Published on April 21, 2019.
This essay challenges the common view that the Japan-Korea union was simply a unilateral military imposition by Japan, arguing instead that the major powers of the day, including Britain, the United States, Germany, and France, all accepted it, and that the Hague Secret Emissary Incident was a decisive turning point.
It points out that there were Korean political forces such as the Iljinhoe that strongly favored union, that the great powers had lost confidence in Korea’s capacity for self-government, and that Japan in fact poured enormous resources into rebuilding infrastructure and governance on the peninsula.
The piece calls for a reconsideration of prevailing historical views on Japan’s rule over Korea.

2019-04-21
Moreover, all of the great powers, including Britain, the United States, Germany, and France, approved Japan-Korea union.
If Korea, with its habit of attaching itself now to one side and now to another, had been allowed to continue in that manner, the continent could never have been stabilized.
What was decisive was surely the Hague Secret Emissary Incident.

There was also another true man of backbone who published an essay proving the correctness of my argument.
The bold emphasis is mine.
On August 22, 1910, in Meiji 43, the “Treaty Concerning the Annexation of Korea” was concluded between the Empire of Japan and the Empire of Korea.
This is the so-called annexation of Korea.
It was Japan-Korea union.
The claim that this annexation was a coercive act carried out by Japanese imperialism through military force is a complete falsehood.
In Korea there was a political organization of intellectuals called the Iljinhoe, which had mobilized the energy of the Korean people and ardently desired Japan-Korea union, whereas Japan hesitated to take on such an enormous burden.
At that time, union states were the mainstream, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czechoslovakia.
Japan-Korea union was in no way strange, nor was it a colonial form.
Moreover, all of the great powers, including Britain, the United States, Germany, and France, approved Japan-Korea union.
If Korea, with its habit of attaching itself now to one side and now to another, had been allowed to continue in that manner, the continent could not have been stable.
What was decisive was surely the Hague Secret Emissary Incident.
In 1907, Meiji 40, the Empire of Korea secretly dispatched emissaries to the Second Hague Peace Conference being held in The Hague in the Netherlands, appealing for the protection of its diplomatic rights, only to be completely rejected by the international community.
The prominent American diplomatic historian Tyler Dennett wrote:
“The Koreans, neither their recent history nor their diplomats in Washington, had been able to inspire President Roosevelt with feelings of dignity or admiration.
To the President, Korea, which for a long time had resembled a derelict vessel abandoned at sea and threatening navigation, now seemed clearly to have to be taken in tow into harbor and securely moored.”
The United States approved Japan-Korea union, and as soon as the Russo-Japanese War ended, it quickly withdrew all of its legations from Korea.
President Roosevelt stated that “Korea no longer possesses the substance of a state,” and told Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō, “In order to eradicate future sources of trouble, there is no course other than protectorate status.
That is the best policy for Korea’s tranquility and for peace in the East.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lansdowne also said that it was only natural for a Korea unable to stand on its own to be placed under Japan’s protection.
In the Second Anglo-Japanese Alliance, it is written, “Great Britain recognizes the right of Japan to take in Korea such measures of guidance, control, and protection as Japan may deem proper and necessary for the advancement of its interests.”
Neither Qing China nor Russia raised any objection or issued any protest statement.
Korea’s national finances were in complete collapse, its debts to the great powers had become enormous, there was absolutely no prospect of repayment, and in that age of imperialism it had fallen into a hopeless condition in every field, political, economic, social, cultural, educational, and sanitary.
If one says that Japan ruled Korea as a colony, then there must have been wealth or goods there to be plundered.
But in Korea there were no roads, no railways, no harbors, no bridges, nothing but devastated barren hills, rivers without embankments, neglected farmland, and ruined nature, and in order to restore these, the tax money of the Japanese people had to be spent over decades, so that in fact it was Japan that was being drained.

References
Fusosha, The Truth About Japan’s Colonies, by Kō Bun’yū
Akebonosha, The History Japanese People Must Not Be Allowed to Know, by Wakasa Kazutomo
Tendensha, The Road to the Greater East Asia War, by Nakamura Akira
WAC Publishing, Rekishitsū, July 2010, “The Countries That Had Slaves and Those That Did Not,” by Masayuki Takayama

Reference site
Wikipedia, “Hague Secret Emissary Incident”

Attached image
Seodaemun during the Yi Dynasty, 1900 (PD)