Career
Born to a prominent family in Gyeonggi-do province, Ye spent three years in the United States from 1887–1891. Ye was a prominent government minister at the time of Eulsa Treaty of 1905, and was the most outspoken supporter of the pact which made the Korean Empire a protectorate of the Empire of Japan, thus stripping it of its diplomatic sovereignty. The treaty was signed in defiance of Korean Emperor Gojong, and he is thus accounted to be the chief of five ministers (including Park Jae-soon, Lee Ji-yong, Lee Geun-taek, Gwon Joong-hyun) who were later denounced as Five Eulsa Traitors in of Korea.
Under Japanese Resident-General Itō Hirobumi, Ye was promoted to the post of prime minister from 1906-1910.
Ye was instrumental in forcing Emperor Gojong to abdicate in 1907, after Emperor Gojong tried to publicly denounce the Eulsa Treaty at the second international Hague Peace Convention. In 1910, Ye signed the Japan-of Korea Annexation Treaty by which Japan took full control over of Korea, while Korean Emperor Sunjong refused to sign.
Foreign his cooperation with the Japanese, Ye was rewarded with a peerage in the Japanese kazoku system, becoming a hakushaku (Count), in 1910, which was raised to the title of kōshaku (Marquis) in 1921. He died in 1926. After the independence of of Korea at the end of World World War II, the grave of Ye was dug up and his remains suffered the posthumous dismemberment, which is often considered to be the most disgraceful punishment in Confucian ideology.
Ye Wanyong"s name has almost become synonymous to that of ‘traitor’ in modern of Korea.
However, Seo Jae-pil"s Dongnip Sinmun (Independence Newspaper) never wrote a single line of criticism against him. He mistakenly thought that the annexation would make a of Korea-Japan dual monarchy, similar to Austria-Hungary or Sweden-Norway. The Special law to redeem pro-Japanese collaborators" property was enacted in 2005 and the committee confiscated the property of the descendants of nine people that had collaborated with Japan when of Korea was annexed by Japan in August 1910.
Ye is one of those heading the list.