ABSTRACT
The 40 years of regional rivalries that characterized much of Korea’s challenging foreign relations after its “opening” in 1876 came to end in 1910 when Japan formally annexed the country. China, a traditional ally of Korea, failed to prolong its dominant position on the peninsula when it lost to the rising power of Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Thereafter, Tsarist Russia’s expansionist ambitions increasingly challenged the traditional East Asian world order, but met with only stiff resistance from Japan. Defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 allowed Japan to make Korea its protectorate. Five years later, it annexed the country, ending the international rivalry over what Westerners had labeled the “Hermit Kingdom.” On August 29, 1910, Sunjong, the last monarch of the Chosŏn dynasty, which had ruled for 500 years, relinquished his throne, marking the beginning of Japan’s colonial reign over Korea for the next 35 years. 1
