Yun Ch'iho

Yun Ch'iho (Korean: 윤치호; 23 January 1865 – 6 December 1945) was a Korean politician. His name is sometimes spelled Yun Tchi-Ho, his art name was Chwaong (좌옹), and his courtesy name was Sŏnghŭm (성흠).

Yun was born a member of a prominent aristocratic (yangban) family. He was the son of General Yun Ung-nyeol, who served as a minister in the Joseon government. Yun's connections earned him the rare opportunity to study abroad, and he did so in China, Japan and the United States. In the United States, he attended both Vanderbilt University and Emory University.

Yun was a prominent politician during the late Joseon and Korean Empire periods. He was a member of a number of reformist organizations, including the Independence Club, the People's Joint Association, and the New People's Association. He was a strong nationalist especially in his early years. He served in various government positions. He was also an ardent Methodist Christian, and an early leader of the Korean YMCA.

Although Yun was widely considered a nationalist for much of his early career, as Japan tightened its grip over Korea and eventually colonized it in 1910, Yun began to support the cause of the Japanese. He notably did not support many of the actions of the Korean independence movement, such as the March First Movement. As such, many recent Koreans remember him as a collaborator ("chinilpa").

Yun Ch'iho was born on 26 December 1864, in a small village in Dunpo-myeon, Asan, Chungcheong Province. His father, Yun Ung-nyeol, was an official in the Joseon government and as a member of the yangban aristocracy saw that Ch'iho received a proper education. Yun Ch'iho excelled in his studies of the Confucian classics at the local seodang and even tried to apply to take the civil-service exams (gwageo) at age twelve.

From 1871 to 1878, Yun studied Confucianism at Chang's private village school.

Because of Yun Ung-yeol's position in the government, he was able to arrange for Yun Ch'iho's participation in a delegation of representatives from Korea to observe the process of modernization in Japan in 1881. Yun was only sixteen years old at the time, but this experience greatly influenced his thoughts on modernization and opened his eyes to world beyond the isolated "Hermit Kingdom" that Korea had become. He frequently compared the lack of progress in Joseon Korea to the rapid modernization of Japan and often lamented in his diaries that he wanted nothing more than for Korea to become the kind of advanced, modern nation that Japan had become.

Yun would later travel to Shanghai, China in 1885 where he would attend the Anglo-Chinese College studying English and mathematics, among other things. While in Shanghai he also converted to Christianity, something that would play a major role throughout the rest of his life. Yun Ch'iho viewed Christianity as a strong progressive philosophy that could help Korea catch up with the advancements of Japan and the West.