<한반도철도의 정치경제학-일제의 침략통로에서 동북아공동체의 평화철도로>
                                                                            (2017, 도서출판 선인)

정태헌 교수(고려대학교)

이 책은 한국학중앙연구원 한국학진흥사업단의 지원을 받아 3년간의 연구와 2년간의 정리, 저술 작업을 거쳐 다섯 권(역사지리, 정치, 사회, 문화, 경제)으로 발간된 <한국철도의 역사와 문화 총서>(5권) 중의 하나다. 5명 필자들의 공통된 문제의식은 한반도철도의 역사와 미래를 함축하는 개념으로 명명한 부제(‘침략의 길에서 공생발전의 길로’)로 담았다.

19세기 산업혁명의 총아로서 무한한 진보를 상징한 철도는 구미인들에게 국민국가를 만드는 동맥혈관 역할을 한 근대문명의 전령사였다. 그러나 (반)식민지에서 철도는 국민경제 형성과 주체적 발전을 억압한 제국주의 침략의 첨단도구였다. 21세기 한반도철도의 역할은 무엇일까? 한반도철도 100여년의 역사는 어떠했을까? 이 책은 이 질문에서 출발했다.

이 책의 중요한 키워드는 ‘철도주권’이다. 1899년 경인철도 부설로 시작된 한반도철도의 역사는 ‘수탈과 개발’의 식민지시기, 압축성장을 이룬 1970~80년대를 거쳐 KTX로 상징되는 현재에 이르기까지 굴곡의 과정을 겪어왔다. 한반도철도는 일본제국주의의 침략선으로 출발했지만 동북아 공생발전선의 핵이 되어야 한다.

근대의 사전(encyclopedia)적 특징으로 근대(주권)국가, 자본주의, 국민주권 등을 거론한다. 근대 자본주의 경제의 세 주체(개인, 기업, 정부) 중 주권국가의 존재는 필수적이다. 국가는 거대한 시장을 조성하고 자국 기업을 위한 국내외정책을 시행하면서 자유무역정책 또는 그와 반대로 보호무역정책을 추진했고 지금도 그러하다. ‘세계사 차원’의 시대구분 개념으로 근대를 차용하지만, 이러한 근대 개념은 식민지에 적용될 수 없다. 한반도에서 (국가 없는)‘식민지자본주의’ 경제의 운영의 주체는 일본 정부, 조선총독부, 일본과 조선의 일본인자본가였다. 한반도는 식민지자본주의 ‘성장’의 결과 해방 후 최빈국 대열에 포함되어 있었다.

오늘날에도 ‘철도의 날’로 기념하는 1899년 9월 18일, 한반도에서 최초로 경인철도가 개통되었다. 일본이 부설한 철도였다. <독립신문> 기자의 눈에는 “나는 새도 미쳐 따르지 못”할 속도로 “대한사람의 눈을” 놀라게 한 경이로움에 갇혀, 인천항의 일본인들이 일장기(히노마루)를 내걸고 자축하는 상황도 전혀 어색하지 않았다. 이광수는 <무정>에서 증기기관차와 공장에서 나오는 “도회의 소리”, “문명의 소리”를 모르는 “흰옷 입은 사람들”을 질책했다. 반면에 미국에게 ‘개항’된 일본이 조선과 크게 달랐던 점은 철저한 철도주권 인식이었다.

경부철도 부설을 위해 미국에서 들여온 자재에 한 꽃씨가 섞여 들어와 철도 연선을 따라 엄청난 속도로 꽃이 퍼져나갔다. 민초들은 이 예쁜 꽃을 나라를 망하게 한 풀이라면서 망국초, 개망초, 왜풀이라고 불렀다. 왜 당시의 의병, 민초들이 일본이 부설한 철도에 적대적이었고 열차에 돌을 던졌을까를 되돌아봐야 한다.

일제가 부설권, 나아가서 소유권까지 장악한 한반도철도의 운영 주체는 일본정부와 그 하부기관인 통감부-조선총독부(때로는 남만주철도주식회사)였다. 사상 초유의 대공사인 부설공사가 전국에 걸쳐 진행되었지만, 한국인 철도자본이나 토목자본의 성장은 봉쇄되었다. 반대로 일본의 철도자본과 토목자본은 세계적 기업으로 성장하는 발판을 마련했다. 해방 후 철도 운영이 불가능할 정도로 조선인이 단순노무직에 집중된 철도종사원 고용구조는 고착되어 있었다.

일본육군의 주도로 설립된 남만주철도주식회사(만철)는 한반도철도를 7년 8개월 간 위탁경영하기도 했다. 육군군벌의 영수 테라우치 마사타케(寺內正毅)는 일본총리(1916.10~1918.9)로 재임할 때 조선-만주 철도의 통일적 운영을 명목으로 위탁경영을 결정(1917.7.31)했다. 3·1운동 후 해군 출신 사이토 마코토(齋藤實)가 1919년 8월, 조선총독으로 부임하면서 직영 환원 주장이 거세졌다. 위탁경영이 한반도철도 정책을 불철저하게 하고 조선총독(부)의 ‘권위’를 훼손시킨다는 이유였다. 결국 육군의 반대 속에서 일본 정부는 직영 환원을 결정(1924.10.28)했다.

한반도철도의 위탁경영과 직영 사이에 식민지성의 본질적 차이는 없다. 일제의 한반도 식민정책은 시기를 떠나 만주침략정책에 종속된 가운데 운영되었기 때문이다. 일본 정부가 한반도철도를 조선총독부 직영으로 환원하고 함경도 지방 철도망 구축의 중요성을 강조한 것은 당시의 시기적 조건이나 국제환경에 비춰 그것이 만주침략정책에 효율적이고 이를 위해 한반도에 식민지자본주의 ‘개발-수탈’체제를 구축할 필요가 있다고 판단한 결과였다.

한반도철도망은 일제의 의도대로 대륙침략의 통로로서 경부-경의 라인을 따라 만주-일본 연결을 최우선 목표로 한 종관노선이 뼈대가 되었다. 철도노선(驛) 역시 그 요구에 따라 군대(군수) 수송, 한반도의 농산물과 지하자원 반출에 편리하도록 일본-조선-만주를 빠르게 연결하면서 일본인들이 터전을 잡은 식민도시 중심으로 선정되었다. 한반도경제의 개발이나 산업연관은 고려대상이 아니었다.

철도는 일단 부설되고 나면 경로의존성을 띠게 마련이어서 해방 후 철도정책 역시 경부라인을 축으로 이뤄졌다. 석탄, 시멘트 개발을 위한 산업철도 부설도 기존 노선을 횡단하여 연결하는 방식을 취할 수밖에 없었다. 한국 경제의 지역 불균형 문제는 경부라인에 그 원인(遠因)이 소급된다. 해방 후 또 다른 종단노선(전라선)을 균형있게 사용하는 철도망은 구축되지 못했다.

전철화, 복선화, 고속철도 부설은 한국철도의 새로운 전기를 마련했다. 그러나 좁은 국토에 70년 이상 지속된 분단으로 ‘섬’에 갇힌 상황에서 벗어나는 상상력이 필요하다. 한국철도는 종관철도망을 장점으로 전환시켜 북한 철도를 통해 한반도를 관통(trans)하는 TKR(Trans Korea Railroad)로 전환되어 TSR(Trans Siberian Railroad), TCR(Trans China Railroad)을 통해 유럽으로 이어지는 대동맥으로 전환되어야 한다.

한반도철도망에 스며있는 침략과 전쟁의 역사가 동북아 평화와 번영의 수단으로 전환될 때 한국철도는 역사의 대전환을 만드는 주체로 거듭나는 것이다. 그리고 이는 주변국 모두가 원하는 일이기도 하다. 실리적 이해관계가 서로 간에 두텁게 얽혀 있을 때 평화체제는 공고해진다. 한반도는 19세기 말~20세기를 지나는 긴 세월 동안 불행으로 점철되었지만, 오히려 그 때문에 21세기 인류가 지향해야 할 좌표를 만들어낼 수 있는 토양을 지니고 있기도 하다. 철도야말로 그걸 만들어갈 수 있는 가장 적합한 소재이다.

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The Past and Future of the Korean Peninsula’s Railways: From Invasion to Symbiotic Development

Jung Taehern (Korea University)

This is an overview of Taehern Jung’s A Political-Economic Study of Railways on the Korean Peninsula: From a Pathway for Japanese Invasion to a Peace Railway for the Northeast Asian Community published in 2017. 

This book is part of a collection entitled “A Series on the History and Culture of Korean Railways” which was published with the support of the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies. The collection was completed after three years of research and two years of writing, and consists of five volumes on historical geography, politics, society, culture, and economics. The five authors who contributed to this series shared the common research topic of the history and future of the Korean Peninsula’s railways as implied in the subtitle (From Invasion to Symbiotic Development).

Railways were the darling of the nineteenth century industrial revolution and symbolized limitless progress. They also served as the arteries of nation-state building in the West and were the heralds of modern civilization. However, in terms of colonialism and anti-colonialism, railways were advanced tools used for imperial expansion, which repressed the formation of national economies and independent development. What is the role of the Korean Peninsula’s railways in the twenty-first century? What does the roughly one hundred year history of the railways on the Peninsula look like? This book starts with these questions.

An important keyword of this study is “railway sovereignty.” The history of the Korean Peninsula’s railways, which began with the construction of the Seoul-Incheon Railway in 1899, followed a winding path which included the “exploitation and development” of the colonial period, the compressed development of the 1970s and 1980s, and is now symbolized by Korea’s high-speed KTX. The railways of the Korean Peninsula have their origins in Japan’s imperial invasion, but must become the core of symbiotic development in Northeast Asia.

If one were to check the encyclopedia for the characteristics of modernity, the typical findings would include modern (sovereign) nation-states, capitalism, and popular sovereignty, amongst others. While modern capitalist economies typically are said to be comprised of three agents (individuals, firms, and government), the sovereign state is absolutely necessary. States are able to create large markets and implement domestic and foreign policies, such as free trade or protectionist policies, on behalf of their countries enterprises, and states continue to do so today. Modernity is derived from the concept of dividing world history into several periods, but this concept of modernity cannot be applied to colonialism. The agents which operated the (stateless) “colonial capitalism” on the Korean Peninsula were Japanese government, the Government-General of Korea, and Japanese capitalists both in Japan and Korea. The results of colonial capitalism’s so-called “development” of the Korean Peninsula can be summarized by the fact that after liberation Korea ranked among the world’s poorest nations.

The Korean Peninsula’s first railway, the Seoul-Incheon Line, was opened on September 18, 1899, a date that is celebrated to this day as “Railroad Day.” It was a railway built by Japan. A reporter for the Tongnip Sinmun (Independence Newspaper) summarized the experience by saying I was enthralled in wonder as the “train travelled at a speed a bird could not match,” a site which would amaze the “eyes of the Korean people.” He also stated that the situation at the Incheon harbor where Japanese people were raising the national flag of Japan and congratulating themselves was also not strange at all. Kwang-su Yi, in his book Mujong, chastised those “wearing white clothes” (a term used to indicate the Korean people) who were unfamiliar with the “sounds of the city” or “sounds of civilization” which rang out from steam locomotives and factories. Meanwhile, a significant difference between Korea and Japan, which was “opened” by the United States, is the thorough recognition of railway sovereignty.

Some flower seeds were inadvertently mixed in with materials imported from the United States for the construction of the Seoul-Busan Line, and flowers quickly began to bloom along the railway. Locals bemoaned that these lovely flowers were actually weeds causing the destruction of the country. They called the flowers “manggukcho” and “gaemangcho” as a reference to the destruction of the country, or “waepul” (Japanese weeds). We need to look back and understand the reasons why at that time local militias and commoners were hostile towards the railways constructed by the Japanese and why they threw rocks at trains.

During the colonial period, the agents that dominated the right to construct railroads and the ownership of railroads were the Japanese government and its subordinate agencies, including the Residency-General and Government-General of Korea (and, for a time, the South Manchuria Railway Company). Unprecedented large-scale construction operations were conducted throughout the country, but growth in Korean railway or public works capital was not realized. On the other hand, Japanese railway and public works capital grew large enough to grab a foothold as a globally competitive enterprise. The employment structure of the railways regulated Korean workers to positions as simple laborers and their knowledge of operating railways was so limited that the trains could barely run after liberation.

The South Manchuria Railway Company (often abbreviated in Korean to “Mancheol”), which was established under the guidance of the Japanese Army, was also commissioned to manage the railways of the Korean Peninsula for roughly seven years and eight months. While Masatake Terauchi, who was both a general in the Japanese Army and held the position of Governor-General of Korea, was made Prime Minister of Japan in 1916, the South Manchuria Railway Company was given management of the railways in Korea on July 31, 1917 under the pretext of connecting railroads in Korea to those in Manchuria. After the March First Movement in Korea, Saito Makoto, previously an admiral in the Japanese Navy, took the position of Governor-General of Korea in August 1919 and called for the railroads to again be directly managed by the government. The reason given was that the management of the South Manchuria Railway Company had been inconsistent and was damaging the “authority” of the colonial government. Eventually, despite opposition from the Japanese Army, the central Japanese government decided to revert management of the railways back to direct government control on October 28, 1924.

Despite periods of both private and public management, the railways of the Korean Peninsula were essentially under colonial control. This is because the colonial policies of the Japanese government on the Korean Peninsula were subordinate to the decisions being made with regard to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, regardless of any time period. The Japanese government reverted control of the railways to the Governor-General of Korea, and the subsequent emphasis placed on constructing a network of railways in the Hamgyong region was based on the conditions of the times or the international environment in order to make the invasion of Manchuria more effective. And it was for this effort in Manchuria that the decision to devise a colonial capitalist system of “development and exploitation” on the Korean Peninsula was made.

The network of railways on the Korean Peninsula was designed with the main purpose of connecting Japan with Manchuria to create a path for the invasion of continental Asia, and the Seoul-Busan and Seoul-Uiju lines were the lengthwise frame of that network. Railways were developed based on the city centers that the Japanese had chosen as colonial bases, and were designed to quickly connect Japan, Korea, and Manchuria to meet the demands of transporting troops and munitions as well as sending extracted agricultural products and mineral resources to industrial centers. Economic development of the Korean Peninsula or creating domestic industry linkages were not considered in this process.

After railways are built they inherently assume a sense of path dependency, and thus, after Korea’s liberation, railway policy began with the Seoul-Busan line. There was no option but to connect newly constructed industrial railways for the development of coal and cement enterprises to the existing railway network. Therefore, the colonial construction of the Seoul-Busan line can be considered an indirect cause of Korea’s regionally uneven economic development. After liberation the construction of another lengthwise line between Seoul and Jeolla-do to provide balance to the railway network was not realized.

The construction of electric railways, parallel tracks, and high-speed railways represented a new turning point in the history of Korea’s railroads. However, fresh ideas are needed to move beyond the current situation in which Korea’s railways are limited to the narrow “island” of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula due to seventy years of division. Korea should take advantage of the lengthwise nature of its railway network and, by connecting it to railroads in North Korea and creating a Trans-Korea Railroad, link its railways with the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Trans-China Railroad to create a vital artery between all of Northeast Asia and Europe.

The history of the Korean Peninsula’s railways is permeated by invasion and war, but it can still be an agent contributing to a historic turning point in the region if its history can be converted to one of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. Other countries in the region also desire the same. When utilitarian interests become intertwined with one another, a peace system can be consolidated. The Korean Peninsula experienced a string of misfortunes throughout the long years of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but, because of this unhappy history, the people of the Peninsula cherish the ability to establish a foundation for a human-oriented twenty-first century. And indeed it is upon railways that such a base can be built.(Translated by Benjamin Andrew Engel)