Imagining the Manchu Empire in Chosŏn Korea

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

This panel explores the Chosŏn response to the Manchus and the Qing as revealed in border-crossings by such people as diplomatic officials, refugees and smugglers. These border-crossings are similar in that they all reveal the tensions and complexities of the relationship between Chosŏn and its Qing hegemon. Chosŏn submitted to the Qing in 1637, but many of the Korean elite denied the right of the Manchus to inherit the Chinese political tradition. The political, ritual and legal practices associated with border-crossings had to deal with the Qing’s de facto supremacy and also could not avoid the complex ethnic makeup of the Qing empire – notably the importance of the Manchu identity.

Three papers in this panel examine three different categories of Qing-Chosŏn border crossings. Wang Yuanchong discusses the most formal level of border-crossing in his exploration of the Qing imperial envoys to Chosŏn. Wang shows that the rituals of the Qing envoy in Seoul demonstrated the combined nature of the Manchuness and Chineseness of the Qing court politics. Adam Bohnet explores the diplomatic discussion concerning Ming and Jurchen refugees in Chosŏn during the early seventeenth century, arguing that these refugees were defined socially by the diplomatic negotiations between Chosŏn and the Qing concerning their “repatriation” to the Qing. Seonmin Kim focuses on smugglers as an underrepresented but extremely common type of border-crossing. Korean crimes in the Qing territory highlighted the unique features of the Qing policy of the Manchurian frontier, especially the state monopoly of ginseng, the treasure for the Manchus.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Seonmin Kim, Korea University

Chair

• Bumjin Koo, Seoul National University

Individual Presentations

• Kowtowing to Our Emperor: The Imperial Envoys of Qing China and the King of Chosŏn Korea, 1702–1890 - Yuanchong Wang, University of Delaware

• Runaway Negotiations: Ming and Jurchen Refugees between Chosŏn and Qing - Adam Bohnet, King’s University College at Western

• Ginseng Connections in Hunchun: The Chosŏn Borderland and the Manchurian Frontier in the Qing Empire - Seonmin Kim, Korea University

Discussant

• Bumjin Koo, Seoul National University