28 Chapter 2the movement against Eu ro pe ans in Asia. Kaiser Wilhelm XIII called it the
‘yellow peril,’ which prophetically points out the seriousness of this threat.
One cannot [help but] not recognize the danger of this movement against
Eu rope in which nearly 800 million people and an army of a few million [in
Asia] can take part.”^90
In October of 1909, Chung- Gun An, a Vladivostok Korean with
Korean partisan ties in the RFE, assassinated Prince Ito Hirobumi (the
former resident- general of colonial Korea) in Harbin. An was a literate,
passionate nationalist who believed in Korea’s sovereignty. He was cap-
tured by Rus sian police and turned over to the Japa nese authorities. Be-
fore he was sentenced to death, he wrote a famous work of Chinese
calligraphy titled “A Treatise on Peace in East Asia.” This poem revealed
An to be a Korean Pan- Asianist. This philosophy opined that Asia, repre-
senting Japan, Korea, and China, could only survive the onslaught of West-
ern imperialism through a unified course of action. This philosophy served
as an Asian analogue to the trope of the “yellow peril” by creating a “white
peril” and an “ imagined” unified East Asia.^91 The following is an excerpt
from An’s “Treatise”:
In contrast, they [Eu ro pean countries] worshipped warfare and started
wars and conflicts with other nations. Among the Eu ro pean countries,
the Rus s ians were the worst. Its intrusions into Western Eu ro pean coun-
tries and East Asian countries were im mense, and the whole world was
angry t oward the Rus sians.... When the Rus sians were defeated by the
Japa n ese in the wars, the Asian people were very happy and expecting the
Japa n ese would lead the Asian yellow race to fight against the Eu ro pean
invaders.... The Japa nese invasions into Korea and China destroyed the
dreams of other Asian nations. If the Japa nese continue their current course
of actions, the Koreans and the Chinese would have no choice but to side
with the West to defend against the Japa nese invasion. Therefore, I submit
my proposition, the Asian nations should unite together rather than fight
among themselves, and hopefully all Asian nations would understand
and follow this universal princi ple, “United we live, divided we perish.”^92It is impor tant to note that An’s Pan- Asianism saw the three East Asian
nations, China, Japan, and Korea, as separate, autonomous, and equal. This
national- political movement was to be invoked primarily as mutual self-
defense from Western invasion.
In 1914, roughly one in three Koreans in the RFE were Rus sian sub-
jects. One official, A. M. Kazinov, governor general of the Priamur, esti-
mated that the actual number of Koreans in the RFE was 30 percent higher