Situating Cheju Island within Japan’s colonial expansion

To contextualize these discourses, it is necessary to recall that, as Meiji Japan intensified colonial expansion, the task of defining the nation became inseparable from the question of who could belong to “the Japanese” (Oguma Reference Oguma2017 [Reference Oguma1998]). This process unfolded through colonial rhetorics that simultaneously delineated the boundaries of the nation and justified the extension of imperial power. These discourses, based on cultural affinity and divergence, potential resources, and development, fluctuated across colonial sites such as Hokkaido and Ryukyu. While a full examination of these contexts lies beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that together they furnished Japan with a repertoire of ideas for making sense of territorial incorporation, resource extraction, and cultural hierarchy.

In Hokkaido, for example, the language of development (kaitaku) formed a discourse of colonial modernity, framing both the land and its inhabitants in ways that justified imperial intervention. The depiction of the Ainu as primitive and backward rationalized Japan’s implementation of colonial projects as part of civilization (Morris-Suzuki Reference Morris-Suzuki1994; Walker Reference Walker2001; Mason Reference Mason2012). Through the Hokkaido Land Regulation of 1892, the island was cast as terra nullius: an “empty” land of untapped wealth awaiting cultivation (Hirano Reference Hirano2019). Building on this framing, the Hokkaido Development Agency embarked upon a prolific effort to establish settlements and colonization, presenting its work not as conquest but as the rational, scientific cultivation of wilderness (Lu Reference Lu2016). Agricultural settlements, imported livestock, and infrastructure projects were framed as acts of benevolent transformation that demonstrated Japan’s capacity for modern governance (Hansen Reference Hansen2014).

In Okinawa, a similar but distinct discourse was formulated. The annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 was justified through claims of cultural affinity, emphasizing the historical and linguistic continuity between Ryukyu and Japan’s main islands (Siddle Reference Siddle1998; Christy Reference Christy1993). Yet this invocation of shared origins was shadowed by a rhetoric of divergence: the Ryukyuan language, religious practices, and customs were seen as representing an earlier stage of civilization, requiring modernization with Japanese assistance (Meyer Reference Meyer2020). As scholars such as Iha Fuyū, who is himself from Ryukyu, emphasized archaeological and linguistic ties to Japan to legitimize annexation, these similarities were mobilized to rationalize hierarchical differences in status (Siddle Reference Siddle1998).

Cheju’s colonial rhetoric configuration, however, could not be reduced to either of these existing patterns found in Hokkaido and Okinawa. Unlike Hokkaido, where colonial rhetorics rested on the declaration of empty land and the erasure of indigenous presence, the three texts examined in this article recognize that Cheju was already inhabited by a population with established labor and industries. Yet, such acknowledgment was reframed as part of the island’s natural abundance awaiting Japanese development rather than being recognized as the foundation of an already functioning community. Furthermore, unlike Okinawa, where affinity with Japan was invoked, Cheju was drawn toward Japan while also pushed away from the Korean Peninsula. This double movement reveals how colonial rhetorics were actively reconfigured in response to conditions that earlier imperial formations had not posed.

To examine the circumstances in which these rhetorics took shape, it is necessary to situate Cheju’s administrative reality at the time that the three texts were produced. At the time, Cheju Island had a separate administrative system different from that of mainland Korea.Footnote ³ Although administratively part of Chŏlla Province, Cheju Island had a magistrate (moksa) assigned, representing the local government (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 9 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 11).Footnote ⁴ The island itself was further divided into 170 villages, housing 86,082 people, and these villages were organized into 12 districts. Cheju County comprised 5 districts with 89 villages, Taejŏng County included 3 districts with 34 villages, and Chŏngŭi County had 4 districts with 47 villages. The district heads who were appointed by the magistrate were in charge of 8 to 25 villages and were responsible for running their respective districts according to the instructions given by the magistrate and the county-level governors (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 10 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 12).

This system of localized governance mirrored the broader financial equilibrium of Cheju Islanders, neither marked by excessive wealth nor deprivation and thus positioned in a relatively stable place compared to the rural villagers of the Korean mainland (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 43 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 45). Though the absence of comprehensive tax records made a precise evaluation of their wealth elusive, fewer than 10 individuals on the island possessed assets exceeding 10,000 won,Footnote ⁵ while those without any property constituted less than 10% of the population. Most of the islanders sustained themselves as self-reliant farmers, often blending agricultural practices with fishing. The predominant currency was copper coins, and few financial institutions were present (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 45 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 47).

Within this economic landscape, Japanese residents were present in modest numbers in 1906—206 in total, comprising 168 men and 38 women (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 60 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 67). Yet, this figure was not static. During the abundant fishing seasons for abalone, sea bream, and anchovy, the number of Japanese fishermen and traders increased significantly, at times exceeding 500. While some Japanese were engaged in commercial activities, most lacked the necessary capital to expand their businesses. In the heart of Cheju’s downtown, a variety of shops could be found, yet only two or three Japanese-run stores displayed goods valued above 100 won. Two Japanese-style houses, constructed in 1906, marked the earliest architectural signs of settlement. Total assets of Japanese merchants, comprising their houses, land, merchandise, and household goods, amounted to a maximum of 4,000 won. These figures reveal a Japanese presence that was modest and commercially limited, yet already animated by the colonial rhetorics of affinity, rich resources, and development potentials that the three texts examined in this article would articulate in fuller form. The gap between the tentative reality of Japanese settlement and the expansive ambitions projected onto the island underscores that what was at stake in these texts was an act of colonial imagination that sought to remake Cheju in the image of Japan’s imperial aspirations.

Three lenses on Cheju Island

In the years surrounding Japan’s growing involvement in Cheju, various forms of textual engagement took shape, turning the island into an object of knowledge and administration. It is to these works that this section now turns—Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905), Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912), and Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924)—each articulating Japan’s encounter with Cheju through distinct modes of observation. Produced within their respective institutional and intellectual contexts, these texts nevertheless participated in a shared effort to translate the island into the language of imperial knowledge.

Aoyagi Tsunatarō’s Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905) provides an early example of this effort. The text presents Cheju’s abundant natural and economic resources to a Japanese readership, inviting them to imagine new ventures on the island and, by extension, to envision migration to the Korean Peninsula. The author makes this intent explicit: “Is it not our most urgent task at present to develop the resources of the Korean peninsula, to expand our economy, and to establish a new foundation for our nation? It is precisely with this modest aspiration that I have complied this book” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 9). His words convey an invitation to participate in Japan’s expanding economic project.

To understand how this vision emerged, it is helpful to situate Aoyagi Tsunatarō’s engagement within the early colonial context of Korea. By 1901, when Aoyagi arrived as a correspondent for the Kanmon Shimpō, Japan had already begun to assert influence over the peninsula, culminating in the 1905 Japan–Korea Treaty that established Korea as a Japanese protectorate. Within this evolving political landscape, Aoyagi occupied multiple roles such as journalist for the Ōsaka Mainichi Shimbun, government official under the Chosŏn administration, president of the Keijō Shimbun, and head of both the Chōsen Kenkyūkai (Chosŏn Research Association) and the Tōa Dōmin Kyōkai (East Asia Common People’s Association) (Ch’oe Reference Ch’oe2006: 1). These positions allowed him to engage the peninsula both professionally and intellectually, producing a prolific body of work that encompassed the translation of some 30 Chosŏn texts as well as the publication of over 30 original works exploring Korea’s history and culture (Ch’oe Reference Ch’oe2016: 293).Footnote ⁶

Within this expansive trajectory, Aoyagi’s engagement with Cheju Island occupies a brief but revealing moment. His first visit in 1901, coinciding with the Sinch’uk Uprising, introduced him to the island’s distinctive cultural and political landscape.Footnote ⁷ A return trip in 1905, this time as a supervisor under the Korean Resident-General’s Office, prompted a series of articles in the Mokuho Shimbun and culminated in the publication of Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905), the first volume in the twentieth century to offer a detailed description of the island (Machida Reference Machida2020: 7). Although published under his own name rather than an official institution, the book cannot be considered entirely private; Aoyagi’s affiliation with the Resident-General’s Office underscores how closely the volume was intertwined with broader political and administrative ambitions. Over time, however, this early focus on Cheju gradually receded.Footnote ⁸ As Aoyagi’s intellectual commitments widened, the island slipped from his view, giving way to a broader imperial vision in which Korea as a whole became his primary concern.

Yet, even within this expansive perspective, a closer examination of the advertisements at the very end of the volume reveals the book’s readership (Machida Reference Machida2020: 8). Aside from a single listing in Cheju, the advertised stores were exclusively Japanese businesses in Mokp’o, suggesting that the primary audience consisted of Japanese residents there, who likely served as intermediaries for travel to the island. In other words, the volume, compiled prior to the Japan–Korea annexation in 1910, was directed predominantly at Japanese from the main islands or those already residing in Korea.

This pattern of Japanese engagement with Cheju would find a parallel in Ōno Shūgetsu’s workFootnote ⁹ : his experiences during a two-year tenure on the island took shape in Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912) (Kim Reference Kim2022: 31). These formative experiences began in 1908, when Ōno was appointed a customs officer under the Ministry of Finance, later serving as a tax administrator for the Government-General of Korea. By 1910, the year of Korea’s formal annexation, he was dispatched to the Sŏngsanp’o Customs Surveillance Office on the eastern tip of the island, operating under the jurisdiction of Pusan Customs. His post in Sŏngsanp’o brought him into close contact with the local economy, maritime trade, and daily life as Japanese officials were beginning to extend direct administrative and fiscal oversight while also surveying the island’s resources and population to inform broader colonial planning. Although Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912) was published under Ōno’s name, the work reflects Japan’s wider colonial imperatives that supported the integration of Cheju Island into the expanding colonial order, shaped in part by his position within the Government-General of Korea.

These ambitions were made tangible in his systematic record of the island’s economy and trade. Grounded in statistical data collected through the Sŏngsanp’o port, where Ōno served as customs officer, the book quantifies the flow of goods between Cheju and Pusan, recording agricultural yields, manufactured products, and total trade volume (Kim Reference Kim2022: 31). It further details market conditions, prices of daily necessities, labor wages, and local financial activities, including deposit balance from the Kwangju Agricultural and Industrial Bank, meticulously separated between Korean and Japanese residents (Kim Reference Kim2022: 32). Through these records, the book captures Cheju’s economic landscape in the years surrounding Japan’s annexation of Korea.

This focus on the island’s economic activity finds a parallel in Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924), published by the local Cheju government during Maeda Zenji’s tenure as the island’s third governor (tōshi) from May 1923 to July 1928. Maeda’s governorship unfolded within the broader context of early 1920s colonial Korea, a period shaped by the Government-General’s shift toward Cultural Rule following the March 1^st Movement of 1919.Footnote ¹⁰ The office he held had been formally established in 1915, when the Japanese colonial government revised the local governance system through Imperial Decree No. 66 and the Governor-General’s Ordinance No.44, defining the title, jurisdiction, and boundaries of the Cheju governor alongside Ullŭngdo (Ko Reference Ko2019). In this capacity, Maeda exercised full authority over local administration and police affairs, while simultaneously serving as president of the Cheju Agricultural Association, head of the haenyŏ (female divers) cooperative, and leader of the forestry, fisheries, and agricultural branches. Over the course of his term, these responsibilities were accompanied by several infrastructural projects, including the reconstruction of Cheju Fortress and the expansion of Sanji Port. Stones removed from the fortress walls were repurposed to reclaim land along the coast, facilitating the enlargement of the harbor between 1925 and 1928.

Conceived as a promotional text, Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924) aimed to attract investment while showcasing the island’s natural resources (Kim Reference Kim2022: 41). Its general overview presents Cheju as a “heavenly paradise” little known to the wider world, immediately calling upon readers, particularly investors, to contribute to the island’s development (Saishūtō 1924: 1). The book’s table of contents reflect the scope of its ambition, organized into sections such as general overview, climate, history, and industry (including agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and forestry). Within these sections, the volume provides detailed accounts of administrative divisions, the island’s capital, and transportation, offering a comprehensive orientation to Cheju’s social and economic life.

Together, these three texts—Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905), Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912), and Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924)—offer complementary perspectives on Cheju Island under the expanding reach of Japanese influence. While each work reflects the individual administrative position of its author, they converge in portraying the island as a space of economic opportunity, shaping the broader projection of Japanese expansion in Korea. In this light, the volumes are instruments through which the island was surveyed, categorized, and ultimately integrated into a colonial vision.

Japanese affinity and mainland divergence

Across the three texts articulated here, a rhetorical framework organizes Japan’s colonial imagination of Cheju: the island is simultaneously drawn toward Japan through historical kinship and cultural proximity, and pushed away from the Korean mainland through assertions of social and behavioral difference. The affinity between Japan and Cheju justified the origin of the inhabitants of the island as partly Japanese. The distinction of Cheju from mainland Korea, on the other hand, was used to substantiate a colonial approach that met specific conditions of the island.

The sense of affinity with Japan, described based on the grounds of shared descent, surfaces in Aoyagi Tsunatarō’s Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905). A notable example of this strategy can be seen in the ways in which Aoyagi appropriates the T’amna creation myth, a Cheju origin story stating how three deities who emerged from the earth married three daughters from across the sea and became the rulers of T’amna.Footnote ¹¹ The following is how Aoyagi retells the myth:

The T’amna myth is an account of the creation of an independent island kingdom on Cheju. In Aoyagi’s retelling, however, its meaning is redirected: the messenger’s declaration that “we are envoys from Japan” suggests that the T’amna myth provides a prehistory of ancestral kinship with the Japanese prior to Japan’s colonial intervention into the island. As the connection between Cheju and Japan is written into the island’s own origin story, the appropriation appears as a restoration of an ancient relation.

Continuing this approach, Aoyagi Tsunatarō, in the same volume, identifies 10 characteristics of the Cheju Islanders by drawing an analogy with the Japanese. He writes:

1. 1) Whether they are men or women, [Cheju Islanders] all carry their luggage on their backs, unlike mainlanders, who carry their luggage on their heads.

2. 2) They are diligent and humble. They are not lazy, unlike those on the mainland.

3. 3) Women do not cover their faces and are free to enter in and out of a house.

4. 4) [Cheju] women are active and clever. They are not as weak or depressed as their counterparts on the mainland.

5. 5) Furnaces [on Cheju Island] are not ondol, unlike those on the mainland. They are made of rocks and soil, as in Japan.

6. 6) [When working], women cover their cheeks with a towel, and men wear a headband.

7. 7) [Cheju Islanders] are not fond of pepper, unlike people on the mainland, and they do not mind cold meals.

8. 8) [Cheju] women’s needlework is the same as the Japanese style.

9. 9) [Cheju Islanders] have a habit of whistling.

10. 10) [Cheju Islanders] appearances are similar to the Japanese. Particularly, [Cheju] women resemble the Yamatohime portrayed in paintings (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 27–8).

Read together, these 10 characteristics constitute the selective lens through which Aoyagi portrays Cheju Islanders’ proximity with the Japanese. The list is not a set of randomly assembled observations but a carefully curated argument: physical likeness to the Japanese, as well as elements of material culture such as stoves and embroidery, paired with moral traits like hard work and independence of women. Aoyagi repeatedly describes these as Japanese virtues, lacking in the peninsula. What emerges in these descriptions is a pre-existing social landscape similar to the metropole Japan where colonization and settlement could proceed with little disruption.

Although Aoyagi does not explicitly disclose his sources, it is plausible that the identification of these 10 characteristics drew upon Satō Masajirō’s work, Kan Hantō no Shin Nihon (The New Japan on the Korean Peninsula, Reference Satō1904). Satō Masajirō worked as a reporter for Ōsaka Mainichi Shimbun, like Aoyagi Tsunatarō (Ch’oe Reference Ch’oe2019: 23), and his writings reflected a shared intellectual milieu concerned with the transformation of Korea under Japanese oversight. Among Satō’s contributions to this discourse were Kankoku Seigyōsaku (Plan for Korean Enterprise, 1904) and Kan Hantō no Shin Nihon, where he envisioned Korea’s integration through economic and cultural management.

Within Kan Hantō no Shin Nihon, a chapter titled “Saishūtō no Shin Nihon” (The New Japan of Cheju Island) explored Cheju’s geography, customs, and industries as a foundation for cultivating “The New Japan” on the island. Embedded within this narrative was a brief assessment of Cheju Islanders’ characteristics, presented in a subsection named Ninjō Fūzoku (Satō Reference Satō1904: 138–9). Here, Satō underscored the affinities between Cheju and Japan, remarking “After research, [I] found that [Cheju Island] has many similarities with Japan. [The island] is a distinct paradise of the [Korean] peninsula. Who said that it was just an insular island of Chōsen?” (Satō Reference Satō1904: 139).

Yet, upon a closer examination of Satō Masajirō’s work, parallels emerge between the content of the chapter “Saishūtō no Shin Nihon” and Aoyagi Tsunatarō’s later publication, Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905). Although Satō’s chapter predates Aoyagi’s book, Cheju scholars have noted that Satō likely referred to Aoyagi’s earlier article on Cheju Island with the same title, Saishūtō no Shin Nihon, published in the Mainichi Shimbun in early 1904 (Kim Reference Kim2022: 13). For this reason, Cheju scholars see Aoyagi’s contributions as the foundational intellectual work that shaped the portrayals of the island.

This circularity has broader implications for how colonial discourse about Cheju took shape. Instead of two independent observers arriving at similar impressions regarding the affinity of the Cheju Islanders to the Japanese, the same impressions were consolidated as fact. This dynamic reveals a structural feature of the colonial knowledge-making around Cheju: a small group of people, closely knitted to each other in terms of their institutions, produced an interlocking body of claims that accumulated authority through repetition.

This quality of foundational authorship is apparent when Aoyagi turns to the characteristics of Cheju residents themselves:

Aoyagi contrasts Cheju Islanders—their diligence, determination, and fearlessness—with mainland Koreans, whom he frames as a degraded baseline against which Cheju’s alleged virtues are measured. Particularly, Aoyagi focuses on Cheju women, whose physical productivity and economic activities are presented as evidence of a stronger and more independent spirit compared to the “weak and depressed” women of the mainland. Such praise for Cheju Islanders is a mark of colonial appropriation: to command Cheju residents for qualities that mirror Japanese merits such as diligence, strength of will, and fearlessness is to claim them as already partially Japanese in temperament. The island is constructed as a population whose character has already, in some sense, prepared it for Japan’s incorporation.

A similar framing of differentiation is at work in Ōno Shūgetsu’s Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912). The distinction between the mainland Korea and Cheju, through a different register, becomes apparent in his phonetic description of Cheju language: “the common speech of the people is crude and somewhat different from that of the mainland. The syllables rise in the beginning and fall toward the end, making it difficult to understand. According to the Record of Local Conditions (fūdoroku), the natives’ pronunciation is thin, high-pitched, and piercing, and they are said not to speak very much” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 9). The words such as crude and high-pitched, which describe Cheju language, imply the backdrop of Japan’s perceived linguistic superiority. Ōno compounds this by invoking the fūdoroku as a corroborating authority to confirm his opinions with the veneer of factuality.

The similar impulse to locate difference leads Ōno to attend to the fabric of social life. Ōno observes that “on this island there are more women than men. In former times, it was said that even monks kept houses and raised families. Beggars, too, took concubines as others did. The custom of keeping concubines is still prevalent today; it is rare to find a man of standing who does not have between two and three concubines” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 11). Ōno does not merely remark that women outnumber men; he notes the prevalence of concubinage is the characteristic feature of Cheju’s gender order. In doing so, he renders Cheju’s gender relations as both exotic and morally irregular, which mark the society as culturally other.

Ōno further consolidates the gendered social order in the physical terrain of the island: “Because the sea routes are perilous, ships carrying offerings often meet disaster, and thus people place high value on the birth of daughters” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 11). What is at play here is a colonial mode of explanation that causally links social arrangements to environmental conditions. Ōno depicts Cheju’s gender relations as natural adaptation to the physical conditions of the island.

Yet this naturalizing impulse coexists with an effort to represent the social life of Cheju through its historical affinity to Japan. Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924) presents this claim in the register of everyday observation: “Generally, the islanders speak Japanese fluently and both men and women easily socialize with the Japanese. They do not make way for women on the street as mainlanders do, and brides do not cover their faces with cloth. Heavy loads are carried on the back rather than on the head, with smaller items held in baskets. Women, even when going out with nothing to carry, typically bring a small basket with them” (Saishūtō 1924: 14). By 1924, the ability for people on Cheju to speak Japanese was the result of 15 years of colonial administrative policy, in which the Government-General of Korea promoted Japanese language education throughout the peninsula after the annexation in 1910 (Caprio Reference Caprio2009). To present the result of colonial assimilation as a proof of the historical relation to Japan is to neglect the colonial history that produced the ability. The details that follow—carrying styles, women’s mobility, the absence of face-coverings—rehearse the identical repertoire of behavioral markers found in Aoyagi’s 10 characteristics nearly 20 years earlier. That an official administrative publication in 1924 was still organizing its account of Cheju around similar observations points to the institutionalization of the colonial framework that established affinity and divergence.

This institutionalization of colonial rhetoric is further visible in the text’s treatment of historical sources. Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924) does not merely repeat Aoyagi’s appropriation of the T’amna founding myth, but asserts that the women who married the Three Gods “were not of local origin, but rather from Japan” by extending the claim to Japanese imperial mythology itself (Saishūtō 1924: 11). The volume identifies the Land of the Everlasting (tokoyo no kuni) referenced in the eighth-century Kojiki as Cheju Island, on the grounds that tangerines grew there and nowhere else in Chōsen (Saishūtō 1924: 13). The reasoning is circular as follows: because tangerines are agricultural products of the island, Cheju must have been the place which Emperor Suinin sought, and therefore Cheju is woven into Japan’s imperial topology. By anchoring Cheju within Japan’s national mythology, the text extends the reach of Japanese imperial origins to encompass the island, transforming a colonial possession into a place that was already part of Japan’s imagined world.

What the analysis of these texts reveals is not simply that colonial writers found Cheju to be both familiar and other. Rather, it shows that the affinity-divergence framework was a constructed rhetorical instrument, assembled from selectively appropriated myths, recycled behavioral observations, and circular historical claims. The claim of affinity worked to naturalize Cheju’s incorporation into Japan’s imperial order, presenting it as the restoration of a connection that had always existed. The claim of divergence from mainland Korea, meanwhile, worked to singularize Cheju within the colonial geography of the peninsula, justifying a specifically calibrated approach to its governance and development.

This rhetorical configuration of shared descent and historical connection to incorporate a territory into the empire was not new to the Japanese imperial system, as observed in Ryukyu. Cheju’s affinity to Japan, however, required a double movement. It was a rhetorical adaptation specific to Cheju’s position as an island that colonial writers needed to detach, at least partially, from the Korean Peninsula. The double-sided image of Cheju provided the cultural scaffolding for the economic and developmental ambitions to which the following section turns.

The frontier rhetoric of Cheju’s treasure trove

The treasure trove rhetoric (hōko) of the three texts explored in this section performs the complementary operation with the affinity and divergence rhetoric examined in the previous section. Investors, settlers, and administrators are called to realize the potential of Cheju that the texts had constructed as lying dormant.

This rhetoric takes shape in Aoyagi’s Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905), where the island is introduced as a land of promise awaiting discovery. He notes, “Cheju Island is a treasure trove located south of Korea, and the key to unlocking its resources lies in the hands of the Yamato people. Yet our countrymen remain unaware of the wealth it holds, letting it lie dormant in the southern seas. How regrettable it is” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 6).

Two claims embedded in this passage deserve closer examination. The first is the assertion that only the Yamato people can develop the resources of Cheju, a racial designation that identifies the Japanese as the uniquely capable agents of development. This framing does not merely invite Japanese participation; it makes the situation that the Cheju Islanders have cultivated their own land for inhabitation into a passive condition. The second claim is carried by the word “dormant”: a landscape actively sustained by generations of Cheju Islanders is rhetorically cast as untouched, awaiting activation from outside. Aoyagi’s regret that his countrymen remain unaware of Cheju’s wealth constructs inertness as the island’s defining condition to position Japanese intervention as both necessary and overdue.

This construction of inertness is tied to Aoyagi’s depiction of Cheju Island as an abundant landscape. He portrays that the land, neither infertile nor overly barren, produces plentiful harvests of barley, soy beans, and red beans, which are carried in great quantities to places like Mokp’o each year (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 14). Beyond the fields, his attention turns to Mount Halla, whose dense forests are home to countless quantities of what he describes as wildlife such as cattle, horses, deer, pigs, and rabbits. Yet this image of untamed natural abundance requires critical examination. Kamiya Takuo’s 1906 report notes that inland households raised livestock such as cattle and horses for agricultural use, with wealthier households domesticating between 20 and 30 head of livestock, and some parts of the mountain are put into fallow for 3 to 4 years (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 44 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 46). Aoyagi’s depiction of domesticated animals as being part of the wildlife of the island indicates the colonial intervention required an image of an uncultivated and frontier landscape to provide a pretext.

The author further encourages Japanese readers to migrate to Cheju Island, presenting it as a space where one might establish a second home and explore the untamed wilderness of an undeveloped territory. He writes:

The vocabulary of masculine pioneering, such as willpower, harnessing, and establishing, makes colonial migration a process of individual achievement, presenting settlement on Cheju as an inevitable outcome of a man’s strength and ability. At the same time, his individual achievements are seen as part of the general aims of the colonizing process. The term “secondary residence” here further incorporates Cheju into the settler’s primary home in Japan, positioning the island as an extension of Japanese domestic geography.

Aoyagi presses this appeal further: “Now is the right time to attempt a leap forward in our expansion. There is no doubt that Japan’s management of Cheju Island will lead to great development in the near future. The sons of the island nation (Japan) should seize this valuable opportunity to pioneer the development of this treasure trove” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 4–5). Here, the urgency is more in line with an investment prospectus, signaling that Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905) was designed as a promotional instrument as much as an informational one. The invocation of Japan as “the island nation” performs additional rhetorical work: it naturalizes the presence of Japanese settlers on Cheju by casting them as ecologically suited to island life, their maritime identity making them the rightful heirs to an island whose potential their own kind are uniquely positioned to realize. Read alongside the affinity rhetoric examined earlier, this framing completes an argument: Cheju Islanders are culturally close enough to the Japanese to make settlement comfortable, yet the island itself remains so underdeveloped that Japanese intervention is urgently necessary.

This rhetoric of the dormant frontier finds an iteration in Ōno Shūgetsu’s Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912), but with a contextual irony. Korea had been colonized by Japan since 1910, and Ōno was himself stationed on the island of Cheju as a customs and tax official since that year. Furthermore, Japanese fishing activities were already operating around the coasts of Cheju, as Kamiya notes (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 60 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 62). By the time Ōno wrote, the island could hardly be described as an untouched frontier. Nevertheless, his text describes the island’s coast and the surrounding sea as an unexploited frontier resource that has yet to be opened up. He observes:

While noting the underdevelopment of the marine industry, Ōno lists a variety of fish species to indicate the sheer abundance of what has yet to be exploited. What the list projects is a marine world entirely available for Japanese enterprise—yet this is also a selective vision. It neglects Cheju’s long-standing marine economy carried by sea divers over generations, as described by Aoyagi in relation to the abalone and seaweed trade (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 44). Ōno’s picture of an underdeveloped marine frontier is consistent with the broader pattern of neglect through which the treasure trove rhetoric produces its image of dormant, available abundance.

Ōno also reflects on the prospects for expanding these maritime enterprises through the adoption of new techniques and equipment, noting “the fishing tools used by [current Japanese residents living on Cheju Island] have produced excellent results throughout the year. If larger nets were employed to catch Spanish mackerel, bonito, and tuna, the profits would surely be considerable. Yet no one has attempted such an experiment” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 64). The treasure trove rhetoric required Cheju to be ready for full participation in development, yet not quite exploited to meet the assumption of unexpended resources.

Beyond the sea, Ōno’s gaze turns inland toward the wooded mountain of Halla, another landscape of unfulfilled potentiality. He observes that “The climate of this island is mild—very much like that of northern Kyushu—making it an ideal place for settlers from the main islands. The great forest surrounding Mount Halla covers rightly fifty thousand chōbu and about seventy percent of the trees are …. perfectly suited for mushroom cultivation… To call it a natural mountain of shiitake mushrooms would hardly be an exaggeration” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 86). The comparison with Kyushu promised a climate with which Japanese settlers would be familiar. By mapping the natural features of Cheju Island onto a Japanese region, Ōno positions the island as a northward extension of Japan’s own terrain, making its incorporation into the empire as natural continuity. This is the affinity rhetoric applied to landscape rather than people—Cheju does not merely resemble Japan culturally; its very mountains and climate already belong, in Ōno’s framing, to the ecological geography of Japan.

This framing is further revealing in Ōno’s account of the island’s uncultivated land. He writes: “If the island’s land remains uncultivated, it is not because the soil itself is barren. Rather, it is because no effort has been made to develop. From ancient times, I have never heard of any Japanese who sought to cultivate this land; it has been known only as a fine fishing ground amongst those engaged in the trade” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 81). As noted earlier, Ōno had documented Japanese shiitake mushroom enterprise already established on Mount Halla, as well as Japanese fishing activities in the surrounding sea and the agricultural products of the island in statistical detail. His claim to have “never heard of any Japanese who sought to cultivate this land” is a rhetorical cast of Japanese enterprise as inaugural and the island’s economic history as blank. Also, “no effort has been made to develop” wipes out centuries of work by the self-sufficient farmers and haenyeŏ of the island who tilled and fallowed their land and sea, which also appear in Kamiya’s 1906 report (Kamiya Reference Kamiya1906: 44 in Center for Cheju Studies 2021: 46). The rhetoric of underdevelopment in Ōno’s account suppresses prior claims of a functioning society in Cheju in order to make the frontier premise visible.

The rhetoric of Cheju as an untapped treasure trove further appears in Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924), published by the Office of Cheju Island, Chŏllanam-do Province. The text proceeds to enumerate Cheju’s latent wealth, urging readers to take part in the island’s unfolding transformation. The report outlines the island’s eight treasures:

1. 1. Over 100,000 head of cattle, horses, and pigs make the island itself a vast pasture; in particular, meat-processing industries based on cattle and pigs promise to become the most remarkable and plentiful of future resources.

2. 2. The surrounding seas swarm with fish, and shellfish and seaweed proliferate in natural abundance, making it a great fishery unmatched elsewhere on the peninsula.

3. 3. Vast tracts of forest provide ideal conditions for forestry management.

4. 4. The mid-slopes of Mount Halla contain extensive woodlands well suited to the cultivation of shiitake mushrooms.

5. 5. The establishment of canning factories for fish and shellfish, anchovy plants, and shell-button factories has already begun to attract attention.

6. 6. As a citrus-growing region, it stands unrivaled throughout Korea.

7. 7. The soil is well suited for cotton, sericulture, and medicinal crops.

8. 8. Poultry and beekeeping flourish naturally, and their produce benefits from geographic proximity to markets, giving these industries a value unequaled elsewhere (Saishūtō 1924: 2–3).

The report concludes with the assertion that “innumerable promising resources are scattered across the island, awaiting only their discovery and development. Let us now introduce this unknown island to the world” (Saishūtō 1924: 3). Yet reading the eight treasures carefully, an unevenness emerges. Several items mention existing businesses which have already had a foothold on the island by 1924, including fisheries documented in all three texts examined in this section, shiitake cultivation as recorded in Ōno’s account, and citrus farming, which had deep roots in the island’s agricultural history. Others, on the other hand, point to promises of future development. The manufacture of meat processing “promise[s] to become” a future industry; cotton cultivation and sericulture are asserted as desirable; and canning and shell buttons factories have “begun to attract attention.”

The list thus mingles established fact with aspiration. This slippage between what existed and what was imagined is constitutive of the treasure trove rhetoric itself. Colonial promotional writing compressed the distinction between present conditions and future projections into a single, undifferentiated landscape of promise to maintain the vision of a colony as an endless land of potential prosperity where all colonial investments could inevitably become realized. Through this rhetoric, Cheju becomes more than a physical environment abundant in natural resources. Rather, it is cast as a screen onto which colonial aspiration was projected, its actual conditions selectively highlighted and its unrealized potential presented as inevitable.

The treasure trove rhetoric that circulated across Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905), Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912), and Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924) was not unique to Cheju. The hōko framing was a common trope in colonial promotional writings of Korea’s provincial regions published after Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 (Kim Reference Kim2022: 49–50).Footnote ¹³ The fact that the similar rhetorical operation was reproduced across multiple colonial sites and publications, as in Hokkaido and mainland Korea, reveals the treasure trove not as a description of any particular place but as an ideological template for producing the image of available, dormant resources wherever colonial governance required an economic justification.

Yet, locating Cheju within this broader imperial geography also reveals the hōko rhetoric specific to Cheju, combined with the affinity rhetoric that represents the island as a territory of ancestral kin of the Japanese. That this hybrid rhetoric was worked out in writing as early as 1905 suggests that Cheju was not a passive recipient of the imperial ideology, but rather an active site where the rhetorical instruments of Japanese colonialism were developed and refined.

Colonial vision of Cheju’s development

While the treasure trove rhetoric describes the promise of Cheju Island in ambiguous terms, the colonial discourse of development translates abstraction into concrete enumeration. Across the three texts, the quantities of fish caught on the island are stated in terms of weight and value; the area of forest in timber volumes; harbor sites assessed in relation to the needs of the imperial trade.

Among these works, Saishūtō Annai (Reference Aoyagi1905) foregrounds the sea surrounding the island as a locus of development. Aoyagi considered anchovies as the most profitable marine products of Cheju. He observes that “the anchovy fishery has greatly advanced in recent years, flourishing especially along the northern coast and remaining largely in the hands of local islanders. The season runs from the fourth or fifth lunar month to the ninth or tenth, though at times catches continue into winter. Annual production seldom falls below two million kan, and in good years it rises to three million. Each kan equals twenty kanme in Japan, with the price fluctuating between fifteen and twenty ryō ” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 43–4). The abundance of weights and prices portrays the ocean as a reserve of value and measurement, which narrows the island’s biodiversity to the terms of calculation and the rhetoric of development.

In this light, Aoyagi identifies the fishing industry as a primary source of progress and profit. He writes that “from long ago, the seas off Chŏlla have been rich in marine products, and the abundant catches near Cheju are well known. In recent years, coastal fisheries around Cheju have been considerably developed under Japanese hands. The Japanese, with their modern equipment, manage the fisheries skillfully and transport the salted or processed harvests back to the homeland. During the fishing season, the number of boats reaches as many as two hundred” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 42). As Aoyagi’s own account makes clear elsewhere (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 43–4), the most productive fishery on the island, the anchovy fishery, is mainly carried out by the native residents of the island. The statement that the fisheries have been developed “under Japanese hands” leaves out of sight existing economic activities of fishing communities in Cheju before their integration into Japanese colonial development.

This dynamic becomes particularly visible in Aoyagi’s account of Cheju’s dried seafood trade. He notes that “dried abalone is one of the island’s most valuable marine products, ranking Cheju among the chief producing regions of Korea. The abalone is large and of good quality, commanding a high price. Women along the entire coast are skilled in diving and collect them vigorously in spring and summer, most of which are then shipped to the keijin (京仁) region. One hundred large shells fetch about sixty ryō, while smaller ones sell for fifteen to twenty ryō, the annual yield amounting to roughly one thousand chō . The shells are mostly handled by resident Japanese traders and shipped to Nagasaki and Ōsaka, about thirty thousand kan annually, each priced between thirty and thirty-five ryō. Seaweed, nearly as valuable as abalone, grows along every shore, and when the season arrives, all islanders take part in its harvest; its abundance or scarcity directly affects the local economy” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 44). Reading this passage against the grain reveals that shells, including abalones harvested by Cheju’s women, were sold by Japanese traders to reap gains. The haenyŏ divers, whose skilled labor underpins the abalone economy, appear in Aoyagi’s accounts as a picturesque feature of natural abundance rather than being described as prime agents of the economic relations of production that are at the base of the abalone commodity chain. Through Aoyagi’s depiction of the shores of Cheju Island as scenes of labor and exchange, colonial relations of extraction and production emerge.

This framing of extraction extends beyond seafood: Aoyagi Tsunatarō presents agar as an open source for economic exploitation and the expansion of Japanese presence on the island. He writes that “agar is found all along the coast, especially on the eastern shore and around Udo Island, though the quality is poor and often resembles horse dung due to careless drying. Annual production is around 150,000 kan, priced between seventeen and twenty-six ryō per hundred kan. Most is transported to Japan by Japanese traders, while some is sold by Korean merchants to Pusan, Mokp’o, and Inch’ŏn. Recently, the number of Japanese fishers visiting the island has steadily increased; during the season, nearly two hundred boats crowd the shores. Fisherman usually form groups of twenty and thirty men, sometimes as many as sixty. Before long, such fishermen will bring their families, build permanent dwellings, and fully claim the island’s fisheries as their own” (Aoyagi Reference Aoyagi1905: 44–5). The assertion that Japanese fishermen will “fully claim the island’s fishers as their own” is an explicit statement of dispossession. The fisheries being claimed by the Japanese were not empty resources awaiting exploitation; they were the primary means of livelihood for Cheju Islanders. In this sense, the passage demonstrates that the Japanese had a rightful place on the island to take charge of the development, which the native Cheju Islanders lacked in their ability to utilize these resources.

This emphasis on transformation later extends inland as well: in Nansen Hōkutsu Saishūtō (Reference Ōno1912), shiitake cultivation emerges as the most promising enterprise for Cheju’s economic future.Footnote ¹⁴ Ōno Shūgetsu writes that “the cultivation of shiitake mushrooms was first begun in Meiji 39 by Fujita Kanjirō, who organized Tōeisha for that purpose. The enterprise requires three years after logging before harvest can begin. Today, the company operates under Fujita’s sole management. In Meiji 41, production amounted only six hundred twenty-five kin, valued at four hundred eighty yen, but each year it has steadily grown, and now several thousand kin are exported annually. Since then, other entrepreneurs have continued to arrive, until the entire region of Mount Halla now seems transformed into one vast shiitake field” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 82). Ōno presents this trajectory as a success of an enterprise, but transforming the forests of Mount Halla into shiitake mushroom fields was not simply about turning a barren land into a fertile one. In fact, resources generated from the mountain were shared by all inhabitants of the island. As the later Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924) acknowledges, local islanders worked these lands for centuries. The arrival of Fujita Kanjirō and the subsequent influx of Japanese entrepreneurs entailed the progressive enclosure of those shared resources: logging the mountain’s forests, organizing their conversion into shiitake fields, and concentrating their management under Japanese capital. What Ōno narrates as the taming of nature into economic value was a process of privatizing a landscape native islanders had inhabited.

Ōno explains the rapid growth of Cheju’s shiitake industry as the outcome of what he calls a set of “exceptionally favorable conditions” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 86). Chief among these are the island’s temperate climate, which ensures steady mushroom growth, and its abundant spring and autumn rains, which eliminate the need for artificial irrigation (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 86–7). In addition to these natural resources, he also counted the supply of inexpensive labor: “Koreans (senjin)” he writes, “have long been employed in this work, growing familiar with the Japanese and with the operations of the enterprise. Their wages are extremely low, about twenty-four or twenty-five sen per day, rarely exceeding thirty sen even for the experienced” (Ōno Reference Ōno1912: 87). Ōno incorporates these wage figures as part of the resources of a land for development. What Ōno presents as an “exceptionally favorable condition” was, in structural terms, exploitation rendered invisible through the language of development. The colonial representation of the island’s shiitake industry as a landscape of opportunity was possible as its native workforce was reduced to a calculable input, rather than being recognized as the foundation on which the entire enterprise rested.

A colonial rhetoric on development persists in Mikai no Hōko Saishūtō (1924), which measures Cheju’s forests, farmland, and harbors in terms of the possible contribution to Japan’s economic growth. The text observes that “the area of about two ri at the base forms a vast forest, with towering birch, oak, cherry, and maple trees so dense that even in daylight it remains dark; there are large tracts untouched by local axes.Footnote ¹⁵ On three sides—east, south, and west—this zone has become known as a site for shiitake cultivation, and even today a dozen Japanese capitalists manage its production” (Saishūtō 1924: 4). The forest tracts are described as being “untouched by local axes,” a framing already visible in Aoyagi’s description of Mount Halla as an untrodden frontier. On the other hand, the same passage also notes that a dozen Japanese capitalists had already gained large profits by growing shiitake mushrooms on the mountain, which indicates that the “untouched” wilderness had already been logged under Japanese capital. The volume further traces the historical layering of management, noting that “descending from the forest zone, one reaches what was formerly the official large pasture, encompassing future timberlands and forest development areas” (Saishūtō 1924: 4). In this rendering, forests and pastures are envisioned as instruments of development; their value defined in terms of profits that could be generated from Japan’s colonial oversight. This rhetoric renders invisible both the communities who had used these lands and the ecological costs of their transformation.

This evaluative lens extends to agriculture, where land is read less as an ancestral inheritance of Cheju Islanders but as a territory awaiting development. The text notes that “the mountains from the pasture down to the coastline comprise wide fields that have been opened by the efforts of local residents for hundreds of years. Except for some south-facing slopes, irrigation challenges have prevented these lands from becoming rice paddies, yet they remain suitable for barley, millet, sweet potatoes, cotton, medicinal plants, and citrus cultivation” (Saishūtō 1924: 4). While the passage acknowledges that the native inhabitants of the island have framed these fields for generations, it functions rhetorically as a prelude and quickly pivots to what these lands “remain suitable for.” The framing that recognizes the centuries of labor of native Cheju Islanders is folded into the calculation of the economic potential, carried out by the Japanese.

Harbors, likewise, are central to visions of Cheju’s incorporation into a regional trading network, where the coastline is evaluated for its capacity to facilitate commerce. The text observes that “the coastline of the island is very straight, making natural harbors scarce. Ports such as Cheju Harbor have no value for shipping, but with some intervention, Sŏgwip’o, Sŏngsanp’o, Mosŭlp’o, and Ch’uja Port could function as substantial commercial or fishing harbors” (Saishūtō 1924: 4). Under Chosŏn administration, the ports in Hwabuk and Choch’ŏn were the main points of exit and entry for communication between the island and the mainland Korea—the routes taken by officials, exiled prisoners, and commodities coming in and out (Kim Reference Kim2011: 117). The rhetoric positions Japanese intervention as building maritime infrastructure from scratch, masking the existing maritime infrastructure of the island.

Early efforts to establish regular shipping lines illustrate this process. “In Taishō 2, Itō, the head of maritime affairs, inspected the island and judged that opening a circular route around Cheju would contribute to its development. From Mokp’o, two ships circled the island, and from Pusan, another two, establishing eight monthly scheduled voyages managed by the Chōsen Shipping Company” (Saishūtō 1924: 25). Although these routes later diminished—“Mokp’o route reduced to two ships with six trips, Pusan route to one ship with six trips (Saishūtō 1924: 25)”—new initiatives revived maritime circulation. The fluctuation between expansion and contraction suggests that Cheju’s integration into imperial trade networks was neither smooth nor inevitable, proceeding through setbacks and adjustments that the promotional rhetoric of inexhaustible treasure obscured. By Taishō 11, the Cheju Shipping Company inaugurated routes between Pusan and Cheju, later establishing a direct line to Ōsaka in partnership with the Amagasaki Steamship Company (Saishūtō 1924: 25). This Ōsaka route, presented as a commercial development, enabled the mass labor migration of Cheju Islanders to Japan, carrying the tens of thousands of workers whose labor was absorbed into the empire’s industrial base (Koh and Barclay Reference Koh and Barclay2007: 14).

These accounts reveal a colonial vision in which Cheju’s forests, agricultural fields, and coastal infrastructure are seen as objects of colonial development, as in other colonial sites such as Hokkaido. However, what is distinguished in Cheju is that it contends with an already existing rural society as well as its agricultural fields and marine industries. As a result, the rhetoric of development for Cheju is one of concealment, rather than erasure, acknowledging the existing labor of the islanders only to absorb it into the colonial project, and then to develop the land and sea to which that labor had been devoted into something new under Japanese management.