This thesis analyzes the Koreans’ perception of China around the time when the Wanbaoshan Incident (Man-bo-san Sah-gun) took place, especially focusing on the socialists’ point of view. After the Wanbaoshan Incident, Koreans who were enraged by the event carried out a series of attacks on Chinese residents in cities like Kyungsung, Pyeongyang and Incheon. The Japanese police at that time placed socialists who inhabited Kyungsung in preventive custody. Consequently, the socialists weren’t able to take a part in coping with the aftermath of series of attacks on Chinese that happened after the Wanbaoshan Incident. Plus, they lost their chance to contact the public within the legal boundary. Alongside the general trend of socialist movement which was to go underground after the dismissal of Shinganhui, this event has led the socialists to gradually disappear, ceasing to pursue their movement within the boundary of law.
When veteran socialists that worked within the boundary of law weren’t properly dealing with the aftermath of the Wanbaoshan Incident, the newly rising socialists issued manifesto to inform the public about the truth of the Wanbaoshan Incident and the essence of invasion policy of Japanese imperialism. In the manifesto, the socialists clearly pointed out that the Chinese farmers were not Chosun’s enemies but the incident was a part of the invasion policy of Japanese imperialism. Also, they insisted that Chinese army was one of the enemies. The socialists drew a distinction between the Chinese army and the bourgeois class that were in the vanguard of the Japanese imperialism and the common Chinese people who were suppressed by the empowered. The lessons that the socialists learned from the Wanbaoshan Incident reassured their internationalist principle which stated that accomplishing the Chinese revolution by collaborating with Chinese farmers and laborers was the way to drive Japanese imperialism out of Chosun.
There started to exist a slight difference in perception of China between the socialists who worked within the boundary of the Maintenance of the Public Order Act and those who didn’t conform to it. It was the role of those who worked within the legal boundary to refine the ‘raw’ ideas of their partners who didn’t conform to the law. By making national-wide appeal in writing, the socialists were trying to convince that nationalists’ movement to help Koreans in Manchuria was an impractical proposal and that nationalists’ perception of China derived from the pro-Japanese logic. In the process of that, the socialists began to perceive differently of China’s Nationalist party, debating whether they will bring it down or take advantage of it. In the meantime, the socialists who were used to the style of activism in 1920s began to quit engaging in the movement, convinced or forced to do so by the Japanese imperialism which commenced to take the form of militarism. This trend of going underground by evading the intervention of law, which had been rising since the dismissal of Shinganhui became prominent while experiencing Wanbaoshan Incident and the Manuchurian incident.