened the conversation by addressing me as ‘Jim’, a level of informality that I would not meet again until Pyongyang.6 Among the diplomatic community, there were some co-ordinating groups. The ambassadors of the European Community (EC), as it then was, met from time to time, but I do not recollect other EC meetings. There were also occasional Commonwealth heads of mission meetings. The consular body met once a month over lunch at the American Embassy Club – this was very much a working group, which swapped experiences of attempted visa fraud and such like matters. Not all embassies would be represented and senior consular officers rarely attended in person except on first arrival.

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Other groups were less formal. American, Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand political officers met monthly for lunch under the auspices of a retired senior Korean journalist. The discussions were surprisingly frank and wide-ranging. After the 1983 attempted assassination in Rangoon of the ROK president, an attack which killed several of his cabinet and his senior advisers, the Commonwealth embassies held a series of meetings involving political and management officers to discuss evacuations in the event of conflict on the Korean peninsula. Some countries had already bilateral arrangements with the United States. Privately, the US embassy assured us that the United States’ military would assume responsibility for all foreigners in an emergency. This was reassuring – until we realized that US evacuation procedures were based on those involved having American social security numbers. The problem had not been solved by the time I left the ROK in March 1985, but fortunately the plans have never been put to the test. POSTSCRIPT – SEOUL IN 1997

I returned to Seoul in 1997 for a spell of temporary duty. In some ways, not a great deal had changed. The embassy had grown bigger, with new sections but there had been no major change in its role. But the context in which diplomats operated had changed considerably, however. The United States’ embassy was still the most important, but there were many new embassies. Whereas once one needed to talk only to the Americans and the Japanese for a feel of what was going on, now Russia and China had large embassies, and a wise person sought their views. The old informality had gone with the growth of embassies. The traffic police no longer turned a blind eye to parking infringements, and foreign ministers no longer called first secretaries! Some of the old informal political nets survived, but European Union (EU) business had grown out of all recognition, with regular meetings at all levels, and a relatively high degree of policy coordination. BEIJING: 1988–91

In 1985, I returned to London and research, mainly on China, as before, but I now also had some expertise on Korean matters. It was suggested early in 1988 that I should go to Beijing (we still called it Peking in those days) with a position at senior first secretary level. My wife had served in the Beijing embassy in the 1970s and was eager

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to return. For anybody who had studied East Asian history, Beijing lay at the centre of the world. So we set off for Beijing in July 1988. The British legation was established in Beijing in October 1860. From the beginning, it was the largest of the diplomatic missions in Beijing, and the site was much expanded after the end of the siege of the legations and the suppression of the Boxer movement in 1900. The Boxer settlement also gave the Beijing diplomatic enclave a unique status, a miniature foreign city at the centre of China’s capital, where Chinese jurisdiction did not run, and where Chinese could only enter by invitation. The Legation Quarter, a major sight for visiting tourists, was cut off from its surroundings by a wide-open space all around and protected by foreign troops. Effectively, diplomats in Beijing lived in a foreign ghetto, with little or no contact with the people of China. Even when the Chinese Nationalists moved the capital to Nanjing in 1928, the Beijing Legation Quarter continued to exist.7 The Second World War interrupted but did not end these arrangements. The Legation Quarter was placed on a new legal basis, and some of its formal privileges ended, but essentially, it carried on as before. But the establishment of the PRC in October 1949 marked the beginning of the end of the old system. The Chinese Communist Party was hostile to foreign privileges and determined to end them. Since many countries did not recognize the new government, several embassies, as the legations had usually become in the 1930s and 40s, were left empty. This included the American and French embassies. As noted above, the British recognized the PRC in January 1950, but the Chinese did not accept that this amounted to the establishment of diplomatic relations. British diplomats were allowed to move from Nanjing to Beijing, but were treated not as an embassy, but as a negotiating team. There then began a period which left one chargé, Humphrey Trevelyan (later Lord Trevelyan), feeling that he had been admitted to ‘a superior mental home, provided with every comfort, but having no contact with the outside world beyond the limits of the British Embassy compound’. The mission’s Notes, although sometimes acted upon, were never answered, the staff were not invited to Chinese functions and were, effectively, confined to their compound except when entering or leaving China.8 Circumstances improved after the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, met his Chinese counterpart, Zhou Enlai, at the 1954 Geneva Conference. The British presence was formally recognized as a diplomatic mission. Its head remained chargé d’affaires, because of the continued presence of a British consulate in Taiwan, but was now

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appointed en titre rather ad interim. Business could now be conducted more normally, although the British (and the Dutch, also with a chargé d’affaires) were on the lowest level of the diplomatic community.9 The post-1949 world of Beijing diplomacy was very different from the past. British and later Japanese predominance had given way to the Soviet Union. The Western diplomatic missions had shrunk to a handful, for most Western states continued to maintain diplomatic relations with the Chinese Nationalist government on Taiwan. Contacts between diplomats from ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist countries’ were few, and very formal; they would remain so until the early 1990s. The diplomatic community grew in size as newly independent Third World countries opened embassies, but strong divisions remained. The Chinese continued the process of reclaiming the Legation Quarter upon which they had embarked when the Communists had come to power. They regularly indicated that they intended to take the whole area, and to establish new diplomatic enclaves outside the then still existing city walls. The Legation Quarter might represent imperialism’s oppression of the Chinese, but the idea of corralling diplomats away from the population was also seen as a good one. By 1959, and the planned remaking of Tiananmen Square, which abutted the Legation Quarter, the die was cast. The British, like the majority of other embassies, were forced to move to the eastern edge of the city. Only the Soviet and the tiny Luxembourg Embassy would remain within the old cities walls, then also in the process of disappearing as the Chinese modernized their capital. It was a much reduced world that the British now occupied. The many acres and buildings of the old compound had shrunk to a mere two buildings on two plots, totalling one and a half acres. The move from the centre made direct contact with the Chinese more difficult. By the mid-1960s, as the Cultural Revolution began to take shape, such contacts became even more limited and working conditions grew steadily worse. Foreigners could still visit restaurants and markets, but they found more and more places off limits. Outside Beijing, travel was restricted, and the regular diplomatic tours came to an end. Before long, the Cultural Revolution began to affect the diplomats in more direct ways, as the Chinese retreated into xenophobia, and real or imagined slights against China and its leader played back into domestic politics. The emergence of the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s meant that some of the old divisions between communist and noncommunist no longer applied, and the Chinese struggled against former friends

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as well as current foes. Soviet diplomats were roughed up along with Indian and others who were seen as hostile. By the summer of 1967, the Soviet, Mongolian, Kenyan and Sri Lankan embassies all had protesting crowds gathered outside. In the British case,10 events in Hong Kong, also affected by the Cultural Revolution, had their effect in Beijing. Demonstrations against the British began in May 1967 as a result of a labour dispute in Hong Kong. Huge protest groups gathered outside the British compound, and the Reuter’s correspondent, Anthony Grey, the only other British representative in the city, also suffered demonstrations. During the Arab-Israeli Six Day War in June, the British were again attacked. The Queen’s Birthday Party on 9 June saw further demonstrations, and only one member of the diplomatic corps, the Danish chargé d’affaires Arne Belling, managed to attend. The pace of the demonstrations quickened in August, following the detention of three Chinese journalists in Hong Kong and the subsequent suspension of three newspapers. Grey was placed under house arrest, and would remain detained for over two years.11 By now, the Foreign Ministry was in the hands of radical groups who orchestrated violent demonstrations against the British. On 20 August, a Chinese Note demanded the release of the journalists and the lifting of the suspension within 48 hours. The Note was delivered to Donald Hopson, then chargé d’affaires, at the International Club, since the ministry was apparently in chaos. Hopson tried to reject it, but was told to take special note of the deadline. In London, the Chinese embassy was reminded of the duty to protect diplomatic staff and premises, but in Beijing, the demonstrations continued. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops surrounded the two compounds but did nothing to restrain the demonstrators who gathered in increasing numbers as the evening of 22 August and the expiry of the deadline grew nearer. The five women and 18 men inside the office building began to burn classified papers in anticipation of an attack, and as always, burning papers took a long time.12 The attack came 15 minutes after the expiry of the deadline. After holding out for some hours, fires forced the staff out. There they were attacked and beaten, but all were eventually rescued by the PLA and taken to the nearby residential compound. The Albanian embassy, directly opposite the British offices, firmly closed its gates to prevent any British taking refuge there. Other diplomats were more helpful. Together with Chinese soldiers, they prevented attacks on the British

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apartments and offered first aid and assistance. By dawn on 23 August, all staff were safe, though most had bruises and cuts, and some had been robbed of their watches and jewellery. The offices were a burnt out shell, and the residence looted and empty. For a few days, the Chinese left the British alone, and a makeshift office was established in the residence, from where semblance of a diplomatic mission operated for several months after. After an incident in London in which Chinese diplomats had spilled onto the streets carrying axes, conditions deteriorated. Staff were only allowed to move between the office and their apartments, and all exit visas, required to leave China, were cancelled. The Chinese arrested a number of Britons on spying charges, and Grey continued under house arrest. It was not until July 1968 that the Chinese lifted the ban on exit visas, and Hopson was finally able to go on leave. The wrecked offices sat empty until 1971, though they were used as a storehouse after some cleaning up. When they were being rebuilt, the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, obliquely apologized for the 1967 attack, which he said had never been official policy, but had been carried out by ‘extremist elements’ who had seized control of the Foreign Ministry. Zhou also indicated that the Chinese government would meet the cost of the repairs.13 By then, the most violent phase of the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end, as the leadership used the PLA to reassert control. The 1970s saw a steady improvement in relations. Britain and China agreed to exchange ambassadors in 1972, following the British decision to close the consulate on Taiwan. A military attaché and staff joined the new embassy, and a cultural section, ran by the British Council, also opened. Life in Beijing became relatively easier, with new embassies opening as more and more countries abandoned the Chinese Nationalists. The United States opened a Liaison Office in 1972, which would eventually become an embassy at the end of the decade. For the British, the arrival of the Australian and New Zealand embassies increased the opportunities for cricket, no small matter in a city where diplomats were still subject to many restrictions. China once again accepted foreign students, which added a new dimension to the foreign community. Some of the old tensions remained. Even though the events of the Cultural Revolution had for a time shown that diplomats were in the same boat, Cold War divisions persisted, so that relations with communist countries remained very formal, and would continue so until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Restrictions on internal travel remained, and the Chinese easily took offence at what they regarded as slights.

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A decision to allow Chinese staff to watch the British embassy Christmas pantomime backfired, when the performance was deemed insulting to the Chinese people; the experiment was not repeated.14 The 1967 attack was long in the past by the time we arrived in Beijing in the summer of 1988. The embassy was large, with whole sections that had not existed in Seoul, and there was a consulategeneral in Shanghai, opened in 1985. Many staff spoke Chinese. While we were there, it became necessary to move the British Council staff to rented accommodation elsewhere in the city. This was resisted at first, but the increasing willingness of Chinese to drop in showed the benefits of separate premises. There were still travel restrictions but these were disappearing at a steady pace, and rusting signs in Chinese, Russian and English that had marked the limits for excursions outside the city were now ignored. Travel further afield was complicated, mainly due to the Chinese habit, in the days before computers, of not selling return tickets. The Beijing diplomatic community was huge, and Beijing had much more of the feel of a world centre than Seoul. It was sometimes the site for third party negotiations, such as those between the United States and the DPRK which began in 1988 and between Japan and the DPRK from 1990.15 But while China was a member of the Security Council Permanent Five, and at times the pace of work could be fast, in general Beijing in the late 1980s was no match for London, Paris, Washington, Tokyo or Moscow in terms of work. Hong Kong matters occupied much time, but there were colleagues whose sole role was Hong Kong; the rest of us usually did no more than make up dinner party numbers for visiting delegations. Odd tasks sometimes came our way. When Lesotho switched diplomatic relations from Beijing to Taipei in 1991, we found ourselves looking after a group of Lesotho students in the DPRK. Without diplomatic links or regular channels to the DPRK, this was complex, but the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang came to our aid, paying the students on our behalf and helping them when they finally left. The Pyongyang Swedish embassy also proved invaluable in 1991, when one of the British delegation to an International Parliamentary Union meeting in the DPRK ran out of money. Beijing was more formal than Seoul. Chinese officials were very concerned about protocol, and rank (or sometimes title) mattered. However, ordinary Chinese were far friendlier than in the past, and there were opportunities for contact. The Chinese artistic world, in particular, welcomed links with foreigners. The large diplomatic

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community echoed Chinese behaviour. Ambassadors met ambassadors, first secretaries first secretaries. That said, there were a number of informal groupings which cut across strict rank; the ‘old Commonwealth’ and US ties were particularly strong. Personal contacts could also cut across the formality. We had known the Netherlands ambassador and his wife in Seoul, and others we had known there or in London also turned up. The EU met regularly at various levels from ambassador downwards, and the EU had a diplomatic office of its own. Several United Nations agencies also operated in Beijing, though in general we had little to do with them in work terms.16 The even temper of the Beijing diplomatic world began to waver in the spring of 1989. Even before the death of the former communist party general secretary, Hu yaobang, on 15 April 1989, there had been signs that the authorities were concerned about growing unrest. Political activists came under pressure, some were detained and others forced to go abroad. We learnt quickly of developments that followed Hu’s death on 15 April 1989. Most of the embassy, including the ambassador, were at my flat on 16 April when the BBC’s James Miles arrived with news of memorial altars and other marks of remembrance erected to mark Hu’s passing on the university campuses. Like most other embassies, it took us some time to realize the strength and wide scope of the movement that developed, but by mid-May, it was clear that it involved all sections of society. Police units joined in, and our embassy Chinese staff took part in one parade in the embassy lorry. We did not stop them demonstrating, but we had to stop the use of the lorry. From the early stages, there was considerable cooperation between embassies to keep a track of what was happening. At the prompting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and old Commonwealth military attachés, we noted military vehicle numbers, one of the signs that the authorities were intending an operation against the demonstrators that would involve army units from all over China.17 By late May, with martial law declared, embassies began to engage in serious contingency planning. It was not that foreigners were thought to be either a prime or secondary target, but when there are convulsions in a big city, and it is placed under martial law, it is sensible to anticipate the worst. Tensions increased among the diplomatic community following the PLA assault on Tiananmen Square on 3–4 June, and were increased when the dissident Fang Lizhi and his wife sought refuge in the American compound. Tanks with guns uncovered and pointing at the

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nearby diplomatic compound took up position on the Jianguomenwai interchange, just below our windows. From 5 June onwards, lorry loads of soldiers swept through the embassy areas. There was no obvious military need for either of these actions, apart from intimidation. On 7 June, troops entering the city from the east fired on the Jianguomenwai compound. Nobody was hit but there was much damage. They would later claim that there had been a sniper on the roof of one of the buildings. A Japanese tourist bus was shot at on the way to the airport, and roads were blocked by military control points. All through this period, embassies kept in close contact, exchanging information on developments and attempting a coordinated approach to the Chinese. The EU ambassadors met regularly; since none of our drivers reported for work, I drove our ambassador to a meeting at the Spanish embassy, weaving in and out of temporary roadblocks and burnt out buses. Most of the larger embassies decided that they should evacuate non-essential staff and dependents, and also to persuade their nationals to leave, as rumours spread of a possible battle between rival Chinese armies, and the shops and petrol stations closed. Since the demonstrations had begun on the universities, it was thought that foreign students might be especially at risk and great efforts were made to gather them up and send them home. Some were reluctant, but in the end, they all left. Airlines proved particularly helpful, many not charging for the special aircraft they sent for evacuation, and all were very flexible over accepting tickets. Consular work took up much time. The MFA seemed to be barely manned and in any case, could do little with the city under military control. British embassies encourage residents and long stay visitors to register, which helps at times of crisis. However, few Hong Kong residents in China ever bothered to register and we had no idea of the numbers, except that there were thousands there in June 1989, and many now demanded help. To complicate matters, a number had come to support the demonstrations. We helped where we could, especially those who seemed to be in real danger, such as the trade union leader Lee Chuk-yan, forcibly removed from a Hong Kong flight on 5 June. We eventually secured his release, but there was much criticism in Hong Kong of the embassy’s ‘failure’ to protect those from Hong Kong.18 The immediate crisis passed with the appearance on television of China’s unofficial leader, Deng Xiaoping, on 9 June, and gradually Beijing returned to something like normal. But martial law continued

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until January 1990, and there were periodic shootings in the city well into the autumn. Diplomatic life became more constrained. The Americans, who had Fang Lizhi and his wife as guests for over a year, suffered some harassment, and it was generally harder to work with the Chinese. Social contacts were minimal and ordinary business was difficult. Hong Kong issues loomed large, as measures to bolster Hong Kong’s economy met fierce Chinese objections. Unofficial contacts tapered off; there were no more invitations to art galleries. As time passed, however, the mood changed, and by the time I left Beijing in December 1991, not only were relations restored with the MFA but more casual contacts also resumed. PyONGyANG: 2001–0219

On 12 December 2000, Britain and the DPRK signed a document establishing diplomatic relations and agreeing to exchange diplomatic missions. Within minutes, the news was announced worldwide, but only Radio China International noted that Britain was the first Western permanent member of the UN Security Council to establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK.20 Britain and the DPRK had had little to do with each before 2000. As late as January 2000, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had announced that there was no intention of establishing diplomatic relations.21 Britain had been a firm supporter of the ROK since 1948, and only recognized the DPRK when the two Koreas entered the United Nations in 1991. After 1991, there had followed a desultory political dialogue without much progress. Outside official circles, contacts had also been minimal, the DPRK team’s participation in the 1966 football World Cup being a rare exception.22 For the DPRK, Britain was in the imperialist camp, and DPRK comment about the country was hostile. Kim Dae-jung’s election as the ROK president in 1997 heralded a new South Korean policy of engagement with the DPRK. This had a wider effect, including Italy’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK in January 2000, and Australia’s to renew relations in May 2000. Britain was not unaffected, and the head of the FCO’s North-east Asia and Pacific Department visited Pyongyang in May 2002; one result was the establishment of an English-language teaching programme in the DPRK. Real momentum for change came from the meeting between Kim Dae-jung and the DPRK’s Kim Jong Il in

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Pyongyang in June 2000. The Asia-Europe Meeting in Seoul in October 2000 provided the opportunity for Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to announce that Britain would establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK – a move that caught most officials by surprise.23 Following the December 2001 agreement, it was decided that I should be sent to Seoul as a counsellor dedicated to DPRK affairs and accredited to Pyongyang. After two exploratory trips, the ground was prepared for others, including Sir John Kerr, to visit in March 2002. Kerr decided to open a full embassy in Pyongyang, using offices in the German embassy that also housed the Swedish embassy and the Italian aid agency. Staff would live in hotels until other accommodation could be found. For the next 18 months, Pyongyang was home, and the Pyongyang diplomatic community my colleagues. At first, two of us worked and lived out of the Koryo Hotel.24 Then our offices were established at the German embassy in rooms originally earmarked for a United States liaison mission that had never materialized. Because of a dispute with the DPRK about secure communications, we abandoned the idea of our own premises, and stayed with the Germans, since there was also an accommodation building available on their site. After six months in hotels, we were able to move into accommodation that was comfortable and more up to date than anything else in Pyongyang.25 Diplomatic life in Pyongyang had echoes of Seoul in the early 1980s. We were a small community of just over 20 embassies, plus several international agencies. Stronger were the echoes of Beijing in the early 1950s, however. Diplomacy had never been easy in Pyongyang, even when there were only communist embassies. Hungarian diplomats in Pyongyang in the 1950s and 1960s found the DPRK unwilling to share information or to allow high-level access. Diplomatic notes were often ignored until the time for action had passed. Even the Soviet and Chinese found the DPRK uncooperative.26 Like the Chinese, the DPRK gradually forced most embassies to leave the centre of the city and to relocate to east Pyongyang, well away from party and government offices. By 2001, only the Soviet and Chinese embassies remained central. The arrival of the first non-communist embassies in the 1970s saw no change. The DPRK welcomed what it regarded as signs of international approval but did little to make the newcomers feel welcome. Business was difficult and controls tight. Cold War politics made relations with most other embassies distant and formal. Despite the

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difficulties, Sweden maintained a one-man office in Pyongyang until the early 1990s, but the Australian embassy was expelled in autumn 1975, after 18 months. ‘Hooliganism’ was amongst the charges against them – apparently a reference to eating ice cream on the street.27 The welcome accorded to the international agencies that arrived in the mid1990s after a DPRK appeal for international assistance was scarcely warmer. Staff were confined to the Koryo Hotel and only allowed out under escort. But the growing numbers of international staff and their move to accommodation in the diplomatic areas in east Pyongyang led to a relaxation of these rules in the capital, although they persisted in the countryside until after we left Pyongyang. The number of embassies was the same as when the Swedes opened in 1975, although the composition had changed.28 While we were there, Ethiopia and yugoslavia closed, but others have since opened, leaving numbers still around 23. The Russians and the Chinese were by far the biggest and very self-contained. Indonesia, Nigeria and Poland came next. Most embassies were in Pyongyang to show solidarity and friendship. Some, such as Cambodia and Egypt, were once close to the DPRK because of personal rapport between their leaders and President Kim Il Sung, links that did not survive Kim’s death in 1994; Kim Jong Il, his son and successor, was not interested. Some may have had military purposes; Egypt again, and possibly Iran, Pakistan and Libya. India and Pakistan admitted that their main role was to watch each other. The Swedes had re-opened in 1995, mainly to act for the United States. With only two staff, they had not been able to do much else except that they were unfailingly helpful to all visiting Western diplomats. The Germans were an interest section until March 2001. Large by local standards, with five people, they were not allowed to have formal contacts with Koreans or other Embassies. This changed when they established relations, especially after the arrival of the first ambassador in January 2002. With three EU embassies and the EU humanitarian ECHO office, it was possible to hold EU meetings, and to give an EU view of developments in Pyongyang. The Swedes, Germans, British and ECHO representative, together with the Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian embassies, would meet on a regular basis for discussion and to prepare reports for Brussels. The DPRK accepted that the EU was worth attention and the MFA’s most useful briefing in my time, on the economic changes introduced in 2002, was given to the EU and UN representatives, even before the Russians and the Chinese.

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Then there were the UN organizations. The UN Development Programme and the World Food Programme each had around 50 expatriates working for them, and a number of resident Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were closely associated with the UN bodies. The Koreans treated the UN organizations somewhat differently from other diplomatic missions. The very tight controls of the past had gone, but they were still watched carefully, a process aided by the presence of Korean ‘national officers’ in UN organizations. The UN bodies wanted to modify the Koreans’ attitude, and they made up the largest single group of foreigners in the country. But they could not push too hard if they wished to continue their programmes. The North Koreans viewed us all with suspicion. They would have liked us to stay in our enclaves, preferably without contact with each other. If they gave something to one embassy, they always suggested that it should not be mentioned to others. They had provided clubs and a dedicated shop for diplomats, so in theory there was no need to go anywhere else. Communication was by Note, directed at the MFA’s relevant geographical department or to the protocol or consular Departments. We issued 132 Notes between May and December 2001. They were rarely answered in writing when we first arrived, though this was beginning to change before we left. Long lead-ins were demanded for travel or other activities. Some calls were arranged with alacrity. Others moved in slower time, especially if anything out of the ordinary was requested. Protests were met by assertions that this was how it was done in the DPRK, and appeals to international norms fell on the deafest of deaf ears. Attempts to bypass the MFA by direct approaches to other organs or ministries were not welcome, though they sometimes worked as the MFA got fed up with our barrage of Notes. Control was the name of the game, and control extended to all areas. Visiting delegations had their days filled with programmes that allowed for little or no deviation. Strenuous attempts were made to prevent visiting groups from meeting with their own diplomats. There were normally no briefings and no press conferences. Those requesting information were told to look at the press. We did this, and asked to follow up some stories, only to be met by a barrage of questions as to how we had got our information. Even Korean speakers could learn little. Links with the outside world were also limited. In the past, some embassies used radio; the masts are much in evidence but none seemed to be in use. The Koreans grudgingly allowed the use of e-mail. But lines were poor and contacts sometimes difficult. The internet was unavailable.

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The Koreans banned the use of satellite communications, including satellite phones, and threatened to enforce the ban if necessary. Mobile phones were not allowed. Telephone directories were secret so local staff had to ring the MFA for numbers. We had no contact telephone numbers for our staff. Theoretically, the MFA provided a contact service for out-of-hours crises, but the number never answered. DPRK norms were imposed as much as possible. Diplomatic missions were expected to present flowers to Kim Il Sung’s statue on formal occasions, and to send birthday cards to Kim Jong Il. The MFA helpfully printed these in advance. No major state anniversary was complete without a visit to the Great Leader’s mausoleum. Failure to do so meant close questioning by the local staff – provided by the ‘General Service Bureau for the Affairs of Diplomatic Missions’ – whose main role was to keep a check on our activities. None of the long-established embassies felt it was any part of their role to challenge this strange world that the Koreans had created. Some bemoaned the lack of opportunities to travel – diplomatic tours had stopped in the 1990s – but did not do much about it, except to blame the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps for not pressurizing the Koreans. The latter, then the Palestine ambassador, was in a difficult position since it was assumed that the DPRK met the costs of his embassy. The exception was visiting the mausoleum, where there had been minor rebellions. The previous Nigerian Ambassador announced that seeing a corpse on 1 January would mean a bad year ahead. The Egyptian Ambassador announced at a dinner that unfortunately, he thought that he was going to be ill next day – he was. The corps did not meet formally, the Dean’s activities normally being confined to arranging welcome and farewell dinners, and collecting money for the mausoleum flowers. Into all this, the British had now come. Others greeted us with high hopes of bringing new ideas and a fresh approach. The diplomatic community was friendly, with political differences put aside, a welcome change from the 1970s.29 One colleague from the Middle East was a devoted follower of the Royal Family, and constantly requested information on their doings. Our stand on communications was applauded, even if nobody else was trying the same thing, and few held out much hope of success – the Dean was a lone exception. Our English-language programme was seen as a positive development. Commonwealth diplomats greeted our arrival, hoping that there would soon be a British school under embassy auspices and a British Council library. We had to gently disillusion them.

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In practice, while foreign visitors and especially journalists were often subject to very tight control, we found that were free enough in and around Pyongyang. In May and June 2001, I spent hours wandering about the town in the evenings and at weekends, often taking photographs, without once being stopped or questioned. Once we had the embassy cars, we extended our journeys into the surrounding countryside and even further. Nobody raised objections when I took the BBC’s Brian Barron filming around Pyongyang. He also did a sympathetic interview, putting a positive spin on Britain’s relations with the DPRK.30 Even when we needed permission to travel, we found it relatively easy to do so. On one occasion, with less than 12 hours’ notice, and without an interpreter, I accompanied a BBC correspondent to the east coast to look at flood damage. Other journeys were often arranged equally swiftly. In general, we found that the rules could be relaxed if you pushed. The Swedes, Germans and eventually the Poles joined us in these efforts. The Koreans did not object to us inviting academics and journalists as guests of the embassy. This worked not only for getting visas, but DPRK officials would actually help with the programmes for such visitors. These were small victories, but they did at least show that DPRK behaviour could be modified. Our biggest victory, and probably the one that did most for the whole foreign community, was the decision to allow us to install secure satellite communications. Despite assurances in our negotiations that we could have such communications, on arrival in Pyongyang we were told that this was impossible, with the objections clearly coming from the security authorities. We persisted, using every opportunity to make the case, apparently to no avail. During a dinner party in May 2002, I took aside the UK desk officer and warned that the continued refusal might well jeopardize the future of the embassy. Whether this was the catalyst or not, we will probably never know, but the MFA informed us at the end of June that it had been agreed that we could install satellite communications. It was perhaps not appreciated in London how big a victory this was, but it seemed to surprise the MFA. We had got what the Koreans had denied to all other embassies, and to the UN organizations.31 It was perhaps not surprising that our news was much welcomed by other missions and the UN organizations, which pressed for, and got, the same concession. Just after we returned to London, in December 2002, the head of WFP in Pyongyang sent me the first message on their new secure communications, which concluded ‘you will be remembered for this’.32

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I suspect that is unlikely, but revisiting Pyongyang in 2004, we found that several embassies and all the UN organizations had satellite communications, diplomatic vehicles had two-way radios, and even our Korean staff had pagers for out-of-hours contact. Before we left, we experienced DPRK methods of control one more time. Our main farewell party was to be a combined circus and dinner evening. All was arranged, but the Protocol Department intervened, and the circus became uncooperative. We might have changed some attitudes, but there was clearly a long way to go. A more subdued farewell dinner took place on 14 October at the Nationalities Restaurant, where we had a slight victory over the Protocol Department by refusing to organize a top table. On 15 October, we left Pyongyang for the airport for the last time with the flag flying. When the Air Koryo flight passed over the yalu River into China at 09.40, my time as British chargé d’affaires, Pyongyang, was over. CONCLUSION

My three posts were very different, though there were some similarities. Perhaps the most obvious change over the 20 years was the growth in EU cooperation. While the ideal of a common EU foreign and security policy is still far from achievement, EU cooperation seems far more advanced now then in 1981. Sharing physical space, as we did in Pyongyang, also seems more common and makes much sense in small posts. This development is perhaps paralleled in the decline of the traditional diplomatic corps. There are many new diplomatic entities, including UN and other bodies, that do not fit into the traditional mould. The world of the large meetings of foreign representatives that were such a feature of Japan or China in the 19th century, now seems very remote. At the same time, the end of the Cold War divisions means that those who choose can have a much wider range of diplomatic contacts than was possible in the past. And of one thing I am convinced: despite the shrinkage of the world, the spread of the internet and politicians’ constant travel, there still remains a role for traditional diplomacy.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 37, no 3 (November 2006), pp. 361–362.

22

Odd Arne Westad. The Global Cold War v

The euphoria that marked the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union (USSR) has long since vanished. We now know that there was no “end to history”, and that the Cold War rhetoric of capitalism versus communism masked deeper, more long-lasting problems. The opening of once closed archives and the publication of memoirs allow us to examine the course of the Cold War in great detail and to reach a clearer picture of how the Cold War began and how it was waged. Professor Westad, Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics, concentrates on how the conflict was played out in the Third World, that rapidly disappearing term once used to cover all countries that were not a) superpowers – the USSR and the USA; or b) developed countries, such as most of Western Europe and Japan. He argues that the Cold War was essentially a conflict between the two superpowers, and that their historical experiences had much to do with the way this developed. Both were slaveowning empires until the 1860s. They were each convinced of their own righteousness and their obligation to bring enlightenment to the lesser breeds on their respective peripheries. Despite establishing huge empires in the adjacent lands, they both distinguished their actions from what they regarded as the more reprehensible imperial actions of countries such as Britain and France, and later Japan. The Americans opposed central power, or the power of the collective, both of which reminded them of the European past that they had rejected. The Russians, on the other hand, embraced collectivism as a means of incorporating their new subject peoples. In the 20th century, these positions became even more entrenched. Both championed freedom, but their 297

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concepts of freedom were very different, and positions that favoured their respective state interests were soon seen as the “right” way towards freedom for colonial or semi-colonial peoples. After 1917, on one side there was fear of communism, on the other fear of imperialism. Until 1945, little more than rhetoric marked these two positions, both the USSR and the USA retreating into relative isolation which intensified the fear of the unknown on both sides. World War II changed all that. There could be few illusions about where power lay in the world as the old empires crumbled, but the USA now saw them, or their successors, as bulwarks against communism. Soon, any state that was willing to follow the US lead was supported – it still shocks to read of President Kennedy praising President Mobutu of the Congo as a democrat. Equally strange were the Soviet attempts to turn various Afghans into modern leaders. Despite continued anti-imperialist propaganda and vocal support for “liberation movements”, the USSR was less involved in the uprisings and power struggles of the Third World than the West believed. Most sprang not from communist training or Soviet infiltration, but from local grievances and local causes. Believing that the USSR was behind such developments, however, the USA poured money and resources, and eventually troops, into many trouble spots, to defend what it described as freedom. For the USSR, policy was based on doctrinaire views of how states should develop. This led to constant tensions between what Soviet analysts believed should be happening – an orderly progression through the various historical stages laid down by Marxist-Leninism towards the goal of socialism – and what was actually happening. The emergence of China, and even more the development of the Sino-Soviet dispute from the late 1950s further complicated the picture. Westad shows that the superpower competition did little good for the countries and regions where the struggle took place, except in the short term and then only for a few. There was no question of disinterested aid by either superpower. Yet the aid often had little effect in winning hearts and minds, perhaps because of a lack of real understanding of why problems arose in the Third World. US support for the Shah in Iran was based on the premise that the threat to the regime came from the left. In reality, it was from the right, and neither the Shah nor the USA was able to withstand it. For many in Latin America and the Middle East, the result of the superpower competition was economic and political disaster. By the 1980s, although the competition

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continued, and even intensified under President Reagan, there were major changes underway. The USSR’s economy faltered after the oil crisis of the early 1970s, the long war in Afghanistan sapped the will to continue the struggle, and it was harder and harder to see most Third World leaders as genuine Marxists. The Third World was also changing. New models such as South Korea and Taiwan offered a different path to modernisation. China embarked on a new economic road that also seemed to offer a way forward. In the end, the disappearance of the Soviet Union ended the competition, with an apparent US victory. Capitalism and liberal democracy had won. It did not take long, however, to show that this was not the case. There are already a number of books on the Cold War, and more are likely as more information becomes available. This work will remain important, however, for shifting the focus away from Europe and North and South Korea, to the wider world in which the superpower struggle took place. It is well written and draws on a wide range of materials. Many will not agree with all the arguments, but it is a major contribution to our understanding of how the world became as it is.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 41, no.3 (November 2010), pp. 454–456.

23

Charles Stephenson. Germany’s Asia-Pacific Empire: Colonialism and Naval Policy, 1885–1914 v

Germany’s quest for colonies came late, partly because Germany itself came late. Only after the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 did the country begin the search for colonies. Until then, the issue of unification, and the struggle between Prussia and Austria as to which would dominate a unified German Empire, absorbed German energies. Given that much effort was still required after 1871 to mould the new entity – no easy task given that German kingdoms such as Bavaria continued to exist and free cities such as Hamburg were not eager to see their privileged position disappear – historians have struggled to explain the German quest for colonies. Charles Stephenson states that Germany’s colonial empire was not acquired in a fit of absentmindedness, as Britain’s was supposed to have been, but he struggles to find an answer to the question why it was acquired. No doubt it was partly because that was what other European states were trying to do, and it may also have been to distract attention from issues at home. Stephenson seems to think that it was the latter motive which lay behind Bismarck’s initial interest in the acquisition of overseas colonies, but he is not sure. Germany’s first colonial interest was Africa; East Asia and the Pacific came later, and had more of a feel of absent-minded acquisition than Germany’s first colonies. In the end, however, it was perceived naval needs that pushed Germany towards the acquisition of its Pacific and Chinese territories. Coal-powered ships needed readily available supplies, and the way that such supplies could be guaranteed was by 300

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the acquisition of coaling stations. Up to the 1890s, Germany had relied on Hong Kong to fuel its ships in East Asian waters but there was growing concern that Hong Kong would not be available if Britain and Germany were on bad terms. It was thus that, in 1897, the Germans acquired the enclave on China’s Shandong peninsula known today as Jiaozhaou, but which Stephenson prefers to refer to by one of its many contemporary variations, Kiautschou. The main town in that enclave, now Qingdao, is referred to as Tsingtau throughout. While no doubt both forms will strike a responsive cord with those who have only used the German archives, their usage in a modern work is only likely to confuse the reader. Having acquired Qingdao, the Germans ran it in the style that seemed to mark most of their colonial enterprises. The Chinese were as far as possible excluded, and any who were permitted within the enclave were treated harshly. This approach intensified at the time of the Boxer uprising in 1900. The German forces, arriving after the end of the uprising, used the killing of their minister by Boxers as an excuse to introduce a policy of “frightfulness” towards any Chinese who came their way; the policy exceeded that of the other powers, which many contemporaries felt were bad enough. The same approach marked German rule in the various Pacific islands, where the colonisers followed tough policies, reminiscent of those used in the country’s African colonies. After taking Qingdao, the Germans spent much effort fortifying the enclave, but in the event, both Qingdao and the Pacific colonies were doomed to a short life. As the first decade of the 20th century progressed, tensions between Germany and Britain increased, as did rivalry between the two navies. Of particular concern was the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which gave Britain an ally in the Pacific and also one that was not very sympathetic to Germany. Germany had been one of the three powers – Russia and France were the other two – that had intervened in 1895 to prevent Japan from annexing the Liaodong peninsula after its victory in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War. When war came in August 1914, Qingdao and the German Pacific colonies were doomed. Although Britain, and even more the dominions, had misgivings about involving the Japanese, the latter were keen and their involvement could not be prevented. Qingdao held out until November, and even saw somewhat inconclusive aerial combat between Japanese and German pilots, but it was too far away and the German fleet too limited to prevent its takeover. The Pacific islands fell too, and, although there was German naval raiding into 1916, effectively the German Asia-Pacific Empire died in 1914.

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In all, some 4592 Germans and Austro-Hungarians became prisoners of war. Whether the small sideshows Stephenson describes deserve a whole book must be a moot point. Stephenson himself seems to have doubts about his own work, noting that it is not based on original research but on the work of others. Yet the substance – Qingdao on the one side, the Pacific colonies on the other – really amounts to no more than the content of a couple of articles. Much of the rest is padding, with long accounts of Anglo-German naval rivalry and the AngloJapanese Alliance. In the latter case, he relies on a work published in 1936, apparently unaware of the extensive scholarship produced since then. I noticed one error. The German minister in Beijing was not killed because the German legation was separated from the other legations, but because he was on his way to the Chinese Foreign Ministry without an adequate escort in a city full of armed and hostile forces.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 42, no. 1 (March 2011), pp. 114–116.

24

Gordon Pirie. Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation 1919–1939 v

With the end of the First World War in November 1918, thousands of airmen and aircraft were suddenly redundant. This, and the fact that the war had revealed possibilities for the use of aircraft far beyond those envisaged by most people in 1914, prompted much talk of a new age of air travel. In the British case, the air seemed to offer a new way of linking the various parts of the empire more closely at a time when it had grown even larger than in pre-war days as mandated territories in Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific were added to India and the dominions and colonies strewn across the oceans. 1919 and 1920 witnessed an outburst of air shows and daring exploits as the small machines that had been developed for use over the Western Front were recycled for more peaceful uses. Air enthusiasm spread far and wide, and by 1921 successful flights had taken place to Canada, India, South Africa, and Australia. Societies such as the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Central Asian Society, the forerunner of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, held meetings at which flying was hailed as the future of exploration. The possibilities seemed endless. Mail would be whisked around the world, allowing the most distant empire builder to feel in instant touch with home, while ‘home’ itself would be much more easily visited in the comfort of an airship or an aeroplane. This proved to be far from the case. Derring-do by ex-military pilots in exmilitary aircraft proved difficult to turn into passengers on seats or, in the case of airships, the cruiser-type lounges that were to be provided in the sky. Funding was difficult in the hard times which followed the end of the war. The high hopes disappeared as company after company 303

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went bankrupt. Aviation continued to make its mark, but, as far as official Britain was concerned, it was the Royal Air Force which mattered, not the civilian companies. Yet, much concern was expressed as foreign airlines, including even Lufthansa, the flag carrier of the recently defeated Germany, picked up the passengers to Europe that it was felt by right should be flying British, and the empire routes were pioneered by the Dutch and the French. However, there were always some who held out hope and, despite what they saw as the dilatoriness of the Foreign and India Offices or the old-fashioned approach of the Post Office which refused to give much attention to air mail, persisted in the belief that “Britons must fly”. Imperial Airways Limited was formed in 1924 and began services on routes to Europe, and later extended to Africa and the Middle East – Basra had very different connotations then! Using the various points controlled by Britain as landing stages, Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for Air, flew with his wife to India in 1927. The dream of an empire linked by air seemed to be coming true. Yet, although much effort went into searching out routes for aeroplanes, it was airships which at first seemed likely to dominate long distance flying. Pirie notes the juxtaposition of Amy Johnson’s solo flight to Australia in summer 1930 with the triumphant flight of the airship R100 to Canada just five days after her return. The huge expanse of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to rule out commercial aircraft but the airship seemed to make trans-Atlantic flight a possibility. Canadians welcomed the visit with enthusiasm and much emphasis on imperial links. The British were more muted. The Post Office refused to allow the R100 to carry mail, and on return, greetings petered out as the nation concentrated on the cricket and the return of Amy Johnson. Next was to be Egypt and India. The R101, then the largest airship in the world and strictly speaking a military vessel but pioneering a civilian route, set out on 5 October 1930 with a distinguished passenger list, including Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air in the second Labour government. When, seven hours after takeoff, it crashed near Beauvais in northern France, killing most of those on board, it marked the end of passenger airships in Britain. Aeroplanes were the future, although, before 1939, few of the early high hopes had been fulfilled. The aircraft were too small and too slow to compete with ships, and the dangers of crashing were still very much in people’s minds. Landing strips needed to be maintained and guarded and fragile aircraft could easily be damaged. Seaplanes seemed to offer a workable alternative but they too had their problems. Refueling a bobbing

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seaplane was no easy task, for example. Pirie, Professor of Geography at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, has produced a fascinating book, full of interest and well written, with excellent illustrations. His account throws much light on the strategic role of Egypt and Iraq in the post-1918 development of empire, as well as on the growing problems of actually keeping the empire going. He also reveals much incidental information, such as the all-pervading racism of the period. ‘Natives’ could be dragooned into clearing runways apparently without payment. The Australian government objected to Indian pilots flying into the country, while many expressed incredulity that Indians should be allowed to pilot aircraft at all. My only complaint is that something seemed to be badly wrong with the index in my copy, which jumped from ‘London’ to ‘Royal Air Force’ and then stopped. Curious in a book published by a university press.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 49, no. (November 2018), pp. 687–689.

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Margaret Hall. The Imperial Aircraft Flotilla: The Worldwide Fundraising Campaign for the British Flying Services in the First World War v

I thought I knew about the First World War and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). We go regularly to St-Omer in France, the RFC headquarters from 1914 and where the Royal Air Force (RAF) began in 1918. Yet, until I read this account by a former FCO colleague, I had no idea of the 1915–1918 Imperial aircraft campaign. The campaign sometimes had local official support but, in the main, it was voluntary efforts, often supported by the local press, that provided some 550 aircraft. Some donors wished to prove their patriotism. Others hoped for honours or advancement. For many it was a form of memorial for relatives lost in the conflict. Hall traces the impetus to the pre-war tradition of funding ‘Dreadnoughts’ for the Royal Navy. Australia, New Zealand and the Federated Malay States did so, although Canada rejected the idea. Warships were expensive; the cheapest was £150,000 in 1914. Aircraft were relatively inexpensive by comparison. One without guns – not unknown in 1914 when the main use was reconnaissance work – could be had for £1500. One with guns cost £2250, while a seaplane was £3500. Dominica in the Caribbean was first off the mark, donating one aircraft each to the RFC and the Royal Naval Air Service in the early days of the war. This led in 1915 to a campaign by the Patriotic League of Britons Overseas and the Overseas Club. Amounts donated were small at first but sufficient: ‘Overseas No. 1’ was handed over in May 1915. The response grew, with a cheque for £4500 arriving from Hong Kong, which had a long tradition of 306

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donations for Empire causes; the funds came from both Chinese and Britons. In total, Hong Kong would give £1,000,000 to the war effort. Malaya was also generous. The Malayan Air Fleet Fund was launched in March 1915 by the New Zealander Charles Alma Baker. Chinese donors were prominent, and the small Armenian and Tamil communities also contributed. Malay donations were channelled through the Sultans. By May 1916, the Federated Malay States had donated over £25,000, while the Sultan of Johor had equipped a squadron of fighters with a £31,000 donation. Expatriates in Siam (Thailand) provided five aircraft. From Shanghai and the Chinese ports came 20. All this was overshadowed by the contributions from the subcontinent. Not only did this region support the war effort through manpower, but it provided 175 aircraft for the RFC. It would have been more if part of Calcutta’s contribution had not been diverted to a pressing need for ambulances. Indian princes were generous. Bikanir’s Maharajah gave £17,000, the cost of 12 aircraft. The Nizam of Hyderabad funded a squadron of bombers, 18 aircraft; while the Gaekwar of Baroda gave 19. From Burma (Myanmar) came six, three from the Shan States. Burma provided, a pilot, 2nd Lt. Lou Htin Wah, and Indians also received RAF commissions. In Ceylon, where local sentiment was affected by severe measures taken after rioting in 1915, the Ceylon Air Fund was largely shunned outside the European community, which donated four aircraft. Separately, Sinhalese donors provided two more. Australia was another important contributor of aircraft, with Charles Alma Baker again prominent. There is much more in this fascinating book, throwing light on forgotten aspects of imperial history. It notes, for example, that the generosity shown in 1914–1918 especially from the Indian princes continued in 1939–1945. No doubt there were mixed motives but in the recent furore over the ‘Windrush’ generation, it is good to know that imperial exchanges were not one-way benefits.

Source: Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 39, no. 4 (Winter 1984), pp. 464–466.

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Richard T. Chang. The Justice of the Western Consular Courts in Nineteenth Century Japan v

When some twenty-five years ago, the British historian Richard Pares observed, Good history cannot do so much service as money or science: but bad history can do almost as much harm as the most disasterous scientific discovery in the world.’ Professor Chang has identified some bad history and has set about correcting it; the result is good in parts only. The bad history is the account given by some Japanese historians of the way foreign courts established in Japan under the nineteenth-century ‘unequal treaties’ dispensed justice. Leaving aside the question of whether or not these treaties were inherently unjust, Chang shows that there has been a persistent tradition that Japanese could not expect justice in the foreign courts, which were invariably partial to foreign defendants. The origins of this belief are to be found in Japanese nineteenthcentury polemics’ but it has survived intact in modern historical writing. Chang begins with an account of the establishment and organisational framework of the extraterritoriality system in Japan during the 1850s and 1860s. He claims that this is the first time this has been done. In fact, much of the same ground has been covered in the work of F. C. Jones, published as long ago as 1931 and cited by Chang, and in two studies not mentioned, Yokota Kisaburō, ‘Nihon ni okeru Chigaihōken’, in Kokkagakkai Goiusshanen-shi Kinen, 1952, and my article, ‘Extraterritoriality in Japan, 1858–1899’, in TASJ, volume 18, July 1983, published too late for citation in Chang’s book. 308

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For some of his information about the structure and scope of consular courts in Japan, Chang has clearly relied on information supplied by archivists and other officials’ rather than his own researches. This, plus what I suspect is basic unfamiliarity with much of the material he is using, has led him to some errors. It is not correct to say that France established its first consulate in Japan at Edo in 1859 and in 1877 redesignated it the French consulate at Tokyo, nor that France founded a second consulate in Yokohama in 1870 and another one in Kobe in 1879. The French had a consulate at Yokohama from the earliest days. There were no consular, as distinct from diplomatic, establishments at Edo/Tokyo until that city was opened to foreign residence in 1869. And when the city was opened, far from the French setting up a consulate there, they asked that British consular officers should look after French interests. Neither is it correct to say that the British made no distinction between diplomatic and consular staff. They did make such a distinction and very firmly too. Nor did Japanese consuls exercise extraterritorial rights in Russia, although the 1855 treaty provided for this. That treaty was in effect superseded because of operation of the ‘most favoured nation’ clause. Chang is puzzled by the large number of cases involving Portuguese in Japan and seems unaware of the existence of Macao as a possible explanation. He also fails to mention the most significant aspect of Portuguese extraterritoriality, namely, the manner of its ending in 1892 by a unilateral declaration by Japan. When Chang gets down to the subject of his book, five celebrated cases, all heard in the British courts, he is on surer ground. The cases concerned are the King rape case in 1875, the two Hartley opium cases in 1878, the Normanton case in 1878 and the Chishima case in 1893–1895. Chang gives a clear account of each insofar as it can be reconstructed, and then attempts to decide if the manner in which the case was conducted, and its eventual outcome, bear out Japanese criticism. The first two cases are relatively straightforward. In the King case, the Japanese complaint related to the sentence imposed rather than to any other aspect. Chang concludes that the sentence imposed on Archibald King-six months for the rape of a thirteen-year-old Japanese girl-was lenient, even by contemporary British standards, and well out of line with what a Japanese court would have imposed. He therefore concludes that in this instance there was some justification for the Japanese complaints.

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This was not so in the Normanton case. Like the King case, this was a highly emotive one. Captain Drake had apparently abandoned his Japanese passengers after his ship had struck a rock. Although all but one of his 39 officers and crew were saved, all 25 of the Japanese passengers were lost. A British naval court of enquiry found that the master and crew had done all in their power to save their passengers. The Japanese authorities were outraged by this decision and brought a charge of manslaughter against the captain. Captain Drake was eventually found guilty, but his sentence of six months did little to quieten Japanese indignation. Chang shows that much of the Japanese indignation was based on misunderstandings about the difference between a court of enquiry and a criminal court, and that the sentence was in keeping with what little international case law was available at the time. Interest in the other cases, the two Hartley opium cases and the Chishima case, lies perhaps less in the details of the cases themselves and more in the fundamental questions that they raised about extraterritoriality in Japan. In the Hartley cases, the prosecution was brought by the Japanese authorities. They alleged that Hartley, a Yokohama chemist and druggist, had smuggled medicinal opium into Japan. In reality, however, at issue was whether Japanese regulations were binding, unmodified, on foreigners protected by extraterritoriality. Professor Chang shows that if the Japanese had not insisted on this position, there would have been no Hartley cases. It is therefore incorrect to see the Hartley cases as bearing out the view that extraterritoriality was invariably unfair. This may well be true, but in fact ignores the fundamental question. The Hartley cases should not be seen in isolation and were not so seen at the time. Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister, was fighting a battle on many fronts against the Japanese (and American) interpretation of what the jurisdiction clauses of the treaties actually involved. Chang is aware of this and gives some details of the struggle. But he seems unaware that Parkes’s interpretation was overturned, ironically, in a debate arising not from the Hartley cases, but from the one occasion when the Japanese chose not to insist that their regulations be imposed without change. In the Bankoku Shimbun affair of 1876, the Japanese were so anxious to prevent a foreigner publishing a vernacular newspaper that they accepted Parkes’s regulations, which were markedly different from their own. It was from this case that the British legal authorities ruled that Japanese law was binding on foreigners, unmodified.

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This decision, although bitterly fought by Parkes, prevailed, and with it began the undermining of extraterritoriality in Japan. The case which arose following the collision of HIJMS Chishima with the P&O vessel SS Ravenna in November 1892 also had wider implications than the issues before the court. The background to this case lay in the controversy over whether the Japanese emperor, effectively the plaintiff, could be countersued in a foreign court in his own country and the almost completed struggle of the Japanese to end the old treaties. In the case itself, Professor Chang concludes that justice was done; as far as the elements in the background were concerned, he indicates that perhaps it was not. In a concluding chapter, Chang looks at the outcome of as many cases as he can trace in the foreign courts. The statistical basis he admits is weak. He concludes that the Japanese claims about the injustice of the consular courts were not, as he suspected in the beginning, well founded. The accounts given by Japanese writers are partial and often inaccurate. They come to the stories with their minds made up and, not surprisingly, go away in the same condition. The problem is, of course, that Japanese writers see the whole system by its very nature as unjust, and nothing is now allowed to convince them otherwise. Chang is right to question how the system operated, but I fear his efforts will be in vain. However honest the consular courts were, it was the very fact of their existence which was and still is seen as unfair-‘unequal’. Unfortunately, Chang’s book, setting aside this point, misses the fundamental issue. It is also too narrow in many ways, failing to probe the background to the cases it deals with in sufficient depth.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 36, no. 3 (November 2005), pp. 429–430.

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Michael Auslin. Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and Culture of Japanese Diplomacy v

Just occasionally, a book comes along that changes one’s whole perspective on a subject that seemed very clear and settled. Michael Auslin’s study of Japanese diplomacy from the arrival of Commodore Perry in Tokyo (then Edo) Bay in 1853 until the successful renegotiation of the treaties in from 1894 onwards is just such a work. Auslin argues that, contrary to the general picture painted by others (including me), the Bakufu, the effective rulers of Japan when Perry arrived, were not passive actors in the face of this threat from outside. He also questions how far developments in China influenced the course of events in Japan, pointing out that the way the treaty system developed in Japan proved to be very different from what had happened in China. Admittedly, once or twice imperialism showed its iron fist, but on the whole Japan escaped the imposition of a regime of control that favoured foreigners. The round of treaty making that really began with Townsend Harris’s treaty of 29 July 1858 – the earlier American and British naval treaties having been found wanting when their august negotiators got home – saw Japan emerge in a much better condition than China. Japan was not semi-independent, as China seemed to many. Foreigners remained under tight control, with limited access to the interior of the country. There was no Japanese Imperial Maritime Customs, under foreign control and largely staffed by foreigners as was the case in China. None of Japan’s treaty ports were able to achieve the quasi-independence that marked Shanghai from the 1850s to 1941. 312

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In Japan’s most important treaty port, Yokohama, the foreigners effectively abandoned any real attempt at self-government as early as 1867, were never able to claim it back. The British and the French maintained small garrisons at Yokohama into the 1870s, but there was nothing ever in Japan to compare to the Beijing Legation Quarter, which from 1900 until 1941 had permanent garrisons and where Chinese law effectively did not run. Other Chinese cities had foreign garrisons and a permanent foreign naval presence. Japan escaped all this, Auslin argues, because its negotiators had very clear ideas from the beginning. They were also adept at playing one foreign barbarian off against another, for they quickly realised that the Western powers were not united in their approach, however much they might appear so at first sight. Auslin shows how this was done using the British against the Russians in 1860, to prevent the latter’s permanent occupation of Tsushima, and two years later, using the British against other powers to allow the Bakufu to postpone the opening of Hyogo and Osaka. It was clear to the Bakufu, Auslin claims, that Britain did not intend to act in Japan as it did in China; the British approach to Japan was much more like that it adopted in 1855 in negotiating with Siam. Once it was clear that the world’s greatest power was not going to use its power against Japan, the Japanese were able to continue dealing with the outside world as they had done since the 17th century. Foreigners might be allowed in, as the Dutch and Chinese had been at Nagasaki, but they were kept isolated. So the Japanese proceeded to create an isolated settlement at Yokohama, which formally met the terms of the treaties but in reality kept foreigners in as separate an enclave as the Dutch had inhabited on the island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbour. The Bakufu plan was for Yokohama to exist, cut off from the Japanese hinterland, until such time as all foreigners could be expelled. Auslin examines other aspects of Japan’s encounter with the barbarians with an equally clear perception that the traditional views are not adequate. He notes that the Bakufu, despite its international successes, could never quite sell these domestically. Its clever policies were too long in bringing about the desired result of expelling the foreigners. At the same time, its need to study the West began to undermine its approach. Clever young men set to translate Western books began to see that the way to resist the foreigners was, paradoxically, to become more like them. Learning the ways of the West, rather than resisting as the Chinese did, was the way to combat the West. Auslin’s account of the Iwakura Mission of 1872 brought this message home very clearly and marked

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the beginning of a major Japanese reassessment of what the country needed to do in order to overturn the unequal treaties. This process Auslin examines in a rather hasty scamper through the treaty revision negotiations of the 1870s and 1880s, culminating in the successful revision of the British treaty in 1894. I hope that he will return to these themes in greater detail, because on the basis of this book, he has much to tell us.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 43, no. 1 (March 2012), pp. 180– 181.

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Ian Nish. The Japanese in War and Peace 1942–1948: Selected Documents from a Translator’s In-tray v

We have all done it. An interesting paper comes across the desk or is picked up along the way. One glances at it, perhaps even makes some cursory study and then tosses it into a box against some future need or just because it looks too interesting to throw away. That is just what Second Lieutenant Ian Nish of the Intelligence Corps did while working on Japanese documents as part of the British Commonwealth occupation force in Western Japan from 1946 to 1948. Now, as Professor Emeritus in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Britain’s leading scholar of matters Japanese, he has brought out some of the contents of the box, to throw light on Japanese attitudes on a range of subjects during and after the war. That is not all. Nish gives his personal account of what it was like to live and work among Japanese far away from the centre as they came to terms with defeat. A small section of Nish’s photographs and ephemera add to the interest, and, for good measure, he also includes a brief memoir by the late Professor William Beasley of the School of Oriental and African Studies, who worked as a naval intelligence officer in Tokyo just after the war ended. Beasley’s experience, living in the former British Embassy, now recommissioned as a naval station, was very different but the account is equally valuable. We have much information on the making of high policy during the occupation, and it is useful to be reminded that orders issued from above could look very different at ground level. Young occupation officers might 315

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be called upon to explain democracy or to sort out black marketing. And whatever official injunction there may have been about non-fraternization, even the lowest-ranking intelligence officers had to deal with Japanese people on a day-to-day basis, which gave them some insight into what they were thinking both about the war and about the new world that descended on them after Japan’s surrender. Travel was also possible, and, even if travelling conditions left much to be desired, it provided further opportunities for learning. For both Nish and Beasley, their time in Japan and their increasing skill in the language would provide the basis for their future academic careers as well as giving them Japanese and other friends for the rest of their lives. Then there are the documents. Some are Nish’s translations of Japanese material that passed across his desk. Others, such as a memorandum on the need for peace prepared by former Prime Minister Prince Konue Fumimaro in February 1945, are included for their intrinsic interest. Fear of the Soviet Union and of the appeal of domestic communism comes through strongly, as does the acceptance that Japan has lost the war. Particularly interesting is a document “Why is patriotism wrong?” acquired in 1947. The author is unknown, but assumed to be connected with education. The paper pleads for the retention of an essential Japanese spirit in the face of foreign innovation. The bulk of the documents, however, are three Japanese wartime publications. The first is selected English-language teaching material from a long-running publication, The School Weekly. As well as showing that even in wartime, and despite discouragement of things foreign, the Japanese felt the need to provide such material, the publication also reveals how the war was covered in a magazine aimed mostly at the young. Then there are extracts from the Greater East Asia War Graphic, dating from 1942. This is mostly in Japanese but also contains some English-language material, translated from the Japanese text. Top-hatted politicians can be found alongside women preparing military swords or accounts of daring naval and air force exploits. The final publication is a ‘Special Number’ from the Nippon Times Weekly of 16 September 1943. On the cover, a Japanese gunner brings down an American bomber, but the 80 pages of text and 40 pages of advertisements provide a detailed account of Japan’s claimed industrial development in the middle of the war. All in all, this is a fascinating collection, well reproduced despite the fragile nature and poor quality of much of the original material. And perhaps one may hope that Nish might return to his own reminiscences and develop those more fully in due course.

Source: Japan Society Proceedings, no. 154 (2017), pp. 148–151.

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Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Carmen Blacker – Scholar of Japanese Religions, Myth and Folklore: Writings and Reflections v

I only met Dr Carmen Blacker (1924–2009) once, towards the end of her life, when she was already very ill. Although our only previous contact had been a somewhat scratchy exchange of letters over a possible contribution to a volume of Biographical Portraits that I edited, I found her easy to talk to and charming. Our main common ground was her first book, on Fukuzawa Yukichi, which had been published in 1964, as I started my own far less distinguished career in Japanese Studies. Reading this fascinating mixture of Dr. Blacker’s diaries, more formal Writings, and reminiscences by those who knew her makes me wish I had known her better. Her companion and later husband, Dr Michael Loewe, and several former students and friends, contribute memoirs. These inevitably overlap, but they bring out the many formative influences that made her what she was. Clearly important was family life and school. It was through school that she met Julia Piggott. Carmen was already interested in Japan and the Japanese language but the meeting with Julia Piggott was to provide a strong boost to that interest. Julia, who had actually lived in Japan, was the granddaughter of F. T. Piggott, a legal adviser to the Meiji Government, and the daughter of his son, Major General F. S. T. Piggott, twice military attaché’ in Tokyo. The friendship would last until Julia’s death, and the encounter would consolidate Carmen’s interest in things Japanese, and eventually lead to her career in Japanese studies. General Piggott, perhaps recognizing a fellow enthusiast, 317

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encouraged her and provided her with formal training in the language. He was something of a controversial figure, who could see no wrong in the Japanese, but Carmen clearly regarded him with affection and benefitted from his training as her account of ‘Two Piggotts’, published in 1991, makes clear.1 Piggott’s tutoring and her own efforts meant that by the time war came with Japan in 1941, she already had a good command of Japanese. After some intensive training in military Japanese at SOAS, she joined Bletchley Park. lt was not a happy experience. She felt undervalued both in terms of salary and the work she was given. However valuable it might have been as war work, she did not enjoy the monotony of carding Japanese words that might just be useful in decoding. She was much happier when she moved back to SOAS as a special lecturer in Japanese, a move which also allowed her to enrol in a Japanese degree course; her fellow students included other future leading lights in Japanese studies, including Ron Dore. Although the first-class degree she received in 1947 would have qualified her for a university post, she preferred to spend another two years studying the quite different field of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. A scholarship at Harvard followed. But whatever else she was doing, her interest in Japan did not fade. A Treasury Scholarship finally took her to Japan soon after the fall of General MacArthur. Japan was still under post-war occupation and MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, had hitherto refused to allow such visits. ln Japan, she worked on the thoughts of 19th century thinker and educationalist, Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of Keio University. This would become her SOAS PhD thesis and her first book. She was, however, moving into more exotic areas of study. ln Japan she did not confine herself to libraries or the study of documents. She travelled and revelled in what she could do and see. More and more she was drawn into what would become her life’s work into the realms of orthodox and esoteric religion, and myth. These were not abstract studies. She began visiting temples and shrines, participating in services and ceremonies, some most rigorous. It was a practice she followed well into her advancing years. lt gave her a real insight into the more remote parts of Japan. It also revealed how much the country had changed over the fifty years from her first arrival. Once pilgrims had travelled in decrepit trains and then hiked far into the mountains to reach their sacred destination. By the time of her later visits, all this had changed. Air-conditioned

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trains and buses provided modern pilgrims with a pleasant and comfortable experience. with the lack of sheer physical effort went some of the old beliefs. lt was not necessarily a change of which she disapproved; after all, she took the air-conditioned buses herself. But her diaries record a clear sense of regret at the passing of the old ways. Each reader will have favourites among the materials included. For me, Carmen’s diaries, supplemented by autobiographical extracts from other writings, are the best part of the book. They take up about a third of the whole and the extracts have been largely limited to material related to Japan, including her wartime experiences. This is understandable, but it perhaps gives a somewhat distorted picture, for she clearly had many other interests that went well beyond Japan. Nevertheless, what we have allows a fascinating picture of a very full life. There is much on two esoteric sects with which she was involved. These were the Ten-sho-kotai-jingu-kyu, or “Dancing Religion”, and the Ryugu kazoku, both ran by formidable ladies, the first by Kitamura Sayo (l900–1967), and the second by Furata (later Fujita) Himiko, the “Dragon Queen”, as well as on more conventional religious groups. The diary is full of casual encounters – meeting T.S. Eliot on a bus, for example – and strange experiences, among them visiting a clearly unexciting ‘sex museum’ in Shimoda with Hugh Cortazzi. The diary section also includes a selection of photographs: Carmen making friends with a cow was my favourite, while the last one, showing her with Michael Loewe after she had received the OBE in 2004, is the most poignant. The third part of the volume reproduces some of her writings. For me, the most interesting were a series of pen pictures drawn from a variety of publications. These included three pioneering scholars of Japan, Chamberlain, Aston and Satow, alongside Marie Stopes, Arthur Waley, and Christmas Humphries, and two very different Japanese: the eccentric scholar Minakata Kumagusu and the writer and painter Makino Yoshio. ln deft phrases, she brings these very disparate figures to life. They also show that if she had stuck to intellectual history rather than religion, she would probably have had an equally successful academic career. Sir Hugh Cortazzi, in his notes to the preface, remarks on her failure to become a professor. As he says, she might well have done so when the University of Cambridge created a chair in 1984 ‘but she preferred to concentrate on her research and teaching’, which she preferred to the administrative tasks that then tended to fall to professors. Now she would probably have been offered a personal chair, but it

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was different then. All the evidence is that she could have coped with the administration: it was largely due to her efforts, aided by Cortazzi, that Cambridge did not abandon Japanese Studies altogether. That they now thrive is a testimony both to her vision and abilities as an academic infighter. She did not need the professorial title. As this handsome tribute shows, her talents and abilities were clear.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 50, no. 1 (March 2019), pp. 174–0176.

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Christian Polak, ed., with Hugh Cortazzi. Georges Bigot and Japan 1882–1899: Satirist, Illustrator and Artist Extraordinaire v

For their size, it is remarkable how the small foreign communities of the East Asian treaty ports produced so many newspapers. Titles such as the North China Herald or the Japan Mail are well known to scholars even if they are not always highly regarded as accurate sources of information. What is less well-known are the more light-hearted publications. Distant reflections of the London Punch or similar ‘comic papers’, they were usually short-lived and did not attract the subventions that kept many more conventional newspapers going. There are few library holdings and even those that do exist are now almost unusable, such was the poor quality of the paper used. Two cartoonists are associated with Yokohama. Charles Wirgman from Britain was the first. He arrived in 1861 as a correspondent for the Illustrated London News for which he continued to work until the late 1870s. He was not a trained artist but was competent. A number of authors used his work as illustrations, including Sir Rutherford Alcock, Britain’s first minister to Japan. And from 1862, he began to produce the Japan Punch. This was a pale imitation of the London original but it was clearly popular with the Yokohama community. Wirgman too was popular even with those who were mocked in his cartoons. The Japan Punch appeared spasmodically while Wirgman worked for the Illustrated London News. Then it became his main, if limited, source of income and appeared more regularly until he left Japan in April 1887. Although he 321

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soon returned, Punch was never restarted. Wirgman died in Yokohama in 1891. Georges Bigot was a younger man, born in 1860. He trained at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, which he left at 16. He worked as an illustrator before arriving in Japan in 1882. There he worked as a teacher and a painter. He and Wirgman perhaps naturally came to know each other; there were not many resident artists in Yokohama. Wirgman included a cartoon of Bigot in the July 1882 issue of Punch, which carried a favourable review of an album of the new arrival’s etchings in December the following year. And when Wirgman left Japan, Bigot’s new publication, Tobae, carried on the tradition of comic journalism for a couple of years longer. There was even a formal handover in that the last issue of Punch showed Tobae taking over. Tobae, in turn, paid its own tribute with Bigot as Pierrot bidding farewell to Wirgman as Punch. Bigot would remain in Japan until 1899. Tobae only lasted two years, keeping up Wirgman’s tradition of gentle mockery of both the foreign community and the Japanese, especially those who adopted Western fashions. But he had other interests, including two other relatively short-lived periodicals. He supplied illustrations of Japan to French publications and to the London Graphic. He produced regular albums of drawings, some satirical, some straightforward, for sale in Yokohama and elsewhere in East Asia. He married Sano Masu in 1895; their son, Gaston Maurice Napoleon, always known as Maurice was born the following year. In the meantime, Bigot was in Korea covering the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), which was largely fought there. Back in Japan, there were great changes underway. The revision of the old treaties, long demanded by Japan, had begun and extraterritoriality was coming to an end. The Japanese censors had tried to gag Bigot from time to time, but extraterritoriality protected him especially as he did not produce works in Japanese. But when the new treaties would come into force in 1899, there would be no protection. Bigot therefore decided to leave. He and Masu divorced. But Maurice stayed with him and together they left Japan in June 1899, a month before the new treaties came into force. He would never return but he seems never to have lost his interest in the country. After a spell of military service, he married again and lived at first in Paris and then in the country nearby until his death in 1927. During those years, he produced a steady stream of work, mostly on Japan and French themes, in a surprising variety of formats, including one attractive set of ceramic plates. During the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, he declined to return to Japan as a

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war correspondent but did produce war illustrations. This work dried up as it became clear that he was largely drawing on his work on the Sino-Japanese War done ten years earlier. While both Wirgman and Bigot are well-known and respected in Japan, where they are honoured as the fathers of modern Japanese cartoons, they are not at all known except to a few specialists in their own countries. This beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated volume may help to remedy that. It owes much to the French businessman, Christian Polak, who, having discovered Bigot, has assiduously tracked down Bigot family members and the material that forms the basis of this study. But it also is a fitting tribute to Sir Hugh Cortazzi, who died shortly after it appeared, and who worked hard to make Japan better known and understood in the West.

Source: Vol. I: Asian Affairs, vol. 22, no.2 (June 1991), pp. 233–234; Vol. II: Asian Affairs, vol. 26, no. 3 (October 1995), pp. 375–376.

31

Anthony Farrar-Hockley. The British Part in the Korean War. Vol. I: A Distant Obligation v

Distant it certainly was. Despite a brief flurry of activity in the late nineteenth century, which included the temporary occupation of one of Korea’s many island groups, British interest in Korea before 1950 was largely limited to a handful of missionaries, a few scholars of porcelain, and even fewer diplomats. In the 1930s, a couple of British academics had produced historical works which touched on Korea in the nineteenth century, but there were no real Korean scholars in Britain. In 1950, it would be safe to say that for most people in Britain, Korea and its problems were unknown territory. The ancient and out-of-date maps and photographs which British newspapers produced to illustrate the stories they ran on the early stages of the conflict were further proof, if such were required, of the general British lack of knowledge of Korea. The war which began on 25 June 1950 was to change that. By the time an uneasy armistice was agreed some three years later, 60,000 British servicemen and women had been involved in Korea, over a thousand had lost their lives and many others had been wounded. Large numbers had been taken prisoner, enduring the primitive conditions of North Korean and later Chinese POW camps. The British economy, fragile after six years of world war and five more years of austerity, was hit again by the demands of the unexpected involvement in Korea. By April 1951 – a little beyond the scope of this volume – when the “Glorious Glosters” held the Chinese at bay at the village of Solmari north of Seoul in the battle of the Imjin River, the distant shores of Korea seemed almost as familiar from newsreel and newspaper accounts as Normandy or 324

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the Ardennes had done six years previously. In the end, though, for all but a handful the perception was short-lived. Other conflicts quickly overlaid the Korean war in British consciousness. The term “forgotten war” could justly be applied to the British perception of this particular war. The fact that it has taken from the end of the conflict in 1953 until 1990 to produce an official history is further evidence of how remote from Britain’s interests the Korean war has generally appeared. By contrast, while not all countries involved in the war have produced such histories, the United States’ multi-volume official history began in 1961 and the Australian official history, perhaps that most likely to be compared with the present volume, appeared in two volumes in 1981 and 1985. In this first volume, Farrar-Hockley takes the story up to the end of 1950. It was a year of great hopes and disappointments. Initial North Korean successes, spectacular in their degree of surprise and effectiveness, had by late July 1950 left the Republic of Korea (“South Korea”) reduced to a tiny enclave around Pusan in the south east of the country. Despite the initial setbacks, by September 1950 western and South Korean shock at these early defeats was replaced by elation as United Nations’ mechanisms to “halt aggression” worked, albeit, in the absence of the Soviet Union, and North Korean successes in battle were replaced by those of the UN forces. This elation was in turn dashed by the intervention of the “Chinese People’s Volunteers” in late autumn 1950. Not only was the United Nations’ advance halted but all those involved, South Koreans, Americans, British and others, were sent scattering pell-mell down the peninsula to escape what the US military public relations’ staff persisted in calling “Chinese hordes”. Proud boasts about “home by Christmas” were replaced by the “bug-out” as the Chinese appeared to sweep all before them. In the United States, the shock of this second round of communist successes, seen as part of a conspiracy organised from and master-minded by the Kremlin, led to talk of the use of the atom bomb. News of this so alarmed the British Prime Minister, the normally unflappable Mr. Attlee, that he flew to Washington in December 1950 in search of US reassurance that no such measures were contemplated. What he was given was somewhat less than the total assurance he sought, but it was enough. British support for the UN action in Korea would continue. Doubts about the capability of the UN Commander in Chief, General MacArthur, remained but were quelled for the present. This then is General Farrar-Hockley’s story. Those who have read his other books, especially his account of his own part in the Korean

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conflict both as adjutant of the First Battalion of the “Glosters” and as a prisoner of war, (The Edge of the Sword, London, 1954, reprinted 1985) and who know of his subsequent military career, will not be surprised that he tells it superbly. O’Neill, the author of the Australian official history, whose story for obvious reasons is closest to the British version, treated the politics and diplomacy in a separate volume from that dealing with military strategy. Farrar-Hockley has chosen to mix politics, tactics and strategy together, chapter by chapter. At first reading, this seems to be a recipe for confusion. But gradually, the author’s determination to bring home the complexity of the political, economic and military decisions which had to be made pays off. Before long, the reader begins to realise how the difficulties faced by those in Westminster, Downing Street and elsewhere in the world meshed in with the problems facing the fighting men on the ground or off the coasts of Korea. even the account of Attlee’s visit to Washington, no longer a particularly fresh story, takes on a new lease of life when fitted into the panorama of the British perspective on the war as well as the needs of the Anglo-American “special relationship”, now heavily tested for the first time since Britain had more obviously to the Americans become the junior partner. The book is excellently produced. It is wellillustrated with many photographs, many culled from private collections. The maps are a delight, clearly drawn and easy to understand. The next volume is awaited with considerable anticipation. B. The British Part in the Korean War. Volume II: An Honourable Discharge By Anthony Farrar-Hockley. London: HMSO, 1995. pp. xx, 534. Maps. Ills. Bibliog. Appendices. Index. f,50 Hb. The first volume of this official history of Britain’s involvement in the Korean war, published in 1990 [reviewed in Asian Affairs, vol. xxii, pt. II, (June 1991), pp. 223–4.] ended in January 1951. By then, the UN forces which had in the autumn reached the yalu river bordering China, had been pushed back by advancing Chinese and North Korean forces below the 38th parallel. All was not lost but it looked bleak. Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley’s long-awaited second volume begins by going over some of the earlier story. He is now able to flesh out the events of late 1950 with the new material which is beginning to filter out from the archives of the former Soviet Union and from a relatively more open China. Thereafter, he sets out to tell the story of what happened

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from January 1951 until the armistice of July 1953. As before, the story is told in parallel, with a chapter on the political developments and the diplomatic exchanges being followed by one on the military events of the war. For a few months more, the war was one of movement. The UN forces fought back, retook Seoul and pushed back to the parallel. This time they stopped. The communist forces counter-attacked, involving British forces in what became their best known engagements, the battles of the Imjin river and Kapyong in April 1951. The war then became a stalemate. truce talks began behind the communist lines at Kaesong in July 1951, and later moved to Panmunjom. It was to be just over two years before the final terms were agreed and the armistice came into force. Those intervening two years saw much diplomatic manoeuvring, while the opposing armies in Korea fought for relatively small patches of ground or to bring pressure on the armistice negotiators. For the British, as for all the nations, except the Republic of Korea, which made up the United Nations ‘Unified Command’, these were years where they were politically on the margin. The US conducted the war and the peace negotiations largely on its own terms. It informed – usually – but it did not involve. On the whole, this satisfied the governments both of Mr Attlee and Mr Churchill. They needed United States’ support in europe. If they had that, they were content to be on the sidelines in Korea. After the departure of General MacArthur in April 1951, a move welcomed but not engineered by the British, whatever MacArthur himself believed, there were few problems in the political sphere. By the time the war ended, the British people, apart from those with relatives involved, had largely lost interest. The conquest of everest, the Coronation and the dawning of a new elizabethan age, all seemed more important than the end of a forgotten war far away. yet as FarrarHockley points out, the British provided far more troops than any of the other sixteen nations which came to the aid of the Republic of Korea in 1950. He tells the story well, though the lack of movement from mid-1951 inevitably has an effect on the pace of the book. There are a few ‘bluff soldier’ style swipes at appeasers and others who had doubts about some aspects of the war, but they are few and far between. Usually when the author’s personal views or reminiscences come in, they are helpful additions to the story. The maps are superb, the pictures less so. Computer typesetting has thrown up a few glitches, with footnotes occasionally pushed onto the wrong page and some oddities in the bibliography. These minor faults are irritating in a book at this price but do not detract from the value of the work as a whole.

Source : Asian Affairs, vol. 24, no. 3 (November 2003), pp. 362–363.

32

Erik Cornell. North Korea under Communism: Report of an Envoy in Paradise v

Until the early 1970s, all Western countries argued that the existence of the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (UNCURK) in 1950 precluded them from recognizing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, more popularly known as North Korea. The United Nations (UN) had only recognized one legitimate government on the Korean peninsula, the Republic of Korea, or South Korea. By 1973, however, there seemed little possibility of UNCURK ever fulfilling its role, and in a new atmosphere created by the first talks between the two Koreas since the end of the Korean War it was quietly wound up by agreement on all sides. At that point, a number of Western countries, most prominently the Nordic group, established relations with North Korea. However, they did not establish diplomatic missions in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, preferring to cross-accredit staff from their embassies in Beijing. After about a year, however, Sweden broke ranks and established a diplomatic presence in Pyongyang. This, as the first head of the post now recounts, was not for ideological reasons, but because Sweden had a practical problem that needed solving. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the North Koreans had gone on a buying spree in Europe to update machinery and equipment installed after the Korean War that was outdated and had begun to run down. Many Western European companies, including Swedish companies, responded positively to North Korean requests. After all, no communist country had defaulted on its debts up to that point, and it was widely assumed that Moscow in particular would come to the aid of any of its ‘satellite’ allies should 328

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they find themselves in difficulties. Unfortunately, the North Koreans had got into difficulties with repayments and Moscow showed no disposition to bale them out. So North Korea defaulted on its debts, including debts to Sweden. Under pressure from Swedish business, therefore, the Swedish government decided in autumn 1974 to open an embassy in Pyongyang. Erik Cornell, a diplomat with experience in development work, was appointed to head this embassy, although the Swedish ambassador in Beijing remained the formal head of post. In addition to his personal story, Cornell spends about a third of the book defining Marxism-Leninism, and in explaining why North Korea is not really a Marxist-Leninist state. This is rather too short to be much use, but the rest is a tantalizingly short account of his time in Pyongyang and of his occasional involvement with North Korea in subsequent years. It was clearly tougher being a diplomat in North Korea than when I followed the same track to open the British embassy in Pyongyang in 2001. There were no other regular Western colleagues for a start, and Cold War politics were very intrusive. The North Koreans were not inclined to make life easy. Diplomats then were carefully watched and corralled in the diplomatic quarter, a not unpleasant district about four miles from the city centre. The North Koreans also seemed to engage in subtle warfare to destroy diplomatic entertaining by calling meetings to coincide with dinner parties. By 2001, attempts to confine us seemed to have been abandoned, though of course we were watched, and while North Korean invitations were often alarmingly late in arriving, there seemed to be no plan to upset our extensive social life. In Cornell’s time, there were few opportunities to go outside Pyongyang, whereas we were able to join the UN agencies and the non-governmental organizations on their frequent field trips to view flood or other disaster damage, or to monitor the progress of aid projects. Cornell also had to handle the problems arising from the widespread allegations of smuggling by North Korean diplomats in Scandinavia in the late 1970s. Cornell clearly found the North Koreans difficult to deal with and thinks that the regime cannot last. But he also notes that there was little sympathy for or understanding of the North Koreans in Stockholm and that his attempts to explain why they behaved as they did tended to be viewed critically in the Swedish Foreign Ministry; now that is something that has not changed! Today, North Korea remains an elusive and difficult country, but Cornell has provided an entertaining and informative introduction.

Source: . Acta Koreana (Daegu, ROK), vol. 7, no.2 (July 2004), pp. 210–212.

33

Valérie Gelézeau. Séoul, ville géante, cites radiuses v

Journalists who write about Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, often dwell on the supposedly “Stalinist” characteristics of its high-rise apartment blocks, and their reduction of human beings to ant-like creatures. To the writers, these blocks are clearly a bad thing. Yet some three hundred kilometers further down the Korean peninsula, in the South Korean capital of Seoul, tower blocks seem even more domineering. Clustered together in miniature cities within the greater conurbation, they have become the preferred dwelling place of the affluent and successful. South Koreans boast of their tower blocks and the urban infrastructure of elevated roadways, underpasses and bridges that go with them, comparing Seoul’s Yo˘u˘ido Island to Manhattan. There is nothing negative about this assessment of such buildings. In this fascinating book, the French geographer Valérie Gelézeau examines how this came to be. Her work is party based on direct observation through living in Seoul, and interviewing urban residents. As well as examining how people live in the towers, she also includes much information about traditional Korean housing and explains how today’s city dwellers manage to preserve some traditional practices in the very different spaces that they occupy today. She traces the origins of the modem dwelling complexes to the industrial complexes established in the Japanese colonial period, but argues that the real take-off for high-rise buildings was only practical with improvements in water pressure and the reliability of electricity supplies, for central heating and elevators, that had to wait until the economic transformation of South Korea under President Park Chung-hee began to take effect. 330

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It was thus only in the late 1970s that the widespread use of buildings over four-six stories became possible. Before then, the typical Seoul “high-rise” was about five stories, with no elevator and with a water tank on the roof. In a society where few people owned their own cars, there was little or no need for parking places. Some of these low highrises survive, now updated, with the water tank used only for emergencies, and where possible, with parking spaces for the explosion in car ownership since the mid-1980s. In general, however, the mighty blocks that now dominate so much of the city have replaced these early efforts. Park and those around him then encouraged such buildings for a number of reasons. They further assisted the great construction chaeb˘ol such as Hyundai, tying them in close to the regime. They provided housing for the large numbers who flocked to Seoul as a consequence of economic development, replacing more traditional-style buildings and shantytowns that had sprung up after the Korean War, when South Korea was too poor to afford anything else. Gelézeau also sees the development of the high-rises as an important part of Park’s commitment to modernize South Korea. Perhaps drawing on his experience of Japan’s Manchukuo experiment, Park equated the traditional with the countryside and the countryside with the backward. Not only should people move off the land, but they should also change the way that they lived. And the new blocks with their “Westem”-style bathrooms and kitchens were a potent symbol of that modernity. But as so often happens when one probes into developments in Korea, the inspiration for the new blocks that began to appear from the mid-1970s came from Japan rather than from the West, despite the Western-sounding nyu t’aun (New Town) appellation that the Chamsil first mega-complex received. The chaeb˘ol built their blocks following what had become the standard modern Japanese layout, “LDK” – that is, a set of bedrooms around a “living, dining, kitchen” area. This concept was very different from the layout of the traditional Korean house, and it imposed on its inhabitants a new way of living. Gelézeau describes how Koreans have learnt to cope with this. Some meals are taken Westem-style, seated around a table. Others, especially late night snacks, or meals for older people, are more likely to be served on traditional-style individual low tables. Sleeping patterns vary, with the younger members of a family more inclined towards beds; again, older people may prefer to sleep on the floor, as their ancestors used to do. All those to whom she spoke seemed to prefer their modern kitchens and bathrooms to those in traditional houses, yet some prefer to

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go to the surviving bathhouses, or the more modern sauna, rather than using the baths in their homes. The reason for this is that such places provide a more sociable environment. While her contacts praised the apartments for their comfort and safety, some at least look back positively on older styles of housing because there was more contact with neighbours. People clearly miss the friendly greetings of the old communities. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the world that Gelézeau describes is how isolated people seem from each other. Community, and even family, life hardly exists. The staff charged with looking after the buildings complain that the residents will not sort their rubbish or take responsibility for the communal areas. Yet these blocks are not the bleak social housing that has given high-rise buildings such a bad name in Europe, but the acme of middle-class living, in a society where everybody appears to aspire to be considered middle class. This is not the only paradox. While Seoulites may see themselves living an Eastern version of the American dream, the reality is that the tower blocks of Seoul are far removed from how Americans (and many Europeans) prefer to live. She notes the complete absence of the house and garden concept that 80% of Americans prefer – although she does not mention the prime example of this lifestyle that was visible on the Yongsan base, which was certainly known to many Koreans. All this and much more is presented in this handsomely produced book. The illustrations are well chosen, and the line drawings and plans clear and informative. The text is readable and jargon-free. As with many French books, there is no index, but a detailed table of contents at the end.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 35, no. 2 (July 2004), pp. 257–258.

34

Donald N. Clark. Living Dangerously: The Western Experience in Korea 1900–1950 v

The foreign communities in China and Japan in the days of the treaty ports and foreign settlements – roughly the century between 1840 and 1940 – have inspired many publications. These range in style from a variety of novels (of very varying quality) to serious scholarly studies, and date from the 1850s onwards. Some contemporary accounts have also stood the test of time and are reprinted frequently. But when one looks at Korea, the scene is bleak. There are, indeed, some original accounts of Korea that have enjoyed the occasional revival. Judging by what is in print, or has been in recent years, Isabella Bird Bishop’s writings seem still to find a ready modern audience, as do the memoirs of the American diplomat William Sands. But, compared with what is available on Shanghai or Yokohama, this is small beer. Donald Clark’s account of the foreign community in Korea is, therefore, very welcome. Clark himself comes from a missionary family and was brought up in Seoul, now the South Korean capital. That background has served him well in two previous books about Seoul and its monuments, which also touch upon the foreign community in passing. One was written with his father in the late 1960s, the other was co-authored with James Grayson, the current Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is also the author of a work that will be known to few in Britain, about the Seoul Foreign Cemetery, which performs for Korea, the functions of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, a group well-known to many members of the RSAA. In writing this book, he has clearly been aided by the existence of family papers and 333

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he also knows well the records of the American missionary groups. He makes good use of these and also of US official records. As a Korean scholar, he is also in a position to draw on the small amount of information available from Korean books and articles. He has also made use of British official records in the Public Record Office, but not the smaller, but still interesting, collections from missionary sources. So there is still work to be done! What Clark has done so far, however, is to provide a fascinating account of a small but very diversified community. Korea was always unusual in East Asia, in two ways. One was that, after 1910, foreigners were living in a Japanese colony; Clark’s account shows how difficult it was for foreigners coping with Japanese suspicions right from the beginning of the colonial period. The other was that the missionaries were by far the largest group of foreigners in the country. Unlike the case in China or Japan, where missionaries formed a small percentage of the total foreign population, the missionary ethos was clearly very strong in these communities. As Clark’s account makes clear, this did not always lead to a smooth relationship with the other major group, the resident consular officers. Most of his examples of tension between the two groups are drawn from the American experience, but he might equally have found some among the British records. While the British consuls in Seoul had few social problems with their close neighbours in Seoul – the Anglican bishop and his staff – who were not above calling in for a glass of sherry or whisky on special occasions, it was a different matter when dealing with the Australian Presbyterians, or the Irish Catholics, both of whom came under British protection until 1941. Of course, there were other foreigners apart from the missionaries and the consuls. Clark gives a fascinating account of the foreign involvement in both coal and gold mining in Korea, an original joint venture involving Koreans, Americans and Britons, with Japanese officialdom in the background, in a variety of roles. Even stranger are the tales of the White Russians who reached the peninsula in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. All this came to an end in 1940–1941, as the Japanese began to apply pressure on the foreign community in the lead up to the Pacific War. Foreigners were detained, sometimes handled brutally and always viewed as the enemy. Many had been forced out before the war and the remainder suffered months of detention before they were repatriated in 1942.

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At the end of the war, many returned to a very different world. For a time, something like the old way of life prevailed, even if now limited to the south of the peninsula, but that was swept away in another war from 1950–1953. When that war ended, most of the world the foreigners had known in Korea had disappeared, although odd pockets remained. Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea and once the Christian capital of Korea, might be out of bounds, but in South Korea, some missionary traditions, such as the link between the Underwood family and Yonsei University, were maintained. A few buildings, including the British ambassador’s residence, survived. The foreign cemeteries in Seoul and Inch’on are witness to what had been. And now, in this readable and enjoyable book, we have a good reconstruction of that lost world.

Source: Journal of the History of Collections. vol. 19, no.1 (May 2007), pp. 156–157.

35

Jane Portal. Art under Control in North Korea v

Given the general lack of knowledge about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea) in the West, it is not at all surprising that there is an almost total lack of knowledge of the arts in that country. The relatively few visitors to North Korea may notice the architecture and the dramatic posters that mark the capital, and in recent years, the North Koreans have invited visitors to see what are called ‘Mass Games’, but which would be more accurately described as a cross between a mass rally and a gymnastic display. Not many visitors will see the art galleries or museums unless they make a special request. Even long term foreign residents rarely bother to go. Outside North Korea, it is hard to find examples of North Korean painting, ceramics or other art forms, although some of the posters are now marketed on the Internet. In the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea), art from the North was banned as propaganda until recently, and it is rarely on show even today. The only known permanent display of North Korean art in the West is at the British Museum, and it is fitting that Jane Portal, the curator who started this collection, has now provided what she describes as ‘just a beginning’ in introducing this little-known field to a wider audience. She places North Korean art firmly in two contexts: the totalitarian tradition of grandiose monuments and buildings, and the intensely political nature of all activities in North Korea – it is not just art that is under control but all aspects of life. As she indicates, it is impossible to assess art in North Korea without an understanding of the historical background, from which the leadership derives its legitimacy, and the effort that goes into glorifying that leadership. 336

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Any monument has a link to Kim Il Sung, who ruled North Korea from the 1940s until his death in 1994, or to his son, Kim Jong Il, who succeeded to his father’s role, if not his titles. Visitors will be told that one building has so many blocks, representing Kim Il Sung’s life, or that another’s height tells the same story. The reconstruction of historical monuments is not something connected with scholarly accuracy, but is to support the system. Painting, sculpture and music echo the same themes. All this is presented as though it is original and based on Korean traditions. This is not entirely false. In South Korea too, monuments are refurbished to bolster current political legitimacy, and if not quite so ubiquitous as in the North, pictures of the leader are found in all government buildings. However, even the most casual observer becomes aware that what passes for Korean tradition in North Korea is rather an eclectic collection of styles drawn from all over the world. As Portal indicates, architecture draws on Chinese, Russian (especially the Soviet period) and European buildings and monuments. And despite the hostility between North Korea and the United States, she finds more than an accidental echo of some of the latter’s monuments in Pyongyang and elsewhere. In painting too, although traditional Korean styles can be found, much of the public art on display draws on the ‘Socialist Realism’ school once popular in the Soviet Union and China. Even the music, or at least that provided at public performances, which is presented as more authentically Korean than that found in South Korea, seems heavily derived from the Russian tradition of both classical and popular music. In the theatre, the revolutionary operas, while superbly staged and performed, owe more to Peking opera and Japanese kabuki than they do to any indigenous theatrical tradition. In the cinema, while only Korean themes are handled, it is very much in the Hollywood style; Kim Jong Il is reputed to have a vast collection of American films and has always taken a great interest in the cinema. Perhaps only in ceramics are Korean traditions clearly predominant, although as in other fields, the individual’s work is subsumed in the collective. At the same time, Portal pays tribute to the thorough training and skills that mark much North Korean artistic work, explaining the training programmes that artists have to follow, and how they function as state employees. The author handles these difficult themes with ease, indicating the strengths and the weaknesses of North Korean art and artists. While clearly no apologist, she sets out to explain rather than to condemn

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and has an excellent selection of well reproduced illustrative material. There are occasional signs of haste, and some of the labelling of the illustrations could be better, but the non-expert reader will hardly notice these minor blemishes in an entertaining and informative work.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 2014), pp. 192–194.

36

Felix Abt. A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom v

Felix Abt’s account of his seven years in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK-North Korea) is a first on two counts. While there are a few accounts by foreign experts and diplomats, as far as I know it is the only such work by a businessman. There are plenty of photographs in it, though they are not quite as unusual as the author seems to believe. And for the RSAA’s Journal, this is the first ever review of a book only available in e-book format. The book is well worth reading for the picture it gives of a country that, unlike the conventional Western image, is not full of mad people following the instructions of mad leaders. Some issues may be avoided but Abt tells what he saw rather than what others told him was there. He is Swiss, with a long record of work in Europe, Africa and South East Asia with multi-national companies such as F. Hoffman-La Roche and ABB. He took up his appointment as ABB’s representative in North Korea with enthusiasm. That enthusiasm led him to co-found the European Business Association in Pyongyang and to serve as its first chair, and to establish a short-lived Pyongyang Business School. He also created a successful pharmaceutical company, along the way selling the idea of advertising to the North Koreans. He learnt to work closely with his Korean staff and, like others, found that Korean women, whether in North or South Korea, often provide a more capable and efficient body of staff. They are as well-educated as their male counterparts but do not suffer from the same status hangups of the latter. Abt also discovered that while his North Korean colleagues and partners were willing and eager to do business, international sanctions 339

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and restrictions, the result of the DPRK’s nuclear programme, often made it difficult. He is scathing about the Western approach to North Korea and about the methods used to try to make it conform, which, he argues, hit ordinary people and legitimate business in North Korea, despite claims to the contrary. He dismisses stories about North Korean production and sales of illicit drugs and, in particular, about US claims that the country is the source of the counterfeiting of US $100 bills. He points out that Switzerland is the main source of highquality printing equipment used in note manufacturing throughout the world, that there is no evidence that any of this equipment has ever reached North Korea, and that nothing printed in North Korea comes remotely near the quality needed for such notes. Abt is critical of some other Western businesses that try too hard to be accepted by the North Koreans. He also has little time for most diplomats and aid workers, who, he says, lead (relatively) comfortable lives for short periods on large allowances and then leave. He criticizes the UN agencies for only providing humanitarian aid and not the development aid that North Korea needs. He argues that they do this because it keeps them in jobs. This is rather hard. When I was there, in the two years before Abt, the UN agencies were desperate to move away from humanitarian aid into development work but could never raise the funds. Appeals for food aid brought a steady response. Appeals for development aid attracted derisory amounts. Now, the whole issue is tied up with the sanctions regime and developmental aid will be a long time in coming. As Abt knows well, Swiss development funds, the last available, ceased in 2010 and with them ended the Pyongyang Business School. And what of the e-book? I read much on the screen but this was the first time I have tackled a whole book. Once I had mastered how to get into it, it was not too difficult. It would have been better on a tablet of some sort, but I only acquired mine after the book arrived. On a desk computer, the typeface was fine. Pictures could play up a bit, appearing and disappearing for no apparent reason. It was not easy to move around the text but one benefit was that even if one closed it down, it always restarted at the point left off. But I found myself longing for a real book. Clearly others do so as well, and Abt’s website – www.a-capitalist-in-north-korea.com – and Amazon promises that a hardback version will be available in May 2014. I shall buy that!

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 45, no. 3 (November 2014), pp. 561–563.

37

Kevin O’Rourke. My Korea: 40 Years without a Horsehair Hat v

Christianity in South Korea tends to wear a solemn face. It began with Roman Catholicism learnt from China, which led to savage persecutions and many martyrs, some now made saints. The Catholics were not daunted but tended to keep a low profile; there was not much talk of ecumenism at the end of the 19th century. In Korea, the dominant Christian ethos was Protestant, particularly Methodist and Presbyterian, and while individual missionaries might be fun-loving, merrymaking was confined to tea or coffee. The French Catholics no doubt had wine, and the tiny Anglican mission was not beyond dropping in on their next-door neighbours at the British Consulate General for a whisky or two; generally, however, the missionaries frowned on alcohol and smoking, an approach still followed by many Korean Christians today. Then, 80 years ago, there arrived the Columban Fathers, an Irish missionary order with, if Kevin O’Rourke is to be believed, an approach to life that was much more in keeping with at least some of Korea’s traditional approaches. And why would one not believe him, since he is himself a Columban Father, who has lived in Korea since 1964? He is more than just that. He is a poet in his own right and an accomplished translator of Korean verse, and he has now written this book. It is not easy to define. Partly, it is an anecdotal account of the Columban Fathers in Korea in war and peace, relayed with a storyteller’s verve. In the 1930s, British officials in East Asia looked upon them as a threat to British security interests. Yet, on the ‘Death March’ to the Yalu River after capture by the North Koreans in 1950 at the start of the Korean War, it was Columban Bishop Thomas Quinlan who calmed a 341

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distressed George Blake (yes – that George Blake) by telling him that if he had ever had a son, he was the one he wanted. Most of the tales are of priests outwitting the bishop or curates outwitting the priests, and struggling with life in lonely remote parishes with barely adequate Korean. The mortification of learning that you had asked the congregation to come to Mass the following Sunday without their trousers, rather than without fail. The whisky may have helped. Those who have read another priest’s account of life in Korea by the Anglican Richard Rutt will find quite a different world in O’Rourke’s narrative!1 But O’Rourke does not confine himself to the antics of his fellow priests. He retells traditional Korean stories, translates a wide selection of ancient and modern poetry and generally introduces the reader to things Korean in a gentle and persuasive way. Even the title is part of the game, with its reference to the well-known poet Kim Sakkat, or ‘Kim without a hat’, the vagabond poet. There are many reflections about politics and the changes that have taken place in the country since O’Rourke first arrived. His thoughts on the Korean language and the problems that it poses for foreigners provide much on which to ponder. At the outset, O’Rourke claims that he has not written an autobiography. He is right. This is no straightforward account of a life. But at the end, we have learnt much about Kevin O’Rourke and much about Korea, and have been well entertained along the way.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol 48, no. 1 (March 2017), pp. 194–196.

38

Arissa H. Oh. To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption v

Rows of cardboard boxes at the back of the aircraft on our 1982 Seoul to Seattle flight, each with a baby going to a new home, first made us aware of the Korean international adoption business. Arissa Oh examines how it began and why it has continued, even if children from other countries now attract more attention. The 1950–1953 Korean War broke up families. Adoption was not unknown in Korea but was a family matter. If there was no male heir, a family might adopt from another branch of the family. This excluded girls, while a widespread belief that it would be difficult to incorporate an outsider into a family added to the problem. Most orphans ended up in poorly equipped and often badly run institutions. A new problem, as in Germany and Japan, was mixed race ‘GI babies’. Koreans prided themselves on their racial homogeneity and looked askance at such children. President Syngman Rhee’s government searched for a solution. Publicly this was done out of compassion. Behind the scenes, a harder attitude prevailed. There was no wish to spend money even on Korean children, never mind those not regarded as Korean, and since children derived their status from fathers, the GI babies were a US responsibility. Many Americans were willing to accept this. Stories about orphans in Armed Forces’ newspapers were taken up by the domestic press. Some GIs informally adopted their half-Korean offspring or persuaded family members to do so, using special acts of Congress until a Refugees Relief Act was passed in 1953. Few of the normal adoption procedures were followed, which worried professionals. But the Korean 343

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government had found an answer to its problem and established a Child Placement Service in 1954. This was not to send Korean children abroad but to enable GI babies to be returned to the land of their fathers. American Christian communities took up the cause, which appealed to their sense of family values and responsibility. It was Christians who turned the slow trickle of GI babies into a flood, and one in particular. This was Harry Holt, a lumberman from Oregon, of strong evangelical beliefs. By the mid-1950s, he and his wife Bertha had six children but, moved by the stories from Korea, they adopted eight GI babies via a special bill. They went to Korea as missionaries and realized that there were more orphans than just GI babies. This led to the Holt Adoption Program, now the Holt International Children’s Services. Prospective parents need not go to Korea. The agency selected children and brought them in on charter flights until the US government stopped charter flights and proxy adoption in 1961. Thereafter, the children came on ordinary flights. Holt’s methods bore little resemblance to those of most adoption agencies. Matching children and parents played little part; it was prospective parents’ religious beliefs that counted. Selection was not limited to those of mixed race. When numbers fell short of demand, mothers were persuaded to give up children. The Holts received hate mail for bringing “slit-eyed monsters” into the USA as well as more reasoned criticism of their methods. Eventually they modified their approach, bringing it into line with more orthodox social work practices. The South Korean government also came in for criticism for ‘selling’ its children. Harry Holt died in 1964 but the organization continues. So does Korean adoption. Even as Korea became prosperous, the problems of domestic adoption remained. Women were needed for the workforce and pressure on unmarried mothers to accept adoption continued. International adoption revenue was estimated at $20–40 million per annum in the 1970s and 1980s. By then, the South Korean government was conscious that babies going abroad for adoption did not fit with its ‘economic miracle’ image and the first plan to phase it out came in 1976. This failed, as have all the subsequent ones, and a reduced flow still continues. What of the children and their American parents? Some two-thirds of US international adoptees, or about 100,000 children, came from Korea between 1953 and 2000. Most were successful but some children did not settle. In recent years, as they grow older, many adoptees have

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tried to re-establish links with Korea and with their Korean families. Poor records often make this difficult but some have succeeded. Others express bitterness, with a few rejecting their adoptive parents. In this, they seem no different from other adoptees.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 52, no. 1(March 2021), pp. 251–253.

39

Keith Howard. Songs for ‘Great Leaders’: Ideology and Creativity in North Korean v

Visiting or working in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea), you quickly become aware of the allpervasiveness of music. Stay in a hotel in the capital, Pyongyang, and you will be woken up at least once a week, except in winter, by a band playing on the street outside. The music will be in a standard format; almost certainly in march-time, and vaguely familiar – perhaps Russian? It will be the same at a concert or to a theatrical performance. Listen carefully, however, and you realise that it is not any piece of music that you know. To understand this, and much more about the DPRK, readers now have Keith Howard’s comprehensive English language account and interpretation. Howard has had a long and distinguished career as an authority on Korean music. Much of his writing has been on traditional music in the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea), from its origins in court and religious rituals through to today’s vibrant popular music, but he has periodically looked at the music scene and the role of music in the DPRK. He outlines the difficulties of such a study, shared by all who look at a country that is better known in caricature than reality. There are major problems in anything that involves politics, but everything involves politics. The historical record is unreliable since it changes to suit current needs. “Traditional” songs are adapted to present needs, and even ROK pop music, officially anathema, may be used with new words. All this is presented as “traditional music”. The emphasis, in theory, is on the music of ordinary people; the music of the court and other forms of what might be called the classical Korean tradition, which are studied 346

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and performed in the ROK, are rejected. Yet much of what passes for traditional in the DPRK is derived from late nineteenth and early twentieth century sources, including Viennese waltz, Japanese popular music from the colonial period (1910–1945), Christian hymns, and Western brass band music. Many Korean musicians active in the early years of the DPRK trained in Japan. Although they were eventually purged, their influence remained. At the same time, those early years saw a determined effort to collect real traditional songs, even before a similar movement in the ROK. Much was lost in the process. As well as the rejection of upper class music and styles, regional differences and what were felt to be artificial performing were ironed out. The result is uniformity amounting often to blandness. A similar process of politicisation affected traditional instruments. Most of these continued in use, modified for a “socialist state”, under Soviet, and especially Chinese, influence. Mao Zedong argued that China should not reject old or foreign but should adapt them for modern China’s needs. Kim took this route for a time but abandoned it, condemning some instruments because of their association with the degenerate former upper class. A new approach emerged with the development of revolutionary operas, the theme of three of the book’s nine chapters. Howard sees these as an essential part of the juche philosophy, supposedly developed by Kim Il Sung personally during his guerrilla days – though in reality, it emerged in the 1950s – which has become, at least officially, the guiding principle of the DPRK. Juche is a controversial subject. Rather than being a an entirely new concept, it drew on various Korean traditions. At its simplest, it argues that humans are the masters of the universe but need a powerful leader to guide them. Juche stresses national self-reliance, rejecting Korea’s dependence on other countries, especially China and, in the DPRK’s case, the Soviet Union. You can take from others but you should not become reliant. The revolutionary operas, of which there are five, stress these themes but particularly the role of the leader. The first, “Pibada” (“Sea of Blood”), staged in 1971, emphasised the importance of the father, that is Kim Il Sung. Supposedly written by Kim himself during his guerrilla days, and in an art form unique to the DPRK, it in fact owes much to the Chinese revolutionary operas developed during the Cultural Revolution, as do its successors. Cinematic techniques are another common feature; “Sea of Blood” was a film before it was an opera. There is much more. Howard looks at the so-called “Mass Games” – vast gymnastic displays drafted onto tableaux of the DPRK’s version

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of history – and at attempts since the 1990s to introduce more popular bands and performers. But the same themes come up again and again: the essential conservativism of the DPRK’s leadership has a deadening effect on experimentation; politics still dominate; and there is an insistence on doing things “our” way, even while borrowing wholesale. The reader will not only have a thorough guide to music in the DPRK, well-illustrated by the author’s photographs, but will also come away with a much clearer understanding of the country as a whole.

Source: China Quarterly, vol. 77 (March 1979), pp. 151–152.

40

Michael Lindsay. The Unknown War: North China 1937–1945 v

Lord Lindsay of Birker, now Professor Emeritus of Far Eastern Studies at the American University, Washington DC, spent the years 1938–45 in China. He went originally to teach at Yenching University. Then following the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, he joined the Communists fighting the Japanese, first with General Nieh Jungchen’s forces in the Shansi-Ch’ahar-Hopei region and, from the spring of 1944, with the CCP HQ at Yenan. The present book is a mixture of personal reminiscences and the history of the CCP’s fight against the Japanese, coupled with a photograph collection which reflects these two themes. Lindsay got to know the Communists during vacation trips from Yenching. Soon after reaching China, he had decided that the Japanese must be opposed. Since the Communists seemed to be more active in their opposition than the Kuomintang, it was natural for Lindsay to begin aiding the communist forces. This he did by smuggling essential supplies, and the occasional person, from Peking to the Shansi-Ch’ahar Hopei region. This was not as dangerous as it sounds – Lindsay was protected as a foreigner by extraterritoriality and the Japanese “occupation” forces were often in fact Chinese puppet forces who took their duties casually. With the coming of war between Japan and the west in 1941, Lindsay and his wife, Li Hsiao-li, one of his former students with her own history of anti-Japanese activities, fled to the communist areas. They later learnt that they had made their escape 10 minutes ahead of the Japanese who had come to arrest them. For the next four years, the Lindsay family lived and worked with the Communists. 349

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Lindsay’s considerable amateur knowledge of radio and telecommunications were put to good use in training CCP radio technicians. With justified pride, he notes that when he revisited China in 1973, many of his former pupils occupied prominent positions in China’s telecommunications industry. It is certainly valuable to have both the text and the pictures of the present volume. The pictures in particular are good value. Lindsay purchased a Zeiss Ikon 3–5 camera soon after arriving in China and it served him well. In spite of the often difficult conditions in which the films were processed, the quality of those reproduced here is uniformly high. They range in subject from the forbidding hills of north China through Chungking under the bombing and the Lindsay wedding to the communist leaders at Yenan. Yet in the end, the reader is left dissatisfied. This is partly the fault of the publishers; the pages are unnumbered and there are a number of irritating proof-reading errors. But much more important is the feeling that the story Lindsay has told deserves to be expounded at greater length. It is to be hoped that Lindsay will not regard the present work as being his final word on his experiences between 1938 and 1945.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1989), pp. 229–230.

41

P. D. Coates. The China Consuls v

Those who nowadays visit the British Embassy in Peking or the recently re-opened Consulate-General in Shanghai can have little idea of the splendour which once marked the British official presence in China. Few now remember that until the 1930s, Britain dominated the China trade, only gradually giving way to the Japanese. British finance was a major factor in the beginnings of China’s modernisation. British gunboats patrolled China’s rivers and British troops guarded the foreign settlements established along the coast and in the interior of China. Not surprisingly, therefore, throughout China, from the coastal provinces to far up the rivers, in distant cities such as Kashgar and Kunming, and even in remote outposts of the Qing Emperor’s domains such as Taiwan and Korea, the Union Jack flew over well-appointed (if all somewhat similar) consular premises, while Her (or His) Majesty’s Consuls-General were men of stature and influence in both the Chinese and foreign communities. They sat on councils, conducted courts and helped organise and run clubs, gardens and cemeteries. Coates tells the story of the British Consular Service in China from its haphazard beginnings in the wake of the first Opium War until its gradual disappearance as China changed under the twin pressures of modernisation and war. By 1943, when Britain and the United States signed treaties which ended a hundred years of extraterritoriality in China, the special status of the China Consular Service, like its counterparts in Japan, Siam and the Levant had already come to an end. Though for a few years longer there were still British consuls in China, they were no longer the specialised cadre they once had been. After 1950, when Britain recognised the new People’s Republic of China, 351

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the Chinese refused to recognise British consular titles until the 1970s. No doubt memories of the old position of foreign consuls played a part in that decision. Reading this account of the China consuls, there is a strong temptation to paraphrase Shakespeare, for the tale Coates tells is often a sad one of the death of consuls. How some of syphilis died, some of fever and some – an alarming number – of drink. They were indeed an odd lot. On the whole, they came from lower middle class backgrounds, and were respectable but not grand. Ireland and Scotland were good sources for the China service as they were of the Japanese. They were poorly paid. In the early days especially, they were often poorly housed – the well-appointed consular buildings only became standard towards the end of the nineteenth century. They received little by way of allowances or other inducements to encourage them. Perhaps understandably, therefore, few worked as hard as they were supposed to at their Chinese studies. The Consul or Consul-General who spoke Chinese with no attempt at tones whatosever was not an uncommon phenomenon. Not infrequently, they found themselves treated with aristocratic disdain by the Minister in Peking, the Governor in Hong Kong – the latter a constant thorn for those in charge at Canton – and the Foreign Office in London. In the background loomed the parsimonious officials of the Treasury. These seemed always eager to save a penny here or to cut a pound there, even at the risk of leaving men to carry out their work in an atmosphere of general poverty. As for the widows and children of consular officers, many of them would have often starved if it had not been for the generosity of the various treaty port communities. Perhaps it is no wonder that the China coast consuls were more noted for their eccentricities than for their abilities. Although presented in solid academic fashion, with pages of footnotes, this is an entertaining book. Coates has made good use of the vast amount of material available in the Foreign Office archives and has done some masterly detective work in tracking down the family and educational background of most of the China Consular service. From a personal viewpoint, I would have found it interesting to have had somewhat more about the organisation and the structure of the service. We are not given sufficient detail about salaries, language training and examinations and similar matters. But these are minor points. The China Consuls is a worthy monument to Coates’s many years of hard work.

Source: The China Quarterly, no, 137 (March 1994), pp. 228–229.

42

Michael J. Moser and Yeone Wei-chih Moser. Foreigners within the Gates: The Legations at Peking v

Most cities have their ghosts. Peking (Beijing) is no exception. But as well as imperial concubines, strangled eunuchs and the reminders of more recent political struggles, Peking has ghostly buildings. They are everywhere. Behind a factory wall is a temple. A cadre school hides another, a kindergarten a third. A museum was once a noble’s palace. The Academy of Social Sciences sits on the site of the imperial examination halls, while a ring road replaces the city walls. Old Peking sits amid modern starkness. Recent years have seen attempts to save or restore some of the character of bygone days. Some hutong will be preserved and temple fairs revived. Books of photographs of the old city find a ready market. In the middle of Peking, close to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, sits the largest ghost of all, the former Legation Quarter. Once the symbol of foreign dominance of China, it is now disappearing before the city’s developers and the ravages of neglect. Sixty years ago, when to visit the Great Wall had not yet become the ambition of all travellers to China, the Legation Quarter often occupied more space in foreign guidebooks than the Temple of Heaven or the Lama Temple. Today, its existence is scarcely mentioned. After 1949, the new government set out to reclaim the Legation Quarter for China. It was relatively easy. War and revolution had disrupted the arrangements of the past. Many of the former Legation buildings were empty since their former occupants had not established relations with the new China. Friendly nations like the Russians were 353

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willing to comply with Chinese demands. Others like the British were subjected to pressures which in the end forced them to move. By the early 1960s, the Legation Quarter was Chinese. Chinese organizations now sat where foreigners had once lorded it over them. If the Cultural Revolution had not swept upon the scene, some of the buildings might have been better preserved. But in the throes of a movement attacking both the old and the foreign, the Legation Quarter was lucky to escape destruction. Instead, it survived neglected for the most part. Today it is the demands of the developers which threaten the remainder, though perhaps China’s rulers would not be unhappy to see the Quarter’s final disappearance. Tianjin or Shanghai may be able to see merit or even part of China’s history in old foreign-style buildings. Peking, for the most part, seems eager to forget them. This then is the theme of the Mosers’ book. Their interest in the Legation Quarter began when they found themselves living there. Thus stimulated, they set out to track down its history. Relying on published sources, they trace the origins of the quarter and describe its heyday after 1901. A final chapter surveys the history of the quarter since 1949. The result is an interesting descriptive account, with a fine collection of photographs. But the Mosers stop short of a real examination of the motives which led to the creation of the quarter in the first place or of what it meant to the Chinese. The result is a high-class coffee table book, a little like a local history, which lacks the bite of real explanation.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 49, no. 2 (July 2008), pp. 318–320.

43

Hsiao Li Lindsay. Bold Plum: With the Guerrillas in China’s War against Japan v

This is a remarkable document. Originally written in 1947 in English while the Lindsays were in Cambridge, Massachusetts – itself no mean accomplishment – it has been twice translated into Chinese and published, but this is its first appearance in published form in English. It tells a fascinating story. Hsiao Li Lindsay was born Li Hsiao Li (Li Xiaoli in the current pinyin system of transliteration) in 1916, the youngest child of a wealthy landowner in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province in North China. Unlike many girls at the time, she received a good education, first locally and later in Beiping (Beijing). From 1937 to 1941, she studied at Yenching (Yanjing) University. One of her teachers was Michael Lindsay, who had arrived at Yenching in 1938 to teach Economics, Logic and Scientific Method. Lindsay was tall and very English – she had trouble following his Oxford accent, which led to extra classes and eventually to a proposal of marriage. They married soon after her graduation in the summer of 1941. It is not clear how much she knew of the full extent of his extracurricular activities, but she soon learned. North China had been occupied by the Japanese since the summer of 1937, but communist guerrilla forces operated in the hills nearby. Lindsay admired the stand that the guerrilla forces made against the Japanese, and, was in contact with them from 1938. As the struggle with the Japanese continued, Lindsay, an amateur radio engineer, smuggled radio parts to them at the weekends and in the vacations and generally helped with communications. This was dangerous but foreigners were still protected by extraterritoriality and the Japanese left Yenching alone, whatever 355

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they knew or suspected about the contacts of some of the foreigners. Others involved in supporting the guerrillas included the Canadian, Dr Norman Bethune. Marshal Nie Rongzhen, the commander of the communist forces and later the father of China’s nuclear bomb, pays tribute to Bethune, Lindsay and others in his memoirs.1 The attack on Pearl Harbor, which fell on 8 December 1941 in Beijing, changed all that. The Lindsays and some other foreigners fled just before the Japanese arrived to arrest them, and began what was to be four years with the guerrillas. For the first 30 months or so they remained close to Beijing – often when moving around to escape Japanese patrols, they could see the lights of the city in the distance – operating in what was known as the Shanxi-Qahar-Hebei base area. To avoid the Japanese, it was often necessary to move suddenly, usually at night, and on foot. Long mountain treks in the dark became a standard routine. Frequently on their return to their previous position, they found a trail of death and destruction left by the Japanese forces. Michael Lindsay was commissioned as Wireless Technology Instructor and Advisor, while Hsiao Li taught English and acted as an interpreter. She also gave birth to her first child, Erica, born in a remote Hebei village during a Japanese offensive. In 1944 Michael Lindsay decided that he could do little more useful work in the Shanxi-Qahar-Hebei base area, and asked to transfer to the Chinese communist headquarters at Yenan (Yan’an). This involved a 500-mile journey, mostly on foot, dodging Japanese patrols and crossing the Japanese lines at night; they arrived after two months, and were to remain in Yenan until November 1945. Hsiao Li again taught and interpreted – and had a second baby – while Michael worked as Wireless Advisor to the Eighteenth Group Army and also helped the Xinhua (New China) News Agency to establish a proper international service. He wished to provide more information to the allies, based on what the communist forces collected, but his efforts were frustrated by an apparent lack of interest on the part of the allies and the deliberate attempts by the Chinese Nationalist government to prevent information flowing from the communist areas. Hsiao Li’s account of Yenan includes pen pictures of Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and his wife Jiang Qing. The latter, much demonised after the end of the Cultural Revolution, here comes across as a rather glamorous woman, who studiously avoided politics. There are also accounts of the US liaison group, the Dixie Mission, and the extraordinary visit of General Hurley, the US

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Ambassador, whose Indian war whoops caused some confusion. Life was easier in Yenan, well behind the lines, and there are idyllic accounts of horse riding and dances. When they left in November 1945, Mao and Jiang Qing gave them a farewell dinner, and Hsiao Li casually mentions dancing with the Chairman. Equally casually, she told him to listen to what Michael had to say about what was wrong with Yenan! The story effectively ends with their departure from Yenan. The Lindsays went to Britain, staying in Oxford with Michael Lindsay’s parents at Balliol College, where his father, by then Lord Lindsay of Birker, was the Master. Later, Michael Lindsay held teaching posts at the University of Hull, the Australian National University and the American University in Washington DC. Hsiao Li brought up her family – a third child was born in 1951 – and did occasional teaching and library work. Michael became the second Lord Lindsay of Birker in 1952, though Hsiao Li never took to being Lady Lindsay. Their eldest daughter, Erica, died in December 1993, and Michael died in February 1994. Hsiao Li, after spending some time with her granddaughter Susan Lawrence and her family in America, moved back to Beijing in 2006, to an apartment given to her by the Chinese government. I confess that I began reading Bold Plum more out of a sense of family obligation than anything else.2 But once I began it, I could not put it down. Michael Lindsay had published an account of these years, together with many photographs, in 1975.3 But Hsiao Li’s account, compiled soon after the events to which it relates and which reproduces a few of those photographs, is altogether more exciting and informative. The two together make a fascinating and poignant account of battles long ago.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol. 43, no. (November 2012), pp. 529–530.

44

Hugh Baker. Ancestral Images: A Hong Kong Collection v

It was always worth going to hear a lecture by Hugh Baker, now Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He had the knack of picking out the interesting tit-bit that turned a scholarly presentation into a performance delivered with verve. There was no doubt about the scholarship but he went beyond mere knowledge, bringing things Chinese to life. The same is true of Ancestral Images. In one sense, this is not a new work. Back in the 1970s, Baker did a series on Hong Kong television on Hong Kong life and history, which drew on his research work in a clan village in the New Territories. From this developed a series of short pieces in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), which were subsequently published in three slim volumes, with the same title as the present book. These went out of print when the SCMP withdrew from book publishing. A selection appeared in 1990, published by the Hong Kong University Press, which has now decided to publish all the original 120 articles in one volume. We are the beneficiaries. Baker has slightly revised the articles, to make them reflect the huge changes that have taken place in Hong Kong and the New Territories since the 1970s, but their essential freshness is there. Baker’s own photographs provide charming illustrations. Baker is somewhat dismissive of his photographic skills but the pictures chosen are apt and informative. They are also historical records in their own right, since much of what they depict has long since disappeared. The material is primarily concerned with Hong Kong, but the reader will find many reflections on Chinese society more widely, historical matters, such as 358

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the Imperial Customs Service, and the wrestling of Chinese students with the vagaries of the English language. There is no claim to original scholarship, but one would have to put in many long hours to accumulate what Baker presents in easily understood and digestible form. Food and death and burials are perhaps the most recurring themes, but there are also many reflections on gods and religion. Baker is always stimulating, occasionally provocative, but never boring. Reading the collection straight through throws up some repetition but, taken as it should be, dipping in here and there, one does not notice this but rather enjoys the clever linking of the past and the present. In her brief introduction, Lady Youde recalls that her husband, the late Sir Edward Youde, himself no mean student of China’s past, recommended the earlier versions of the book as providing the best available English-language insight into Hong Kong life and ways. He was right and it is a pleasure to be able once more to recommend it to readers. Try it. You will not be disappointed.

Source: Asian Affairs, vol.49, no.1 (March 2018), pp. 174–175.

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Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power v

Treaty ports are back in fashion. Once seen as a minor appendage of imperialism, they are increasingly seen as worthy of study in their own right. In Britain, much of the credit for this renewed interest belongs to Professor Robert Bickers. Bickers has put Chinese studies at the University of Bristol at the forefront of this revival through his own record of thorough and readable books and papers. But, as this book shows, scholars from all over the world are now re-evaluating the China treaty ports in the light of new approaches and the increasing availability of new material, often from Chinese sources. In the Introduction, the editors indicate the new fields being explored, moving away from the doings of the great powers towards examining what actually went on in the treaty ports and how they affected China. The most interesting part, however, is an imaginative account of a composite theoretical port, “Suidi”. Through its supposed history can be traced the rise and fall of a typical treaty port. Despised and reviled by all Chinese governments in the 20th century, now, as its architecture is seen in a more positive light and its archives emerge from the ban long placed on access to them, it is increasingly seen as part of China’s history rather than just an intrusion. The other 12 essays, each of which has substantial notes and references, cover some of the themes outlined in the Introduction. The first, by Par Cassel, looks at the issue of extraterritoriality, the legal system which underpinned the whole treaty port system in East Asia. This is a 360

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subject that has long fascinated me and about which I have written as it affected Japan. Cassel makes a number of interesting points but also some debatable ones. It was the first time that I had heard of the idea that the system was supposed only to apply in the ports and that, away from them, foreigners would come under Chinese jurisdiction. Some Chinese may have thought this but I doubt that many foreigners or foreign governments did. Isabella Jackson contributes a fascinating analysis of who actually ran the Shanghai foreign settlement, the largest and most complex in all of Asia. Equally illuminating is Chiara Betta’s essay, which looks at the complexity of Shanghai’s land system through the rise and ultimate fall, after 1949, of the Hardoon family. Jonathan Howlett’s study of the Kailuan mines also deals with the post-1949 period. Lesser ports are covered in essays on Xiamen and Hankou, as are relatively unknown fields such as meteorology, shipping, archaeology, river conservancy and the Macanese printers who provided a vital, if rarely remembered, element in the development of the treaty port press. For some reason, it proved hard work persuading the publisher to release a copy of this book for review but it was worth persisting for it is an introduction to new ways of seeing China’s treaty ports. One looks forward to further work from all the contributors.

Source: Literary Review 403 (February 2021), pp. 18–19.

46

Odd Arne Westad. Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China Korea Relations v

Odd Arne Westad is a professor of history at Yale University and has a distinguished record of publication on East Asian history and politics and the Cold War. This new work is based on the Edwin O Reischauer Lectures that he gave at Harvard in 2017. Such lectures generally fall into two categories. They either present a piece of ground-breaking research in an accessible form or, as Westad does here, provide a valuable and wide-ranging assessment of a particular subject. The China-Korea relationship has puzzled the West since at least the 18th century. While Korea seemed to be a separate political entity from China, those wishing to trade or have another form of involvement with the country soon came up against an obstacle. Koreans insisted that they could not do things without Chinese permission, while still maintaining that Korea was an independent country. Westerners, convinced that their system of fully independent states, developed after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, was the norm, failed to see in the Chinese approach characteristics that had once prevailed in Europe. Westad hints at this but does not explore it in detail. He also hints at, but again does not examine, the long-standing special relationship between China and Korea in the 1,300 years before the Ming dynasty came to power in the former in 1368 and the Chosun dynasty in the latter in 1392. During that time, Chinese dynasties had been closely, if spasmodically, involved with Korea as the disparate kingdoms on the peninsula slowly coalesced into one unified entity. Sometimes, the relationship had been a peaceful one. From China came a writing system that has faded from use only in the last seventy years. Korean government, architecture, 362

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city layout and religion all had their origins in China. In time, of course, they were modified and changed to become something recognisably different, but even today Chinese links can be discerned in both Koreas. Not all interactions were peaceful. The Yuan dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368 and its predecessor, the Mongol empire of Kublai Khan, treated Korea very harshly and effectively imposed subjugation on the country. The Koreans welcomed the overthrow of the Yuan and its replacement by the Ming. But the experience of the Mongol period also led them to seek ways to accommodate their large neighbour. This approach was known as sadae (‘looking up to the great’). To prevent interference in the peninsula, the Korean monarchy formally deferred to the emperor in Beijing. The Koreans notified the Ming court of important developments, such as the death of a monarch and the accession of his successor. The Chinese did not become involved in the succession itself but imperial approval conferred legitimacy. Korean congratulatory missions visited Beijing on auspicious occasions, while the Koreans also looked to China for assistance when threatened by outside forces, such as the Japanese in the 1590s. The Chinese were not always keen to fulfil their side of the bargain, but, given that Korea might provide a route into China itself, which the Japanese certainly sought to exploit, on that occasion they eventually did send assistance. It was two-way traffic. When the Ming empire came under Manchu attack in 1616, it sought and received Korean aid. Korean troops went to support the Chinese but ended up surrendering in the hope of saving their own country from attack. This worked in the short term, but as the Manchu prepared to attack the Ming again in the 1620s, they first invaded Korea. The north of the country was devastated and the king and the court were captured. The Manchu, whose leader, Hong Taiji, began styling his family as the Qing dynasty in 1636, established themselves as rulers of China in 1644, whereupon the Koreans shifted their support from the Ming to the Qing. The Koreans may have looked down on the Qing as parvenus, but the traditional pattern of relations continued until the Qing defeat by the British in the 1840s. Koreans still sought Chinese advice on the handling of foreign affairs, yet were also aware of the problems facing China. From the 1860s, Western pressure grew on Korea to ‘open up’, as China and Japan had done. By the 1870s, the Japanese too had their eyes on Korea. As usual, the Koreans turned to China for support. But China was unable to help them, instead encouraging the Koreans

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to conclude treaties with Japan and Western powers in the face of growing pressure. China and Korea continued to claim that Korea was both a dependency of China and independent. Foreign powers sometimes followed one tack, sometimes the other. Japan settled the issue. When Korea, asked for Chinese help in 1894 to cope with a major rebellion, China responded, effectively breaking an earlier agreement with Japan to consult with Tokvo before taking action of this sort. This led to the 1894–5 Sino-Japanese War and China’s unexpected defeat. Under Japanese pressure, Korea declared its independence from China, but what it got in exchange was a new form of subservience to Japan Only Russia challenged the Japanese hegemony, leading in 1904–5 to the Russo-Japanese War, which Japan won. Korea became a Japanese protectorate and then was annexed by the country in 1910. There followed thirty-five years of increasingly harsh colonial rule. Westad sees this in a more benevolent light than I would. There were improvements in areas such as communications and education, but they mostly benefited the Japanese. He also plays down the continued role of China in Korean affairs during this period. Political turmoil did not end China’s cultural pull, while Koreans of all political hues fled to China, which became a base from which to oppose Japan. Developments after 1945, with the emergence of two Korean states on the peninsula, one communist, the other nominally democratic, and the eventual victory of the Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, clearly changed the dynamic. The great powers once again involved themselves in Korean matters, not necessarily to the advantage of the Koreans. Westad, who has written a major study of the Cold War, sees the Korean War (1950–53) very much in the context of that struggle, playing down the civil nature of the conflict. What it did reveal, he makes clear, is Chinas ongoing influence on the peninsula, which continues to this day. But as two thousand years of history have shown, Chinas role in Korea is a complex one. Westad’s short and stimulating study provides many clues to understanding that relationship. It does not fully penetrate it, but it is good place to begin.

Notes v

CHAPTER 2 1

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3

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5

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7.

8

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10 11

12

13

See G. Fox, Britain and Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford, 1969), pp. 415–29. My own “The Japanese Treaty Ports 1868–1899: A Study of the Foreign Settlements’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1971), lists all the Western-language newspapers and magazines published by foreigners in Japan between 1858 and 19oo –see Appendix II, pp. 348–63. Fox, Britain and Japan, pp. 438–9; T. Nishida, Meiji jidai no shimbun to zasshi [Newspapers and Periodicals of the Meiji Period] (Tokyo, 1961), pp. 5–8. J. Heco, The Narrative of a Japanese, ed. J. Murdoch (2 vols, Yokohama, 1899), I, 59. For Heco, see K. Takanashi, Eigaku Koto hajime [The beginning of English studies] (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 106–8. Japan Herald (n.d.), in London and China Telegraph, 12 February 1868; ‘1867’, Japan Times (Overland Mail), 29 January 1868. See also J. R. Black, Young Japan: A Narrative of the Settlement and City from the Signing of the Treaties in 1858 to the Close of the Year 1879 (2 vols, Yokohama, 1880–1), I, 264, II, 60. For circulation figures of the foreign-language papers, see Hoare, ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports’, pp. 312–13. Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan (cited as F.O.262/285),Sir Harry Parkes to Lord Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876, enclosing a Memorandum, ‘The Press in Japan’, by W. G. Aston. The mortgage is recorded in Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan, Records of the Tokyo Vice-Consulate (cited as F.O.798)/18/R57, J. R. Davidson to M. Dohmen, 25 March 1872. A reproduction of the front page of the 1st issue, together with photographs of Black and the editorial offices on the Ginza will be found in K. Okamoto (ed.), Nihon Shimbun hyakunenshi [A History of One Hundred Years of Japanese Newspapers] (Tokyo, 1961), p. 121. See also Kokushi Kenkyushitsu and Kyoto daigaku bungakubu (eds), Nihon Kindaishi jiten [Dictionary of Modern Japanese History] (Tokyo, 1958), p. 462. F.O.798/18/R.16, Black to Dohmen, 22 March 1872; F.O.798/19/R.14, Dohmen to Black, draft, 4 April 1872. Aston’s memorandum, cited above, note 6. F.O.262/508, Dohmen to Parkes; No: 3, 1 March:-1876, enclosing Black to Dohmen, 15 February 1876. Black’s letter enclosed a copy of the agreement in English and Japanese he made with Goto Shojiro on 1 December 1872, plus additional clauses signed on 22 July 1873. F.O.262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876; and enclosures. This correspondence was published in Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 10 April 1876, but with Black’s letter of 15 February dated 28 February. The Japan Herald did not publish the agreement mentioned in note 11. Hoare, ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports’, pp. 192–203. 365

366

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25

26

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28 29 30

31

32

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35 36 37

38

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Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 444. Papers of Count Ōkuma, Waseda University (C.84), Black to Ōkuma, 20 October 1874 I owe this reference to Miss S. Hirose, of Tokyo University. F.O.262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876, and enclosures; Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 444. It was standard practice for contracts with foreign employees to contain clauses of this type. N. Umetani, O Yatoi Gaikokujin [The Foreign Employees] (Tokyo, 1965), pp. 169–70. Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 January 1875. Black’s letter of 15 February 1876, in F.O.262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 3, 1 March 1876. Text in Nishida, Meiji jidai no shimbun to zasshi, pp. 88–91. Japan Weekly Mail, 9 June 1883. Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 January 1875; see also L’Echo du Japon, 21 December 1875. Hōchi Shimbun, 8 January 1876, translated by J. H. Gubbins, in Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives Japan, Miscellaneous (F.0.345)/21; L’Echo du Japon, 11 December 1875. ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun” and the Press Laws’, Nichi Nichi Shimbun, 14 January 1876, translated in F.0.262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876. F.O. 262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 1, 21 January 1876, enclosing Kusamoto Musaka to Dohmen, 14 January 1876; see also Nihon Gaikō Bunsho [Documents on Japan’s Foreign Policy] (cited as N.G.B.), IX, 677–81. F.O. 262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No. 2, 24. February 1876, enclosing Black to Dohmen, 21 January 1876. L’Echo du Japon, 19 January 1876; Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 29 January 1876. A sour note, claiming that the Japanese would get away with this (supposed) treaty violation as they did with so many others, came from the Hiogo News, 26 January 1876. By 1876, Parkes, British Minister in Japan since 1865, and previously a successful Consul in China, had become the most respected defender of the foreign settler in the Far East. See G. Daniels, ‘Sir Harry Parkes, British Representative in Japan, 1865–1883’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1967). F.O. 262/508, Dohmen to Parkes, No.1, 21 January 1876, plus enclosures; N.G.B., IX, 677–81. F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876. N.G.B., IX, 691–3; F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876. See also F. V. Dickins and S. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes (2 vols, London, 1894), II, 244. N.G.B., IX, go; United States, Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 365–6. The French and German representatives replied that they had no power to take such an action. See N.G.B., IX, 695–8; the American Minister objected to the request, but was instructed that the Japanese law was binding on United States’ citizens: United States Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 367–8. Interestingly, Parkes had not bothered to inform his colleagues of his action. F.O. 262/513, Terashima to Parkes, 4 March 1876. Black’s claim can be found in his letter of 15 February 1876 to Martin Dohmen, cited above, note 11. Ōkuma Papers (C.87), Black to Ōkuma, 2 April 1876. For an example of the foreign treaty port press comment, see ‘Mr Black’s grievance’, Japan Herald (Mail Summary), 25 April 1876. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, CCLXXII, cols 478–9 and 1413, 23 March and 10 April 1876. F.O. 262/284, Derby to Parkes, Nos 60 and 61, 24 and 25 May 1876. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, CCLXII, cols 635–6, 16 June 1881. For evidence, see Japan Weekfy Mail, 19 April 1890; H. Ritter, History of Protestant Mission, in Japan (Revised ed., Tokyo, 1898), pp. 85, 230, 232, 303, 308, 330. See F.O. 262/316/R136, H. Faulds to Parkes, 2 September 1877; F.O. 262/532, Ueno Kagenori (then Foreign Minister) to J. G. Kennedy, Chargé d’Affaires, No. 50, 27 August 1881, and F.O. 262/364, Lord Granville to Kennedy, No. 79, 19 November 1881, enclosing a Memorandum by Parkes, 9 November 1881. F.O. 262/285, Parkes to Derby, draft No. 24, 7 February 1876, enclosing a Memorandum by W. G. Aston on ‘The Press in Japan’.

NOTES

40

41

42

43

44 45

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F.O. 262/284, Derby to Parkes, No. 81, 8 July 1876, enclosing Law Officers to the Foreign Office, 5 July 1876. F.O. 262/301, Derby to Parkes, No. 69, 29 September 1877, enclosing Law Officers to Foreign Office, 19 September 1877. For the American position see United States Foreign Relations (1876), pp. 367–8, H. Fish to J. Bingham, No. 224, 2 May 1876. N.G.B., IV, Nos 247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 256; P. J. Treat, Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Japan 1853–1895 (2 vols, Stanford and London, 1932), II, 37–9. Foreign Office, General Correspondence Japan (F.O. 46)/238, Law Officers to Lord Salisbury, 31 December 1878. For example, in F.O.262/332, Salisbury to Parkes, No. 93, 12 August 1879. Nihon Gaiko Bunsho: Joyaku Kaisei Kankei [Documents on Japanese Foreign Affairs Relating to Treaty Revision], I, No. 317, II, No. 227. F.O 262/626, H. Fraser to Salisbury, draft No. 26, Confidential, 12 February 1890. See also the powerful argument on this theme developed by one of Fraser’s staff in the British Legation, J. H. Gubbins, sent home in F.O. 262/604, Fraser to Salisbury, draft ‘Treaty series’ No. 16, 16 November 1889.

CHAPTER 3 1

2 3

4 5

6

7

8 9

10

11

J. E. Hoare: The Japanese treaty ports, 1868–1899: a study of the foreign settlements, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1971, pp. 190–209. For a contemporary Japanese view of this process, see Nihon gaikō bunsho, 23, no. 13, Viscount Aoki to Count Toda, Japanese Minister to Switzerland, 10 March 1890. J. G. Starke: An introduction to international law, 6th ed., London, 1967, p. 303. H. Wheaton: Elements of international law, 2nd ed. London and Boston, 1864, pp. 232–7; 4th ed., London 1904, pp. 184–96; Sir E. Clarke: A treatise on the law of extradition and the practice thereunder in Great Britain, Canada, the United States and France, 4th ed., London, 1903, pp. 1–15; H. C. Biron & K. E. Chalmers: The law and practice of extradition, London, 1903, pp. 2–3. Foreign relations of the United States (FRUS), 1864, part III, 474. See C. J. Tarring: British consular jurisdiction in the East, London, 1887, p. 109. For some qualifications of, and doubts about, the British position, see FO 262/220, Sir Harry Parkes to Lord Derby no. 102 draft, 17 August 1875; FO 262/269, Derby to Parkes no. 105, 21 October 1885; and the memorandum by H. S. Wilkinson, 8 August, 1887, in FO 262/297, R. Robertson to Parkes no. 51, 15 August 1876. FO 262/435, F. R. Plunkett to Salisbury dft. 188, 20 July 1885; FO 262/436, Plunkett to Salisbury dft. 205, 16 Sept 1885. This account is based on: FO 262/447, Russell Robertson to Plunkett no. 99, 2 December 1885, and enclosures; US Department of State Microfilms M 659/135/15, Consul General Green to Asst. Sec of State Porter, No. 57, 18 December 1885; M 662/163/4, Japanese Minister Kuki to Sec. of State Bayard, 8 December 1885; Japan Weekly Mail 21 November 1885 and 16 January 1886. There is a brief mention of the case in M. Kajima: Nichi-Bei gaikōshi, Tokyo, 1958, p. 37, one of the very few Japanese references to extradition I have been able to trace. See N. Umetani: O-yatoi gaikokujin, Tokyo, 1965, pp. 106–8. Text in Japanese Foreign Ministry; Treaties and conventions between the empire of Japan and other powers, Tokyo, 1884 & 1889, vol. 2, 82–91. For the negotiations see 17662/163/4, Kuki to Bayard, 8 April 1886. FO 262/433, T. V. Lister to Plunkett, no. 110, 27 November 1885. This despatch related to the Russians in Hokkaido, but the Campos’ case and the subsequent American treaty did not lead to a change of view in London. FO 262/624, J. J. Enslie (Yokohama) to H. Fraser, no. 36, 9 October 1889, enclosing a memorandum by A. M. Chalmers, 9 October 1889.

368

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14 15 16 17 18

19

20

21 22

23

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EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

FO 262/618, J. M. Longford to Fraser nos. 30 and 31, 1 October, 1889. FO 262/604, Fraser to Lord Salisbury, draft no. 12 Treaty, 13 November 1889; FO 262/619, Viscount Aoki to Fraser no. 40, 6 November 1889; FO 262/618, J. M. Longford to Fraser no. 37, 10 October 1889, no. 39, 12 October 1889. For the change in Britain’s attitude, see N. Hanabusa: Meiji gaikōshi, Tokyo, 1966, pp. 76–77. FO 262/618, Longford to Fraser, no. 43, 13 October 1889. FO 262/621, G. Jamieson to Fraser, 1 November 1889. Mrs. H. Fraser: A diplomat’s wife in Japan, London, 1899, 1, 199. FO 262/603, Salisbury to Fraser, treaty, 11 December 1889. ‘A Spanish prisoner in a British jail’, Japan Weekly Mail, 1 February 1890. The British Minister confessed to Lord Salisbury that for a long time he had not realised that Nieves was held in the British jail. FO 262/629, Fraser Salisbury, draft no. 7 consular, 15 March 1890. FO 262/636, J. J. Enslie to Fraser, no. 7, 1 March 1890; Japan Weekly Mail, 8 March and 24 May, 1890. FO 262/604, Fraser to Salisbury, draft nos 12 and 16 Treaty of 13 and 16 November 1889. ‘Extradition and extraterritoriality’, London and China Express, 2 May 1890. Earlier the Express had characterised the Japanese stand as ‘petty’. See ‘The Kobe extradition case’, London and China Express, 13 December 1889. FO 262/643, Fraser to Salisbury, draft treaty confidential, 13 May 1890. For Fraser’s views, see FO 262/604, Fraser to Salisbury, draft treaty no. 14, 14 November 1889; FO 262/643, Fraser to Salisbury, dft treaty no. 14 of 25 November 1891; and a series of despatches in FO 262/674, a volume for 1892. The Foreign Office view can be found in a number of despatches, e.g. FO 262/642, H. C. Bergne to Fraser, semi-official treaty, of 30 October 1890, and H. C. Bergne to Fraser, semi-official treaty of 9 February 1891. Basically these argued that Britain had every right to extend the 1881 Fugitive Offenders Act to Japan. However, in 1894 the Law Officers of the Crown ruled that this was not the case. FO 46/480, Law Officers to Lord Rosebery, 16 February 1894. E.g. in cases involving the British and the Danes in 1897. See FO 345/28 for a private correspondence between the British Charge d’Affaires in Japan and the Japanese Foreign Office in May 1897. On the Danish case see Satow Papers (PRO 30/33/6/2) J. Troup, Consul at Yokohama, to G. Lowther, 16 August 1897; La revue francaise du Japan, V, 2 August 1897 and Kobe Chronicle, 14 August 1897. FO 262/626, H. Fraser to Salisbury, draft no. 26 Confidential, 12 February 1890.

CHAPTER 4 1

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3

4

P. C1arke, ‘The Development of the English-language Press on the China Coast, 1827–1881’, M A Thesis, University of London, 1961; F.H.H. King (ed.) and P. Clarke, A Research Guide to China-Coast Newspapers (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965). J.R. Black. Young Japan: A narrative of the settlement and the city from the signing of the treaties in 1859 to the close of the year 1879 (Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh; London: Trubner and Co., 1880–81; reprinted in the Oxford in Asia Series, Tokyo, 1968); J.E. Hoare, ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports 1868–1899: A Study of the Foreign Settlements’, Ph D thesis, University of London, 1971, pp.348–63; G. Raymond Nunn, compiler, Japanese Periodicals and Newspapers in Western Languages: An International Union List (London: Mansell Publishing, 1979). G. Raper, ‘The English-language press of Japan’, Sell’s Directory of the World’s Press (London, 1893), pp.148–9. Foreign Office Embassy and Consular Archives Japan, Miscellaneous (FO345)/27, ‘The Press of Japan’, by J. H. Gubbins, 4 April 1885; Nagasaki consulate records (FO796)/15, R. Foster to R.A. Mowat, 11 Jan. 1897.

NOTES

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H.E. Wildes, Social Currents in Japan, with special reference to the Press (Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1927), pp.288–9; Embassy and Consular Records China, Records of the Supreme Court for China and Japan (FO656)/69, Schroeder vs. Brooke, 20 June 1884. Japan Daily Herald, 11 June 1880; New York Review, n.d.; Japan Weekly Mail, 9 June 1883. Eastern World, 11 Jan. 1902. King and Clarke, Research Guide, p. 158; Who’s Who in the Far East, 1906–7; Eastern World, 1 Aug. 1908. G. Fox, Britain and Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp.415–17; Hoare, ‘Japanese Treaty Ports’, p. 349. Embassy and Consular Records Japan (FO262)/627, Hugh Fraser to Lord Salisbury. 15 Sept. 1890. Olavi K. Fält, The Clash of Interests: The Transformation of Japan in 1861–1881 in the eyes of the local Anglo-Saxon press (Rovaniemei: Northern Finland Historical Society, 1990), p. 188; Yokoyama Toshio, Japan in the Victorian Mind: A Study of Stereotyped Images of a Nation, 1850–80, (Basingstoke and London: The Macmillan Press, 1987), p. 117. New York Nation, n.d. in Japan Weekly Mail, 9 June 1883. Fält, Clash of Interests, p. 17; Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 428. Nichi Nichi Shimbun, n.d. in Japan Weekly Mail, 1 Nov. 1890; Japan Weekly Mail, 13 June 1891; ‘Scotus’ to editor. Kobe Chronicle. 5 March 1898. Japan Gazette, 15 and 17 July 1879; Public Record Office, Satow Papers (PRO30/33)/11/5, Satow to F.V. Dickins, 4 Feb. 1880; Japan Gazette, 18 Jan. 1884; Japan Weekly Mail, 19 Jan. 1884. ‘A seeker’ to editor. Tokio Times, 6 Sept. 1879; Japan Weekly Mail, 7 Nov. 1885. Fält, Clash of Interests. pp.205, 297; W.H. T[albot], The currency of Japan (Yokohama, Japan Gazette, 1882); ‘Mr Dohmen’s appointment’, Japan Gazette, 2 April 1879; ‘Our contemporaries on Mr Dohmen’s Appointment’, Japan Gazette, 8 April 1879. D.M. Kenrick, ‘A century of Western studies of Japan: The First Hundred Years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Third series vol. 14, December 1978, pp.128–9; Who’s Who in the Far East, 1906–7; Kobe Chronicle, 16 July 1898; Wildes, Social Currents, p. 305. Fält, Clash of Interests, pp.17–18; Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 424 et seq; FO656/7, US Consul Fisher to Flowers, 13 Nov. 1865 in M. Flowers to Homby, Shanghai, 1 Dec. 1865; Parliamentary Papers House of Commons, 1867, vol. lxxiv (3758), Correspondence respecting the revision of the Japanese Commercial Tariff, p. 390 et seq, Parkes to Lord Clarendon, 16 July 1866. S. Hirose, ‘British attitudes towards the Meiji Restoration as reflected in the “Japan Times”’, Papers of the Ann Arbor Conference on Japanese History (Ann Arbor Mich: 1967) and W.G. Beasley, The Meiji Restoration (Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp.268–9. ‘Kicker [Rickerby] in the Triumph of the Arena’, Japan Punch, August 1878. Rickerby is depicted as a charioteer with two horses labelled Japan Mail and Japan Times, and a mule labelled Japan Gazette. See also Tokio Times, 28 Sept. 1878; obituaries in Hiogo News, 13 Sept. 1879; Japan Daily Herald, 10 Sept. 1879. Endō, M. and Shimomura, F., Kokushi bunken kaisetsu: zoku [‘A collection of materials for national history: second series’] (Tokyo: Asakura shoten, 1965), pp.434–5; Fält, Clash of Interests, pp.18–19; Jonathan Spence, The China Helpers: Western Advisers in China 1620– 1960 (London, Sydney and Toronto: The Bodley Head, 1967), p. 96 et seq; PRO30/33/11/4, F.V. Dickins to Satow, 18 July 1908. FO262/627, Fraser to Salisbury, 15 August 1890. Rickerby vs. Howell, Japan Weekly Mail, 17 and 25 July 1871; ‘Subventions’, Tokei Journal, 25 July 1874; Howell vs. Anglin and Moss, Japan Mai1, 23 Jan. 1875; W.G. Howell to the editor, Japan Gazette, 5 June 1881; Fox, Britain and Japan, pp.429–30; Endō and Shimomura, Kokushi bunken kaisetsu, p. 435; Hoare, ‘The Japanese Treaty Ports’, pp.335–6.

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28 29

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31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39

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Tokio Times, 27 Jan. 1877; FO345/32, Russell Robertson, Yokohama, to Parkes, private, 30 Dec. 1877; Japan Weekly Mail, 16 Oct. 1886. Tokio Times, 27 July 1878; PRO30/33/11/4, Dickins to Satow, 19 March 1910; Kenrick, ‘A century of Western studies’, p. 51. H.J. Jones, Live Machines: Hired Foreigners in Meiji Japan (Tenterden Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1980), pp.75 and 179 n. 8; A. D’Anethan, Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan (London: Stanley Paul and Co., 1912), p. 92; PRO30/33/11/7, Satow to F.V. Dickins, 21 Nov. 1912: ‘As you know, perhaps, I did not trust him.’ Jones, Live Machines, p. 75. No source is given. Brinkley in Japanese costume with bag marked ‘Japan Mail, Japanese Legation, Peking’ and the caption: ‘Why doesn’t his excellency Count “above the well” [Inoue]’s retainer imitate Herr Höllendorf [sic – von Möllendorf ] and wear an appropriate costume?’, Japan Punch, March 1885. Japan Weekly Mail, 1 Dec. 1883; Japan Weekly Mail, 10 Feb. 1881; Japan Mail, 1 Sept. 1881; ‘The latest outbreak of the “Japan Mail” – a personal statement’, Kobe Chronicle, 31 Jan. 1899. Japan Punch, Oct. 1882; Eastern World, 20 October 1906. J.-P. Lehmann, The Roots of Modern Japan (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982), p. 292. Japan Times, 29 Oct. 1912; The Times, 31 October 1912. King and Clarke, Research Guide, p. 117; FO796/10, J.J. Quin to R.A. Mowat, Shanghai, 25 May 1892. For Norman and Morphy, see papers in FO796/15; Who’s Who in the Far East, 1906–7. Wildes, Social Currents, pp.262–3, 269. Eastern World, 14 May 1904; Wildes, Social Currents, p. 270, n.19. ‘The latest outbreak of the ‘‘Japan Mail” – a personal statement’, Kobe Chronicle, 31 Jan. 1899. Who’s Who in the Far East, 1906–7; Japan Echo, 15 Nov. 1890. FO262/626, Fraser to Salisbury, 4 Jan. 1890; Japan Mail Summary, 17 Feb. 1893. The Yokohama Archives of History held an exhibition about Palmer to mark the centenary of the waterworks in 1987. John Clarke, ‘Charles Wirgman (1835–1891)’, in Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, eds, Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), pp.54–63; Japan Weekly Mail, 14 Feb. 1891; Yomiuri Shimbunsha, eds, Kanagawa no rekishi (‘History of Kanagawa’) (Kanagawa: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1966), II, 75. Far East, 16 May 1871. Hoare, ‘Japanese treaty ports’, p. 305. Albert A. Altman, ‘Shimbunshi: The Early Meiji Adaptation of the Western-Style Newspaper’, in W.G. Beasley, ed., Modern Japan: Aspects of History, Literature and Society (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975), pp.52–66. J.E. Hoare, ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun” Affair: Foreigners, the Japanese Press and Extraterritoriality in Japan’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 9, no. 3 (1975), pp.289–302. Fält, Clash of Interests, pp.25–6; T. Nishida, Meiji jidai no shimbun to zasshi [‘Newspapers and Magazines of the Meiji period’] (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1961), pp.5–8.

CHAPTER 6 1 2 3

4

Annual Registrar vol. CLIV (1912), p. 122. Japan Punch, June 1883. See Japan Weekly Mail (cited as JWM), 5 April 1882 and ‘Strange misrepresentations in connection with missionary work’, JWM, 22 Dec. 1888. Colonial Office List, 1868, ‘Hong Kong’; for MacDonnell, see Dictionary of National Biography, and Frank Welsh, A history of Hong Kong (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 237–8, 252–3.

NOTES

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6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15 16

17

18

19

20

371

Foreign Office records, embassy and consular records, Japan (FO262)/220, no. R.207, Major General Whitfield, Hong Kong to Adams, 5 December 1871. FO262/207, F. O. Adams, chargé d’affaires, to Lord Granville, draft no, 11, 12 June 1871. Grace Fox, Britain and Japan, 1859–1883, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 263 says that he learnt Japanese in order to teach better, but Adams wrote that his Japanese was already fluent by 1871. FO262/205, Odo Russell to Adams, no. 16, 1 Sept. 1871; FO 262/220, no. R.207, Whitfield to Adams, 5 December 1871. H. J. Jones, Live machines: hired foreigners and Meiji Japan (Tenterden, Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1980), p. 179, note 8. This incorrectly states that Brinkley was employed by the Fukui han from 1867 to 1871. For the general history of foreign employees, or o-yatoi gaikokujin, see Jones, Live Machines, and Umetani Noburo, Oyatoi gaikokujin: Meiji Nihon no wakiyakutachi (‘The Foreign Employees: Meiji Japan’s Supporting Cast’) (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1965). Jones, Live Machines, p. 167n. For his salary, which fell from Mexican $500 to Mexican $350 between his first and last posts, see Neil Pedlar, The Imported Pioneers: Westerners who helped build Modern Japan (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1990), p. 145. Public Record Office (PRO) Satow Papers (cited as PRO30/33)/ll/2, Satow to W. G. Aston, 3 Sept. 1876. Tokio Times, 4 August 1877. He lost his library in a second fire in May 1900. See A. D’Anethan, Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan (London: Stanley, Paul and Co., 1912), p.232. Douglas Moore Kenrick, ‘A century of Western Studies of Japan: The first hundred years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Third Series, vol. 14 (1978), pp. 55, 82, 118, 268, 353, 401. Koyama Noboru, Kokusai kekkon daiichi-go: Meiji hitotachi no zakkon jishi, (‘The first international weddings: Racial intermarriage among people in the Meiji period’), (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), pp. 163–165. See also FO 881/8211, Correspondence respecting the Law of Marriage in Japan, 1895–1899. JWM 7 April 1883. FO262/364, Lord Tenterden (Foreign Office) to J. G. Kennedy, chargé d’affaires, Tokyo, no. 88, 16 December 1881, and enclosures, including Brinkley to the Deputy Adjutant General, Royal Artillery 26 Sept. 1881; FO262/392, no. 12, Brinkley to Sir Harry Parkes, 18 Jan. 1882, in which Brinkley claimed that he had applied for permission to retire in April 1881. For his formal departure, see London Gazette 24 November 1882, quoted in the London and China Express, 1 December 1882. This account of Brinkley and the Japan Mail is largely based on J. E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994), Chapter 7, ‘The Foreign Press’; and James Hoare, ‘British Journalists in Meiji Japan’, in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, edited by Ian Nish, (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994), pp. 20–32. Debates about Reuters’ telegrams occupied many pages of the treaty port press. See, for example, JWM, 6, 13 Sept. 1884, 11 Oct. 1890 and 8 Feb. 1896. See also James L. Huffman, Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), pp. 182, 455n. Foreign Office records embassy and consular records Japan, records of the Tokyo vice-consulate (cited as FO798)/51, J. H. Longford to R. A. Mowat, Shanghai, no. 5, 20 Feb. 1893; Brinkley subsequently did take out probate. See also Hoare, Uninvited Guests, p.154; ‘Annual Review’ from the British ambassador in Tokyo for 1906, reprinted in Archive Research Ltd., editors, Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports 1906–1960 (Farnham Common Slough: Archive Research Ltd., 1994), I, 31. London and China Express, 9 Sept. 1887. Palmer is now better remembered as the architect of Yokohama’s waterworks than as the Times correspondent – see Yokohama shiryōkaikan, Yokohama kaikō shiryōkan: sōgō annai (‘Yokohama Archives of History: A complete guide’), (Yokohama: Yokohama shiryōkaikan, 4th. Edition, 1988), pp. 116–17.

372

21

22 23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

Ian H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of two Island Empires 1894–1907 (London: Athlone Press, 1966), p. 10; History of The Times: The Twentieth Century Test 1884–1912, written, edited and published by The Times of London (London: The Times, 1947). The only reference to Brinkley is on page 194. JWM, 31 Jan. 1891. For earlier charges of isolation, see JWM, 21 May 1887. Hoare, ‘British journalists in Meiji Japan’, pp. 21, 26; Japan Times, 29 October 1912; Times, 29 October 1912. Japan Punch March 1885. Punch’s most famous comment on Brinkley dated from 1882: ‘Left his Queen and Country to become a Japanese flunkey’, Japan Punch, Oct. 1882. Punch regularly showed Brinkley dressed as a samurai. E. B. Greene, A New Englander in Japan (Boston, Mass: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1927), pp. 284, 318–319; Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, p. 368. William D. Wray, Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K 1870–1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984), p. 443–44. Who’s Who in the Far East, 1906–1907, noted Brinkley as a ‘Foreign Adviser to Nippon Yusen Kisha’. Sir Alfred East, A British Artist in Meiji Japan, edited by Sir Hugh Cortazzi (Brighton: In Print, 1991), pp. 64–65. D’Anethan, Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life pp. 411–412; Dallas Finn, ‘Brinkley, Frank (18411912)’, Encyclopaedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1982), I, 170–171. Originally published in Tokyo by Sanseidō; reprinted as Brinkley’s Japanese Dictionary (Cambridge: Heffer, 2 volumes 1963). F. Brinkley, editor, Japan described and illustrated by the Japanese (Boston: J. B. Millet, 10 vols., 1897–1898). F. Brinkley, Japan and China: their history, arts and literature (London and Edinburgh: T. C. And E. C. Jack, 12 volumes, 1903–1904); the Japan section may have been issued as a separate set in the United States: F. Brinkley, Japan: its history, arts and literature (Boston: J. B. Miller Company, 8 volumes, 1901–1902); Capt. F. Brinkley, with the collaboration of Baron Kikuchi Dairoku, A history of the Japanese people from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji era (New York, London: Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., 1915). Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan (London: John Murray; Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh, 5th. edition, 1905), pp. 67, 243. In this edition, there are numerous references to Brinkley’s works under ‘Books recommended’. In the edition entitled Japanese Things (Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1971), Brinkley’s name lingers in the index, but the books referred to have all disappeared from the ‘Books recommended’ sections. For the 1897 Japan Times, see M. Endo and F. Shimomura, editors, Kokushi bunken kaisetsu: zoku (‘A collection of materials for national history: second series’), (Tokyo: Asakura shoten, 1965), pp. 437–438. Yuzo Ota, Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist (Richmond: Japan Library, 1998), p. 7; PRO30/33/11/7, Satow to F. V. Dickens.

CHAPTER 7 1

2

3 4 5

Maggie Keswick, editor, The Thistle and the Jade: A Celebration of 150 Years of Jardine, Matheson and Co., (London: Octopus Books, 1982), p.37. Grace Fox, Britain and Japan 1858–1883, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 46–47. For background on the attempts at Ryukyu trade, see W.G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, 1834–1858, (London: Luzac and Co., 1951), pp. 79–80. Fox, Britain and Japan, pp. 51–53. Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 66. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, pp.168–93; W. G. Beasley, trans. and editor, Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868, (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp.156–94.

NOTES

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J. E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests, 1858–1899, (Sandgate, Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994), pp. 6–7. See also J. McMaster, ‘British trade and traders to Japan, 1859–1869’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1962. Jardine Matheson Papers, Kanagawa, W. Keswick to J. Whittall, 21 July 1859; see also Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp.6–7. Sir Rutherford Alcock was the subject of a biographical portrait by Hugh Cortazzi in the Japan Society’s Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume II, published by Japan Library, 1997. The House of Mitsui, which was to become the largest business combine of the inter-war years, was the wealthiest merchant house during the Edo period (1600–1868). It had been founded in 1673. Mitsui and Co (Mitsui Bussan) was established in 1876. John McMaster, ‘The Japanese Gold Rush of 1859’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. xix (1959–60), p. 274. McMaster, ‘Japanese Gold Rush’, pp. 274–75. McMaster, ‘Japanese Gold Rush’, pp. 275–287, based mainly on the Jardine Matheson archive in the University of Cambridge Library, is the fullest analysis available of what otherwise is a story of vague claims and hearsay. Keswick, Thistle and the Jade, pp. 157–58. Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 84. For the background to Alcock’s fears, see J. E. Hoare, Embassies in the East: The Story of the British and their Embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the Present, (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 95–104. Grace Fox gives much of the credit for the students’ arrangements to Keswick, but it seems clear that Gower played the more important role: Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 458; Andrew Cobbing, ‘Ito Hirobumi in Britain’, in J.E. Hoare, edit., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. III (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1999), pp. 18, 20. Keswick, Thistle and the Jade, p. 162–64. Keswick, Thistle and the Jade, pp. 40–41; Japan Gazette, 12 March 1877; Japan Mail (Summary), 3 Sept. 1880. James later married Marion, daughter of Sir Harry Parkes, Alcock’s successor as British Minister to Japan. Sir John Pope-Hennessy (1834–1891) was a controversial figure. The DNB describes him as being ‘humane and sympathetic’ but of ‘impulsive temperament. His failure as a colonial governor was due to his want of tact and judgement, and his faculty of “irritating where he might conciliate.”’ ‘Mr W. Keswick’, The Times, 11 March 1912. See also Keswick, Thistle and the Jade, passim, and Robert Blake, Jardine Matheson: Traders of the Far East, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999), pp. 151–53. Nathan A. Pelcovitts, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office, (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1948), pp. 158–60. Foreign Office Records Japan (FO46)/459, R. S. Grundy, China Association, to the Earl of Kimberley, 12 February 1895, forwarding the ‘Protest of the Yokohama Branch of the China Association against the Action of Her Majesty’s Government in the matter of the Treaty lately concluded with Japan by Great Britain’; London and China Express, 1 March 1895. Pelcovitts, Old China Hands, p. 183. ‘Mr W. Keswick’, The Times, 11 March 1912.

CHAPTER 8 *

1

2

This essay was presented at the Anglo-Japanese History project Workshop held at Shonan, Hayama, in September 1997. I am grateful for the comments and views expressed there. I should also point out that the views and opinions herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Her Majesty’s Government. See W.G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, 1834–1858 (London: Luzac and Co. Ltd, 1951), for the background. Beasley, Opening, p. 190.

374

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6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

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For traditional East Asian diplomacy as it applied in the Japanese context, see Ronald P. Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modem Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984; reprinted Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), and W.G. Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarians: Japanese Travellers in America and Europe (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1995), Chapter 1. Sir Hugh Cortazzi, ‘The First British Legation in Japan (1859–1874)’, The Japan Society of London Bulletin, no. 102 (October 1984), pp. 25–50, and Kawaseki Seiro, ‘Edo ni atta gaikoku kokan’, (Foreign missions in Edo), Gaimusho choso geppo, 1987/1, pp. 45–59. Memorandum by Sir Harry Parkes, 28 September 1872, in Works 10/35–1, Part 2. See also J.E. Hoare, ‘The Tokyo Embassy 1871–1945’, Japan Society Proceedings, no. 129 (Summer 1997), pp, 24–41. See J.E. Hoare, ‘Britain’s Japan Consular Service 1859–1941’, in Ian Nish (ed.), Britain amd Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol, II (Richmond, England: Japan Library, 1997), pp. 94–106. J.E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (Folkestone, Kent: Japan Library, 1994), Chapters 3 and 4. See the discussion of this point in J.E. Hoare: Review of Richard T. Chang, The Justice of the Western Consular Courts in Nineteenth Century Japan (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), in Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 39, no. 4 (Winter 1984), 464–6. For the idea of a deliberate western policy’ to undermine the bakufu, see John McMaster, Sabotaging the Shogun: Western Diplomats Open Japan,1859–69 (New York: Vantage Press, 1992). In the end, however, even he concludes that there was probably no plan to bring down the shogun; it happened – see p. 182. See also the criticism of this approach in a review article by Stephen S. Large, ‘Modern Japan: Troubled Pursuit of ‘Wealth and Power”’, Historical Journal, vol. 40, no. 2 (1997), 537–50. Beasley, Opening, pp. 75–6. For Patkes more generally, see Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry’ Parkes: British Representative in Japan, 1865–83 (Richmond, Surrey; Japan Library, 1996). The telegraph arrived via the Great Northern System through Denmark, Russia and China: Olive Checkland, Britain’s Encounter with Meiji Japan, 1868–1912 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 51. For merchant views of Alcock, see J.J. Keswick to the Shanghai office, 26 January 1861, Jardine Matheson Papers B/3/11/Yokohama no. 85. For an example of Parkes’s private opinion on the merchants, see Parkes to Lord Salisbury, draft no. 219, 15 September 1868, FO 262/144. A theme discussed in Gordon Daniels, ‘The British Role in the Meiji Restoration: A Re-interpretative Note’, Modem Asian Studies, vol. II, no. 4 (1968), 291–313. Satow himself acknowledged that whatever he thought he was doing in 1867–8 in his dealings with the antiTokugawa clans, and his writings, neither seemed to have come to Parkes’s attention: Grace Fox, Britain and Japan, 1858–1883 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 179–80. Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, pp. 131–4. For more background on the Iwakura mission in Britain, see D.W. Anthony and G.H. Healey, ‘The Itinerary of the Iwakura Embassy in Britain, August-December 1872’, Research Papers in Japanese Studies, Special Issue (Cardiff Centre for Japanese Studies, October 1997). See S. Hirose, ‘Meiji shonen no tai O-Bei kankei to gaikokujin naichi ryoko mondai’ (The question of foreigners’ travel in the interior and diplomatic relations with Europe and America in the early Meiji period), Shigaku zasshi, vol. 83 (1975), no. 11, 1–29; no. 12, 40–61. R.G. Watson to Lord Granville, no. 168 draft, 19 December 1872. FO 262/225; Parkes to Lord Derby, no, 34 draft, 6 March 1875, FO 262/270. Parkes to Derby, draft no. 48, 31 March 1877, FO 262/302. For a fuller account of this long battle, which the Japanese ultimately won, see Janet Hunter, ‘The Abolition of Extraterritoriality in the Japanese Post Office, 1873–1880’, in Proceedings of the British Association for Japanese Studies, vol. 1 (1976), Part 1: History and International Relations, edited by Peter Lowe, 17–37.

NOTES

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20 21

22

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24

25

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29 30 31

32 33 34

35

36

37

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Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp. 89–95. J.E. Hoare, ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun Affair”: Foreigners, the Japanese Press, and Extraterritoriality in Japan’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 3 (1975), 289–302. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, p. 23. For a recent linkage of the Japan Punch to the Japanese manga, see Saya S. Shiraishi, Japan’s Soft Power: Doraemon Goes Overseas’ in Network Power: Japan and Asia, edited by Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 236. A theme examined in John Clark, ‘Charles Wirgman (1835–1891)’ in Britain and Japan, edited by Cortazzi and Daniels, pp. 54–63. For Aston’s views, see Parkes to Lord Derby, draft no. 24, 7 February 1876, enclosing a memorandum by Aston, FO 262/282. See also James L. Huffman, Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), which shows how quickly the Japanese raced ahead of the foreign pioneers; James Hoare, ‘British Journalists in Meiji Japan’, in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, edited by Ian Nish (Folkestone, Kent: Japan Library, 1994), pp. 20–32; for British influence on the Japanese-language press, see Hoare, ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun Affair”’, 289–302. N, Umetani, Oyatoi gaikokujin (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1965); H.J. Jones, Live Machines: Hired Foreigners in Meiji Japan (Tenterden, Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1980), especially pp. 145–52. See for example, his support for Henry Brunton: Richard Henry Brunton, Building Japan, 1868–1876, with an introduction and notes by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, in addition to the 1906, introductory, postscript and notes by William Elliot Griffis (Folkestone, Kent: Japan Library, 1991), pp. 27, 45–6, 148. See Hoare, ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun Affair’”, passim; a similar point is made by Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarians, p. 147. The Mexican dollar was widely used on the China coast and elsewhere in Eastern Asia until the twentieth century; in Japan, it was replaced by the yen in the 1870s, though prices were sometimes still quoted in Mexican dollars until the 1890s. The dollar’s value varied, it was worth some five shillings sterling (£0.25) in 1865; by the early 1890s, its value had declined to two shillings and sixpence (£0.125). Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, p. 179. Sugiyama, using different sources, comes up with very similar figures: S. Sugiyama, Japan’s Industrialisation in the World Economy: Export Trade and Overseas Competition (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1988), pp. 46–7. Different currencies and methods of accounting make precise comparisons with the China trade difficult, but see the tables in Albert Feuerwerker, ‘Economic Trends in the Late Ch’ing, 1870–1911’ in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 11: Late Ch’ing, 180O-1911, Part 2, edited by Denis Twitchett and John Fairbank (Cambridge, England; New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 46–7. ‘Nothing doing’, Tokei Journal, 26 September 1874. Japan Times, 19 May 1866. Text reprinted in Fox, Britain and Japan, pp. 570–75. Russell Robertson to Parkes, no. 17, 17 April 1871; Robertson to F.O. Adams, no. 26, 6 June 1871, enclosing W. Van der Tuk and HJ. Hooper to Robertson, 31 May 1871, FO 262/218. Robertson to Parkes, nos 58 and 67, 30 August and 10 November 1875, FO 262/279. Hoare, Japan’s Treay Ports, pp. 129–33. See, for an example of Japanese action, Parkes to Derby, draft no. 156, 30 September 1876, FO 262/286. F.O. Adams to Lord Granville, draft no. 31, 5 February 1872, FO 262/223. For some of the claims, see Japanese Foreign Ministry, Nihon gaiko bunsho (Tokyo, 1936-), VI, nos 195–6, 200–4. London and China Express, 10 February 1888. More generally, see R. Hoffman, The AngloGerman Trade Rivalry (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1933). Sugiyama, Japan’s Industrialisation, p. 41.

376

38

39

40

41

42

43 44

45

46

47

48 49 50

51 52

53

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EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

Sir Paul Newall, Japan and the City of London (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1996), p. 6. Francis E. Hyde, Far Eastern Trade, 1860–1914 (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1973), p. 176. Yuen Choy Leng, ‘The Japanese Community in Singapore and Malaya before the Pacific War: its Genesis and Growth’, Journal of South East Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 2 (September 1978), 163–179. See Martina Deuchler, Confucian Gentlemen and Barbarian Envoys: The Opening of Korea 187S-1885 (Seattle: University of Washington Press for the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1977). Peter Duus notes that the 1876 treaty was ‘even more “unequal”’ than the treaties between the Bakufu and the West: Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: the Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1995), p. 48. Baba Tatsui, The English in Japan: What a Japanese Thought and What He Thinks about Them (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner, 1875). For Baba Tatsui more generally, see two works by N. Hagihara: ‘Baba Tatsui: An early Japanese liberal’, St Antony’s Papers Number 14: Far Eastern Affairs Number Three, edited by G.F. Hudson (London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), pp. 121–43; and Baba Tatsui (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1967). A more recent account is Helen Ballhatchet, ‘Baba Tatsui (1850–1888) and Victorian Britain’, in Britain and Japan 1859–91, edited by Cortazzi and Daniels, pp, 107–17. The broad theme of Checkiand’s Britain’s encounter with Meiji Japan. For House, see Toshio Yokoyama, Japan in the Victorian Mind: A Study of Stereotyped Images of a Nation, 1850–80 (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 102. See also E.H, House, ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 48 (January-June 1881), 610–23. Parkes felt that House wrote from personal hatred: Parkes to Salisbury’, draft no. 8, consular, 25 August 1878, FO 262/319. There is no full study of Brinkley, but some details of his career as a journalist, see Hoare, ‘British Journalists in Meiji Japan’ pp. 26–7. A theme of Yokoyama’s Japan in the Victorian Mind. For a couple of examples, see Sir Edwin Arnold, Seas and Lands (London: Longmans, 1892); and M, Bickersteth, Japan as We Saw it (London: Sampson Low, 1893). There is a more general examination of such writings in Pat Barr, ‘The writings on Japan of English and American visitors’, unpublished MA thesis, University of London, 1964. Japan Weekly Mail, 12 October 1878; Japan Gazette, 7 June 1879. Parkes did not like him, or others critical of his policies: see Sir Hugh Cortazzi, ‘Sir Harry Parkes 1828–1885’, in Nish (ed.), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, pp. 16–17. Copy of Watson to Lord Granville, no. 15 consular, 29 July 1872, Works 10/35/1, part 2. See Stanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London: Methuen, 1901), pp. 317, 371. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan (London: Kegan Paul, 1890), reprinted as Japanese Things, Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt: Charles E Tuttle Co., Inc., 1971), p. 362. Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China, p. 317. Fraser comes across as a man very sympathetic to the Japanese, even though he also shared something of Parkes’s China background. See the picture of Fraser portrayed by his wife, Mary, in Mrs H. Fraser, A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan (London: Hutchinson, 1899), 2 vols, and A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands (London: Hutchinson, 1911), 2 vols. Extraterritoriality in Japan, and the negotiations leading to its end, still lacks a study in English based on the vast array of archive material. The only published account is F.C, Jones, Extraterritoriality in Japan (London and New York: Yale University Press, 1931). In Japanese, there are a number of works, also dated and without benefit of the Western archives, including F. Yokata, ‘Nihon ni okeru chigaihoken’ (Extraterritoriality in Japan), in Kokkagakkai Gojunenshunen Kinen (Tokyo: Kokkagakkai, 1957). A recent example is Donald Calman, The Nature and Origins of Japanese Imperialism: a Reinterpretation of the Great Crisis of 1873 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).

NOTES

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Banno Junji, British Influence on Japanese Political Liberalism, 1873–1893, The Richard Storry Memorial Lecture, no. 8, 12 October 1995 (Oxford: St Antony’s College, 1997). See Satow’s diary entry for 21 October 1895, PRO 30/33/15/17. Similar views about arrogance created by the old treaties was expressed by the British consul general at Kobe in 1902, when foreign residents refused to pay the Japanese house tax: J.C. Hall to Sir C. MacDonald, 16 July 1902, FO 345/43. The 1911 treaty is generally neglected compared to that of 1894. While 1894 was clearly the more important, 1911 should not be ignored, over-shadowed as it was by the Japanese annexation of Korea – where it also had consequences. For a brief account of the circumstances of its negotiation, see W.W. McLaren, A Political History of japan during the Meiji Era 1867– 1912 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916; reprinted London: Frank Cass, 1965), pp. 333–4. Morgan Young, Imperial Japan 1926 38 (New York: William Morrow, 1938), pp. 295 and 320n. Even Young, no friend of the Japanese government, conceded that there might have been some mitigating circumstances for their action. The complexity of the issue was proved to the British ambassador’s satisfaction in 1909, when he referred a proposed Japanese solution to his two senior consuls general. Henry Bonar at Kobe described it as an acceptable compromise, while to J.C. Hall at Yokohama, it was ‘illogical, inequitable and impractical’: Sir C. MacDonald, ‘Annual Review for 1909’ in Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports, 1906 1960 (Farnham Common, Slough: Archive Research Ltd, 1994), 1, 129 31. MacDonald, ‘Annual Review for 1909’, in Japan and Dependencies, I, 134 5; for the end of the affair, see MacDonald, ‘Annual Report for 1910’, Japan and Dependencies, I, 214 15. MacDonald, ‘Annual Review for 1911’, Japan and Dependencies, 1, 284. Grace Fox, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates, 1832 1869 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner, 1940), pp. 183 et seq. See Hoare, ‘The “Bankoku Shimbun” Affair’. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, Chapter 5 ‘Municipal Affairs’. Japan Weekly Mail, 10 March 1883.

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This paper is largely based on the oral reminiscences of Ernest Cyril Comfort, a draughtsman, which were kindly made available to me by his son, Roland Comfort, of Avalon, New South Wales, Australia. I am also grateful to Ann Overstall, of Luxembourg, and niece of Ernest Comfort, who first told me about the memoirs. I am also grateful to Roland Comfort and to Ann and John Overstall for comments and corrections on a draft of this paper in October 2006. Cecil Lewis, Sagittarius Rising, London: Corgi Books, 1969, pp. 183 et seq. For example, see Mark R. Peattie, Sunburst: The Rise Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941, London: Chatham Publishing, 2002, pp. 17–20, which reproduces a fine picture of Sempill and his wife in Japanese costume; Antony Best, ‘Lord Sempill (1893–1965) and Japan, 1921– 41’, in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.) Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. lV, London: Japan Library, 2002, pp. 375–77. See also John Ferris, ‘A British “Unofficial” Aviation Mission and Japanese Naval Developments, 1919–1929, Journal of Strategic Studies, V, 416–39. For Sempill’s own account, see The Master of Sempill, ‘The British Aviation Mission in Japan’, Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society of London, XXII. John Ferris, ‘Double-Edged Estimates: Japan in the Eyes of the British Army and Royal Air Force, 1900–1939’, in Ian Gow and Yoichi Hirama, with John Chapman, (eds.), The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations 1600–2000, Vol. III, The Military Dimension, p. 100. See www.speedace.info/automotive_directory/mitsubishi.htm, accessed 13 September 2006, and Peattie, Sunburst, p. 24. Annual Report 1922 (Sir Charles Eliot to Lord Curzon no. 188, conf. 26 March 1923) in Japan an Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports 1906–1960, vol. 1, 560, and Annual Report 1923 (Eliot to Mr Macdonald, no.164, conf. 19 April 1924), Vol. 2, 35–37.

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Comfort tapes. Norman A. Barfield, ‘British pioneers of the Japanese aviation industry’, Airframe, October 1976, p. 6. ‘Sopwith Aviation Company’, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Sopwith, accessed 17 September 2006. ‘Sopwith Aviation Company’; Barfield, ‘British pioneers’. Comfort tapes. Much of what follows is drawn from this record. See US Centennial of Flight Commission at www.centennialofflight.gov/ essay/Mitsubishi/ Aero58.htm, accessed 20 September 2006. Annual Report 1922, in Japan and Dependencies, Vol. 1, 560. This became the main Japanese carrier aircraft, remaining in service until 1932, Peattie, Sunburst, pp. 24, 265–66. Robert Guttman, ‘The Triplane Fighter Craze of 1917’, Aviation History March 2001, at www. historynet.com/air_seaaircraft3032441.html?page=4&c=y, accessed 20 September 2006. Daniel H. Jones, ‘IJN Hosho and her aircraft’, Plastic Ship Modeller, (1995), No. 2, and at www.smmlonline.com/articles/hosho/hosho.html, accessed 20 September 2006. ‘Mitsubishi B1M/2MT, torpedo-bomber, 1923’, at http://avia.russian.ee/ air/japan/ mitsubishi b1m.html, accessed 20 September 2006. Peattie, Sunburst, pp. 35, 36. Annual Report 1922, in Japan and Dependencies, Vol. I, 560. Annual Report 1923, in Japan and Dependencies, Vol. II, 35. The Hōshō, which was laid down in 1917, was formally commissioned on 27 December 1922. She saw service in China and in the Second World War. After the war, she was used to repatriate Japanese, and was scrapped in 1947. She thus became the first and the last Japanese Imperial Naval aircraft carrier: Jones, ‘IJN Hosho and her aircraft’, accessed 20 September 2006. Peattie, Sunburst, p. 20. Reproduced in Barfield, ‘British Pioneers’. Ferris, ‘Double-Edged Estimates’, pp. 100–106. Barfield, ‘British Pioneers’.

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See J.E. Hoare, ‘Britain’s Japan Consular Service, 1859–1941’, in Hugh Cortazzi, editor and compiler, British Envoys in Japan 1859– 1972, Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2004. This volume also contains portraits of British heads of mission in Tokyo referred to in this chapter including Satow and others. J.E. Hoare, ‘The Centenary of Korean-British Diplomatic Relations: Aspects of British Interest and Involvement in Korea, 1600–1983’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, (TRASKB), Vol. 58 (1983), 1–34. See also the entries on Satow and Aston in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Nish, Ian.‘The Anglo-Korean Treaty of 1883’, in Ian Nish, ed. Aspects of Anglo-Korean Relations. London: International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, London School of Economics, 1984; Martina Deuchler, Confucian Gentlemen and Barbarian Envoys:The Opening of Korea 1875–1885, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977, pp. 162–3. National Archives of Great Britain (NA), Records of the Treasury T/1/14809, minutes on Sir Harry Parkes to Lord Granville on consular sites in Korea 16 October 1882. For a brief biography of Carles, see Brother Anthony of Taizé, ‘The Life of William Richard Carles’, TRASKB, vol.86 (2011), 171–76. P.F. Kornicki, ‘Aston, William George (1841–1911)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ article/30488, accessed 29 June 2012.] See also Kornicki’s biographical portrait of Aston in Britain and Japan 1859–1991, Themes and Personalities, ed. Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, Routledge, 1991.

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P.D. Coates, The China Consuls, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988, p.298. Plum post Korea may have been but as Coates points out, it had a strange effect on the mental and physical health of many of those posted there; see pp. 299 et seq. Ian Nish, ‘John Harrington Gubbins: An “Old Japan Hand”, 1871–1908’, in Cortazzi, British Envoys in Japan, p. 245. A.C. Hyde Lay, Four Generations in China, Japan and Korea, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1952, pp. 22–7. For the official summary of his career, see Foreign Qffice List for 1928. See the discussion of this issue in Chong Chin-sok, The Korean Problem in Anglo-Japanese Relations 1904–1910: Ernest Thomas Bethell and His Newspapers: The Daehan Maeil Sinbo and the Korea Daily News’, Seoul: NANAM Publications, 1987, pp. 129–36. Hoare, ‘Centenary of Korean-British Diplomatic Relations’, 16–17. The Order in Council ending extra-territoriality is in Godfrey E.P.Hertslet, compiler, Hertslet’s Commercial Treaties, vol. xxvi, London: Harrison and Sons, 1913, pp. 93–4. NA Foreign Office (FO) records369/2042, ‘Inspection of Seoul Consulate General’, report by Herbert Phillips, 15 July 1928; FO 371/31745/5183/33/61, A.B.Hutcheon (FO) to C.K.Ledger, Lourenço Marques, no. 13, 26 July 1942. FO 369/2364/K331/331/223, Office of Works to FO 4 January 1934, and subsequent papers. Minute by Crowe 3 September 1928 FO 369/2042, on ‘Inspection of Seoul Consulate General’. Douglas Moore Kendrick, ‘A centenary of Western studies on Japan’, Transactions of the Asiatic society of Japan, Third Series Vol. 14 (December 1978), 129–30. ‘Index to Transactions’, TRASKB, vol. 75 (2000), 35; Brother Anthony, ed., Discovering Korea at the Start of the Twentieth Century, Seoul: Academy of Korean Studies Press, 2011, p. 20. Ian Ruxton, ed., The Private Letters of British Envoy Sir Ernest Satow on Official Business from Japan and China (1895–1906), Morrisville. North Carolina: Lulu Press, 2007, pp. 276–7, Satow to Eric Barrington, 25 January 1902. Barrington was Private Secretary to the Secretary of State, with a major say in promotions. Satow was by 1902 in Beijing and in theory had nothing to do with promotions in Japan. Lay had been acting Japanese Secretary, but did not get the substantive post, going instead to Chemulp’o. Lay, Four Generations, p. 27. Phillips’ report 1928 and minuting. Against the comment about the inconvenience of having to move between the two houses, Crowe wrote ‘Nonsense!’ See Foreign Office List, various years, for his career moves. The account that follows is mostly based on J.E. Hoare, Embassies in the East: The Story of the British and their Embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present, Richmond, England: Curzon Press, 1999, pp. 188–92. Letter from Sir Arthur de la Mare 1 June 1984. See also his autobiography, Perverse and Foolish: A Jersey farmer’s son in the British Diplomatic Service, Jersey, Channel Islands: La Haule Books, 1994, pp. 69–70, and ‘The Japan Consular Service’, Japan Society Proceedings vol. 122 (Autumn 1993), 78–80. These three accounts differ slightly; the fullest and most scurrilous is his 1984 letter to me, from which the quotation is taken. Horace G. Underwood, Korea in war, Revolution and Peace: The Recollections of Horace G. Underwood, ed. and annotated by Michael J. Devine, Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2001, pp. 29–30. Letter of 1 June 1984. Underwood, Korea in war, Revolution and Peace, pp. 70–1, 80–5; Hoare, Embassies in the East, p. 192. See also papers relating to the treatment of people and property in the Japanese Empire and occupied areas in FO 371/35939. Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 196–7. Coates, China Consuls, pp. 319–32. Ian Ruxton, ed., The Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister to Japan, 1895–1900, Morrisville. North Carolina: Lulu Press 2005, I, 301–302. Mr Griffiths at Kobe was less than

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happy at the idea of going to Taiwan. He was probably right in his apprehension, for when he came to apply for early retirement in 1912, it was noted that he had spent more time in Taiwan than any other officer in the Japan service, and dated ‘the trouble with his nerves’ to his service at Tainan – FO 369/485/f.33579, Sir Claude Macdonald to the FO, no. 44 consular, 20 July 1912. NA PRO/30/33/5/13 (Satow Papers), Henry Bonar, Tamsui, to Satow 2 April 1897. The Foreign Qffice List notes that Bonar was appointed as consul at Tainan on 21 August 1896, but adds ‘Did not proceed.’ He did get as far as Tamsui, however, where he was formally listed as consul from December 1896 to August 1898. ‘Annual Report on Formosa 1924’, in Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports 1906–60, no place: Archive Editions, 1994, vol.9, 367. See the report at FO 369/2907/K5542/5542/233. When the consulate was reopened after 1945, it continued at Tamsui. Only after Britain and the People’s Republic of China raised their diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level in 1972 was Tamsui finally given up. Even then, true to form, it was many years before the site was disposed of. Today it is a museum, and the semi-official British presence in Taiwan is in Taipei. FO 369/2907/K5542/5542/233, Tilley to E.F.Gye, 18 June 1929. On cars, Phillips noted in his inspection of Kobe around the same period that the consul general there thought that ‘. . . a motor-car will soon be necessary for the Consul-General at Kobe’, but Tamsui seemed to have one – FO 369/2042, Inspection of the Kobe Consulate General. See further correspondence on FO 369/2907/K5542/5542/233. Japan and Dependencies, no place: Archive Editions, 1994, vol.10, pp. 475 et seq., D.W Kermode to Sir Robert Craigie, Tokyo, no. 64, 17 June 1941. See FO 371/31745/5183/33/61, A.B. Hutcheon (FO) to C.K. Ledger, Lourenço Marques, no. 13, 26 July 1942. FO 369/155/f.9086, Sir Claude Macdonald, Tokyo, to Sir Edward Grey, consular no. 11, 18 February 1908. D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825, London: Longman, 1971, p. 226. FO 364/545/f.39976, Sir C. Greene to Sir Edward Grey, no. 220, 13 August 1913, memorandum by Crowe, 12 August 1913. Lay, Four Generations, pp. 24–5. FO 371/35939/F 2392/6/23, Lord Clausen to Mr. Eden, 6 May 1943. FO 369/1978/K16217/5372/223, ‘Health of Sir H. Parlett’, December 1927. See also Foreign Office List 1929. Japan and Dependencies, vol. 13, 8, 20–3. Japan and Dependencies, vol. 1, 210. Japan and Dependencies, vol. 13, 40, 147–8. FO 369/391/f32311, H. Rumbold, chargé d’affaires Tokyo, to Grey, consular no. 42, 31 July 1911 and enclosures. FO 369/2042/K10347/10347/223, Phillips report 15 July 1928. Dening, who had been born in Japan and spoken Japanese from childhood, had not passed the interpreter’s exam, even though he had joined the Japan service in 1920. When he complained of lack of time to study, Crowe was not sympathetic. FO 369/2151/K2207/625/223, record of a call on the FO by M.E. Dening 3 February 1930; minute by Sir E. Crowe, 6 February 1930. His subsequent career was a great success; Roger Buckley, ‘Sir Esler Dening Ambassador to Japan 1951–57, in Nish, ed. British Envoys in Japan, pp. 173–8. These two paragraphs are based on the reports reproduced in Japan and Dependencies, vol. 13. Japan and Dependencies, vol. 13, 435–6, letter from Dening to Sir Francis Lindley, no. 138, 31 December 1931. Japan and Dependencies, vol. 13, 493, FO to Lindley, no. 34, 23 January 1934, and to K.M.B. Ingram, Beijing, no. 48, 23 January 1934. FO 371/35939/F 2392/6/23, Lord Clausen to Mr Eden, 6 May 1943.

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Coates, China Consuls, p. 487. Sec papers on FO 369/2364 from 1934, and Dening’s entry in the Foreign Office List. The above account is based on papers in Japan and Dependencies, vol. 19, Political Reports Manchukuo Political and Economic 1937–41. FO 371/35939/F 2392/6/23, Lord Clausen to Mr Eden, 6 May 1943. Some are listed in Cortazzi, ed. British Envoys in Japan, Appendix V.

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For background, see J.E. Hoare ‘Britain’s Japan Consular Service, 1859–1941, in Hugh Cortazzi, comp, and ed., British Envoys in Japan 1852–1972 (Folkestone, Japan Library, 2004), pp. 260–270. He left no papers but did leave photograph albums, now held by the family. Official correspondence and other papers about him survive in the National Archives. He features frequently in Sir Ernest Satow’s diaries and letters, accessible thanks to the painstaking work of Ian Ruxton, and is described in an as yet unpublished memoir by his junior colleague and later son-in-law, Oswald White, which the family have kindly made available to me. He was an active Positivist and features in The Positive Review and other publications. Hugo Read, ‘John Carey Hall’, unpublished note. Mr Read, a great-great-grandson of Hall, kindly shared his notes with me, and also agreed to the use of the photograph of Hall, taken in 1916 during his retirement. Who was Who also notes that the family had County Antrim connections. Now a major Northern Ireland school but then new. See www.col-eraineai.com/schoolhistory.aspx (accessed 11 March 2015). Queen’s College Belfast began as part of the Queen’s (later Royal) University of Ireland in 1845 and took its first students in 1849. It became an independent university in 1908. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Queen%27s_University_ Belfast (accessed 12 March 2015). Foreign Office Records, China (FO 17)/619, Hall to Lord Stanley, 20 August 1867 and subsequent papers from October-December 1867. The principal of Queen’s College wrote that Hall was just the man he would have recommended and that he had ‘excellent antecedents and high character’: Letter to T.H. Sanderson, FO, 24 August 1867. J.C. Hall, ‘My early Kobe Reminiscences’, Japan Chronicle Jubilee Edition (Kobe 1918), pp. 40–43. Again, thanks to Hugo Read for alerting me to this, and to Peter O’Connor of Musashino University in Tokyo for supplying a PDF. Unpublished mss: Oswald White, ‘All Ambition Spent: 38 Years in the Consular Service in Japan’, pp. 35 and 36. White was Hall’s son-in-law, and the great-grandfather of Hugo Read, who kindly allowed me to use a PDF of this memoir. White says that the accident happened while Hall was a student in Dublin, but this may be a slip of the pen. In August 1872 Satow wrote to his friend and colleague, William Aston, that ‘Hall has turned out [a] very good Japanese scholar, and his translations generally read very well’. Satow to Aston 19 August 1872, Ian Ruxton, ed., Sir Ernest Satow’s Private Letters to W G. Aston and F. V. Dickins: The Correspondence of a Pioneer Japanologist from 1870 to 1918 (Lulu Publications, 2007), p. 3. Okuma, Shigenobu, comp., Fifty Years of New Japan (2 vols. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1910), I, 309–310; Maeda Ai, ed. James A Fujii, Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 31–33. The Foreign Office List (London 1921) notes the Japanese government’s thanks for Hall’s services. White’s memoir (page 34) misdates the commission to 1881, when Hall was in London. Jon Hōru [John Hall], Eikoku saibanjo ryakusetsu [The outline of English judicial system] (Tokyo 1872), referred to in Mutsunaga Masaaki, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, Zinbun: Annals of the Institute Research in Humanities – Kyoto University Vol. 26 (1992), 67, at http:/ hdl.handle. net/2433/48699, accessed 21 April 2015.

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Hall, ‘Kobe reminiscences’, pp. 40–43. On deafness cutting him off, see White’s memoir, p. 36. Satow wrote to Aston that Hall ‘. . .does not seem capable of continuous application, otherwise his penal code would have appeared before this’. Satow to Aston 20 June 1875, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 10. White thought that the problem was that, to Hall, Japanese literature was lightweight compared to China: White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 36. This was not very different from Satow’s private view of Japanese literature – see his letter of 18 June 1900 to F.V. Dickins, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 220. The penal code work appeared in the TASJ between 1906–13. Douglas Moore Kenrick, ‘A centenary of Western studies of Japan: The First Hundred Years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, TASJ, 3rd series Vol. 14 (Dec. 1978), p. 95; Ota Yuzo, Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1998), pp 48–49. Christopher Roberts, The British Courts and Extra-territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899, (Leiden and Boston: Global Oriental, 2014), p. 53. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 36. The rules on leave changed in 1874 so that some leave could be accumulated, travelling time was allowed, an officer received half his fare and his family one third. Staff received one month’s fully-paid leave, and then went on to half-pay. This was not generous, but it was an improvement. Hall would have been one of the early beneficiaries of the new arrangements. D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825, (London: Longman, 1971), pp. 29–30. One of the leading lights of this group, Frederic Harrison, was Professor of Jurisprudence, International and Constitutional Law under the Council of Legal Education and lectured at the Middle Temple when Hall was there. Mutsunaga, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, 59–60. Satow poured out his frustration in a series of letters to Aston. By June, Satow was ‘getting over my disappointment at Hall’s announcing his intention of not getting here before late December.’ He wondered if Hall would return at all, writing on 22 June that ‘Hall’s eyes are as you know bad. I am afraid he is a lame duck after all, and his infirmities may induce the FO to offer him a pension.’ By August, Satow had given up any plans for Beijing. But he was not without sympathy for Hall: ‘One cannot help pitying poor Hall for his misfortunes, which I am afraid are irremediable’. See a series of letters in Ruxton, ed. Satow’s Private Letters, pp. 23–57. For Gubbins, see Foreign Office List 1929, and Ian Nish, ‘John Harrington Gubbins, 1852–1929’ in Ian Nish, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits vol. II (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1997), pp. 107–119. Oswald White wrote that while Gubbins’ Sino-Japanese dictionary was probably the best available, native Japanese found his spoken language confusing ‘because he used learned words that were rarely used in the colloquial’. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 16. For Hall’s poor relations with Plunkett and renewed eye problems, see Satow to Aston, 22 April 1886, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 86. On Plunkett, see Hugh Cortazzi, ‘Sir Francis Plunkett, 1835–1907: British Minister at Tokyo, 1884–87’, in Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits vol. IV (London: Japan Library, 2002), pp. 28–40. The text of the inquest and the trial, published as a pamphlet by the Japan Gazette, is available at http://pdsJib.harvard.edu/pds/view/5799 858?n=l&s=4&printThumbnails=no, accessed 9 April 2015. See also Molly Whittington – Egan, Murder on the Bluff: The Carew Poisoning Case (Castle Douglas, Scotland: Neil Williams Publishing, 2012). Oswald White thought that he would have liked to follow that path. To White, however, his determination and sympathy for the underdog meant that he would have made a better advocate than a judge. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, pp. 34–35. Parkes to Lord Granville, no. 7, 12 January 1883, enclosing Hall to Parkes, 11 December 1882, in Foreign Office Confidential Print, The Affairs of Corea I, in Park Il-keun, ed., Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials relating to Korea 1866–1886, (Seoul: Shinmundang,

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1982), pp. 146–56. TASJ, 1st series, vol. XI (1882/83). Another colleague, Henry Bonar, visited in March 1883; Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, new monthly series vol. 5, no. 5 (May 1883), which also carried Hall’s paper. They again appeared as a double act in the 1882–1883 volume of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Nothing substantial was removed from either text before the FO passed it on.I am grateful to Brother Anthony of Taizé, the current president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, for this reference. See his webpage http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/ anthony/1882Hall. pdf (accessed 21 March 2015). Pierre Laffitte, trans. J. C. Hall, A General View of Chinese Civilisation and the Relation of the West to China (London: Watts and Co., 1887). When challenged, Hall said that one of Satow’s ‘recent letters to him had “warn[ed] him off the field of Japanese scholarship’”. They parted on bad terms; Satow wrote that he ‘left without giving my hand’ and that Hall was ‘an ass to purposefully make enemies of those who would have been his friends’. Satow to Aston, 13 July 1886, in Ruxton, ed., Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, p. 167. Hall added a warm note on Satow’s arrival to an official letter in July 1895: ‘Satow received a hearty & spontaneous welcome on his landing yesterday from the merchant community, and came thro’ the ordeal of making an impromptu speech very well. He is more affable than before and looks much the same; a little mellowed by age and with a more marked stoop’. Hall to H.S. Wilkinson, private, 29 July 1895, FO 656/70. On the Office of Works, see Mark Bertram, Room for Diplomacy: Britain’s Diplomatic Buildings Overseas, 1800–2000 (Reading, England: Spire Books Ltd., 2011), especially pp. 51–54. On housing and leave, see various letters in Ian Ruxton, ed., The, British Minister in Japan, 1895–1900, Vol. I, (Lulu Publications, 2005), and Ruxton, ed., Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow. Hall was cross because his German colleague wrote to him in German. He was firmly told that a fellow consul could write in his own language, in French or English, or, if he so chose, in the language of the country in which he was resident. Satow also drew attention to Hall’s somewhat dilatory approach to his work, remarking of one despatch that ‘I suppose the question is not a pressing one or you would not have left it slumber for two whole months’. Minor faults in his trade reports were noted, as was the failure to keep abreast of Japanese rules and regulations see various letters in Ruxton ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan vol. 1. Hall to Satow 7 March 1898, in Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan, Vol. I, pp. 350–351. Hall praised his staff for being equally conscientious. F.W. Playfair, pro-consul at Kobe, wrote in autumn 1898 that Hall had developed a bad chill on the mountain, then rheumatism, and had spent most of September and early October in bed. Satow sent notes hoping he would get better. See Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan, Vol. I, p. 373–376. He was ill again in September 1899. Before antibiotics, the effects of relatively minor ailments could be very debilitating and Hall was not the only one to suffer in Japan. He was, however, rather regularly affected than some of his colleagues. Hall to Sir C. Macdonald, 6 July 1902, in FO 345/43. Japan Chronicle Jubilee Edition pp. 29 et seq. On Hall’s ‘long hard fight’ over the hospital, see Peter Ennals, Opening a Window to the West: The Foreign Concession at Kobe, Japan, 1868–1899 (Toronto, Canada: Toronto University Press, 2013, p. 200, n. 80. The newspaper later maintained that Young never became a Positivist, yet he had been involved with the movement since his youth and firmly rejected all religious beliefs. Obituary of Frederic Harrison, Japan Chronicle 25 January 1923. For Young’s beliefs, see Peter O’Connor, The English-language Press Networks of Asia, 1918–1945 (Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2012), p. 99. ‘In such work, he had no equal. He was a traditional bookworm; he lived in the society of his books . . . Dusty records that appal the average reader had no terrors for him and he would browse happily among them, digesting and assimilating what was useful and rejecting the

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remainder.’ White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 35. Although the Hague Tribunal accepted the Western governments’ case, the Japanese did not agree and the issue dragged on until 1937, when Japan unilaterally cancelled all the remaining leases: J.E. Hoare, Japan9s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (Folkestone, England: Japan Library, 1994), pp. 168–169. White noted that when Hall went on leave in 1906, it ‘made very little difference to the work. Many Consul-Generals (sic) at that time, of whom Mr Hall was one, took their office work very easily. I should say that on average he spent slightly more than two hours a day in the office. No inconvenience resulted…’ Papers in FO 369/87, at folios 10676, 12994, 15116, 19381, all of 1907. This was modelled on the Japan Society of London, which dated from 1892. See Satow to Dickins, 21 July 1906, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 244. The Positive Science of Morals: its Opportuneness, its Outlines, and its Chief Applications, by the Late Pierce Lafitte; Translated by J. Carey Hall (London: Watts and Co., 1908); Satow to Aston 1 December 1908, in Ruxton, ed., Satow9s Private Letters, p. 103. There was no standard system for these reports. Some were excellent, others not, and all were subject to the vagaries of publication. Businessmen and consuls were at one in complaining about their lack of usefulness. Platt, Cinderella Service, pp. 104–105. See also D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), which deals with the issue more deeply. Satow thought that the ambassador, Macdonald, intended to propose Hall to replace Henry Campbell in Seoul. This might have made sense, Seoul was even less busy than Yokohama, and there were still some legal duties there, but Satow did not think it was a good idea ‘for Hall is as deaf as a post and his knowledge of Japanese is poor’. In the event, Bonar replaced Campbell: Satow to Aston, 1 Dec. 1908, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, pp. 103104. Macdonald referred the matter to London, and Hall received a severe reprimand for his conduct. Sir C. Macdonald, Tokyo, Annual Review for 1909, in Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports 190660, (No place: Archive Editions, 1994), vol. 1, 134–136; Minute by W. Langley, no date, on telegram from Tokyo, 20 June 1912, FO 369/485, folio 36209.For the story as seen from the YC&AC side see chapter on ‘Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan1 by Mike Galbraith in Hugh Cortazzi, ed, .Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2015). In 1908, his second daughter, Kathleen Elizabeth, married Oscar White, who had received ‘fudging consent’ to the marriage. The other daughters remained at home, but his sons left, one to Australia and one to South Africa. White, ‘All ambition spent’, pp. 36, 137; Satow noted in 1913 that Mrs Hall had suffered a stroke: Satow to Dickins, 26 July 1913, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 299. Kenrick, ‘A centenary of Western studies of Japan: The First Hundred Years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, TASJ, 3rd series Vol. 14, passim. This was reprinted as late as 1979 – see J.C. Hall, Japanese Feudal Laws, (Washington D.C.: University Publications of America, 1979). For his Positivist influences and contributions, see Mitsunaga, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, 67–74. Mitsunaga says that a partial list of his publications appeared in the Positivist Review January 1922. See Platt, Cinderella Service, pp. 44–48 on pension arrangements. The FO’s Chief Clerk felt that it would be best if he retired: ‘He is a very able man but is now long past his work & is liable to be a cause of embarrassment to the Embassy, cf. his vagaries with regard to the Yokohama cricket ground in (?) 1909. He is now 68 years old & quite deafbesides being somewhat pigheaded & obstinate. He was severely admonished in (?) 1909, but to everyone’s surprise, held on to his post and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)’: Minute by W. Langley, no date, on telegram from Tokyo, 20 June 1912, FO 369/485, folio 36209. In his speech, Hall said that as an adherent of a ‘new scientific faith – the Religion of Humanity1 – it would have been inconsistent to hold a religious ceremony. London and China Telegraph 28 July 1913, quoted in Read, ‘John Carey Hall’, unpublished note.

NOTES

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‘Hall, John Carey, C.M.G, ISO, Positivist’, in Joseph McCabe, comp., A biographical dictionary of modern Rationalists, (London: Watts and Co., 1920). Satow diary notes for 10 March 1914 and 17 Feb. 1915, in Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Japan, 1895–1900, Vol. I, p. 429, n. 373. The grave is still there, no. 734 in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery, with dedications to both of them. Patricia McCabe, Gaijin Bocki: Foreigners Cemetery, Yokohama, Japan (London: BACSA, 1994), p. 116; somebody misread the name as John Garey Hall. His younger son, Vernon, who had gone to Australia, joined the Australian Expeditionary Force, was killed in France in October 1917. His remaining children all died abroad, Kathleen White in Kobe, where her husband was Consul General, two other daughters in Australia, and one in the United States. His eldest son died in South Africa, after making a fortune in gold share dealing. Details in Read, ‘John Carey Hall’

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Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983. Most recently in Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power. Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2016. This series and related volumes were published under the auspices of the Japan Society, London, from 1999 to 2016. Most were edited by Hugh Cortazzi, former British ambassador to Japan. I edited Vol. III. The book was J.E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899. Folkestone, Kent, 1994. The reviewer was F.G. Notehelfer in Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 50, no. 3 (Autumn 1995), pp. 403–406. Elegantly examined in Marius B. Jensen, Japan and Its World: Two Centuries of Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 9–24. Themes examined in works such as Ronald P. Toby. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984; Derek Masserella. A World Elsewhere: Europe’s encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990; and Marius B. Jansen. China in the Tokugawa World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Extraterritoriality, once a relatively specialised aspect of international law, has in recent years received more attention. See, for example, Pär Kristoffer Cassel. Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth Century Japan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; Douglas Clark. Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842–1943). Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 3 vols. 2015; and, specifically on Japan, Christopher Roberts. The British Courts and Extra–territoriality in Japan, 1859– 1899. Leiden, The Netherlands: Global Oriental, 2014. W.G. Beasley. Great Britain and the Opening of Japan. London: Luzac, 1951, remains a good account of the issues over the two types of treaty. See also the detailed examination of the first treaties in William McOmie, The Opening of Japan 1853–1855. Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2006. Curiously enough, exactly the same thing happened in the British case when the first treaty was negotiated with Korea in 1882. Admiral Willis’s treaty was replaced without ratification by one that allowed trade and residence on similar terms to those that prevailed in China and Japan. See J.E. Hoare, Embassies in the East. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999, pp. 171–172. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements, pp. 6–7, and p. 195, note 26. Rutherford Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon: A Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence in Japan. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 2 vols., 1863, I, pp. 37–38. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp. 24–25. One such family’s links began with the arrival of John Carey Hall as a student interpreter in the Japan Consular Service in 1868. See Hugo Read, ed.,

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Consul in Japan: Oswald White’s Memoir: ‘All Ambition Spent’, Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017. Basil Hall Chamberlain and W.B. Mason, Handbook for Travellers in Japan. London: John Murray, 9th revised ed., 1913, p. 136. Alcock, Capital of the Tycoon. See the United Kingdom National Archives: Foreign Office records, FO 262/236, Exchange of letters between Russell Robertson, British Consul at Yokohama and the firm of Wilkies and Robison, who had complained about the conduct of the Yokohama Customs House, enclosed in Russell Robertson, Consul at Yokohama to F.O. Adams, Chargé d’Affaires Tokyo, no. 4, 9 January 1872. An interesting selection of court cases, based on contemporary newspaper reports, can be found at: http://www.law. mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/colonial_ cases/less_developed/ china_and_japan/ (accessed 26 May 2017). Some of the attacks are listed in Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp. 10–11. See also Alcock, Capital of the Tycoon, I, 240–241, 331–332 and 341; Eliza R. Scidmore. Jinrikisha Days in Japan. London Harper Brothers, reviseded., 1902, p. 28. Because of the fear of attack, many foreigners carried pistols, even if these were unlikely to be of much use in an attack from behind, the usual method of the Japanese: E.M. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan: An Inner History of the Japanese Reformation. London; Seeley Service, 1921, p. 47. For examples of the photographs, see Terry Bennett, Photography in Japan 1853–1912. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2006, pp. 20, 62, 67, 107. For the Illustrated London News and Japan, see Terry Bennett, comp. Japan and the Illustrated London News; Complete Record of Reported Events 1853–1899. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2006. When I made this point in my 1994 book, Professor F.G. Notehelfer challenged it, noting that a number of foreign residents could speak and a few even read Japanese; see Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 50, no. 3 (Autumn 1995), pp. 403–406. However, all the evidence I have seen points in the opposite direction. A few people did master the language, but most did not, relying, as Satow, who did know it, put it: “the foreigners who could speak Japanese might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet all knew a little. [while] A sort of bastard language had been invented for the use of trade” – see Satow, Diplomat in Japan, p. 23. This situation continued into the twentieth century. The trajectory from Western through Japanese to Chinese photographers can be followed in great detail in Terry Bennett, History of Photography in China. London: Quaritch, 3 vols. 2009, 2010, 2013. See also Mio Wakita, “Sites of ‘Disconnectedness’: The Port City of Yokohama, Souvenir Photography, and Its Audience” in Transcultural Studies no. 2 (2013), at: http://heiup. uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/ issue/view/1369 (accessed 28 May 2017). See “Ukiyōe. ‘Images of the Floating World’” in Louis Frédéric. Japan: An Encyclopedia. Trans. Käthe Roth. Cambridge Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 1101– 1102. Hosono Masanobu. Nagasaki Prints and Early Copperplates. Trans. and adapted by Lloyd R. Craighill. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978, especially pp. 32–57. My real introduction to the rich world of the Japanese prints came in Tokyo in 1966, when I bought a copy of Tamba Tsuneo. Nishiki ni miru Meiji tenno to Meiji jidai (“The Meiji emperor and the Meiji period as seen in colour prints”), Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1966, and later discovered the same author’s collection Yokohama ukiyōe/Reflections on the culture of Yokohama in the days of the port opening, Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1962. Temba’s images are small, and a much better perspective as well as a good cross-section of prints can be found in Ann Yonemura, Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth Century Japan. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1990. There are many other collections. The Illustrated London News is as good a way as any to track the development. Mrs Hugh Fraser, A Diplomat’s Wife in Japan. London: Hutchinson, 2 vols. 1899, I, 199. The best recent account of treaty revision is Michael Auslin, Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.

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John Carey Hall was, according to the ambassador, blind, deaf and stubborn. For very different versions of the story, see Mike Galbraith, “Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan”, in Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits (Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2015), Vol. IX, pp. 135–147, and J. E. Hoare, “John Carey Hall 1844–1921”, in Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2016, Vol. X, pp. 278–291. Murata Seiji, Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi (The 30-Year History of Kobe Open Port), Kobe: Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi kinenkai, 2 vols. 1898. Reprinted in a facsimile edition, Kobe: Chugai Publishers, 1966. Yokohama-shi, The city of Yokohama, past and present. Yokohama: Yokohama Publishing Office. 1908. “Japan’s postcard history”, at http://photojpn.org/PPC/gui/intro.html (accessed 29 May 2017), has a brief account. For collections of postcards, see: http://www.oldtokyo.com/ (accessed 12 March 2017) and http:// www.oldphotosjapan.com/ (accessed 30 May 2017). Books on postcards include Brian Burke–Gaffney. Nagasaki: A History in Picture Postcards/ Hana no Nagasaki arubumu Nagasaki hyakunene hizo engaki. Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 2005. There are many others. A major collection of postcards is the “A Neil Pedlar Collection” in the Yokohama Archives of History, which uses them frequently in publications: http:// www.kaikou. city.yokohama.jp/en/reading-room.html See Eric C. Han, Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama 1894–1972. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 2014. On food, including Chinese food, see Katarzyna J., Cwiertka, “Eating the World: Restaurant Culture in Early Twentieth Century Japan”, European Journal of East Asian Studies Vol. 2, no. 1 (March 2003), pp. 89–116 and her Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity. London: Reaktion Books, 2006. http://www.yokohamajapan.com/things-to-do/jacks-tower/ (accessed 30 May 2017). A brief account can be found at: http://travel.at-nagasaki.jp/en/what-to-see/11/ (accessed 1 June 2017). A recent biography of Thomas Glover is Alexander McKay, Scottish Samurai: Thomas Blake Glover 1838–1911. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1993. Oura Cathedral, now a minor basilica, was the first foreign building to be designated a National Treasure, in 1933. It is likely to be nominated as a World Heritage Site by the Japanese government in 2018. “Nagasaki’s Oura Church among Christian sites eyed for UNESCO Heritage listing”, Japan Times, 25 July 2016. Yokohama henshushitsu, eds. Yokohamashi–shi (“History of Yokohama City”). Yokohama: Yokohamashei, 5 vols. 1958. A good-on-line guidebook to Kobe’s museum is downloadable as a PDF – see: www.city. kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institution/museum/pdf/kcm_e_guide.pdf (accessed 26 December 2017). See the online brochure at: http://www.kaikou.city.yokohama.jp/en/ Its online brochure is much fuller than most: http://www.japanvisitor. com/japan-city-guides/ yamate (accessed 1 June 2017). John Ryall, “The Namamugi Incident”  Acumen: The Magazine of the British chamber of Commerce in Japan, August 2012, at  https://bccjacumen.com  (accessed 10 July 2017). A print of the incident exists – see:  http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_ online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=15365001 &objectid=783270 (accessed 10 July 2017). A good account is available at: http://www.kyu-eikoku-ryoujikan.com/ english/ (accessed 1 June 2017). “British Embassy/s Meiji Era villa reopens in Tochigi”, Japan Times 30 June 2016. Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, “Introduction” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, pp. 10–11. Albert Feuerwerker, “Japanese Imperialism in China: A Commentary” in Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, eds.  The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 431–438.

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An interesting analysis can be found in Yoshida Mitsukuni, Tanaka Ikko, and Sesoko Tsune, eds., The Hybrid Culture: What Happened When East and West Met. Hiroshima, Japan: Mazda, 1984. Finn, Dallas, Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan. New York: Wetherill, 1995. J.E. Hoare, “Treaty Ports and Treaty Revision. Delusions of Grandeur?” in The Revision of Japan’s Early Commercial Treaties. London: LSE STICERD Discussion No. IS/99?377, 1999, pp. 15–24. The development of the museum in Meiji Japan is examined in Noriko Aso, Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. See Robert Bickers,  Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination. London: Allen Lane, 2017, Chap. 12.

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S. J. Whitwell, “Britons in Korea,” Transactions the Korea Branch, Royal Asistic Society (TKBRAS), vol. 41 (1964), 1–56; A. W. Hamilton, “British Interest in Korea, 1866–1884,” Korea Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, (Jan. 1982), 24–41. A recent Korean account is: Kim Ki Yeol, “The Early Anglo-Korean Relations in the 19th Century,” Sahakchi, no. 17, (Nov. 1983), 47–86. Michelborne’s charter was in breach of the East India Company’s monopoly. That, plus the fact that he had not paid his share to the Company, made him unpopular with his erstwhile fellow merchant-adventurers: Sir G. Birdwood, editor, (assisted by W. Foster), The Register of Letters etc. of the Gouvernor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, 1600–1619, (London, 1873, reprinted London, 1965), p. 134, note 2. The text of the charter can be found in State Papers Docquets (SP38)/7. J. H. Longford, The Story of Korea (London and Leipzig, 1911), pp. 196–98; G. N. Curzon. Problems of the Far East, (London, revised edition, 1896) p. 168, note 2. Curzon, Problems of the Far East, p. 178, note. Longford, Story of Korea, p. 225. See also Augus Hamilton, Korea, (New York, 1904), p. 169. Basil Hall, Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea and the Great LooChoo Island, (London, 1818, reprinted Seoul 1975); J. M’Leod The Voyage of the Alceste to the Ryukyus and South East Asia, (London, 1817, reprinted Rutland, Vt., 1963). A Korean account of this visit can be found in G. Paik, “The Korean Record on Captain Basil Hall’s Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Korea,” TKBRAS, vol. xxiv, (1934), 15–19. Charles Gutzlaff, Journal of Three Voyages Along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832, and 1833; With Notices of Siam, Corea and the Loo Choo Islands (London, 1834, reprinted New York, 1968). See also Kim Key-huick, The Last Phase the East Asian World Order: Korea, Japan and the Chinese Empire, 1860–1882, (Berkeley, 1980), p. 40. Ko˘mun-do may have been named Port Hamilton in 1845 after the then Secretary of the British Admiralty, by Captain Belcher of HMS Samarang: Longford, Story of Korea, p. 266. For regular visits by the British Navy, see H. C. St. John, Notes and Sketches from the Wild Coasts of Nipon (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 247–48. Both the Russian and the United States’ navies were interested in the islands: G. A. Lensen, Balance of Intrigue: International Rivalry in Korea and Manchuria, 1884–1899, (Tallahassee, 1982), I, 8; R. E. Johnson, Far China Station: The US Navy in Asian Waters, (Annapolis, 1979), p. 131. Park Il-keun, editor, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea, 1866–1886, (Seoul, 1982), p. 488, “Memorandum by Sir E. Herslett on the Importance of Port Hamilton (Corea)”, 5 Feb 1885. J. E. Hoare, “British Missionary Interest in Korea before 1910”, International Studies, (Papers of the International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, London School of Economics) 1984/1, pp. 1–14.

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Hoare, “British Missionary Interest”, pp. 1–2; M. W. Oh, “The Two Visits of the Rev. R. J. Thomas to Korea”, TKBRAS, vol. xii (1933), 95–124. Korean Mission Field, vol. xi, no. 11 (Nov. 1915). A new book, by Dr. James Grayson, gives an account of Ross’s life and reproduces some of his writings. Kim Cho˘ng Hyo˘n (J. Grayson), Han’guku˘i ch’o˘t so˘n’gyosa (Korea’s First Missionary), (Seoul, 1982). The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (TASJ), for example, contain a number of such works, published in the 1870’s and early 1880’s: D. M. Kenrick, “A Century of Western Studies of Japan”, TASJ, 3rd series, vol. 14, (Dec. 1978), especially appendix 10. Longford, Story of Korea, p. 226. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 82 et seq., Sir T. Wade, (Peking) to Earl Granville, no. 5, confid., 18 February 1881, enclosing a memorandum by Mr. W. D. Spence, Sept. 1880. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 70–72, J. G. Kennedy, (Tokyo) to Granville, no. 131, very confid., 27 July 1880, forwarding a memorandum by E. M. Satow, 26 July 1880; see also Kim “Early Anglo-Korean Relations”, pp. 60–64. Lensen, Balance of Intrigue, I, 17. See also, Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 64–65, Kennedy to Granville, no. 131, very confid., 27 July 1880. K. Morinosuke, Nichi-Bei gaikōshi, (“History of Japanese-American Diplomatic Relations”) (Tokyo, 1958), pp. 27–32; I. H. Nish, “The Anglo-Korean Treaty of 1883”, International Studies, 1984/1, p. 17. It has been written of Admiral Stirling’s 1854 treaty with Japan that “. . .his results were disappointing to almost everybody except himself ”: W. G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, 1834–1858, (London, 1951), p. 113. Nish, “Anglo-Korean Treaty,” pp. 17–18. For a more favourable view of the Willis treaty, see A. R. Michell, “The Abortive Anglo-Korean Treaty of 1882”, Anglo-Korean Society Bulletin (Autumn/Winter 1982), pp. 15–20. A contemporary British voice in its favour, at least privately, was that of Sir Robert Hart, head of the Chinese customs service in Peking: J. K. Fairbank, K. F. Bruner and E. M. Matheson, The I G in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868–1907, (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1975), I, 455–57, Hart to J. D. Campbell, A/47, 24 March 1883. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 141–43, J. Mollison to Granville, 9 Jan 1883. Similar letters were received from the Shanghai, Hong Kong, and London chambers. Parkes told the Korean envoys in Japan in December 1882 that the Willis treaty was “…of no value to my country. . .”, a view with which he said they had agreed. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 134–38, Parkes to Granville, no. 176, confid., 29 December 1882. Nish, “Anglo-Korean Treaty”, pp. 18–24. See also Martina Deuchler, Confucian Gentlemen and Barbarian Envoys: The Diplomacy of Korea, 1875–1885, (Seattle and London, 1975), pp. 162–63. The assertion is made from time to time – e.g. Han Wookeun, History of Korea (Seoul, 1970), pp. 385–86; Dong A Ilbo 31 Jan 1983 – that one British objection to the treaty was its failure to allow the import of opium. This is not the case, as Parkes himself made clear in discussions he had with the Chinese statesman most involved with Korean affairs, Li Hung-chang, when they met as Parkes was on his way to Seoul in October 1883: Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 375–78, Parkes to Granville, no. 37, confid., 3 Nov. 1883. Parkes’s official report on the final stages of the negotiations is in Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 388–97, Parkes to Granville, no. 42, 6 Dec. 1883. He recorded more informal views and impressions in letters to his eldest daughter: S. Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China, (London 1900, reprinted Taipei 1968), pp. 357–60. Lane-Poole, Parkes in China, pp. 362–63, Currie to Parkes, 22 Feb 1884. As well as in major areas such as tariffs, Parkes was extremely careful over apparently minor matters such as foreigners’ cemeteries: J. E. Hoare, “The British in Korea: Graves and Monuments”, Korea Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, (March 1983), 28–29.

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Deuchler, Confucian Gentlemen, pp. 180–81. This was through the use of the “most-favourednation” clause, a device whereby the benefits gained by one treaty power were automatically extended to all others. Longford, Story of Korea, pp. 316–19. Parkes’s official account is in Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 483–84, Parkes to Granville, “No. 1 Corean Mission”, 28 April 1884. Deuchler, Confucian Gentlemen pp. 189–90. The system is explained in F. T. Piggott, Extraterritoriality: The Law Relating to Consular Jurisdiction and to Residence in Oriental Countries, (London, 1892), pp. 108–15. The system in Korea was taken over from that operating in China and Japan. I have examined its operation in Japan in J. E. Hoare, “Extraterritoriality in Japan, 1858–1899”, TASJ, 3rd series, vol. 18, (July 1983), pp. 76–79, 79–83. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 410–12, Parkes to Granville, no. 54, confid., 16 Dec 1883. The Treasury’s reluctance to spend any money on Korea became apparent from the very first: see Treasury Records (T/1)/14809, for the minutes on Parkes’s first letter on consular sites, 16 Oct 1882. Fairbank, et. al., The I G in Peking, I, 590–91, Hart to Campbell, 2/212, 23 March 1885. There is a brief discussion of the point in A. W. Hamilton, “British Interest in Korea, 1866– 1884, Korea Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, (Jan 1982), 27–28, but more research needs to be done on the subject. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 230–35, Parkes to Granville, no. 66, 28 April 1883, enclosing W. G. Aston to Parkes, 24 April 1883. For the history of the area, see G. Henderson “A History of the Cho˘ng Dong Area and the American Embassy Residence Compound”, TKBRAS, vol. xxxv (1959), 1–31, especially pp. 15–16. The Korean government’s agreement to the transaction was given on 10 May 1884: Asiatic Research Centre, Korea University, Diplomatic Documents Imperial Korea, English Version (Seoul 1968), I, 33–34. Diary of Horace Allen, quoted in unpublished notes issued by KBRAS March 1971 on “Chemulp’o Revisited: a Tour of Inch’o˘n City”. The saga of the jail can be followed in Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 470–72. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, p. 968, George C. Foulk, U.S. Naval Attaché, to Secretary of State, 10 Oct 1884. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 277–78, Parkes to Granville, no. 97, 9 June 1883, Report on Trade for 1883. In 1897, there were 33 British heads of household in Korea – this included some Canadians and Australians – compared to 22 Americans, 17 Germans and 8 French. There were then 10,711 Japanese and 477 Chinese: I. B. Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbours, (London 1898, reprinted Seoul 1970), pp. 469–70, Appendix D. Foreign Office China (F017)/996, Aston to Granville, no. 1, 3 Jan 1885. The American Minister’s account is in Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials p. 988, L. H. Foote to Secretary of State, no. 128, 17 Dec 1884. F017/996, W. R. Carles to Granville, no. 1, 9 Jan 1885; F017/1084, N. O’Conor (Peking) to P. Currie, private, 22 Dec 1885. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, p. 490, Vice-Admiral Sir W. Dowell to Admiralty, tel., 15 April 1885. Kim Yung Chun, “Anglo-Russian Crisis and Port Hamilton, 1885–1887”, Journal of the Korean Cultural Research Institute, voi. 18 (1971), 243–71; A. W. Hamilton, “The Ko˘mundo Affair”, Korea Journal, voi. 22, no. 6 (June 1982), 20–30. The Graphic, 12 Feb. 1887, has a brief illustrated account of the occupation. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 682–84, Admiralty to Foreign Office, 21 July 1886, enclosing Vice-Admiral Hamilton to Admiralty, 31 May 1886. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 680–82, Admiralty to Foreign Office, 17 July 1886, enclosing Hamilton to Admiralty, 1 June 1886.

NOTES

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47

48

49 50

51

52

53 54

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57 58 59

60

61

62 63

64 65

66

67

68

391

Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, p. 758, Admiralty to Foreign Office, 28 February 1887, enclosing Hamilton to Admiralty, tel., 28 Feb 1887. Park, Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials, pp. 757–58, Sir J. Walsham, Peking, to Earl of Iddesleigh, no. 324, confid., 28 Dec 1886. J. E. Hoare, “Kòmundo-Port Hamilton”, Bulletin of the Korean-British Society, no. 3 (1983), 48–53. F017/1308, Aston to Parkes, accounts no. 1, 30 May 1884. Works 10/389, Sir J. Walsham, Peking to F. J. Marshall, Office of Works, Shanghai, Public accounts no. 10, 27 August 1888. For Treasury approval, see Works 10/389, Treasury to Board of Works, no. 7504, 30 April 1889. Walter Hillier, who was appointed acting ConsulGeneral in May 1889, last seems to have used the term “acting” in April 1890: Diplomatic Documents of Imperial Korea, I, 694, Joint letter from the diplomatic and consular corps to Korean Foreign Ministry, 26 April 1890. S. J. Palmer, edit., Korean-American Relations: Documents Pertaining to Far Eastern Diplomacy of the United States, (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1963), II, 241–43, A. Heard to Secretary of State, no. 301, 12 Sept 1892. Works 10/342, W. A. Robinson to Treasury, draft no. 6177, 18 August 1914, enclosure, “Consular property in Corea”. See also The Independent 6 July 1897. Works 10/342, “Consular property in Corea”. In 1896, they provided drill masters for the government’s English school: The Independent, 5 May 1896. Morning Calm, May 1896, Bishop’s letter, 13 Nov 1895. J. E. Hoare, “The Centenary of Korean-British Relations: The British Diplomatic Presence in Korea 1883–1983”, Korea Observer, vol. xiv, no. 2, (summer 1983), 137–38. The Independent, 25 and 27 March 1897. Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbours, p. 457. Incheon [Inch’o˘n] City, Inch’o˘n kaehang 100-ny˘ sa, (“100-Year History Since the Opening of Inch’o˘n Port”), (Incheon 1983), p. 173. For the origins of Holme, Ringer and Company, see G. Fox, Britain and Japan. (Oxford 1969), p. 330, note. 6. Korea Review, Jan. 1901, pp. 14–15; Korea Daily News, 23 August 1904. A German Firm, E. Meyer and Co., were the agents for another British bank, the Chartered: Korea Daily News, 4 Aug 1904. The American Townsend and Co. were agents for Nobel’s Explosive Co. of Glasgow: Diplomatic Documents Imperial Korea, II, 148–49, J. N. Jordan to the Korean Foreign Office, 7 Dec 1899. Korean Repository, December 1898; Korea Review, Feb. 1901. See also E. W. Mills, “Gold Mining in Korea”, TKBRAS, vol. vii, pt. 1, (1916), especially pp. 23–29, and Lee Bae-yong, “A study on British Mining Concessions in the Late Choso˘n Dynasty”, Korea Journal, vol. 24, no. 4 (April 1984), 23–38. Hoare, “British Missionary Interest”, pp. 3–6. Hoare, “British Missionary Interest”, pp. 6–7. The hard-pressed Korean mission also looked after Newchang in China for a number of years. See the obituary in Korea Review, July 1901. Korea Daily News, 19 Sept. 1904; Diplomatic Documents of Imperial Korea, I, 292 et seq., C. M. Ford, acting Consul-General, to the Korean Foreign Office, 26 Sept 1889, and subsequent correspondence; Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours, pp. 441–42. Fairbank, et al., The I G in Peking, II, 1022, note 2. This, as Hart had foreseen in 1882, helped to maintain China’s claim to suzerainty over Korea; I, 429, Hart to Campbell, no. 2/94, 30 Oct 1882. For contemporary accounts of McLeavy Brown, see Morning Calm, May 1899, and Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours, pp. 2, 381 and 453. Interview with Sir C. McDonald, in The Independent, 1 April 1897 and a speech by Curzon quoted in The Independent, 11 September 1897. For a voice raised for an increased diplomatic presence, see Hamilton, Korea, p. 135.

392

69

70 71

72 73 74

75 76

77

78 79

80 81

82

83 84

85 86 87

88

89 90 91 92

93

94 95 96

EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

After a number of abortive attempts, partly sabotaged by the Chinese, the Koreans finally sent a resident mission to London in 1901, with Min Yong Tong as Minister Resident, the same rank as that of the British representative in Korea. The post closed in 1905. From 1900 to 1906, W. P. Morgan, a former M. P. who was involved in gold mining in Korea, was Korean Consul-General in London. See Foreign Office List, 1900–1906. Dictionary of National Biography, “Sir John Jordan”. This is a theme discussed in I. H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907, (London 1966), pp. 233–34, 320–22, and 329–30. Discussed in Hoare, “British Diplomatic Presence”, pp. 139–40. Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, p. 352. Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan (F0262)/1065, H. C. Bonar to Sir C. McDonald, no. 47, 20 July 1910. I am grateful to Dr. A. Michell, University of Hull, for drawing my attention to this reference. Hoare, “British Missionary Interest”, p. 7. Hoare, “British Missionary Interest”, pp. 8–9. See also P. Rader “Seventy Years in Korea”, Salvation Army Yearbook. (London 1978), pp. 13–16. For the most recent account of Bethell, see Cho˘ng Chin-sok, “E. T. Bethell and the Taehan Maeil Shinbo”, Korea Journal, vol. 24, no. 4 (April 1984), pp. 39–44. The Japanese authorities were able to use the precedent of a famous case involving a British newspaper publisher in Japan in the 1870’s: J. E. Hoare, “The Bankoku Shimbun Affair: Foreigners, the Japanese Press and Extraterritoriality in Early Meiji Japan”, Modern Asian Studies, 9 no. 3, (1975), 289–302. In the 1960’s, Korean journalists, (to whom Bethell is still very much a hero), tracked down some of his descendants living in Britain: Chung’ang Ilbo 7 Sept. 1969. Whitwell, “Britons in Korea”, p. 49. G. Herslett, edit., Herslett’s Commercial Treaties. (London 1913), vol. xxvi, 92–95: Japanese proclamation, 29 Aug 1910, and British Order in Council, 23 Jan. 1911. Hoare, “British Diplomatic Presence”, pp. 139–40. Hoare, “British Diplomatic Presence”, pp. 140–41. By 1912, Japanese was the language being used for much if not all official work: Records of the Consular Department (F0369)/484, Sir C. McDonald to Earl Grey no. 11 cons., 22 Jan. 1912. Works 10/24/1 contains papers from 1889 to 1925 on the acquisition and disposal of these other sites. Foreign Office List, various years. The whole question is discussed in Ku Dae-yeol, “Korean Resistance to Japanese Colonialism: The March 1st Movement of 1919 and Britain’s Role in Its Outcome”, Unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of London, 1979. See F0371/31845, G. H. Phibbs, Seoul, to Sir R. Craigie, Tokyo, no. 184, 29 Sept. 1941. Ku, “Korean Resistance”, p. 34. Bennett was originally manager for Holme, Ringer and Co. Both he and Davidson engaged in general wholesale trade, and both served as British pro-Consuls at various times. Mills, “Mining in Korea”, passim; G. C. Allen and Audrey Donnithorne, Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development: China and Japan, (London 1954), p. 224 note 1. For example, the British Evangelistic Mission: Korean Mission Field, vol. xi, no. 7 (July 1916). J. C. F. Robertson, The Bible in Korea, (London, no date [1954]), pp. 45–46. R. Rutt, James Scarth Gate and His History the Korean People, (Seoul 1972), p. 40. C. Trollope, Mark Napier Trollope: Bishop in Corea, 1911–1930, (London 1930), is a biography by his sister. There is a brief account of the Cathedral in B. F. L. Clarke, Anglican Cathedrals Outside the British Isles, (London 1958), p. 120. Trollope’s visions and struggles can be traced in his own papers, now in the archieves of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London. Anon., The Society of Holy Cross, (n.p. [Seoul] n.d.). A. D. Clark, A History of the Church in Korea, (Seoul 1971), p. 331. L. V. Beere and W. E. Lees, SPG Handbook: Corea, (Revised Edition London 1935), p. 72.

NOTES

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100 101

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103 104

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109 110 111

112 113

114

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Korean Mission Field, vols. xvii, no. 1, (Jan. 1921), xxii, no. 12, (Dec. 1926) and xxiv, no. 1, (Jan. 1928). This point is discussed in Ku, “Korean Resistance”, pp. 290, 294–95. For somewhat opposing view, see A. Hamish Ion, “British and Canadian Missionaries’ Attitudes to Japanese Colonialism in Korea, 1910–1925”: Proceedings of the British Association for Japanese Studies, Vol. I (1976) Part I: History and International Relations, pp. 60–77. Something of the atmosphere can be found in the report of Dr. Anne Borrows, the doctor at the Anglican hospital at Yo˘ju. The report, from the SPG archives, 1940 is marked: “It is inadvisable to print anything from this report”. (Copy of the report suppl ed by Miss A. J. Roberts, MBE, Taejo˘n.) S. Hall, With Stethoscope in Asia, (McLean, Va. 1978), p. 582; Morning Calm, June 1947. FO371/31736/F217/33/61, Minutes relating to the number of British subjects in Japanese territory and Japanese in British territory, Dec. 1941. Hoare, “British Diplomatic Presence”, p. 142; FO371/31839/F7551/867/23, “Treatment of British Subjects in Japanese Controlled Territory”. Han Woo-keun, History of Korea, p. 497. W. R. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 1941–1945, (Oxford 1977), pp 235–36; B. Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War: Liberalism and the Emergence of separate Regimes 1945–47, (Princeton 1981), 104–06. Records of the Chief Clerk’s Department (FO366)/1778/xS3K/23/19. D. M. McDermot, Tokyo, to Foreign Office, no. 76, confid., 29 Dec 1945. FO366/1778/XS3K/23/19, Washington tel. no. 2233, 19 Sept. 1946; Tokyo tel. no. 1271, 30 Oct. 1946. See also. Foreign Relations of the United States, (1946), vol. viii, pp. 685 and 735. FO366/1778/XS3K/23/19, Minute by M. S. Henderson, 6 Sept. 1946, recording a conversation with Mr. A. De la Mare, Japan Department, FO. The saga of Mr. Kermode’s complaints can be followed in this file. SPG Archives, D. Korea, 1945, Bishop Cooper to Bishop Roberts, 13 May 1945; D Morrison, The English Church, 1890–1954, (London 1954), pp. 12–14. For the unfortunate bell, see Morning Calm, March 1948. Rader, “Seventy Years in Korea”, p. 15; Clark, The Church in Korea, pp. 238–29. The Trade Yearbook, (Seoul 1949). H. P. Thompson, Into All Lands: The History of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701–1950, (London 1951), p. 209. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, p. 488, note 65. D. Rees. Korea: The Limited War, (New York 1964), pp. 33–34. Attlee’s position was supported on all sides. Even the left-wing Tribune said that the U.S. government was right to take action in Korea, and the British government right to support them: P. Lowe, Britain in the Far East: A Survey from 1819 to the Present (London and New York 1881) p. 205. There is still no official British history of the war. The best account remains C. N. Barclay. The First Commonwealth Division: The Story of the British Commonwealth Land Forces in Korea, 1950–1953 (Aldershot 1954). The British role is also covered in Ministry of National Defence, The History of the United Nations Forces in the Korean War, (second edition Seoul 1981), vols, II, 585–730; VI, 405–446. There is an account of the battle in Korea Times, 22 and 23 April 1983. See also the account by the Glosters’ adjutant of the fighting and his captivity: A. Farrar-Hockley, The Edge of the Sword (London 1955). H. C. Allen, Great Britain and the United States: A History of Anglo-American Relations, 1783– 1952, (London 1954), pp. 968 et seq. See also B. Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China, (London 1967), pp. 83–132 for a full discussion of strands in British attitudes to the Korean war. For the role of the press in this, see P. Knightley, The First Casualty, (London 1982) pp. 320–340. H. J. Noble, Embassy at War, (Seattle and London 1975), pp. 259–61; P. Deane, I Was Captive in Korea (New York 1953), p. 79.

394

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119 120 121 122

123 124 125

126 127

128

129

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131

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134 135

EAST ASIA OBSERVED: SELECTED WRITINGS 1973–2021

There are many accounts of the “death march.” As well as Deane’s, cited above, see P. Crosbie, March Till They Die, (Westminster, Md. 1956). This contains testimony to the heroism of Cooper and Lord, in particular. Bishop Cooper gave his own account in an interview on his return to Korea in November 1953: Korean Republic, 21 Nov. 1953. Knightley, The First Casualty, p. 324. Hoare, “British Diplomatic Presence”, p. 143. Korean Republic, 14 March 1954. R. Rutt, The Church Serves Korea, (London 1956), p. 29. For the Save the Children Fund, see Korean Republic, 13 May 1954. It began operations in Pusan in 1952. SPG Archives, DS 1954 Korea, Report on 1953 by Bishop Chadwell, 20 Jan. 1954. SPG Archives, DS 1954 Korea, Bishop Cooper to Bishop Roberts, 19 Nov. 1954. See FO366/3024 for papers on this, especially XCOI/81/853, R. B. Marshall to R. H. G. Edmunds, 8 June 1953. Korean Republic, 27 Jan., 13 Feb., and 1 June 1954. Korean Republic, 14 Aug., 6 Oct. and 16 Dec. 1954. For the Korean-British Society, see J. E. Hoare, “The Korean-British Society: Some Past Events, 1954–1974”, Bulletin of the KoreanBritish Society, no. 2, (May 1982) pp. 7–10. There has been a London equivalent since 1957: Morning Calm, Dec. 1967. “British Council Plays Active Role as Link for Cultural Exchange”, Korea Herald (Supplement), 26 Nov. 1983. Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 Nov 1976. See also “ROK Trade with UK rises sharply”, Korea Herald (Supplement), 9 June 1983. “British Chamber Contribute to Trade Boost with Korea”. Korea Times (Supplement), 26 Nov. 1983. Early Korean graduates of British universities include former President Yun Po-sun (Edinburgh) and Dr. Kim Sang Man, KBE, (London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London). “UK Interest in Korean Studies”, Korean Newsreviews, 18 Feb. 1984; A. R. Michell, “Korean Studies in the UK”, Korea Journal, vol. 24, no. 4 (April 1984) pp. 76–77. Overseas Missionary Fellowship, One Small Flame, (Sevenoaks 1978), pp. 22–24; L. T. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible, (London revised edition 1976), pp. 189, 200. S. Younger, Never Ending Flower, (London 1967). The British Korean War Veterans Association publishes its own journal, the Morning Calm.

CHAPTER 14 While living in Seoul from 1981 to 1985, I became interested in the history of the Anglican cathedral, whose outline greeted me every morning as I drove to work, and which stood like a sentry on the lane outside the British embassy compound. In August 1984, I gave a talk on the history of the British embassy compound and the cathedral to a group from the RAS, who then accompanied me on a tour of these two areas which have played such an important role in the history of the British community, and indeed the wider foreign community in Korea. It is from that occasion that the present paper developed. I am most gratful to the Right Reverend Bishop Richard Rutt, formerly of Taejo˘n and now Bishop of Leicester, and to Dr. Horace Underwood of Yonsei University for their comments on earlier drafts, and for advice about additional information. I am also grateful to Miss A. J. Roberts, MBE, formerly of the Anglican mission in Korea, whose interest and enthusiasm for the byways of history was infectious. Any faults or errors of interpretation are mine. 1 2

‘‘Cultural Asset: Anglican Cathedral,” Korea Newsreview, 2 April, 1983. Bickersteth, S. Life and Letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo, (London, 1901), p. 162. The diocese of South Tokyo had not been created in 1887. For the tradition of

NOTES

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5 6 7

8

9

10 11

12 13

14 15

16

17

18

19

20

21 22

23 24 25 26

27

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Anglican missionary cathedrals, see Clarke, Basil. Anglican Cathedrals outside the British Isles, (London, 1958), p. 8. Korean Mission Field, Vol. VII, No. 8, 1 Aug. 1910. See also Trollope, Constance, Mark Napier Trollope: Bishop in Korea, 1911–1930, (London, 1936), pp. 60–61. United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) Archives, Trollope Papers X620, Box 1, Charge to the Clergy 3 Aug. 19815. Trollope also mentioned the need for a cathedral in his history of the mission, published that same year: Trollope, M. The Church in Corea, (London, 1915), pp. 39–40. Corean Leaflet Letter, No. 51, Sept. 1918. Corean Leaflet Letter, No. 51, Sept. 1918; Trollope, Mark Napier Trollope, p. 65. Clarke, Anglican Cathedrals, p. 120; Trollope, Mark Napier Trollope, p. 63. For an appraisal of Dixon’s work in Britain, see Pevsner, N. and Wedgewood, A. The Buildings of England: Warwickshire, (Harmondsworth, 1966, reprinted 1981), pp. 131 and 186. Corean Leaflet Letter, No. 62, March 1921. For some of the influences on church building in Britain at this time, see Service, A. Edwardian Architecture, (London, 1977), pp. 80–83 and Clifton-Taylor, A. The Cathedrals of England, (London, 1967), Chapter 10. Foreign Office Archives, FO369/1172/K3027, Tokyo telegram to the Foreign Office, No. 477, 4 Dec. 1919. Corean Leaflet Letter, No. 62, March 1921. Trollope Papers X620, Box 2, letters to his family, 23 July, 19 Aug. and 15 Nov. 1923, 13 Jan. and 29 June 1924. See also ‘‘The Corean Mission and the Monetary Crisis,” The Morning Calm, Oct. 1933. The Morning Calm, Jan. 1923. Trollope Papers X620, Trollope to his sister Lily, 29 June 1924. For another account of the primitive work conditions, see Drake, H. B. Korea of the Japanese, (London and New York, 1930), p. 115. Mr. Brooke, the junior architect, did work for other missions: Korean Mission Field Vol. XX, No. 2, Feb. 1924. I know nothing of his subsequent career. See the account of some of the gifts in The Morning Calm, July 1926. USPG Archives Africa, India, the Far East, E. 1926, English Church Mission in Corea, Report for 1926; D1926, the Far East; and The Morning Calm, July 1926. Drake, Korea of the Japanese, pp. 193–84. Mrs. Winifred Bland, daughter of H. W. Davidson, for many years the treasurer of the Anglican church in Korea, also remembers small Korean congregations; interview, 2 November 1983, Mrs. Bland was also married in the cathedral in 1936. USPG Archives, Africa, India, the Far East, E 1926, English Church Mission in Corea, Report for 1926; Trollope Papers X620, Trollope to his sister Constance, 16 May 1930. The only biography of Trollope is that written by his sister in the 1930’s. He deserves more, not only because his sister glossed over many aspects of a complex personality but also because of his record as both a missionary bishop and a scholar. USPG Archives, D 1945, Copy of Sgt. J. G. Mills to the archbishop of Canterbury, 21 Sept. 1945. Thompson, H. P. Into All Lands: The History of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701–1950, (London, 1951), p. 708. Marrison, D. The English Church, 1890–1954, pp. 12–14. Conversation with Mr. A. Adams, CMG, CBE, British charge d’affaires in Korea 1950–52, 23 Aug. 1985. Morrison, English Church, p. 17. USPG Archives, D 1954, Korea: Report on 1953 by Bishop Chadwell, 20 January 1954. Letter from the Right Reverend C. R. Rutt, CBE, MA, Bishop of Leicester, 24 Dec. 1985. Press release and pamphlet issued by Harrison and Harrison Ltd., December 1985. I am grateful to Mr. C. T. L. Harrison for permission to make use of his company’s material. Missionary Council of the Church Assembly, The Call from the Far East, (Westminster, 1926), p. 134.

396

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CHAPTER 15 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

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12

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R. Cutforth, Korean Reporter {London, 1952); Order to View, Chapter XI, “Reporting the War in Korea” (London, 1969). A. Calder and D. Sheridan (eds), Speak for Yourself: A Mass-Observation Anthology 1937– 1949 (Oxford, 1985), pp.249–59; D. Sheridan and C. Dixon, The Mass-Observation Archive: A Guide for Researchers (Falmer, 1985). R. Barclay, Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office 1932–1969 (London, 1975), p.68; C. Thome, Allies of a Kind : The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941–1945 (Oxford, 1979), p.660. For British interest in Korea from 1945 to 1950, see Ra Jong-il, “Korean-British relations after liberation 1: Government and Economy,” in National History Compilation Committee (eds), Han-yong sugyo 100-nyonsa [100 Years of Korean-British Relations] (Seoul, 1983), pp.203–25. G. Wint, What happened in Korea ; A Study of Collective Security (London, 1954), p.11; M. Muggeridge, Like It Was : A Selection from the Diaries (London, 1981), p.393, entry for 26 June 1950; Dora Russell, The Tamarisk Tree (London, 1985), vol.3, p, 127. The Times 28 June 1950; W. N. Ewer, “Causes of the War in Korea”, The Listener, 29 June 1950. For other background pieces, see The Listener, 24 August 1950. A. J. P. Taylor, The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy 1792–1939 (Harmondsworth, 1985), p. 18. Originally written in 1956. E. Linklater, Our Men in Korea (London, 1952), p.15; R. O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War (Canberra, 1981), vol. l, p.50. P. Lowe, Britain in the Far East: A Survey from 1819 to the Present (London, 1981), p.205; The Times, 24 August 1950; M. Felton, That’s Why I Went (London, 1953), p.25. B. Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China: A study of British Attitudes 1945–1954 (London, 1967), p.167. This gives the Gallup Poll questions and answers. An editorial, “Unity at Home”, The Times, 7 July 1950, noted the sense of national unity. P, Knightley, The First Casualty: From the Crime to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Mythmaker (London, revised edition, 1982), p.320; Alan Winnington, Breakfast with Mao: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent (London, 1986), p.118 et seq. D, A. N. Jones, “Gangs”, London Review of Books 9/1, 8 Jan. 1987. This reviews, among other books, Royle’s on National Servicemen – see note 18. For the flow of volunteers and callup of reservists, see Keesings Contemporary Archives, p. 10871, 19 July-5 Aug. 1950, and ‘The fighting force”, The Times, 25 August 1950. Keesings Contemporary Archives p. 10829, 8–15 July 1950; Knightley, The First Casualty, pp.323–24. For the manner in which the cinema newsreel and BBC TV carried the same themes, see Howard Smith, ‘The BBC Television Newsreel and the Korean War”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 8/3 (1988), pp.227–52, especially 228–29. See also the letter from Lord Winster to the editor, The Times, 5 August 1950. Smith, “The BBC Television Newsreel…,” p.230. T. Carew, Korea: The Commonwealth at War (London, 1967), p.64–65. Picture Post, 7 Oct 1950. Cameron also gave an account of the landing in chapter 8 of his autobiography, Points of Departure (London, new edition, 1985). For the background to the subsequent developments, see R. O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War 1950–1953 (Canberra, 1981), vol. l, p. 117–18 and 134; P. Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War (London and New York, 1986), pp. 181–96. S. Britain, The Treasury under the Tories, 1951–1964 (Harmondsworth, 1964), p. 158. For the conference, see Russell, Tamarisk Tree, vol.3, pp. 133–34. See also the results from a Gallup Poll survey of 4 October 1950, which broadly agree with the Mass Observation picture, in Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China, pp, 167–68. Knightley, The First Casualty, pp.327–29; Cameron, Points of Departure, p.145 et seq. For the rearmament programme, see Britain, Treasury, pp. 158–60 and P. Addison, Now the War is Over: A Social History of Britain 1945–1951 (London, 1985), p. 111.

NOTES

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23

24

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Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China, pp. 163–170. Anti-American feeling is a subject which was avoided at the time, but seems to have been widespread and not confined to any one group or class. See Knightley, The First Casualty, p.334. Even Field Marshall Montgomery was “rather pleased” at the American setbacks in January 1951, according to Malcolm Muggeridge. And when MacArthur was dismissed in April 1951, the then British Foreign Secretary had to warn Labour members of parliament not to “crow” over his downfall; Muggeridge, Like it was, p.424 (entry for 16 Jan. 1951); C. A. MacDonald, Korea: The War before Vietnam (London, 1986), p.99. Hugh Gaitskell, Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from October 1950 to October 1951–and the man who had thus to find the money for the rearmament programme – wrote a long memorandum, probably in 1952, on rising anti-American feeling in Britain, which he blamed on the Korean war. See P. M. Williams (ed.), The Diary of Hugh Gaitskell 1945–56 [London, 1983), pp. 316–20. K. Harris, Attlee (London, 1982), pp.456–7; W. S, Churchill, Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (London, 1953), p. 19, 80 and 232–3. See also Britten, Treasury, p.138. J. Morgan (ed.), The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (London, 1981), p.139. Crossman had little time for the Peace with China Committee, or similar bodies, which he saw as communist fronts – see page 84 (entry for 4 March 1952). The germ warfare issue was extensively reported by Alan Winnington. See Breakfast with Mao Chapter 12, for his account. For a trenchant contemporary examination of the issue see also M. Lindsay, China and the Cold War: A Study in International Politics (Melbourne, 1955), pp.42–46. For recent accounts of the germ warfare question in Korea from very different positions, see Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The Unknown War (London, 1988), pp. 182–84 and O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, vol. l, p.289 and following. Similar charges were made in Europe long before the claims about Korea. The Times, 3 and 4 July 1950, reported claims that the US had dropped Colorado beetles in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. M. Banham and B. Hillier, The Tonic to the Nation: The Festival of Britain 1951 (London, 1976), pp.32–33. The Festival opened on 3 May 1951, just as details of the Imjin river battle began to come in. Foreign Office records, F0953/928/PG1812/5. Major Coaker, War Office, to Mr Stark, FO, 18 Sept. 1950, and relevant minuting; Neal Ascherson, “Lucky Jim’s two years in uniform”, Observer, 13 March 1988. T. Royle, The Best Years of Their Lives: The National Service Experience 1945–1963 (London, 1986), pp. 183–84, 198–9. For disillusionment, see the extracts Royle quotes from The Dead, The Dying and Damned, a novel published in 1956 by a National Service officer in Korea, D.J. Hollands; Royle, The Best Years of Their Lives, p.196; letter from P. Jones (former soldier in Korea, now Secretary of Council of Civil Service Unions) to the author, 2 June 1988. For the BBC problems see papers in BBC archives, R19/62, T6/185 and T32/223. For traditional attitudes to information see M. Yass, This is your War: Home Front Propaganda in the Second World War (London, 1983), pp,3–5. This was reflected in the way the Central Office of Information was established; see chapter 3 in F. Clark, The Central Office of Information (London, 1970). For other points, see Wint, What Happened in Korea, appendix 1. “Was there a War?” H, Pelling, The British Communist Party: An Historical Profile (London, 1958), pp, 161–63, To some extent, the need for a “purge” of communists, at least in the civil service, had been taken care of before the Korean war began; see J. E. Mortimer and V. Ellis, A Professional Union: The Evolution of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants (London, 1980), pp. 168–75.

CHAPTER 16 1

‘UK Punch’ (then the British Embassy Seoul website) announcement at http://www.uk.org. kr/ news, 13 December 2000. For a surprised comment, see the London Daily Telegraph’s David Rennie, ‘Britain signs diplomatic deal with North Korea’, at http://www.telegraph.

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co.uk, 13 December 2000. ‘The DPRK and the UK established diplomatic relations’, China Radio International, 13 December 2000. J.E. Hoare, ‘The centenary of Korean-British diplomatic relations: aspects of British interest and involvement in Korea 1600–1983’, Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (TKBRAS) 58 (1983):l-34. Quoted in Central Office of Information, The Korean Question and the United Nations. London: COI Reference Division, 1953:6. Very little has been published on Britain and the DPRK. One exception is Warwick Morris, ‘UK policy towards North Korea’, in Hazel Smith, Chris Rhoades, et al. (eds), North Korea in the New World Order. London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996:86–92. J.E. Hoare, ‘The centenary of Korean-British diplomatic relations’:24–5. See also J.E. Hoare, Britain and Korea 1797–1997. Seoul: British Embassy, 1997:33–40. For a more hostile interpretation of Britain’s links with the ROK, see Gavin McCormack, ‘Britain, Europe and Korea4, in Gavin McCormack and Mark Selden (eds), Korea North and South: The Deepening Crisis. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1978:188–98. Quoted in The Times, 19 October 1965. John Larkin, ‘Soccer: the final score’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 December 2001. In 2002, the 1966 team featured in a documentary film, ‘The Game of Their Lives’ shown on BBC television, and in both the DPRK and the ROK. See also The Game of Their Lives: The Greatest Shock in World Cup History: The Book of the Film, n.p.: VeryMuchSo, 2002. Guardian, 10 October 1984. The Soviet team withdrew in protest. Samuel S. Kim, ‘Pyongyang, the third world, and global politics’, in Tae-hwan Kwak, et al. (eds), The Two Koreas in World Politics. Seoul: Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University, 1983:63 et seq. Erik Cornell, North Korea under Communism: Report of an Envoy to Paradise. London and New York: Routledge and Curzon, 2002:4–5, 10–11. Sweden closed its embassy in Pyongyang for a time in the early 1990s, but subsequently re-opened. In January 2002, the then Swedish chargé d’affaires, Paul Beijer, became the first-ever resident Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang. Adrian Buzo, ‘North Korea – yesterday and today’, TKBRAS 56 (1981):1 – 27. Buzo was Second Secretary in the Australian embassy. J.E. Hoare, ‘Britain and Korea 1953–1986’, Bulletin of the Korean-British Society (Seoul) 7 (April 1988):22–3. For a contemporary pro-DPRK group, which has links to many such previous groups, try the website http://sfuk.freeservers.com/index/html Morris, ‘UK policy’:87; Hansard, House of Commons, Written Answers, 26 October 1984, 16 November 1984. For indications of the views of Gavin McCormack and Aidan FosterCarter in the 1970s, see their respective essays in McCormack and Selden (eds), Korea North and South: The Deepening Crisis, 1978. ‘Korea, UK agree to boost bilateral trade, tech transfer’, Korea Herald, 3 May 1986. Aidan Foster-Carter, who by now had modified his views on the DPRK, wrote a series of articles for the Far Eastern Economic Review based on his experience in one of the first tourist groups, e.g. ‘Guest Traveller’s Tales’, FEER, 16 October 1986. For an example of political contacts, see BBC Monitoring Service, Summary of World Broadcasts FE/0910/A1/1, 1 November 1990, Korean Central News Agency, 31 October 1990. For a general view of such contacts, see Morris, ‘UK policy’:89. See Hansard, House of Lords, 3 December 1990. For Lord Taylor’s visits to the DPRK, where he met both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, see Rodong Shinmun, 7 April 1990. Morris, ‘UK policy’:88. Morris, ‘UK policy’:89–90. Warwick Morris was one of the two officials who visited Pyongyang on this occasion. Morris, ‘UK policy’:89. Morris, ‘UK policy’:90. Hansard, House of Commons, Written Answers Col. 325, 17 January 2000. For British support for the Sunshine Policy, see the ROK news agency Yonhap 2 April 1998, reporting comments

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39 40 41 42

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by Prime Minister Tony Blair, after meeting Kim Dae Jung. For the ROK government’s encouragement to its allies, see Yi To-un, ‘The government will support allied countries’ moves to normalise relations with North Korea’, Taehan Maeil Shinmun, 15 November 1998. UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ‘Significant events DPRK-ROK-Japan-US-EU Diplomacy (1998-September 2002)’. Pyongyang: OCHA, September 2002. FCO Press Release, 16 June 2000. Yomiuri Shimbun, 22 July 2000. David Rennie, ‘Britons go to work as teachers in North Korea’, Daily Telegraph, 29 September 2000. OCHA, ‘Significant Events’ noted Carter’s visit. The positive response is mentioned in a Note to Editors attached to a FCO press release, ’Foreign Secretary meets delegates from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’, 20 February 2001. ‘Britain to open diplomatic relations with North Korea: Transcript of an interview given by the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, for BBC Radio 4, Seoul, Thursday 19 October 2000’, FCO press release 19 October 2000; Jonathan Watts, ‘Britain opens links with North Korea’, Guardian, 20 October 2000. FCO press release, 30 January 2001; Korea Times, Hankook Shinmun, etc., 31 January 2001. Very brief accounts of the January 2001 visit to Pyongyang have appeared in the FCO’s newsletter News and Views 34, April-May 2001, and in the Korea-Britain Society (Seoul), KBS Bulletin December 2001. For the Pyongyang German embassy, see Olaf Asendorf and Wolfgang Voigt (eds), Botschaften: 50 Jahre Auslandsbauten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bonn: Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung, 2000:180. I am grateful to Gert Suthaus, First Secretary, German Embassy, Pyongyang, for this reference, and to my former colleague, Jim Warren, for a translation. ‘FCO Permanent Undersecretary to visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 10–13 March 2001’, ‘UK Punch’, 12 March 2001; Rodong Shinmun, 13 March 2001. Robert Anderson published an account of the Museum/Library delegation, which was reproduced by the British Association for Korean Studies on its website. See Robert Anderson, ‘Behind closed doors’, at http://www.dur.ac.Uk/BAKS/PYrpt222.html/#account KBS TV News, Yonhap News Agency, 21 March 2001; Korea Times, Kyunghyang Shinmun, Joongang Ilbo, DongA Ilbo, etc., 22 March 2001. Jeffrey Miller, ‘Increase in diplomatic ties to help NK to take path of reform: UK envoy’, Korea Times, 17 May 2001. The delegation had met Mr Robin Cook, the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. See FCO press release, ‘Foreign Secretary meets delegates from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’, 20 February 2001. Asendorf and Voigt, Botschaften:180. KCNA, 3 and 13 June 2001. A rather garbled and overly negative account of this phase of our existence appeared as ‘@Pyongyang blues’, The Economist, 13 October 2001. The Chief Clerk’s visit was briefly mentioned in the DPRK media (see Rodong Shinmun, 29 July 2001), but there seems to have been no coverage of the flag-raising. The story did feature in some foreign TV reports, however, thanks to a video taken by Kathi Zellweger of Caritas Hong Kong. Cornell, North Korea:25. Cornell, North Korea:25–6. Brian Barron, ‘Britain moves into Kim’s secret state’, BBC News Online, 29 August 2001. Peter Hitchens: “I suppose that we should be pleased that Britain now has an embassy in North Korea, though I feel sorry for Our Man in Pyongyang, constantly badgered by Downing Street for details of exactly how to run a personality cult”, Mail on Sunday, 2 September 2001. KCNA, 15, 18 and 29 December 2001. A short account appears in J.E. Hoare, ‘My Korea move: view from Pyongyang’, News and Views 39, Feb/April 2002:15.

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There was widespread coverage in the ROK press. See, for example, ‘North Korea wants to re-open dialogue with the US: British envoy to Pyongyang’, Korea Herald, 8 February 2002; similar stories appeared in the Kyunghyang Shinmun, Chosun Ilbo, Hankukllbo, etc, all also 8 February 2002. Andrew Ward, ‘More “Sound of Music” than “axis of evil” in Pyongyang’, Financial Times web page, 11 February 2002; ‘Sound of Music counters “axis of evil” image’, Financial Times, 12 February 2002. ‘IISS visit to North Korea’, IISS News, autumn 2002. ‘British chargé d’affaires hosts reception’, KCNA, 4 June 2002. ‘Message for Jim Hoare’, e-mail from Rick Corsino, WFP Pyongyang, to John Dunne, British Embassy Pyongyang, 7 December 2002.

CHAPTER 17 1

2

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They established a naval base at Komundo (Port Hamilton) in 1885 without Korean permission, but their occupation of the island group had more to do with Russia and Afghanistan than with Korea. After two years, the Royal Navy abandoned the site after deciding it did not make a suitable base after all. British missionary work was largely confined to a small group of Anglicans (Episcopalians) and the Salvation Army, which saw itself as an international organization. Korea generally did not attract much attention in Britain. Korean studies were limited to London and Sheffield universities, with the emphasis decidedly apolitical. The main exception was its participation in the 1966 World Cup held in the United Kingdom. Despite strenuous government efforts to prevent it, a North Korean team came to Britain and did well, defeating Italy. This led to a brief period of positive media coverage. North Korea’s attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan failed but killed several ROK cabinet ministers and senior officials in the process.

CHAPTER 18 1

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The head of chancery performed several roles, as head of the political section, as co-ordinator of embassy work, and as advisor to the head of post. It no longer exists, being replaced by an American style deputy head of mission system from c. 1990 onwards. See a recent critique of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies: Daniel R. Depetris, “Reports of ‘Secret’ North Korean Missile Bases: Much Ado about Not Much”, 38 North, 28 Jan. 2019, atwww.38north.org/2019/01/ddepetris012819/. Many of these stories have been uncritically gathered together in Ruth Ann Monti, North Korea in 100 Facts (2019).

CHAPTER 19 1

2

With apologies to Maurice O’Sullivan, whose book Twenty Years a-Growing – an account of life in the Blasket Islands, off the west coast of Ireland – was published in 1933. This piece derives from a presentation made at an “International Symposium” at Kim Il Sung University in September 2018. It was received in silence by the DPRK participants, but with interest by the non-DPRK participants, who asked many questions. I left government service in 2003, and the paper represents a personal view. Not just among the Koreans – other diplomats and their families expressed joy that Britain was now in Pyongyang, since it would mean that there would soon be a British Council library. I had to disappoint them, too.

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I received a letter from my immediate superior after visiting Seoul in January 2002, where our embassy asked me to meet British journalists. This was soon after President Bush’s “axis of evil” speech. None asked me about DPRK reactions, which initially were muted. What they were interested in was life in the DPRK and what people knew of the West. Did they see Western films? I mentioned that my Korean staff seemed to have seen “The Sound of Music,” while “Edelweiss” was the European Department’s party piece. Alas, the Financial Times’s account was perfectly accurate but headed “More ‘Sound of Music’ than ‘Axis of Evil’ in Pyongyang.” I never did understand how that showed I was anti-American, but my card was marked! Web version: Andrew Ward, “More ‘Sound of Music’ Than ‘Axis of Evil’ in Pyongyang,” Financial Times, February 11, 2002; print version: Andrew Ward, “‘Sound of Music’ Counters ‘Axis of Evil’ Image,” Financial Times, February 12, 2002.

CHAPTER 20 1

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‘Peking’ rather than ‘Beijing’ is used because a) it is the form used by most former inhabitants of the British Embassy, by many Chinese when speaking in English and in most of the documents and books on which this paper is based; b) people know how to pronounce it; and c) I prefer it. See the beautifully reproduced maps of the various Pekings in Beijing lishi ditu ji (‘A collection of historical maps of Peking’) (Peking: Peking Publishing Company, 1985). For the background, see D. Hurd, The Arrow War: An Anglo-Chinese Confusion, 1856–1860 (London: Collins, 1967) and on the specific subject of diplomatic relations, M. Trouche, Le Quartier Diplomatique de Pèkin: Etude Historique et Juridique (Paris: Libraire Technique et Economique, N. D.), especially Chap. 2. D. F. Rennie, Peking and the Pekingese during the first year of the British Embassy in Peking (London: John Murray, 1865), I, 24–9, 55–6, 95–7 and 337; J. Bredon, Peking (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1931, reprinted Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 40–41; L. C. Arlington and W. Lewisohn, In search of old Peking (Peking: Henri Vetch, 1935, reprinted Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 5–6; Stephen Markbreiter, ‘In Search of an Identity: The British Legation at Peking, 1861’, Arts of Asia, (Hong Kong), 13, no. 3, May-June 1983, pp. 120–30. Public Record Office, Ministry of Works’ Records: Public Buildings Overseas (hereafter Work/10)/10, A. Miller, Office of Work, to S. K. Millar, Foreign Office, DC16/124644, 19 November 1942, listing the pre-1901 holdings of the British Legation/Embassy; A. B. Freeman-Mitford, The Attaché at Peking (London and New York: Macmillan, 1900), pp. vii, 66, 200; Mrs H. Fraser, A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands (London: Hutchinson, Fourth Edition, London, 1911), II, 411–12, 422; Public Record Office, Foreign Office Records, General Correspondence China, (cited as F017)/1460, Report on Her Majesty’s Legation and Consular Buildings in China, Corea, Japan and Siam, by Mr R. H. Boyce, CB, London, 1899. P. Fleming, The Siege at Peking (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986) on the seige generally and pp. 248–52 on the settlement; Trouche, Le Quartier Diplomatique de Pékin, pp. 54 et seq. See also Foreign Relations of the United States, 1901. Appendix: Affairs in China (Reprinted in China, 1941), on the establishment of the Legation Quarter. K. Baedecker, Russia, with Teheran, Port Arthur and Peking; Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: Karl Baedecker, 1914, reprinted Newton Abbot: David and Charles; London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971), pp. 559–60; the Legation Quarter has a longer entry than either the Forbidden City or the Temple of Heaven. W. G. C. Graham, China through one pair of eyes, or Reminiscences of a Consular Officer 1929–1950 (London: The China Society, 1984), p. 12. Letter and enclosures from Mrs M. McCallum, Liverpool, 9 October 1990 – Mrs McCallum lived in the British Legation in the late 1930s; Works 10/371, Berne to FO, telno 572,

402

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13 14

15

16 17

18

19 20 21

22

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18 February 1942; T. J. Wilson, FO, to Works, 20 February 1942; Works 10/1117, T. G. Champkins, Shanghai, ‘Report on the Peking Legation’, 24 August 1946. Parliamentary Papers 1943 (Cmd. 6417), China No. 1 (1943) Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extra-Territorial Rights in China\Works 10/117, Champkins ‘Report’, 24 August 1946; (3) Works 10/117, G. M. Patrick, Works, to H. W. Walsh, Air Ministry, ref. DG16/796, 16 December 1946; F. O. B. McDermott, FO, to J. E. Winter, Works, 19 March 1947; M. C. Gillett, Peking, to Chancery Nanjing, no. 61, 26 April 1947; D. Jacobs-Larkcom, As China Fell: The experiences of a British Consul’s Wife 1946–1953 (Ilfracombe: Arthur H. Stockwell Ltd, 1976), p. 20. Graham, China through one pair of eyes, pp. 12–13; R. Boardman, Britain and the People’s Republic of China 1949–1974 (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 44 et seq: James Tuck-Hong Tang, Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949–54 (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 1 et seq. H. Trevelyan, Worlds Apart; China 1953–5; Soviet Union, 1962–5 (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1971), p. 23. This account was partly based on a despatch, ‘The Life of A Diplomatist at Peking’, in F0371/114992/FC1018/59, Trevelyan to Mr Macmillan, no. 119, secret, 11 May 1955. For life in the compound from 1950 to 1953, see Peter Lum (Lady Crowe), Peking 1950–1953 (London: Robert Hale, 1958). Tang, Britain’s Encounter, pp. 119–24. Works 10/117, Nanjing to FO, telno. 41, 7 January 1950; FO to Peking, telno. 54, 3 March 1950; Peking to FO, telno. 247, 5 April 1950; F0371/105308, telegrams between Peking and FO, March-April 1950. See also The Times, 13 April 1950 and Trevelyan, Worlds Apart, p. 23. Trevelyan, Worlds Apart, pp. 24 et seq; Works 10/372, Memorandum by W. I. Combs, 17 December 1954; Letter from Brig. C. D. Steel, FO, to Works, 10 September 1955. Works 10/372, copy of J. M. Addis, Peking, to C. T. Crowe, FO, 11 January 1956. Works 10/372. J. McAdam Clark, FO, to R. B. Marshall, Works, 30 December 1955; C. D. Steel, FO, to R. B. Marshall, Works, 28 March 1956. Works 10/372, A. Tough to Mr Alexander, superintending architect, and to Mr Champkins, senior architect, confidential, 23 July 1956, and private letter from Tough to Alexander, 26 July 1956. For the ‘spoiled children’, see minute by J. R. Gilbin to Mr Jenkins, 10 April 1957. Works 10/374, Peking to FO, telno. 32 confidential and private, 21 January 1959. Works 10/374, Memorandum ‘Peking Embassy’, 30 January 1959. P. D. Coates, ‘Documents in Chinese from the Chinese Secretary’s Office, British Legation, Peking, 1861–1939’, Modern Asian Studies, 17, no. 2, (1983), pp. 239–55; FO 366/3167/ XCA1101/4/5, ‘Disposal of Private Property stored on the Embassy Premises’, Chancery Peking to Consular Dept., 11 February 1960. FO366/003188/XCA1101/4–8/61, various papers relating to the payment of compensation on 14 July 1961. B. Smedley, Partners in Diplomacy (Ferring, West Sussex: Harley Press, 1990), p. 100; FO 366/003187/XCA110/4/5/61, Minute by C. D. Steel, 25 July 1961, recording a conversation with Mr M. Stewart, 19 July 1961. Smedley, Partners in Diplomacy p. 134; A. Winnington, Breakfast with Mao: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986), p. 198. Anthony Grey, Hostage in Peking, (London: Paperback edition, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988), pp. 60–6. Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, (1967), p. 22267. Letter from Sir Percy Cradock, GCMG, 10 March 1993; Jean Vincent, ‘Red Guard attack as ultimatum expires’, The Times, 23 August, 1967. See also Keesing’s, p. 22267, which reproduces part of the Foreign Office statement issued on 23 August. The Kyodo and NCNA reports of 23 August are in the BBC’s Summary of World Broadcasts, Far East, 24 August 1967. For an account by Hopson, see a letter to his wife of 28 August 1967, reproduced in Denise Hardy, En Chine avec Lady Hopson (Paris: André Bonne, 1969), pp. 53–7. Grey, Hostage in Peking, pp. 120–32, appears based on an account by one of those present; Ray

NOTES

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Whitney, ‘When the Red Guards stormed our embassy’, The Sunday Telegraph, 23 November 1980. Whitney was present during the attack, and his flat was later used for offices. Keesing’s pp. 22268–2269; Grey, Hostage in Peking, pp. 129–30; Peking Review, 14 August 1967. Letter from Sir Percy Cradock, 10 March 1993; J. van Ginneken, The Rise and Fall of Lin Piao (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 115–7, 233. A recent English-language book published in China refers to the ‘infamous burning of the office of the British chargé d’affaires . . .’ at Wang Li’s instigation; Zong Huuaiwen, Years of Trial, Turmoil and Triumph: China from 1949 to 1988 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989), p. 144. By contrast, the incident is ignored entirely in China’s Foreign Relations: A Chronology of Events 1949–1988 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989), p. 493, which notes Grey’s house arrest and various Chinese protests at British behaviour in Hong Kong and London. ‘Britons advised to flee for their safety’, The Independent, 7 June 1989; ‘Chaos as thousands of foreigners converge on airport’, Daily Telegraph, 9 June 1989. Liu Jie, ‘Occidental Slice of Oriental City’, China Daily, 15 March 1989. Some fine photographs of the legations, including one of the main gate to the British Legation, appear in Fu Gongyue, Old Photos of Beijing (Peking: People’s Fine Arts Printing House, 1989), photos 47 to 63. Hiogo News, 2 February 1870. Trevelyan, Worlds Apart, p. 62.

CHAPTER 21 1

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3 4

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9 10

11 12

Robert A. Longmire and Kenneth C. Walker, Herald of a noisy world – interpreting the news of all nations: The Research and Analysis Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1995 – Foreign Policy Document (Special Issue), no. 263), p. 40; FCO ‘About Research Analysts’ and Richard Lavers, ‘The role of Research Analysts in the FCO’, Research and Analytical Papers, January 2001, both at http:// www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/Sho wPage&c…, accessed 4 November 2006. J. E. Hoare, Embassies in the East: The story of the British and their embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 171–94. Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 195–8. ‘Foreign Civilian Detainees in the Korean War’, in James Hoare and Susan Pares, Conflict in Korea: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999), pp. 47–8. There is a brief obituary at http://www.icasinc.org/2003/2003b/ b030722b.html and a fuller biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_L._Walker, both accessed on 11 November 2006. This was Yi Pom-suk, who had transliterated his name as ‘Lee Bum-suk’, to the amusement of many foreigners. He was well aware of this, having an excellent command of English. He was one of those killed in Rangoon in 1983, when North Korean agents attempted to assassinate President Chun: Hoare and Pares, Conflict in Korea, p. 97. Daniele Varè, Laughing Diplomat (London: John Murray, 1938), pp. 84, 86. For the early years of the British embassy, see Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 17–65. H. Trevelyan, Worlds Apart: China 1953–55; Soviet Union 1962–65 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 22–3, based on a dispatch, ‘Life of a diplomatist in Peking’, in the Foreign Offices records, FO371/11492/FC1018/50, Trevelyan to Mr. Macmillan, no. 119, secret, 11 May 1955; see also Peter Lum (Lady Crowe), Peking 1950–53 (London: Robert Hale, 1958). Hoare, Embassies in the East, p. 72. See Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 82–6, in turn derived from reminiscences and official papers, including Percy Cradock, Experiences of China (London: John Murray, 1994). Anthony Grey, Hostage in Peking (London: Widenfeld and Nicholson, 1980). The chemical device for destroying papers produced a neat uniform burnt edge around the documents, but otherwise failed to achieve its purpose.

404

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19

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25 26

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A. M. Rendel, ‘China to pay for sacking of British mission’, The Times, 23 March 1971; letter from Sir Percy Cradock to J. E. Hoare, 10 March 1993. The Beijing diaries of David Bruce, first head of the US Liaison Mission, have been published: Priscilla Roberts, ed., Window on the Forbidden City: The Beijing Diaries of David Bruce, 1973–1974 (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies University of Hong Kong, 2001). They give something of the flavour of Beijing in the 1970s, but more entertaining is diplomatic life through the eyes of a seven year old: Amélie Nothomb, Le sabotage amourex (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1993), translated into English by Andrew Wilson as Loving Sabotage (London: New Directions, 2000). One British diplomat’s account is Roger Garside, Coming Alive: China After Mao (London: Andre Deutsch, 1981). Frances Wood, Hand-grenade Practice in Peking: My part in the Cultural Revolution (London: John Murray, 2000) is a student’s more light-hearted account. I have also learnt much about these years from Susan Pares (second secretary 1975–6) and other members of the British embassy in the 1970s, and made my own first visit in 1976. Briefly touched upon in G. R. Berridge, Talking to the Enemy: How States without ‘Diplomatic Relations’ Communicate (London: Macmillan Press, 1994), pp. 77–8. James Lilley, with Jeffrey Lilley, China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), especially pp. xi–xiv, 296–372; Lilley succeeded Richard Walker in Seoul, and became ambassador to China in May 1989; Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 88–90, and J. E. Hoare, ‘Building politics: The British Embassy Peking, 1949–1992’, The Pacific Review, 7, 1 (1994), 67–78; both contain more detailed references. Lilley refers positively to the activities of the American military but is rather negative about their foreign colleagues: Lilley, China Hands, p. 326. ‘Peking frees Hong Kong activist’, The Independent, 9 June 1989. The US embassy also received criticism for ‘failures’; Lilley, China Hands, p. 326. This draws on J. E. Hoare, ‘A Brush with History: Opening the British Embassy Pyongyang, 2001–02’, Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, vol. 9, 57–87, with references; J. E. Hoare and Susan Pares, North Korea in the 21st Century: An Interpretative Guide (Folkestone Kent: Global Oriental, 2005), pp. 199–225, has the text without references. David Rennie, ‘Britain signs diplomatic deal with North Korea’, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 13 December 2000. (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) 12 December 2000, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB) FE/4002/D2, 13 December 2000; ‘The DPRK and the UK established diplomatic relations’, Radio China International, 13 December 2000. Hansard, House of Commons, Written Answers col. 325, 17 January 2000. Warwick Morris, ‘UK policy towards North Korea’, in Hazel Smith et al., North Korea in the New World Order (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), pp. 86–92; Hoare, ‘Brush with History’, 58–64. FCO press release, 19 October 2000; Jonathan Watts, ‘Britain opens links with North Korea’, Guardian, 20 October 2000. An account of the Koryo Hotel and its drawbacks is in James Church, A corpse in the Koryo: a mystery (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006). Hoare, ‘Brush with History’, 70 et seq. Balázs Szalontai, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet-DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2005), pp. 54–7, 199–201. Erik Cornell, North Korea under Communism: Report of an Envoy to Paradise (London: Routledge and Curzon, 2002). Sweden closed its embassy in Pyongyang in the early 1990s, but subsequently re-opened. In January 2002, the Swedish chargé d’affaires, Paul Beijer, became the first resident Swedish ambassador. Adrian Buzo, ‘North Korea – Yesterday and Today’, Transaction of the Korea Branch Royal Asiatic Society, 56 (1981), 1–27. Buzo was Second Secretary in the Australian embassy. Cornell, North Korea, p. 25. Cornell, North Korea, pp. 25–6.

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Brian Barron, ‘Britain moves into Kim’s secret state’, BBC News Online, 29 August 2001. Catherine Bertini, head of WFP from 1992–2002, made four visits to the DPRK and each time asked that WFP be allowed satellite communications especially to communicate with its officers in the field. The requests were refused. ‘Message for Jim Hoare’, e-mail from Rick Corsino, WFP Pyongyang, to John Dunne, British Embassy Pyongyang, 7 December 2002.

CHAPTER 29 1

Carmen Blacker. “Two Piggotts: Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852–1925) and Major General F. S. G. Piggott (1883–1966)”, in Sir H. Cortazzi and G. Daniels (eds.), Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities (London: Routledge 1991), pp 118–127.

CHAPTER 37 1

Rutt was also a scholar and a translator of poetry. He later became a Roman Catholic. His account of parish life in rural Korea in the 1950s appeared as Korean Works and Days: Notes from the Diaries of a Country Priest, published in Seoul by the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch in 1964, and is still in print.

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Nie Rongzhen. Inside the Red Star: The Memoirs of Marshal Nie Rongzhen. Beijing: New World Press, 1988. pp. 418–425. Nie notes that those trained by Lindsay and another foreigner were later prominent in the People’s Republic of China’s communications industry. My wife’s mother and Michael Lindsay were first cousins. Michael Lindsay. The Unknown War: North China 1937–1945. London: Bergstrom & Boyle Books Ltd., 1975; reviewed by L. Handley-Derry in Asian Affairs, February 1977, pp. 118–119.

Index Names v

Abt, Felix 339–40 Acherson, Neal, 200 Adams, F. O. 44, 92 Alcock, Sir Rutherford 77–79, 83–85, 86, 87, 88, 99, 137, 138, 321 Allen, H. C. xxii Allison, Sir Richard 53 Anderson, Robert 215, 232 Anglin, J. R. 34–35 Anne, Princess 195 Anthony of Taizé, Brother 383 n.24 Ashton-Gwatkin, Frank 50 Aston, W. G. 16, 22, 64, 73, 84, 90, 112–13, 127, 131, 154, 155, 157, 158, 160, 238, 319, 381 n.8, 382 n.12 Attlee, Earl (Clement) 191, 198, 325, 326, 327, 303 n.113 Auslin, Michael 312–14 Baba Tatsui 94, 376 n.42 Bailey, Buckworth 14, 42 Baker, Charles Alma 307 Baker, Hugh 358–59 Barrington, Eric 379 n.17 Barron, Brian 224, 226, 295 Battle, John 210, 211 Beale, J. E. 33, 39, 70 Beasley, William G. xxii, 315, 316 Beijer, Paul 398 n.10, 404 n.27 Belling, Arne 285 Bennett, W. G. 114, 116, 392 n.87 Bertini, Catherine 405 n.31 Bethell, Ernest 165–66, 217, 392 n.77 Bethune, Norman 356 Betta, Chiara 361 Bevin, Ernest 190, 203 Bewsher, John 108, 109, 111 Bickers, Robert xiv, 134, 360 Bickersteth, Bishop Edward 179

Bigot, Gaston Maurice Napoleon 322 Bigot, Georges 42, 322–23 Bindoff, S. T. xxii Bishop, Isabella Bird 48, 161, 365 Bismarck, Prince Otto von 300 Black, John Reddie 13–24 passim, 33, 34, 35, 41–423 88, 89–90 Blacker, Carmen 317–20 Blair, Tony, Prime Minister 211, 258, 398– 99, n.22 Blake, George 280, 342 Bland, née Davidson, Winifried 395,n.16 Bligh, Captain William 2, 7 Bolton, John 254, 255 Bonar, Henry 377 n.58, 380 n.29, 382 n.24, 384 n.41 Bookbinder, David 207 Borrows, Anne 393 n.99 Boyce, R. H. 45, 46, 47 Brabazon, Lord 192 Brackley, Major 107 Bradley, Gen. Omar 199 Brain, Norman 122 Branigan, Tania 240 Brassey. Lady 48 Briggs, Captain 104 Brinkley/Tanaka, Dorothy 67 Brinkley, Francis (Frank) 37–39, 64–73, 95, 370 n.29, 371 n.8, 16, 19, 372 n.24 Brinkley/Tanaka, Harry 66, 67 Brooke, John Henry 35 Brooke, Leslie C. 183, 395 n.13 Broughton, Captain William xviii, 1–12, 152 Brown, John McLeavy 163, 164 Brown, Sir Stephen 212, 213 Brunton, Richard Henry 90, 375 n.25 Buckley, Christopher 173, 195 Burgess, Guy 201 407

408

INDEX

Bush, President George W. xvi, 231, 244, 247, 248, 253, 254, 259, 401 n.3 Buzo, Adrian 398 n.11 Bytheway, Simon xiv, xix Cameron, James 196, 198, 396 n.15 Campbell, Henry 384 n.41 Campos, Luis 29, 30, 31, 367 n.10 Carew, Edith 128 Carew, Walter 128 Carles, W. R. 113, 157 Carlin, Bob xxviii Carter, Peter 211, 212, 213 Cassel, Par Kristoffer 360–61 Chadwell, Bishop Arthur 169, 174, 186 Chamberlain, Basil Hall 64, 71, 72, 73, 90, 96, 127, 128, 129, 319 Chang, Richard T. 308–11 Cheke, Dudley 123 Chiang Kai-shek , President 170, 195 Chirol, Valentine 69 Choe Su Hon 220, 228, 230, 231 Chun Doo-hwan, President 207, 239, 242, 400 n.5 Chung Byong-ho xvii Chung Chong-wha xxiv Chung Ju-yong 216 Churchill, Sir Winston 198, 238, 327 Clark, Alan 333 Clark, Donald 333–34 Clark, John 40 Clinton, William (Bill) , President 253, 254 Clive, Lady 55 Clive, Sir Robert 55 Coates, P. D. 123, 351–52 Cole, A. H. 36 Comfort, Ernest Cyril 102–111 377 Ch.9 n.1 Comfort, Richard 377 Ch.9 n.1 Condor, Joseph 90 Cook, Captain James 1–2, 5, 7 Cook, Robin 211, 258, 291, 399 n.34 Cooper, Bishop Cecil 168, 171, 173, 174, 185, 186, 394 n.118 Corfe, Bishop Charles J. 162–63, 165, 168, 179, 180, 182, 183 Cornell, Andy 214, 215, 217–8 Cornell, Erik 205, 223–24, 328–29 Cortazzi, Sir Hugh xviii, xxiv, xxix, xxxii, 45, 135, 319–20, 323 Cowley, R. L. 118 Cradock, Sir Percy 275 Cragie, Lady 55–56, 58, 60 Cragie, Sir Robert 55–61

Cripps, Sir Stafford 197 Crossman, Richard 199, 397 n.22 Crowe, Sir Edward 114, 115, 120, 380 n.48 Currie, Sir Philip 155 Curtis, A. W. 40 Curzon, Lord 161 Cutforth, René 188, 199 Da Roza, F. 15, 16 Daizai Shundai 132 Davidson, C. J. 52 Davidson, H. W. 167, 392 n.87, 395 n.16 de la Mare, Sir Arthur xxix, 54, 115–16 De Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste Barthelemy 5 Deng Xiaoping 277, 289 Dening, Sir Esler 121, 122, 123, 380 n.48 Dening, Walter 35, 36 Denison, H. W. 28 Denson, John 275 Dent, Sir Alfred 80 Derby, Lord 158 De Vries, 5 Dickins, F. V. 37, 41 Dilke, Sir Charles 21 Dixon, Arthur S. 181 Dohman, Martin 36 Donald, Sir Alan xxv, xxvi Dore, Ronald P. 318 Drake, Captain 310 Drake, H. B. 184 Duncan, Reginald and Cecily 232 Dunne, John and Naomi 232 Eden, Sir Anthony, (Lord Avon) 124, 268, 283 Elgin, Earl of 76, 83, 266 Elizabeth I, Queen 82 Elizabeth II, Queen 173, 262, 275, 327 Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 231 Eliot, Sir Charles 50–51 Eliot, T. S. 319 Enslie, J. J. 126 Fang Lizhi 276, 288, 290 Farrar-Hockley, Sir Anthony 324, 325–27 Felton, Monica 193, 201 Ferris, John 102 Fitchett, Robert 216, 217 Fletcher, Jane xxiii Ford, Glyn 220 Foster-Carter, Aidan 206, 250 Foucault, Michel xvii Frampton, G. Russell 163 Frank, Ruediger xxx

INDEX

Fraser, Hugh 23, 30, 31, 37, 41, 47, 48–49, 97, 376 n.52 Fraser, Mary 48–49 Fukuzawa Yukichi 146, 317, 318 Furata (later Fujita) Hamiko -The Dragon Queen 319 Gandhi, Mahatma 56 Gelézeau, Valérie 330–332 Genoa, Duke of 154 Gilbert and Sullivan 49 Gittings, John 206 Gloucester, Henry, Duke of 52 Gloucester, Richard, Duke of 150 Glover, Thomas 87, 143 Gluck, Caroline 227, 229, 240 Goodwin, Agnes – see Mrs. J. C. Hall Goodwin, Charles 127 Gorbachev, President Mikhail 251 Gore-Booth, Sir Paul 56, 60 Goto Shijiro 365 n.11 Gower, A. J. 126, 373 n.15 Gower, S. J. 79 Grayson, James 333 Grant, President Ulysses S. 96 Grew, Joseph 57–58 Grey, Anthony 273, 285, 286 Griffis, W. E. 42 Griffiths, Ernest A. 379–80 n.28 Gubbins, John Harrington 84, 113, 1145 128, 367 n.46, 382 n.21 Gutzlaff, Karl/Charles 152, 153 Haber, Ludwig 141 Hakluyt, Richard 151 Hahn, Frank 151 Hall, John Carey 125–33, 142, 377 n.56, 381 n.2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 382 n.12, 19, 23, 383 n.24, 26, 27, 29, 33, 35, 384 n.36, 41, 46, 47, 385 Ch.12 n.11 Hall, Mrs. J. C. 127, 132, 133, 385 n.50 Hall, Margaret 306 Hall, Vernon 385 n.50 Hallifax, T. E. 163 Hamilton, Lord Frederic 50 Hamilton, Admiral Sir Vesey Richard 159–60 Handley, Tommy 188 Hannen, Sir Nicholas 28 Hansard, A.W. 13, 33, 34, 35, 40 Hardoon Family 361 Harrington, T. J. 118 Harris, Townsend 75–77, 83, 312 Harrison, C. T. L. 395 n.26

409

Harrison, Frederic 382 n.18 Hart, Sir Robert 157, 163, 389 n.20, 391 n.66 Hartley, John 309, 310 Hartley, L. P. xiii Hatoyama Kazuo 27–28 Hawley, R. 59 Hay, Robert 36 Hearn, Lafcadio 34 Heath, Sir Edward 206 Heco, Joseph (Hamada Hikozo) 14, 42 Hepburn, J. C. 64 Heusken, Henrik 84 Hillier family xiv Hillier, Lady xiv Hillier, Sir Walter xiv, 113, 155, 391 n.50 Hirohito, Emperor xxvii, 52 Hitchens, Peter 226 Hoare, Charles xxiii Hoare, James 188, 212–34, 239, 242–47, 258–61, 277, 279–96, 308, 329, 401 Ch. 19, n.3 Hoare, Joanna xxvi, 242 Hoare, Sir Samuel and Lady 304 Hobart-Hampden, Ernest 131 Hodges, Cecil 183 Holt, Bertha 344 Holt, Harry 344 Holt, Vyvyan 171, 173, 280 Hong Taiji 363 Hopkinson, Thomas 198 Hopson, Sir Donald 273–75, 285–86 House, E. H. 40, 68, 95, 376 n.44 Howard, Keith 346–48 Howell, W. G. 37, 38, 39, 68 Howlett, Jonathan 361 Hu Yaobang 288 Hulton, Edward 198 Hum, Sir Christopher 219, 220 Humphries, Christopher 319 Hunt, Fr. Charles 171, 173, 185 Hurd, Douglas (Baron Hurd of Westwell) xxvi, 277 Hurley, General Patrick J. 356–57 Hutchinson, W. De Flon 163 Inoue Kaoru 39, 70, 370 n.29 Iran, Shah of 298 Ito, Dr. 105 Ito Hirobumi 70 Iwakura Tomomi 87, 313 Iwaski family 71 Iwasaki Koyoata 108

410

INDEX

Jackson, Isabella 361 James, Captain 129 James I, King 151 Jiang Qing 356, 357 Johnson, Amy 304 Johnson, Boris 237–38 Jones, F. C. 308 Jordan, Sir John 113, 114, 164 Jordan, Capt. William 106, 107, 108 Kanda Takahira, Baron 126 Keith, Elizabeth 190 Kennedy, Elidh 216, 217, 219, 220, 224–30 Kennedy, President John F. 298 Kent, Duke of 150 Kermode, Lady 115–116 Kermode, Rev. Sir Dermot W. 115–117, 119, 170–71 Kerr, Sir John ( later Lord Kerr of Kinlochard) 202, 213, 215, 244, 257–58, 259, 291 Keswick, James Johnstone 74, 79, 373 n.17 Keswick, Sir John 206 Keswick, William 74–81, 373,n.15, Kiuchi, Mr 60 Kikuchi, Baron Dairoku 71 Kim Chun Guk 202, 209, 212, 228, 244, 246, 257, 260–61 Kim Dae-jung, President xxix, 209, 211, 243, 258, 290, 398–99 n.22 Kim Il Sung , President xxix, 123, 207, 221, 223, 246, 292, 294, 337, 347, 398 n.17 Kim Jong Il xxix, xxx, 211, 221, 226, 246, 247, 258, 290, 292, 294, 337, 398 n.17 Kim Jong Un 236, 249, 253, 254–55 Kim Ok-kyun 154 Kim Sakkat (Kim without a Hat) 342 Kim Sang-man 394 n.131 Kim Suk-young xvii Kim Yo-jong 254 Kim Yong Il 228 King, Archibald 309, 310 Kitamura Sayo 319 Knatchball-Hugessen, Sir Hughe 55 Knight, Roger xxii Kojong, King 154, 157, 163 Köllner, Patrick xxx Konue Fuimoro, Prince 316 Kublai Khan 363 Kwon, Hyonik xvii Laffitte, Pierre 131 Langley, Walter 384 n.46 La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galoup, 5

Lawrence, Susan 357 Lay, Arthur Hyde 113, 114–15, 120, 379 n.17 Lay, Horatio Nelson 37, 38, 68 Lee Chuk-yan 289 Lee Hoi-young xxxii Lee Myung-bak, President 252, 262 Lee Tong-won, Dr. 204 Lee, William 173 Lewis, Cecil 101 Li Hung-chang 389 n.23 Liang, Dukes of 266 Lilley, James 404 n.16, 17 Lindley, Sir Francis 54–55 Lindsay, Alexander (First Lord Lindsay of Birker) 357 Lindsay, Erica 357 Lindsay, Hsiao Li/ Li Hsiao-li/Li Xiaoli) xxxii, 349, 355–57 Lindsay, Michael (Second Lord Lindsay of Birker) 349–50, 355–57 Longford, Joseph 29–30, 84, 154 Lord, Hubert 171, 173, 394 n.118 Loewe, Michael 317, 319 Lou Htin Wah, 2nd. Lt., 307 Luce, Baron Richard 206 Lury, Lt. D. P. RNVR 170 Lutyens, Sir Edward 54 Lutz, Jesse Gregory xxi McCallum, Mrs M. 401 Ch. 20 n.9 MacArthur, General Douglas 173, 195, 196, 197, 199, 318, 325, 32, 397 n.207 McCormack, Gavin 206 McCune, George 190 MacDonald, Sir Claude 49–50, 100, 384 n.41 MacDonald, Lady 49–50 MacDonnell, Sir Richard 65 McIntyre, John 153 McKillop, Beth 215, 233 McLaren, Sir Robin xxvii MacLean, Donald 201 Maclean, Sir Fitzroy 171 Mcvittie, W. W., and family 118 Magee, Haywood 195 Major, John xxvi Makino Yoshio 319 Mao Zedong 267, 347, 356, 357 Maples, John MP 210 Margaret, Princess 231 Marsden, Rosalind 212, 213 Martin, Kingsley 199

INDEX

Mary Clare, Sister I Clare Emma Whitty), 173, 184, 185 Mason, John 59 Mason, Mrs (mother of John) 59 Massey, Viscount 54 Maude, C. T. 113, 155 Maxwell, Robert xii Meiji, Emperor 130, 141 Michelborne, Sir Edward 151, 388 Ch.13 n.2 Michell, A. R. 392 n.74 Miles, James 207, 288 Mills, Sgt. J. G. 185 Min Yong Tong 392 n.69 Minakata Kumugasu 319 Minto, Lord 11, 12 Mitford, Algernon (Lord Redesdale) 87 Mitsui, Baron 70 Mobutu, President Sese Seko 298 Moon Jie-in, President 254, 255 Morgan, Sir John xiv, xxiv Morgan, W. P. 392 n.69 Morphy, E. A. 40 Morrison, G. E. 69 Morrison, Ian 173, 195 Moser, Michael J. 353, 354 Moser, Yeone Wei-chih 353–354 Muggeridge, Malcolm 191, 397 n.20 Murdoch, Dame Iris 150 Murdoch, James 40 Mussolini, Benito 197 Nahm, Andrew xvi, xxx Nasser, President Gamal Abdel 91 Needham, Joseph 199 Nieh Jungchen/Nie Rongzen, General 349, 356 Nieves, Zoilo 28, 29–31, 30, 368 n.18 Nish, Ian 315–16 Nixon, President Richard 277 Norbury, Paul xxi, xxviii, xxxii Norman, C. A. 40 Obama, Barak, President 254 O’Conor, Sir Nicholas 161 O’Connor, Peter 381 n.6 O’Donnell, Frank Hugh 21 Oh, Arissa H. 343 Ohara Shigeya 126 Ohta, Mr 57 Okuma Shigenobu , Count 21, 30 O’Neill, Sir Con 269–70 O’Neill, Lady 270 O’Neill, Robert 326

411

Oppenheim, Lassa Francis Lawrence 133 O’Rourke, Kevin 341–42 O’Sullivan, Maurice 400 Ch. 19 n.1 Overstall, Ann 377 Ch.9 n.1 Overstall, John 377 Ch.9 n.1 Paik Too-chin 173 Pak Kang Son 212, 217 Palmer, Maj. Gen. H. S. 40, 68, 69, 370 n.39, 371 n.20 Pares, Susan xii, xix, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, xxix, xxx, xxxii, 214, 215, 216, 220, 225–26, 233, 242, 244, 246, 400 n.14 Pares, Richard 308 Park Chung-hee, President 204, 241, 330–31 Park Geun-hye, President 236, 252 Parkes, Sir Harry S. 19–25, 30, 36, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45–61, 65, 68, 84–92, 96, 97, 100–01, 112–13, 128, 129, 138, 139, 141, 150, 151, 153, 155–58, 161, 162, 310–11, 366 n.27, 376 n.44, 389 n.23 Parkes, Lady 87 Parkes, Marion 155–56, 373 n.17 Parlett, Harold George 120–21 Parnell, Charles Stewart 64 Paske-Smith, Montague xxi, xxiii, 84 Paton, G. P. 118 Patten, Chris (now Baron Patten of Barnes) xxvii Peacock, Peter 47 Pearson, G. C. 38 Pence, Mike 254–55 Perry, Commodore Matthew 85, 140, 312 Perry, William 252 Phillips, H. 114, 115, 118, 120, 380 n.33 Phipps, Gerard 115–16, 118 Phipps, Mrs. 115 Pickles, Leo 122 Piggott, Sir Francis T. 90, 99, 317–18 Piggott, Major General F.S.T. 51, 54, 55, 56, 98, 317–18 Piggott, Julia 317 Pirie, Gordon 305 Plat, D. C.M. 119 Playfair, F. W. 383 n.31 Plunkett, Sir Francis 47–48, 97, 128, 382 n.21 Plunkett, Lady 48 Polack, Christian 323 Pope-Hennessy, Sir John 79–80, 96, 373 n.18 Portal, Jane 215, 216, 232–33, 336–38

412

INDEX

Pratt, Calvin 26, 27–28, 30 Pratt, Sir John 199 Putiatin, Admiral Yevimy 140 Putin, President Vladimir 236 Quinlan, Bishop Thomas 341–42 Rammell, Bill 261, 262 Rang, Sonia xvii Reagan, President Ronald 280, 299 Redman, Lady 58, 59 Redman, Sir Vere 57, 58, 59–60 Reed, Hugo 381 n.3, 6, 7 Rhee, President Syngman 172, 195, 198, 199, 238, 241, 343 Ri Kwang Gun 262 Ri Yong Ho 261 Richardson, Charles 139, 144 Rickerby, Charles 36, 37, 38, 369 n.20, Roberts, Miss A. J. 394 Ch. 14 n.1 Robertson, Russell 27–28, 386 n.14 Ross, John 153, 154 Royds, William 115 Russell, Dora 191 Rutt, Bishop (later Monsignor) Richard 176, 342, 394 Ch.14 n.1, 405 Ch. 37 n.1 Ruxton, Ian 381 Ch. 11 n.2 Saito, Baron Makato 182 Salisbury, Lord 29, 30, 31 Sands, William 333 Sano Masu 322 Sansom, Sir George 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 84 Sansom, Lady 55 Satow, Sir Ernest Mason 38, 41, 42, 46–49, 56, 64, 66, 72, 84, 86, 87, 91, 98, 99, 112, 115, 117, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 144, 319, 374 n.13, 379 n.17, 381 n.8, 382 n.12, 19, 383 n.26, 27, 29, 31, 386 n.17 Sawbridge, Henry 59 Scofield, Vernon 226, 231 Seare, Benjamin 36 Sebastian, Tim xxx Segal, Gerry xxvii, xxviii, xxix Sempill, Col. William Forbes (Master of Sempill) 102, 103, 107, 108, 377 n.3 Senior, Jayne 225 Shakespeare, William 243, 352 Shen Ping 273 Sheridan, Dorothy 189 Shorter, Hugo 228–29, 230

Shufeldt, Commodore (later Rear Admiral) Robert Wilson 154, 155 Sigirist, Fred 103 Simonds, Rev. 58 Simmons, Stephen 195 Slavin, Gordon 214 Smith, Alice Mildred Vaughan 34, 36, 41 Smith, Hazel 214 Smith, Herbert 104–06 Smurfit, Peter 227 So Choi 217 Sopwith, Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch 102, 104 Spence, W. D. 154 Spreckley, Sir Nicholas xiv, xxiv Stephenson, Charles 300–02 Stevenson, Winifred 272 Stewart,(later Baron) Michael 204 Stirling, Admiral Sir James 83, 389 n.19 Stokes, Anthony 213, 214, 216 Stopes, Marie 319 Stopford, Robert 11, 12 Stripling, A. 163 Suthaus, Gert 399 n.30 Sutton, Charles 40 Sweeney, John xvi, 239 Talbot, W. H. 35 Tanaka Yasu 66–67 Taylor, Lord 207 Taylor, A. J. P. 192 Tennant, Henry 36 Terashima Munenori 20, 21 Thae Yong Ho 212, 217, 236, 244, 259, 260 Thatcher, Lady 206–07, 220 Thomas, Harvey 220 Thomas, R. J. 152–53 Thomson, Baron Christoper 304 Thompson, Reginald 199 Tibbs, Mike 214, 215, 217–18 Tilley, Sir John 51–54, 119 Tough, A. 270 Trench, P. Le Poer 48 Trevelyan, Baron Humphrey 268, 269, 278, 283 Trollope, Bishop Mark xvii, 168, 180–84, 187, 392 n.93, 395 n.4 Trump, Donald, President 253, 254–55, 262 Tunstall, Julian 199 Turner, Bishop Arthur Beresford 165, 168, 179–81 Turner, Victor xvii, xix

INDEX

Underwood family 116, 335 Underwood, Horace G. 394 C.14 n.1 Underwood, Mrs. Horace G. 116 Vancouver, Captain George 1, 2, 3 Vansittart, Lord 192 Venn, Bert 107 Victoria, Queen 154 Vila, Senor 59–60 von Möllendorf, Paul 70, 163, 370 n.29 Wade, Sir Thomas 153 Wakabayashi Sei 66 Wakabayashi Tahei 66 Waley, Arthur 319 Walker, Ambassador Richard ‘Dixie’ 280, 403 n.29 Walsh, Francis 40 Wang Li 275, 403 n.29 Warren, Jim 230, 399 n.30 Watkins, A. T. 40 Watson, R. G. 46, 88, 96 Wesker, Arnold 150–51 Westad, Odd Arne 297, 298, 362–64 White, Oswald 114, 115, 129, 131, 381 n.2, 7, 9, 382 n.12, 21, 23, 384 n.36, 41,

413

White, Katheen Elizabeth née Hall 384 n.43, 385 n.50 Whitwell, S. J. 166 Wilkinson, Sir Hiram Shaw 367, n.5 Willis, Vice Admiral 113, 154–56, 385 n.8 Wills, H. W 182 Wilson, Harold - Baron Wilson of Rievaulx 206, 273 Winnington, Alan 194, 198, 201, 397 n.23 Wint, Guy 191 Wirgman, Charles 41–42, 89, 321–23 Wright, Elizabeth 214 Yi Elizabeth 186 Yi Pom-suk/Lee Bum-suk 403 n.6 Yi Zacharias 186 Yokota Kisaburō 308 Youde, Sir Edward 359 Youde, Lady Pamela 359 Young, Robert 40–41, 130 Younger, Susan 176 Yun Po-sun, President 186, 394 n.131 Zappe, Eduard 155 Zellweger, Kathi 399 n.38 Zhou Enlai 268, 275, 283, 286

Index Places v

Afghanistan xxii, 298 Africa 116, 170, 249, 300, 303–04, 339 Ago-dad-dy see Hakodate Akasaka 51 America 1, 3, 14, 192, 357, 374 n.15 -see also United States Ankara 57 Annam 266 Antrim 381 n.3 Argentina /Argentine 58, 59 Arima 28 Asia 2, 89, 136 Austria /Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire 191, 205, 300, 302 Australia/Australian xxii, xxviii, 1, 15, 34, 41, 53, 111, 164, 169, 205, 206, 210, 226, 290, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 325, 326, 334, 357, 384 n.43, 385 n.50, 390 n.38, 398 n.11, 404 n.27 Avalon, NSW 111, 377 Ch.9 n.1 Azabu 70

Berlin 191 Berlin Wall 286, 297 Bikanir 307 Birmingham 181 Bletchley Park 318 Boston xxvi, 1, 217 Boulogne 11 Bristol 207 Bristol University 360 Britain/British/United Kingdom xv, xvi, xxiv, xxvi, 1, 3, 5, 11, 12, 22, 27, 33–44, 45–62, 65, 73, 79, 82–101, 102–111, 112–24, , 129, 131, 141, 150–177, 181, 186, 188–201, 202–34, 235–40, 241–43, 249, 257–63, 264–78,, 280, 282, 290, 294, 297, 300, 301, 304–07, 312–13, 314, 315, 317–321, 324–27, 334, 351, 352, 357, 360, 368 n.22, 383 n.28, 390 n.32, 397 n.20, 22, 398 n.5, 400 n.2, 3, 4 British Library 215, 216, 224, 233 British Museum 215, 216, 224, 232, 233, 258, 336 Burma (Myanmar) 170, 266, 307

Bangkok 129 Baroda 307 Basra 304 Batavia (now Jakarta) 11 Bavaria 300 Beauvais 304 Beijing (Peking) xi, xii, xiii, xviii, xxv, xxvi, xxviii, xxix, 45, 48, 49–50, 55, 96, 102, 113, 122, 127, 156, 160, 161, 163, 164, 177, 182, 194, 205, 207, 208, 213, 214, 216, 219, 220, 225–26, 230, 231, 240, 244, 256, 260, 261, 264–78, 282–91, 302, 313, 328, 329, 349, 351–57, 363, 401 Ch. 20 n.1, 404 n.14 Belfast Queen’s College/University xii, 125, 381 n.4, 381 n.5 Belgium xxxi

Calcutta 307 California 26, 27 Cambridge, Mass. 355 Cambridge University 209, 319–20 Canada 53, 61 303, 304, 306 Canary Islands 2 Canberra 206 Canterbury 176 Canton (Guangzhou) 3, 33, 83, 89, 135, 271, 352 Cape Nambu 4 Cape Shiruyu - see Cape Nambu Cape Town 1 Caribbean 306 415

416

INDEX

Caversham 189 Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) 11, 307 Chamsil 331 Chefoo 152 Chejudo/Cheju-do 11, 176 Chemulp’o 113, 114, 115, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163, 166–67, 179 Chicago 71 China/Chinese xv, xvi, xxvii, xxiii, xxv, xxvi, xxvii, xxix, xxx, 8, 14, 27, 35, 52, 54, 55, 60, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74–76, 77–80, 82, 83–85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95–96, 98, 100, 114–15, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 131, 132, 134, 135–37, 140, 143, 144–45, 146, 152, 153, 154–58, 159, 160, 163, 173, 191, 196, 197, 199, 205, 204, 207–08, 218, 234, 238, 239, 244, 246, 250, 252, 255, 264–78, 279, 280–90 296, 298, 299, 301–02, 312–13, 326, 333, 334, 337, 341, 347, 349–50, 351–52, 353–54, 356–59, 360–61, 362–64, 380 n.32, 391 n.66 China, ‘Republic of ’ (since 1950) 281, 284 – see also Taiwan Chinamp’o (Nampo) 161 Chinatowns 135, 142, 143 Chongdong (Cho˘ ng-dong) 157, 178, 180 Chosan/Tshosan - see Pusan Choshu 79, 98 Chuzenji, Lake 48, 51, 52–52, 56, 61, 144 Clapham xviii Coleraine 125, 381 n.4 Colombo 190 Columbia River 1 Congo 298 Czechoslovakia 117, 191, 397 n.22 Dalian (Dalny, Dairen) 115, 119–20, 121 Denmark xxxi, 374 n.11 Deptford 2 Derbyshire 207 Deshima 76, 97, 137, 313 Diaoyutai (Ch.)/Senkaku Islands (Jap.) 7 Dominica 306 Downing Street 326, 399 n.42 Dublin 64, 381 n.7 Dunkirk 11 Durham 187 Earls Court 195 East Africa 116 East Asia/Far East xi, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxvix, 1, 33, 35, 36, 55, 74, 75, 80, 82,

83, 93, 94, 96, 100, 112, 135, 136, 150, 151, 154, 155, 156, 159, 161, 170, 179, 184, 193, 195, 225, 228, 253, 262, 278, 279, 283, 290, 300–01, 321, 322, 334, 339, 360, 374 n.3 East Germany/German Democratic Republic – see Germany East Indies 1, 11, 89 – see also Southeast Asia Eastern Europe 205, 250 Eastwick Park, Leatherhead, Surrey 79 Edinburgh 74, 153, 217 Edo 7, 75, 76, 79, 83, 137, 138, 139, 309 see also Tokyo Edo Bay 140, 312 Egypt 90, 304, 305 Eire - see Ireland Endermo - see Muroran England 4, 21, 87 Epsom 80 Estonia xxxi Europe/Europeans 70, 129, 191, 209, 212, 221, 236, 252, 259, 297, 299, 304, 327, 328, 332, 339, 362, 397 Everest, Mount 327 Ezo see Hokkaido Falkland Islands 188, 200 Finland xxxi, 205 Florence 12 Formosa 7, 37, 117 - see also Taiwan France xxxi, 104, 117, 266, 297, 301, 304, 306, 309, 385 n.50 Fuji, Mount 5, 47, 56 Fulham 193, 197 Geneva 209, 213, 268, 283 Germany/German 39, 60, 70, , 93, 105, 130, 155, 166, 195, 214, 216, 218, 219, 220, 226, 230, 233, 244, 245, 249, 251, 256, 268, 283, 291, 300–02, 304, 343, 366 n.30, 383 n.29, 391 n.66 Glasgow 162 Gotenyama 84 Greece 191 Guanghualu 265 Hakodate 8, 68, 75, 91, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144 Hamburg 300 Hammersmith 197 Hampstead 50, 132, 278 Han River 150, 161, 178 Hankou 361

INDEX

Harbin 122, 123 Harvard University 318, 362 Hawai’i 1, 3, 4, 119 Hayama 56 Hiogo - see Hyogo Hirado 151, 152 Hokkaido xxiv, 3, 4, 5, 8, 27, 110, 367 n.10 Hollywood 337 Hong Kong xxv, xxvi, xxvii, 26, 29, 30, 31, 65, 74, 79, 89, 126, 159, 162, 174, 264, 270, 272, 273, 285, 287, 289–90, 301, 306–07, 352, 358–59 Honolulu 120 Honshu 4, 5 Hull University 357, 392 n.74 Hungary/Hungarian 251, 291, 302 Hyderabad 307 Hyogo (Hiogo) 126, 137, 138, 139, 313 Imjin River 172, 199, 324, 327, 397 n.23 Inch’o˘ n/Inchon/Incheon 113, 154, 161, 167, 172, 173, 196, 335, 173, 179, 335 – see also Chemulp’o India/Indian 8, 11, 41, 52, 57, 87, 89, 94, 126, 136, 173, 191, 195, 196, 221, 272, 285, 303, 304, 305, 307 Indonesia /Indonesian xii, xxii, 117, 191, 221, 272, 275, 292 Insoo see Insu Insu 4, 8 Insu’or see Insu Iran/Iranian 199, 221, 292, 298 Iraq 251, 305 Ireland/Irish xxxi, 54, 64, 125, 132, 215, 239, 241, 244, 263, 334, 341, 352, 358, 381 n.4, 400 Ch. 19 n.1 Isle of Wight 110 Israel/Israeli 191, 273, 285 Italy/Italian xii, 12, 60, 87, 158, 191, 197, 201, 204, 210, 215, 241, 244, 291, 400 Ch 17 n.4 Japan/Japanese xi,, xiv, xv, xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxvii, xxviii, xxix, xxx 3, 5, 7, 8, 13–32, 33–44, 45–47, 50, 52, 54, 56–61, 64–73, 74–146, 151–158, 160, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 177, 182, 184, 190, 194, 195, 197, 207, 210, 216, 238, 248, 250, 254, 279, 280, 287, 296, 297, 301, 308–23, 330–33, 234, 337, 343, 347, 349, 351, 361, 363–64, 366 n.27, 368 n.22, 374 n.3, 375 n.27, 380 n.48, 386 n.21

417

Java 11, 12 Jeso see Hokkaido Jianguomenwai 265, 276, 277, 289 Jiaozhaou/Kiautschou 301 Kaesong 191, 327 Kanagawa 75–77, 99, 137 – see also Yokohama Kanghwa 153, 163, 171, 179, 180, 181 Kapyong 327 Karachi 192 Karuizawa 48 Kashgar 351 Keio University 318 Kenya/Kenyan 199, 285 Kew 12, 189 Kim Il Sung University 211, 400 n.1 Kingston on Thames 103, 104, 103, 110 Kobe 29, 40, 58, 69, 94, 95, 96, 106, 115, 125, 126, 129–30, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145, 154, 183, 184, 309, 380 n.33, 383 n.33 Kojimachi 44 Komundo/ Ko˘ mun-do) (Port Hamilton) xvii, 112, 152, 153, 157–60, 164, 388 n.8, 400 Ch. 17 n.1 Korea (Corea) /Korean pre-1948 and general xii, xiv, xxiv, xxviii, xxix, 7, 8, 10, 27, 36, 39, 48, 57, 68, 70, 84, 94, 96, 99, 110, 112–17, 122, 124, 126, 128–29, 134, 135, 140, 142, 150–201, 203, 238, 239, 247, 248, 249, 250–52, 266, 268, 280, 322, 324–27, 330, 333–35, 339, 341–43, 346–47, 351, 362–64, 390 n.38, 391 n.66, 392 n.69, 400 Ch 17, n.1 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (DPRK – North Korea/North Korean) xv, xvi, xvii, xxvii, xxx, xxxi, 173–74, 192–95, 201–50, 252, 254–63, 280, 287, 290–96, 299, 324–27, 328–30, 335–38, 340, 346–47, 385 n.8, 389 n.23, 393 n.113, 397 n.22, 400 Ch.17 n.1, 2, 3 Korea, Republic of (ROK – South Korea/ South Korean) xxv, xxx, xxxi, 113, 171–74, 176, 179, 188–201, 203, 204, 207, 208–11, 213, 225, 230, 233, 238, 241–42, 24–60, 267, 279–82, 290, 299, 324–28, 330–36, 339–41, 343–45, 346–47, 393 n.113, 394 n.118, 397 n.22, 405 n.1 Kremlin 325 Kunming 351 Kurile Islands 3, 5, 6, 8

418

INDEX

Kwangtung (Guangdong) Leased Territory 120 Kyoto 76, 137 Lancing College 182, 183 Latin America 298 Leeds University 206 Leicester 394 Ch.14 n.1 Lesotho 287 Levant 351 Liaodong Peninsula 120, 301 Lisbon 57 Liverpool 61, 93 London xv, xvi, xxvi, xxv, xxix, xxx, 3, 21, 30–31, 34, 35, 37, 38, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 58, 61, 65, 74, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 93, 99, 103, 104, 105, 115, 117, 119, 120, 124, 127, 129, 131–34, 142, 151, 155, 156, 157, 167, 171, 184, 190, 192–95, 202, 207, 208, 209, 212, 214, 216, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 236, 237, 244, 245, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261–263, 268–71, 273–75, 279, 282, 285, 286, 287, 288, 295, 352, 392 n.69 London School of Economics (LSE) 297, 315 Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) 61, 116 Luguoqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) 55 Macau/Macao 3, 6, 7, 11, 309 Madras 11 Malacca 11 Malaya /Malayan/ Federated Malay States 87, 191, 199, 306–07 Manchukuo 57, 58, 61, 122, 123, 331 Manchuria 122–123, 153, 162 Manhattan 330 Manila 29 31, 119, 120 Maputo - see Lourenço Marques Maruchan, Marikan, Marukan see Shimoshir (Rus.)/ Shimushiru (Jap.) Masanp’o 161 Matsumae/ Matsumai 4, 7, 8 Mauritius 11 Middle East/Middle Eastern 224, 239, 249, 272, 298, 303, 304 Miyako 4, 7 Miyanoshita 61 Mokp’o 161 Mongolia/Mongolian 266, 285 Monterey 3 Morocco 49 Moscow 214, 236, 256, 264, 265, 287, 328, 329

Mozambique 116 Mukden (Shenyang) 122, 123 Munhung-dong 222 Munsu-dong 222 Muroran (Endermo) 4, 7, 8 Myo˘ ng-dong 178 Nagasaki 13, 14, 31, 33–34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 75, 76, 89, 91, 128, 129, 136, 138, 140, 142, 143, 143, 145, 146, 154, 157, 162, 313, 387 n.30 Nagoya 103, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111 Namamugi 139, 144 Nampo 225 Nanjing 267, 283 Nanjing/Nanking River 3 Nantai, Mount 52 Netherlands /Dutch xxxi, 4, 42, 57, 75, 76, 84, 91, 118, 126, 140, 191, 284, 304, 313 New York 71, 330 New Zealand xxix, 1, 34, 306, 307, 282, 286 Niigata 137, 138 Nikko 53 Nordic Countries 205, 328 Normandy 324 Northeast Asia 1 Norway xxxi Oregon 344 Osaka 126, 137, 138, 143, 145, 182, 313 Ostend 11 Oxford 355 Oxford University 318 Pacific/Pacific Ocean 1, 2, 3, 12, 137, 152, 300–03 Pakistan 191, 221, 292 Palestine 191 Panmunjom 206, 242, 255, 327 Paris 208, 264, 287, 322 Paris School of Fine Arts 322 Pearl Harbour/Harbor 57, 191, 267, 356 Peking see Beijing (Peking) Philippines 119 Pimlico 197 Plymouth (England) 2 Poland /Polish 226, 233, 251, 292 Port Arthur (Lushan) 120, 121 Port Hamilton - see Komundo Port Nambu - see Miyako Portugal/Portuguese 15 36, 61, 116, 151, 170, 205, 309

INDEX

Prague 193 Prussia 300 Public Record Office (British National Archives) xxiv, 12, 189, 271 Puget Sound 1 Pusan (Busan) xviii, 8, 10, 114, 161, 167, 172–75, 186, 280, 325, Pyongyang xi, xvi, xvii, xviii, xxix, xxx, 122, 153, 172, 202–234, 239, 242–47, 256– 62, 263, 281, 287, 290–96, 328–30, 335, 337, 339, 340, 346, 398 n.10, 11, 399 n.29, 30, 404 n.27 Pyongyang Business School 339 Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies 211 Queen Mary College London (now Queen Mary University of London) xxii Quelpart - see Cheju-do Qingdao/Tsingtau 301 Rangoon (Yangon) 239, 242, 282, 403 Ch. 21 n.6 Rio de Janeiro 2, 3 Rokkosan 130 Rome 208, 226 Russia/ Russian/Soviet Union xviii, xxxi, 5, 8, 27, 75, 82, 112, 118, 120, 137, 140, 154, 159, 164, 165, 191–95, 201, 204–08, 247–51, 255, 256, 266, 268, 270, 280, 282, 284, 285, 287, 291, 297, 298–99, 301, 309, 313, 316, 322–23, 325, 326, 334, 337, 346, 347, 364, 374 n.11, 388 n.8, 398 n.8, 400 Ch. 17 n.1 Ryukyu Islands 7, 75, 135 St. Omer 306 Sakhalin 3, 8, 27 Satsuma 98 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) xii, xxii, xxx, xxx1, 315, 318, 358 Scotland 34, 352 Seattle 343 Seoul xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xvii, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, xxviii, xxix, xxx, xxxii, 57, 83, 113, 114– 18, 120–21, 128, 150, 155, 157–87, 191, 196, 197, 204, 206, 207–08, 211–14, 216, 217, 224, 231, 238, 240, 242, 247, 250, 252, 259, 261, 262, 264, 279–282, 287, 288, 291, 324, 327, 330–35, 343, 384 n.41, 401 Ch 19 n.3 Shandong Province 301 Shan States 307 Shansi/Shanxi Province 355

419

Shansi-Ch’ahar-Hopei /Shanxi-Qahar- Heibei Region 349, 356 Shanghai 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 54, 57, 68, 79, 83, 89, 127, 128–29, 135, 137, 154, 157, 163, 166, 169, 187, 272, 273, 287, 307, 312, 333, 351, 354, 361 Shantung (Shandong) 182 Sheffield 196 Sheffield University 134, 333, 400 Ch.17 n.3 Shenyang 122, 123, 220, 231 Shepherds Bush 104 Shimoda 319 Shimonoseki 144, 145 Shimoshir (Rus.)/ Shimushiru (Jap.) 5 Shinagawa 84 Shoreham 6 Singapore xxix, 94, 104, 126, 255, 270 Solma-ri (Solmari) 199, 324 South Africa /South African 303, 305, 384 n.43, 385 n.50 South and Southeast Asia xvi, xxviii, 339 South Australia 34 Southeast Asia 89, 136, 339 Soviet Union – see Russia Spain/Spanish xxxi, 3, 29–31, 119, 289 Stanford University xiii Stockholm 53, 213, 329 Suez Canal 91, 188 Sumatra 136 Surrey 74, 80 Sussex 6, 182, 260 Sussex University 189 Suwon 128 Sweden/Swedish xxxi, 205, 213–17, 244, 287, 291, 328–29, 398 n.10, 404 n.27 Switzerland/Swiss 5, 59, 60, 61, 170, 236, 249, 339, 340 Taechon 172 Taedong River 153, 222, 232 Taegu 173 Taejon 394 Ch. 14 n.1 Tahiti 1, 3, 6 Tainan 116, 380 n.29 Taipei (Taihoku)116, 117, 118, 380 n.32 Taiwan 7, 75, 112, 116, 163, 195, 268, 283, 284, 287, 299, 351, 370–80 n.28, 380 n.29 - see also Formosa Taiyuan 355 Tamsui 117, 118, 380 n.29, 32 Tangshan 275 Tartary 7, 8 Tasmania 1

420

INDEX

Thailand (Siam)/Thai 48, 307, 313, 351 Tiananmen xvi, xxvi, xviii, 267, 283, 288, 353 Tianjin (Tientsin) 121, 135, 153, 266, 354 Tibet 197 Tokaido 76, 109, 137, 139 Tokyo xxii, xxiv, xxviii, xxix, 7, 13–15, 18, 19, 27, 30, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45–62, 64, 69, 70, 73, 83, 84, 90, 92, 96, 104, 108, 109, 112, 114, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 126, 127, 129, 141, 143, 144, 145, 153, 162, 170, 179, 181, 187, 264, 287, 309, 312, 315 317 Tokyo Imperial University 51, 90 Tottenham Court Road 49 Trincomalee 11 Tsukiji 18, 138 Tsushima 8, 313 Uchiura/Volcano Bay 4, 5, 7 Uganda/Ugandan 226 Ulsan Institute of Technology/University of Ulsan 175 United Kingdom – see Britain United States/American xvi, xxiii, xxviii, xxxi, 14, 22, 25, 28, 36, 57, 61, 75, 82, 89, 94, 95, 105, 113, 114, 136, 153, 156, 164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 177–78, 185, 191– 201, 204, 206, 208, 210, 215, 221, 231, 238, 244, 247, 248, 250, 252–57, 259, 261, 262, 267, 268, 272, 275, 280, 282, 286–88, 290–92, 297, 298, 299, 312, 325–27, 332, 334, 337, 340, 343–45, 351, 356, 366 n.31, 385 n.50, 388 n.8, 404 n.18, 390 n.38 University College Dublin xxxi University College London xxii University of London (London University) 38 Upper Tooting 50

Vienna 57 Vienna University xxx Vietnam 249, 255, 268 Volcano Bay see Uchiura Bay Warsaw 197 Warwick University 260 Washington DC 54, 55, 57, 120, 197, 217, 264, 287, 325, 326, 349, 357 West Germany/German Federal Republic – see Germany West Indies 2 Western Cape University 305 Westminster 326 Westphalia 362 Wimbledon 50 Wonsan 203, 243 Woolwich 2 Woolwich Artillery School 65 Xiamen 361 Yale University 362 Yalu River 153, 172, 173, 197, 234, 296, 326, 341 Yangzi River 145 Yenan 359, 356, 357 Yenching /Yenjing University 349, 355 Yokohama xxviii, 13–14, 26–42, 46, 47, 51, 59, 65, 67, 69, 70, 76–80, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92–96, 99, 105 115, 125, 128, 129, 131–34, 136–40, 142–46, 154–55, 309. 310, 313, 321–22, 333, 371 n.20, 384 n.46, 385 n.50, 386 n.14, 387 n.27 Yongsan base 332 Yonsei University 11, 335, 394 Ch. 14 n.1 Yo˘ u˘ ido 330