ABSTRACT
Japan’s economic relations with contemporary Korea are heavily marked by its colonial legacy. As apologists for Japan are prone to point out, Tokyo did introduce a host of modern techniques and achieved considerable material advances. A few Koreans sided with Japanese goals and prospered accordingly, but the majority of Koreans chafed under colonial rule. In order to deny Japan to the spread of communism, the United States occupiers had to view the threat emanating from Korea in terms prewar Japanese geopoliticians would understand. In the twelve years between the end of the Korean War and the normalization of Japan-Republic of Korea relations in 1965 the economic gap between Japan and the two Koreas grew larger. Many Koreans resent the profits Japan has made in Korea, view Japanese motivations with suspicion of economic imperialism, and hate to be seen as adjuncts to either Japanese or a United States-Japanese economic system.
