The Japanese Government’s Conciliatory Policy for Korean in Manchuria and the Return of Korean Confucian Leaders in 1910s

The dynamics of Korean Confucian movement found in colonial Korea in the late 1910s and early 1920s were the result of the rapid response of domestic confucian intellectual groups to domestic and international situations, but it was also the result of the return of the Confucian leaders. After returning home, they revitalized the Confucian community by urging the conservative Confucian intellectuals to participate in the independence movement and leading the establishment of Confucian organizations. The return of the Confucian leaders was closely related to the Japanese government’s conciliatory policy. In August 1918, Suenaga Misao, a ronin of Japan, and Jang Woo-geun, a pro-Japanese Korean, wrote ‘an opinion on the conciliation and unification of Koreans abroad’ together and proposed a conciliation for Korean leaders in Manchuria, China, through observation groups. In fact, between 1919 and 1920, Maeng Bo-soon, Lee Sang-gyu, and Jeong An-rip, who had participated in the Observation Group to Yeosun and Dalian or had often met with Japanese officials and exchanged opinions, returned home, and became a new leading group of the Confucian movement in 1920s.