華僑對韓移民의 社會史的分析

Socio-Economic Aspects of the Chinese Immigrants in Korea

Peopled by immigrants, Korea has been a country of emigrants. It is significant that the foreigners in Korea before the Second World War were mainly composed by the immigrants from China and Japan as the result of opening Korea to the world channels of trade in 1880s. The influx of the Chinese and Japanese populations in Korea which continued until the end of 1930s provided the first and perhaps the most important modifying influences upon the Korean social scene. During the early period of immigrant settlement in Korea, the Chinese immigrants played the most prominent part in the commercial activities. However, since the Russo-Japanese War, the Chinese were brought to Korea as dominant source of labor supply. The rapid influx of the Chinese laborers for the mining and manufacturing industries managing by Western und Japanese enterprises began to seriously alarm of the Korean laboring people. We must reject an analysis by ethnic category in favour of an analysis of the economic, political, religious and social structure of the society as a whole . By doing this we can see in what areas ethnic considerations are important and attempt an assessment of just how they are important. We do not assume that Chinese ethnic formed corporate group, but we see in what contexts, if any, groups formed on the basis of ethnic criteria. The study is divided into four major sections. The first part describes the peculiar causes of Chinese emigration. In the second part, the stages by which the Chinese immigration had been proceeded is discussed. The third part surveys the various occupational advancements achieved by the Chinese immigrants in Korea. Also, the historical situations of the main political struggles in ethnic term which had been occured between the Japanese merchants and the Chinese merchants, who were both importers and wholesalers retailers, are investigated. The last section provides insights into the Chinese immigrants’ political behaviour and spiritual values, together with their strong individualism.