Once Japan gained control of Korea, they introduced new technology to the country, thus modernizing and industrializing it. In the 1590’s, Japan attempted to invade Korea multiple times but were driven out with the aid of the Chinese. In the 1600’s, Korea closed off the country to all foreigners except for Japan and China and this isolation lasted for 200 years. Due to this isolation, Korea was not a part of the industrial revolution; therefore, their technology was not very efficient or advanced. Eventually in 1837, Japan forced Korea to open up some of their ports which caused the United States, Russia, and several European nations to create and sign trading treaties with the country. Although opening Korean ports was beneficial to trade and the country’s economy, it created conflict because many foreign nations wanted to gain control of Korea. Japan defeated the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War and in 1910, they gained complete control over Korea. Due to this change in power, Japan’s influence over Korea’s culture became stronger than China’s. After gaining control, the Japanese began governing Korea as a colony and used them to benefit their own needs and interests. Since Korea missed the industrial revolution, Japan had to modernize Korea’s machinery. In the 1930’s, Japan built industries in Korea to supply themselves with chemicals, iron, steel, machinery, and other goods. Although Japan did make Korean lives better in some ways, such as updating Korea’s technology, the Japanese also made Korea worse by changing the Korean culture. In the 1940’s, the Japanese banned people from using the Korean language in public and forced the people to change their names to Japanese styled names. From 1939 to 1945, Japan forced many Koreans to aid them in World War II. While some Koreans were forced to work in mines and factories in and around Korea, others were drafted into the Japanese army and many Korean women were forced to become prostitutes for the Japanese army. Japan’s rule over Korea lasted until the end of World War II, when Japan was defeated. Although modernizing Korea was a positive change, Japan’s colonization overall was negative. The colonization prevented the Koreas from unifying and so they never had a chance to develop a cohesive idea about their government. Since the North and South did not have nationalism, the two sides had different ideas on what they wanted. This caused disagreements and eventually two new countries took over them: the Soviet Union and the United States. Due to Japan’s colonization of Korea, North and South Korea became two separate countries and began fighting each other.
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