Why did Japan occupy Korea?

Answer 1

There are a few reasons why Japan colonized Korea:

1) Raw Materials: Japan was a country that was formed by volcanic eruptions, which means that it has almost no metal, coal, petroleum, or other deposits that are requisite for industrialization. Korea, though, was abounding in raw materials. Japan saw control of Korea as something that would enhance its growth and development.

2) Strategic Location: Korea is the closest area on the Asian mainland to Japan, making it a strategic location for maintaining a direct land border with other Asian countries and making Manchuria into a sphere of influence.

3) Prestige: Historically in East Asia, China maintained a foreign relations policy of inherent inequality where each country was a vassal to China. By controlling Korea, Japan showed that it was the new center of East Asia and that Korea was now "its vassal", not China's.

4) Labor and Additional Soldiers: Korea has a large population which Japan was able to forcibly deport to work in Japanese factories or compel to fight in their armed forces.

Answer 2

The Japanese wanted more land and materials, so they invaded Korea to gain all the things they wanted. Japanese people did whatever they wanted to do in Korea, they killed, tortured, rape people and damaged things. The Koreans were also told to learn the Japanese languages and they're culture.

Answer 3

Japan occupied Korea in order to gain a foothold on the mainland from where it could attack China and Russia and defeat the Western Front's resistance forces.

Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were raped and shot during the Japanese occupation, and the communists eventually retaliated, slaughtering all Japanese they could find in Korea after the war ended.

Incorrect !! A vivid imagination at work !!

When Japan occupied Korea with a view to annexing it, food for Japan was the primary objective.

The southern half of the peninsula was an agricultural region with rice being the main crop. The Japanese immediately laid out railway lines to an obscure fishing village at the southeastern tip of the peninsula. Its small harbor was developed into a major port [ the shortest water route to Japan ] between 1905 and 1910, in order to speed the transportation of Korea's annual rice production to the Japanese homeland, in order to feed the Japanese people.

As a result, Koreans had to suddenly subsist on only about 25% of the usual rice crop, and wild and cultivated vegetables and greens. Thus, they became thoroughly knowledgeable about their nutritional and medicinal values. Today very many Korean greengrocer specialty shops can be found all over America, Europe and Australia.

Japan had already militarily garrisoned trading centres along the Chinese coastline, as did Russia and England, years before grabbing Korea.

Answer 4

Why not?

Korea was mostly agricultural

Japan was industrial.

Korea had food, coal, mineral reserves, and a convenient location from where to keep and eye on Russia and China.

In addition, they had a regrettably uneducated, unarmed, exploitable population.

Many Koreans still have a grievance about the violent colonization of Korea, but on the other hand it was just sitting there.

Answer 5

Japanese took over Korea because Japan is an island and they have risk of being drawn and they also have many natural disasters, while Korea is a land with three sides next to ocean, and one connected to large country China. Natural disasters didn't happen often and Korea had good environmental condition.

Answer 6

First, Korea did not colonize China. Korea and parts of China were colonized by Japan. Most Koreans opposed the expansion of Japan into the Korean peninsula and the expansion into Manchuria (China). Unfortunately, few of them could express that will in any tangible way.

Japan colonized both areas in pursuit of raw materials to feed its nascent industry. There were also centuries of History of Japan trying to take the Korean Peninsula and proceeding to China (most importantly with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion in 1592), so there was a sense of historical vindication for Japan in creating this empire. Additionally, Japan was imitating the Western powers that were also attacking China and carving out spheres of influence, showing its modernity to the Western power in its own bid to resist colonization.

Answer 7

The Japanese quite easily attacked and landed on the Korean soil as the water distance was not so far away btw two countries. In fact, the Korean emperor then requested its suzerain state Chinese for rescue. But at that time, the Chinese state was so decaying that it could only merely defend its own coastal areas from being attacked by the Western invaders. Under such context, Korea quickly fell into Japanese hand. But Korea was just a strategic approach for the Japanese to invade Chinese northeastern areas. After Japanese colonized Korea, it made many untolerable wrongdonings in Korean soil, including comfort women and mine laborors.

Answer 8

Japan colonized China in pursuit of raw materials to feed its nascent industry. There were also centuries of history of Japan trying to take the Korean Peninsula and proceeding to China (most importantly with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion in 1592), so there was a sense of historical vindication for Japan in creating this empire. Additionally, Japan was imitating the Western powers that were also attacking China and carving out spheres of influence, showing its modernity to the Western power in its own bid to resist colonization.