This formation was initiated by a change in the notion of 'civilisation' due to the transformation of 'international society' and thereafter was affected by the trauma of Japanese colonisation. Through the process of transition from a traditional Confucian notion of civilisation to a Western notion of acceptance and resistance, Koreans shaped their civilisation as well as their notions of the racial, cultural, and individual modern self. Western Orientalism, in particular, accompanied the introduction of the Western notion of civilisation, which served as the background for forming the self-identity of Koreans. The fact that the Japanese version of Orientalism emerged from the domination of Korea by Japan played a critical role in shaping the self-identity of Koreans. Consequently, Korea still maintains an inferiority complex toward Western culture, ambivalent feelings toward Japanese culture, and biased - positive or negative - views of their own cultural traditions. Thus both modernisation and colonisation have shaped the formation or distortion of self-consciousness of non-Western peoples. The US launched a decades-long intensive development starting in 1945 to modernise South Korea, with the goal of helping it become a model nation-state and an economic success. Agents of modernisation at work in Korea included the US Army, the Economic Cooperation Administration, the UN Korean Reconstruction Agency, and a number of nongovernmental organisations, among them the Presbyterian Church, the YMCA, Boy Scouts and the Ford Foundation. Many Koreans migrated to California and Hawaii, and brought back firsthand accounts of modern business and governmental practices that they sought to adapt to Korean conditions. Modernisation theory was generally supported by American scholars and opposed by Japanese Marxists. After industrialisation and economic modernisation, a democratic society did appear in Japan, but was followed in the 1930s by an aggressive authoritarian fascist state, up until the Allied Forces defeated Japan in the Second World War. It then became democratic again and has remained so. There were almost no democratic principles or practices in pre-war Japanese politics. Prior to the liberation of Japan by the United States from its military government, Japanese culture always honoured obedience and hierarchy, and Japanese people also despised individualism and liberty. Japan had already modernised and became an industrialised country during its Meiji period, which happened long before Japan's defeat in the Second World War. Japan was the first country in Asia that industrialised successfully. It quickly became one of the imperialist and colonial powers. Japan defeated the Qing dynasty of China in 1894, and subsequently defeated Russia in 1905. Korea and Taiwan were annexed by the Japanese Empire.