This article introduces Masayuki Takayama’s column in Shukan Shincho, discussing the urban legend of the Katsura-Taft Agreement, Japan’s sense of justice toward the Philippine independence movement, and public health policies under Japanese rule on the Korean Peninsula.
It argues that Japan did not eagerly seek to annex Korea, but may instead have been forced to shoulder a “yellow man’s burden.”
After annexation, when plague, typhoid fever, and cholera struck Korea, the Government-General implemented modern public health measures such as travel restrictions, isolation of patients, bans on gatherings, sanitation education, toilets in each household, and local epidemic-defense groups.
The article also criticizes the Moon Jae-in administration’s refusal to ban entry from China during the Wuhan coronavirus crisis, contrasting it with the lessons of earlier epidemic control.

March 18, 2020
Korea, on the other hand, though located right next to Japan, has a character that is the exact opposite of the Japanese.
First of all, it does not know righteousness.
It is skilled in schemes, and even pushes its own wars onto other countries.
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s serial column, which adorns the final pages of Shukan Shincho, released today.
This article, too, proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
Not only the Japanese people but people throughout the world should be impressed by his devotion and feel respect for him.
Japan’s colonial public health.
One of the urban legends of modern Japanese history is the Katsura-Taft Agreement.
The story goes that Japan would recognize America’s colonization of the Philippines.
In exchange, Korea would belong to Japan.
However, no such diplomatic document exists either in Japan or in the United States.
In light of historical facts, there is not even the slightest ring of truth to it.
Take the Philippines, for example.
The United States promised independence to Aguinaldo, who resisted Spanish rule, and fought alongside him.
But when Spain surrendered, the United States broke its promise and made the Philippines its own colony.
The resistance of Aguinaldo’s enraged forces continued for four years, and as many as 400,000 people were killed.
During that time, Japan sympathized with the plight of its Asian brethren, secretly sent firearms captured in the Sino-Japanese War, and Bimyo Yamada’s Aguinaldo became a bestseller.
As a result, six men of spirit infiltrated the Philippines and were captured by the U.S. forces.
The major resistance figure Ricarte went into exile in Japan and, in the last war, returned triumphantly to his homeland after the Japanese forces drove out MacArthur.
There is no way that Japan, with its strong sense of righteousness, would gladly entrust the Philippines to the cruel United States.
Korea, on the other hand, though located right next to Japan, has a character that is the exact opposite of the Japanese.
First of all, it does not know righteousness.
It is skilled in schemes, and even pushes its own wars onto other countries.
The Battle of Baekgang was one such case.
The Korean War, begun by North and South Korea, somehow became a war between the United States and China.
What the Japanese disliked even more than such cunning was its filth.
Isabella Bird walked through feces-covered Keijo and judged it the filthiest in the world, though later, after seeing Beijing, she placed it second.
＊At this point, I realized that I had mixed up first and second place.
In Korea and Her Neighbours, Bird wrote of Seoul during her 1894 visit that the streets were so narrow that even cattle could not pass each other, that they were like a maze, and that the stench from filth coming out of houses was so terrible that, until she saw Beijing, she considered Seoul “the filthiest city on earth.”
She also wrote that, until she went to Shaoxing, the stench of Seoul was the worst smell in the world, and that, for a city and a capital, its wretchedness was truly indescribable.
She further wrote that there were few artificial roads or bridges, and that even where they existed, in summer they were thick with dust, in winter they were muddy, and where they were not leveled, cart tracks ran over uneven ground and protruding rocks.
What were called roads were no more than paths made barely distinguishable by the passage of animals and human beings.
The above is from Wikipedia.＊
Even in the degree of filth, it yielded first place in the world to China.
Only its dutifulness toward the Hua-Yi order seems to be this people’s redeeming trait.
In other words, it is inconceivable that Japan would have wanted such a filthy country so badly that it would abandon its sense of righteousness toward the Philippines.
Seen in that light, the theory that Theodore Roosevelt forced Korea upon Japan, saying that just as white men had the white man’s burden, Japan too had a yellow man’s burden, is far more persuasive.
If a troublesome country were forced upon Japan, it would become a great burden for Japan.
The calculation was that this would weaken “the Japanese threat.”
Japan did not need such a burden.
That is why Hirobumi Ito, with the cooperation of D. Stevens, the former American acting minister to Japan, sought to give Korea infrastructure such as railways, ports, and an educational system, and to make it a protectorate while keeping some distance.
Theodore would not allow such freedom.
That is why he had both Ito and Stevens assassinated and drove matters straight to the Japan-Korea annexation.
At that very moment, Korea was struck by plague.
Japan once again came to realize the filth of Korea.
Fortunately, Shibasaburo Kitasato had identified the true nature of the bacterium, so the epidemic was soon brought to an end.
But then typhoid fever spread, and when that ended, cholera struck next.
As expected of the world’s second-filthiest country.
Thus, following the example of Japan’s Home Ministry, the Government-General placed epidemic prevention under the jurisdiction of the Security Bureau.
According to the records of the Government-General, with that coercive authority, it blocked traffic to epidemic areas, isolated patients, and banned gatherings.
It also taught the concept of sanitation and had toilets built in each household.
It taught the terror of disease through motion pictures, placed “epidemic self-defense groups” in each village, and raised awareness that people must conduct epidemic prevention by themselves.
The Government-General emphasized maritime quarantine at the port of Incheon, had Chinese ships anchor offshore, and allowed them to enter port only after stool examinations of the crew.
However, among those aboard, “lower-class Chinese laborers” were completely banned from entering the country.
The cholera epidemic in the tenth year of Japanese rule also came in from China.
The route was fishing boats entering local ports that were difficult to police.
The Government-General had the epidemic self-defense groups conduct door-to-door investigations, find patients, and isolate them.
There were also households that hid patients because they disliked cremation.
For that, a paid informant system was adopted.
Thanks to this, the first epidemic was brought to an end in only two months.
This concept of sanitation survived even after Japanese rule, and according to Japanese Foreign Ministry materials from the 1970s, the proportion of South Koreans with roundworms had fallen below 50 percent.
In that South Korea, the Wuhan coronavirus is raging.
It is said to be because Moon Jae-in absolutely refused to accept the “ban on Chinese entry” that Japanese rule had thoroughly taught.
If the Hua-Yi order is maintained, even dying of pneumonia is acceptable, is that it?