The abacus and the sword

by Duus, Peter

Duus analyzes Japan's acquisition of Korea, the largest and most populous of its colonial possessions, as the result of two separate but interlinked processes, one political/military and the other economic: every attempt at increasing Japanese political influence licensed new opportunities for trade, and every new push for Japanese economic interest buttressed, and sometimes justified, further political advances. The sword was the servant of the abacus; the abacus, the handmaiden of the sword. The political process was driven by the attempt of the Meiji leaders, backed and prodded by politicians and military men at home, to create a stable cadre of Korean collaborators committed to self-strengthening; when this attempt failed, the Japanese leaders finally decided to extend full political control over the peninsula. The economic process, propelled by industrial change, involved penetration of the Korean market by an anonymous army of Japanese traders, sojourners, and settlers in search