Politics & governing apparatus (pro-Japanese collaborator)
Same-name figures:
박재홍(朴在洪) — Patriot / Righteous Army (Uibyeong) / Patriotic Medal (1990)
| Life | 1892 ~ 1977 |
| Era | 근현대 |
| Clan | 밀양 박씨 |
Park Jae-hong (朴在弘, 1892-1977) was a colonial-era Korean bureaucrat from Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, who used the Japanese name Masunaga Hiroshi. He entered Japanese colonial administration in 1911 as a temporary official in Noseong County, became a regular county clerk the following year, was posted to the provincial affairs section of South Chungcheong Province's Home Affairs Department in 1923, and was promoted to county magistrate (8th-rank senior official) in 1924. In 1931 he received Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure, 6th class.
He subsequently rose to provincial councilor and then became the 17th governor of South Chungcheong Province. Of the seventeen people who served as provincial governor of South Chungcheong under Japanese rule, all twelve ethnic Korean officials — excluding the five Japanese — were listed as pro-Japanese collaborators in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Biography, including Park Jae-hong. He was accordingly designated a collaborator by the government's Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activity and the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities' Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Biography. His son, Park Jong-man, also served as a county magistrate during the colonial period.