With records from Japanese archive, Korean scholars believed the annexation treaty of 1910 was illegal due to technicality, probably a trick planted by then Korean King himself.
The discrepancies is obvious when placing the Japanese and Korean versions of the treaty side by side. The Japanese version was signed by the then Japanese emperor along the Japanese state stamp. However, the Korean version bears no signature of the Korean King, and the stamp was not right. The stamp was usually used in daily operational matters, rather than the state stamp used for important issue.
Korean scholars argued the discovery an important evident that the annexation was not approved by the Korean King, as had been claimed by Japan. Korean scholars hope to nullify the treaty.
Historically Korean had been a tributary state of China for two thousand years until late nineteenth century when China lost a war with Japan in 1895. Korean gained the independent state status in name when under Japanese control, until the treaty of 1910 formally annexed it into Japan.
