1994). The question of whether there is a causal link from the colonial to the
Park state is complicated by the fact that between 1930 and 1970 there were
five different regimes in power: the Japanese, US occupation, the Rhee govern-
ment, the short-lived Chang Myon government, and the military and civilian
governments of Park. Each of these periods corresponded to different political
alliances, different economic policies and different patterns of bureaucratic
organization. It is possible to emphasize the fundamental discontinuities of the
era by focusing on the transition from the colonial bureaucracy to the chaotic
Rhee government. Another significant problem with tracing a causal link from
the colonial to Park eras is that Koreans did not widely participate in the
Japanese colonial state. While Park may have been a graduate of the Japanese
military, there was little or no Korean presence at the upper levels of the
bureaucracy and only 2.6 per cent of those reaching officer status in the police
were Koreans (Haggard et al., 1997).
Rice shortages and riots in Japan in 1918 led to major efforts by the brutal
colonial state to expand production in Korea. The motive was extractive: to
export rice to Japan to alleviate shortages there. The percentage of paddy land
using improved seeds doubled between 1915 and 1940, eventually reaching 85
per cent. Fertilizer input increased ten times over the same period. Between
1919 and 1938 land under irrigation increased 10 per cent annually and by
1938 rice yields were around 11 per cent higher in Korea than in the US. Local
police were known to have compelled villagers to switch from existing food
crops to cash crops and adopt new techniques in rice production (Kohli,
2004:37). Others have critiqued this success story. Much of the growth in agri-
culture from the 1930s, however, was wiped out during World War II and
growth tended to be concentrated in rice rather than being broadly based across
the agricultural sector. The most significant break in output growth occurred
after independence. Output, which had grown 1.62 per cent a year between
1920 and 1939, increased to 4.33 per cent per annum between 1953 and 1969.
This was associated with policy changes implemented after independence,
including land reform and an end to the extractive export-orientated approach
to rice production (Haggard et al., 1997). Even accepting these criticisms, a
comparative perspective shows that growth of agriculture during the colonial
era wasrelatively rapid, and crucially this growth was led by productivity gains
which were almost unique in the history of colonialism.
Opinions differ among scholars about the pace and nature of industrial
growth in colonial Korea. The average annual rate of growth in industry
(including mining and manufacturing) between 1910 and 1940 was nearly 10
per cent. The motive was again largely extractive, to contribute to Japan’s
1930s war economy. By 1943 heavy industry accounted for nearly half of all
industrial production and by 1940 nearly 35 per cent of total commodity
production originated in the industrial sector, According to Kohli (2004:48),
‘The extent of Korea’s industrialization during the colonial phase was both
considerable and nearly unique in the comparative history of colonialism’.
Haggard et al. (1997) argue,on the other hand, that industrial growth was
Colonialism 193