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This chapter examines patterns found in later processes of imperial encroachment within the evolution of the Japanese consular police in preannexation Korea and their relation to developments on the home islands. It first considers the reasons for the initial establishment of consular police forces in the port cities opened by Japan's unequal treaties with Korea during the early 1880s, along with the general characteristics of the police force and the nature of their activities. It then describes the rapid increase in consular police personnel after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and goes on to discuss the expansion of consular police infrastructure during the Russo-Japanese War era. It also explores the role of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in paving the way for the annexation of Korea. The chapter suggests that the pattern of consular police expansion followed by colonial conquest was a prelude to Japan's imperial project in China and Manchuria.

This chapter examines how the Japanese consular police intensified their commitment to deal with the problem of Korean resistance. More specifically, it considers the Gaimushō police's adoption of unilateral solutions to the security crises posed by the Korean independence movement in China and its connections to domestic Japanese left-wing politics. The chapter first provides an overview of Japan's campaign to conquer Manchuria in September 1931 and the collapse of Sino-Japanese cooperation before turning to the Jiandao Uprising of May 30, 1930. It then discusses the transnational “terrorist” bombings carried out by Korean resistance fighters, along with the Gaimushō's series of initiatives aimed at lowering the public profie of the consular police in China and Manchuria. The chapter concludes by focusing on the Gaimushō's attempt to link the activities of communists in Japan to those of communists abroad.

This chapter examines the further expansion of Gaimushō police facilities and operations in Manzhouguo and China proper during the mid-1930s and throughout the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945. More specifically, it considers the consular police's war against communism and anticolonial resistance in occupied China, along with the expanded scope of their surveillance. It also explains how Japan's consular police forces continued to play an active role in prosecuting the war on Korean independence movement in exile even as the campaign against Chinese communism and Soviet intrigue took a more signifiant position at the forefront of consular police goals and strategy. Finally, the chapter discusses the consular police's relations with the Japanese Army, whose invasion of North China led the Gaimushō to craft a role for itself in the pacification of occupied territories.

This chapter examines the dispute between China and Japan over the propriety and fundamental legal legitimacy of the consular police established by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in mainland Chinese treaty ports and the Manchurian frontier. It first considers the presence of the Gaimushō police in the treaty ports of Shanghai, Tianjin, and Xiamen before exploring how the legality of the consular police's existence in the Chinese treaty port environment and in Manchuria came under fire from local Chinese officials, other foreign colonial powers, and even rival institutions of their own imperial government. It also looks at the Zhengjiatun incident of 1916 in Manchuria to highlight the wider Sino-Japanese conflict over the legitimacy of the Japanese consular police. Finally, it analyzes the reasons why the Gaimushō insisted on its claim for legitimate police power despite strong opposition from the Chinese side.

This chapter examines how the consular police dealt with political resistance to the imperial Japanese state throughout the informal empire in China. It begins with a discussion of the nature of colonial resistance and political dissent in Chinese treaty ports, particularly Shanghai. It then considers the Gaimushō's counterinsurgency operations in Jiandao and the attempt by the Fengtian consular police to harness local Korean collaborators in their fight against violent Korean resistance. It also explores a series of interrelated political security agreements in 1925 that affected the course of consular police evolution. The chapter shows that the Korean independence movement in exile, along with the emergence of formal communist organizations on the home islands, forced the Japanese state to allocate more consular police resources to political intelligence work.

This book examines the role played by Japan's consular police in shaping the Japanese colonial presence in East Asia. Drawing upon a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including the Gaimushō keisatsushi (A History of the Foreign Ministry Police), the book considers how the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimushō) used this police force to apprehend Korean, Chinese, and Japanese purveyors of “dangerous thought” throughout the empire. It highlights the ways in which the police enabled the Gaimushō to actively promote colonial expansionism in accordance with its perceived political security prerogatives. It also shows how domestic politics intertwined with foreign policy in the Gaimushō's police work.

This concluding chapter summarizes several themes related to the notion of crossing the boundaries between Japan and its colonial empire, with particular emphasis on how the history of the Japanese consular police in Northeast Asia makes it possible to begin transcending boundaries of both political geography and historical imagination. These themes are concerned with the friction between the Japanese Army and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the consular police's often unilateral war of their own against Korean resistance fighters; the popular conception among historians that the Japanese empire in northeast Asia was divided into formal and informal spheres; the problem of agency; the excessive subjectivity granted to the nation-state; and limited attempts by scholars to cross the border between Japanese colonial history and the experience of other modern Western imperial powers. All of these themes are intertwined with the vexing nationalist dilemmas that complicate representations of East Asian history today.