>>54648394Kind of.
Actually, to explain: when Japan took over Korea, the economic growth rate took off. Growth was uneven; and those who were wealthy under Japanese rule often stayed that way afterwards. Even when they had their estates and businesses confiscated, they were often able to use their education and contacts to climb back up.
The anti-Japanese crowd are right - to an extent - in claiming that some of those who got wealthy under Japan did so through corruption. But this is often totally generalized by jealous people for political reasons or jealousy, and because Japanese rule was such a long time ago, it's a minefield to try and determine who deserves what based on what was going on more than half a century ago.
Also, until World War II, Japanese rule in Korea was very secure. As unacceptable as this opinion is in Korea, it's unreasonable to expect anyone back then not to have accepted Japanese rule. No-one could possibly have forseen the complete conquest of the Japanese empire back then.
It's easy with the benefit of hindsight to say that all Koreans should have been patriotic and anti-Japanese and all that, but really Korean independence was for decades about as likely as, say, Welsh independence from the UK is now.
