日本 大陸膨脹政策의 進出과 朝鮮銀行의 役割

Role of the Bank of Chosun in the Development of Japanese Expansionism in Manchuria and China

Japan’s colonial expansion after the war with Russia meant that the original pattern of Government-controlled special banks had to be extended. In 1906 the branch office of the Daiich Ginko (the First Bank) which was established by Shibuzawa Eiichi in 1876 was authorized to act as a note-issuing central bank in Korea. In 1909, however, it was replaced in this capacity by the Bank of Korea, which was established by the Bank of Japan. After the annexation of Korea a year later the new institution came to be known as the Bank of Chosun. It was given a monopoly of the note issuance in Korea; it handled the Government account; and it also acted as a commercial and foreign exchange bank in Korea and in the Kwan-tung Leased Territory, which was transfered from Russia to Japan as an outcome of the Russo-Japanese War. One very important function assumed by the Bank of Chosun had been that of financing Japanese penetration on the Continent of Asia, specially Manchuria and China under the direction of Tokyo government. Details of these activites are discussed in this article. Here it is sufficient to emphasize that the Japanese government which had been in the hands of the military oligarchy had persuaded the Bank of Chosun to finance the Japanese enterprises in Manchuria and China, under the sponsorship of Tokyo government. The history of the Bank of Chosun raises an important point about the conduct of Japanese expansionism which had been consistently pursued by the Japanese military oligarchy. In these circumstances, it was natural that the Bank of Chosun’s business had been determined by the demands of the military and by their new commitments in Manchuria and China, and as a result agriculture as well as small-scale industries in Korea enjoyed little favour in the activities of the Bank of Chosun, the central bank of Korea.