history

The Oriental Development Company of Japan, also known as Tongchok, was a state-controlled monopolistic business created by the Japanese imperialists in a bid to plunder land and natural resources of Korea.

As soon as they stretched out their claws of invasion to Korea, the Japanese aggressors made desperate efforts to plunder its resources. Such moves got even craftier after making Korea their complete colony.  

They built the Oriental Development Company in 1908 involving some bigwigs of the military, economic and financial circles so that they could lead and control the predatory activities. 

The company ruthlessly seized land which was Korea’s main means of production at that time. It took over a large amount of land expropriated by the Japanese imperialists from the Korean feudal government under the pretext of “state land” and cheated Korean peasants out of their land by way of fraud and trickery.  

It owned more than 97 000 hectares of land by 1920 and over 123 600 hectares by 1930. The figure reached about 210 000 just before Japan’s defeat in the Second World War.

It rented the plundered land to Korean peasants and cruelly exploited them. According to conservative estimates released by the Japanese imperialists, the company collected 493 389 sok of rice (one sok is equivalent to 20 pecks), 70 295 kun of cotton (one kun is equivalent to 0.6 kilogram) and 116 260 won in cash from Korean tenants in 1938 alone. Besides, it accumulated a huge amount of capital by collecting water tax through irrigation associations and through usuries secured on land 

As it got fattened through exploitation of the Korean peasants, it invested funds in the industrial field and owned major factories and mines in Korea, plundering underground resources and exploiting Korean workers. 

By the end of 1938, Tongchok took control over more than 50 companies. Especially, it held all or most of the assets of the Puryong hydropower, Kanggye hydropower and Tongchok mining companies, Pukson coal mine, Korean zinc mining company and Korea Musu Jujong company.

The overwhelming majority of Koreans were in extreme poverty due to the Japanese imperialists' vicious and crafty plunder, and the balance between the industrial production structure and the agricultural production structure in Korea got extremely biased and deformed.

Tongchok was notorious not only in Korea but also in China and Southeast Asia to be cursed as a colonial exploiting organ of the Japanese imperialists.

A long time has passed since then. But Japan is resorting to distortion of history, pretending ignorance of its criminal atrocities, while whetting the sword for reinvasion.

Such behaviour of Japan heaping up crimes is adding fuel to the indignation of the Koreans.

The Korean people will make Japan pay full reparations for its past crimes.