Resistance Against Japan's Policy of Assimilation
The beginning of Japan's war of aggression on the Asian continent and its spread into the Pacific brought further tightening of Japan's reins over Korea. The Japanese colonial policy was aimed at transforming Korea into a logistical base for continental aggression, the closing phase of Japanese colonial rule in Korea.

Invading Manchuria on the pretext of a fabricated provocation in Mukden, the Japanese soon took over the whole region. The venture was sparked by Japan's quest for an overseas solution for its economic depression at home.

Monopolistic capital from Japan flowed into Korea to create the arsenal for invasion of the continent. Cheap labor was available as the result of Korean impoverishment caused by Japanese exploitation. Rapid advances had been made in some manufacturing, but it was a "dependent" industrialization, geared to colonialism.

Japan carried on its war of continental invasion from Manchuria into mid-China. During the 1930s in Korea, the industrial emphasis of the Japanese gradually shifted from foodstuff manufacturing to such heavy industries as machines, chemicals and metals. In 1939, heavy industry constituted more than 50 percent of all industrial sectors. Production of agricultural commodities steadily declined in value from 60 percent of the gross national product in 1931 to 32 percent in 1942.

Despite marked progress in industries, the native capital invested was minimal. As the war went on, the exploitation of Korean labor became ever greater. Koreans were excluded from positions of skilled work and forced to do heavy manual labor at wages less than half those received by their Japanese counterparts. The official enforcement of industrial development went hand in hand with the colonial agricultural policy of increasing rice production.

As the tide of the war turned against the Japanese, they squeezed more and more agricultural products out of the peasants by means of gongchul or "quota delivery." Farmers were compelled to grow rice with expensive fertilizers to fulfill their assigned quotas.

In March 1944, the Japanese placed production quotas on major mining and manufacturing industries for the purpose of securing military supplies, and medium and small enterprises were consolidated. Alignment of colonial industries was undertaken with an emphasis placed on iron and light metal industries and the production of raw materials. These economic restrictions were accompanied by further infringement upon freedom of thought and civil liberties.

For example, in the course of invading China in 1937, the Japanese began to suppress freedom of religion, substituting compulsory worship at Japanese Shinto shrines. In 1938, Korean-language teaching was banned from secondary school curricula. From April 1941 onwards, the curricula of Japanese schools was imposed upon Korean schools. As the war intensified, the education of Koreans under the Education Decree of March 1943 was increasingly geared to the Japanese war establishment. No longer was the Korean language taught in primary schools.

But such high-handed oppression by the Government-General could hardly fail to bring about persistent resistance. Many were arrested on charges of "seeking to attain the ambition of liberating the Korean people." Nationalists were the most active group in the most oppressive period (1937-1945). In 1941, a Thought Criminals Preventive Custody Law went into force, and a protective prison was established in Seoul, where almost all anti-Japanese activists were held. The Government-General declared that preventive custody was intended to isolate from society these unruly "thought criminals" and to discipline them. It was the first step in a drive to uproot the will to independence from the minds of the Koreans.

In 1942, the Government-General came under the central administrative control of the Japanese government, and a massive mobilization of Korean manpower and materials was integrated into the war effort. From 1943, Korean youths were drafted into the Japanese army, and the Student Volunteer Ordinance of January 20, 1944, forced Korean college students into the army.

Moreover, under the National General Mobilization Act of Japan, Korean labor was subjected to forcible removal from the peninsula. The drafting of laborers began in 1939 and many were sent to Japan, Sakhalin or Southeast Asia. Statistics up to August 15, 1945, show that 4,146,098 workers were assigned inside Korea and 1,259,933 in Japan. Many Korean workers were sent to coal mines in Japan; some of them remain in Japan and Sakhalin even to this day.

The course of the Sino-Japanese War forced the Chinese Nationalist Government to move to Chongqing, and in 1940, the Provisional Government of Korea as well had to move there. On August 28, 1941, the Provisional Government, in response to the declaration by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, issued a statement demanding recognition of the Korean government; military, technical and economic assistance for the prosecution of anti-Japanese campaigns; and Korean participation in deciding the fate of Korea after the war.

After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Provisional Government of Korea set up a Euro-American Liaison Committee in Washington for the purpose of active diplomacy with European and American states. An aid agreement was concluded with the Nationalist government of China, and efforts were made to strengthen the internal organization of the government. When the three powers, the United States, China and Britain, met in Cairo in 1943, Kim Gu of the Provisional Government sought the aid of Chiang Kai-shek, while Liaison Committee Director Syngman Rhee ordered Jeong Hangyeong (Henry Chung) to go to Cairo to promote the cause of Korean independence. Upon the proposal of Generalissimo Chiang, the three powers agreed to include a call for Korea's self-determination and independence in the Cairo Declaration.

In February 1944, the Provisional Government brought some leftist personalities into its fold and formed a sort of coalition cabinet, with Kim Gu as chairman and Kim Gyusik as vice chairman. In February 1945, it formally declared war against Japan and Germany by taking part in active campaigns; altogether after 1943, more than 5,000 Korean troops joined the allied forces in military operations throughout the Chinese theater of war. Korean college students and youths drafted into the Japanese army deserted their units to join the ranks of China's anti-Japanese resistance war. In the United States as well, a number of Korean immigrants volunteered for the U.S. army to fight against the Japanese in the Pacific. Korean Communists in Gando, northeast Manchuria, also joined the Soviet Union or Chinese Communists.