International Journal of Korean History (Vol.17 No.2, Aug.2012) 77

Global History and East : A Late Chosŏn Perspective*

Kwon Nae-hyun (Kwŏn Naehyŏn) Joseph Jeong-il Lee**

Prelude

As is widely known, characterizes the hegemonic expansion of throughout the world as a universal process of ‘History,’ specifically from the 17th to 19th centuries. 1 This history schematizes the breakdown of traditional society, a series of revolutions (democracy, science, and industrialization), the establishment of nation- states, and the construction of modern . Recently, both Western and non-Western scholars have raised questions about the Eurocentric paradigm. One of the efforts to nourish a more comprehensive and comparative aspect in the historiography of world history is taken by a group of historians in pursuit of global history.2 This paper inquires into the general tendency of global historians toward promoting the convergence of world history in modern civilization. We

** The publication of this article was supported by a University Grant from Fall 2010 to Spring 2011 ** Professor Kwon Nae-hyun works in the Department of History Education, at Korea University. Research Fellow, Lee Jeong-il, currently works at the Northeast Asian History Foundation. Dr. Lee was a research professor at Tong Asia Munhwa Kyoryu Yŏn’guso (Institute for East-Asia Cultural Exchange), Korea University from Fall 2010 to Spring 2011.

78 Global History and : A Late Chosŏn Perspective believe that constructive dialogues should be sought more for a space of symmetric perspectives in which Western and non-Western histories, including late Chosŏn () Korea during the 17th and 18th centuries, can be compared in a balanced aspect of convergence and divergence. Evening out an excess of convergence in the discussion of global historians, this paper indicates a concurrence of convergence and divergence in examining the historical process of modern civilization and allows for a coexistence of West-focused, Asia-focused, East Asia- focused, -focused, and Korea-focused perspectives with mutual respect. Specifically, we will touch on the issue of collective identity in late Chosŏn to reevaluate the non-West trajectory in the construction of modern civilization and to propose a wider spectrum of structural contingency and historical actuality in the process. In so doing, the above approach will lead us to a truer sense of world history that equitably contains both global and locale-specific scales of human experiences.3

Symmetric Perspectives in Continental East Asia

Some Asia historians have recently argued for a new understanding of global history by reexamining how European countries took the lead in making modern civilization and capitalism, specifically concentrating on historical exchanges between Europe and Asia from the 17th to 18th centuries. European countries, according to these scholars, learned far more from their contact with Asia than is conventionally known, to the point of building the groundwork for the early shape of modern civilization in Europe.4 Given the vital rise of Asia, particularly the impressive presence of China and , in today’s global community, global history inspires a legitimate rationale for the long-term significance of the Asian primacy in the emergence of modern Europe. Several global historians have done critical reviews of China, whose scale in economy, size in population, and degree of institutional rationalization in government prove comparable to

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 79 and compatible with Western history during the period.5 This way of looking at Europe and China on the same level is relevant both for a future-oriented discussion on symmetric perspectives in the shape of early modern history and a historical analysis of ‘glocalization’ in current times.6 Amidst productive conversation on the contribution of Asian and Chinese history to the making of modern civilization, however, global historians do not seem to effectively deal with the problem of the established Eurocentric interpretation. Presumably, this attitude is due to their emphasis on the convergence of modernization/modernity to which divergence, diversity, and difference are subject. In large part, the globalist account has made a shift of Asia and China to the realm of convergence. Convergence is one major crux of modernity/modernization in the development of global history between the 17th and 19th centuries. Drastic transformation did occur throughout the periods when the world underwent the unprecedented extent and level of urbanization, synchronization, industrialization, transportation, and communication into modern civilization. Still, a corresponding recognition of divergence should be equally considered for a balanced ground of comparison to defy any totalizing pattern of essentialization in global history and to render a wider and deeper range of human experience in world history.7 The reason is that the process of modernization/modernity and the entailing change all over the world have been revolving around divergence as much as convergence. These changes, ‘which went beyond the original code of modernity, have been taking place even in Western societies.’8 Accordingly, we need to recognize the absence of divergence as the critical problem of Eurocentrism, which champions a singular and unilineal process of modernization/modernity from the West to the rest of the world without entertaining any development of several modern .9 The globalist frontage on convergence is not to neglect divergence but to maintain the co-operation of convergence and divergence together from a balanced perspective.

80 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective

To be specific, the analytic unit of comparison should not rest with a dichotomist set of Europe and the rest of the world, but move further into the histories of Asia, East Asia, and even more specific narrower locales so as to shed light on the working of convergence and divergence in the unfolding of modern civilization. This concurrent trait takes on the interaction, contention, and practice of human agency as the key factor in contextualizing the historical actuality and structural contingency of modernization/modernity. It is R. Bin Wong’s analysis that reconstructs the frame of global history with a focus on the movement of agency, specifically the state in the case of China. He observes the competence of China in international trade during the period by underscoring state power, particularly the age- old yet well-organized administrative technique of statecraft by the central government. The state was the leading agency in conducting accommodations, surveillances, and national security all over social, economic, institutional, political, and ideological areas. 10 Wong’s interpretation gives insight into the inner logic of historical actors within the context of China and enables us to see a China-focused mechanism and capture the structural contingency and historical actuality of China in reply to the modernization/modernity of that time. What is more, Wong presents four analytical categories of challenges, capacities, claims, and commitments (4Cs) in which to fathom the perennial impact of statecraft upon the unfolding of Chinese history.11 Statecraft, encompassing all corners of social, political, cultural, and ideological practice, is counterposed to the typical Eurocentric hypothesis that the state rose to subdue non-state actors from within, developed the economy along with the expansive scale of international trade, and entered into a series of great transformations toward ‘modern’ nation- states between the 17th and 18th centuries. His emphasis on the historical context of China herself attests to a productive venue of comparison set in the collaboration of convergence and divergence, and permits a coexistence of China-focused and Europe-focused approaches. Wong’s analysis invites the legitimacy of symmetric perspectives on both sides.

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The conventional Eurocentric world history tends to depict some historical experiences of Europe as representing the entirety of European history. In fact, the European countries most mentioned are Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Britain, all of which augmented their power into imperialism and colonialism via maritime trade all over the world between the 16th and 18th centuries. Their limited and partial experiences have been canonized into an essentialized pattern of modern history.12 Considering this context, what is to be further explored is the historical process of divergence within Europe. The European polities, whose tentative borderlines and territories have fluctuated frequently, housed numerous ‘Others’ within themselves while heading for unity, integrity, and coherence in the unit of a nation-state at that time.13 Why, for instance, did Denmark, Finland, or Poland not create global empires at the same level as Britain and France did during the time? What were the reactions of the former to the latter’s unprecedented expansion of trading networks all over the world? On an ideological level, what kind of consent to and resistance against the latter’s did the former exhibit? The necessary step to be taken is observing the multifarious, competitive, and even confrontational responses of historical actors within Europe at that time without tailoring certain historical phenomena into a single formula for a general history. These questions will lessen the pitfall of mischaracterizing and fossilizing the rich historical experiences that the Europe of the day begot while highlighting her structural contingency and historical actuality in the process of modernization/ modernity. In light of this, Wong’s 4Cs turn our attention back to the complexity in writing a global history, which current emphasis has been in large part placed upon some theoretic aggregate of convergence. His stress on the dynamic interaction of historical players and on the structural contingency and historical actuality within China aptly points to the fact that global history is not ‘given’ in a set manner but contestable in various interpretive forms of practicable engagement. We think that this approach sparks the ‘discursive practice’ of historical players who continue to

82 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective produce fluid, relative, and competitive action of interpretations regarding the historical reality that they breathe.14 In the case of late imperial China, the state—the most competitive agent in imperial China at that time— took immense effort to fashion refined ideological engagements in the maintenance of an agrarian economy and civilization, and to accommodate various social, economic, and cultural needs of localities while mobilizing them for required state projects. In our view, this hermeneutical step helps Asian and East Asian historians to illuminate the structural contingency and historical actuality of various locales, to discuss a historical China during the period, and to broaden the research scope of global history in confluence of convergence and divergence. Trading networks of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French maritime forces moved from Africa/Arabia to all the way to China. Still, considering the historical context of China, the growing influence of the European powers was limited to the southern regions from the 16th to mid-18th centuries. A great deal of historical interaction between pastoralist forces, spearheaded by the and their descendents, and sedentary, usually agrarian, societies in continental East Asia also contributed to framing the historical course of China during that time. This China included the capital of Peking representing the de facto imperial polity down to the shore of the southern provinces.15 Under these circumstances, Ming and Qing viewed the Mongols as the most dangerous neighbor.16 Various Khanates of Mongolian ethnicity in the northwestern frontline took substantial part in the dynamic pattern of continental East Asia.17 Another task was to neutralize other areas such as Inner Asia and Korea under , coupled later with Pax Manjurica. This world system, if regionally confined to East Asia, reached its zenith during the reign of the Qianlong (r. 1735- 1796), whose reign finalized the conquest of the Jungar Mongols in the mid-18th century. The China of the day displayed both the maritime, connected to the Afro-Eurasian maritime network, in the south and the continental, connected to Inner Asia and East Asia, dynamics in the north.18

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Importantly, it is between Chinese and non-Chinese actors that such crucial topics as Sinification, nativism, collective identity, civilization, barbarism, and domestic order were amply addressed via numerous forms of discursive and institutional practice.19 This is important because the interactions show a differing layer of convergence and divergence within East Asia and demonstrate that the imperial and civilizational globality of Ming/Qing was not given but contended. Then, what can be further argued is the other horizon of symmetric perspectives between China and non-China in continental East Asia. 20 This stance will increase our understanding of the structural contingency and historical actuality of China in the process of modern civilization during the period. What is more, fathoming the discursive practice, performed by historical players of her neighbors, can encourage us to facilitate an intrastate-level analysis of the locale within East Asia. Recent studies reveal how non-China actors engaged themselves in various types of discursive practice to rephrase tradition/sovereignty and universal/world order on their terms, in order to exercise a complex mode of appropriating the continental world system and civilization to their interest. 21 By looking at the discursive practice of historical players in the non-China locales of continental East Asia, accordingly, we will be able to feature the specifics of structural contingencies and historical actuality of East Asia in the process of modern civilization, a point of departure from Eurocentrism and Sinocentrism. The above approach helps us to catechize afresh such crucial subject matters as power relations, cultural order, collective identity, and historiography 1) within the context of a specific locale, 2) in the historical setting of continental East Asia, and 3) along with the advent of modern civilization. That is to say, more attention to the interactive and dialogical mode of discursive practice in the coeval movement of convergence and divergence in continental East Asia as well as between Europe and East Asia can nurture a non-essentialist research methodology in response to both locale-specific and global perspectives. And, at this juncture we can broaden our view on the global shape of world history,

84 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective embark on constructive discussions on a multidirectional route to modern civilization, and establish a long-term cause for the historical process of glocalization. Along this line, we revisit in the following the issue of collective identity in late Chosŏn from the 17th to 18th centuries, and discuss how Chosŏn actors, specifically state and ruling elites, developed the collective identity of Chosŏn herself without breaking the long-standing partnership with the China-led world order and civilization in continental East Asia. The matter of collective identity, as previously indicated, is significant in the sense that it constitutes the thematic backbone of the conventional Eurocentrism and the recent global historiography in talking about the rise of modern civilization. This paper stays away from any debate over a Korean prototype of modern nation-state or a pristine non- Confucian nativism contrary to during the periods. Instead, it will take on the issue in such a way as to understand the vivid process of interactions that display one layer of convergence (universal civilization/imperium) and divergence (accommodations/sovereignty) within the East Asia of the time. This paradigm will help us to look not only at the dynamic workings of globalism and localism in East Asia, but also the larger scale of the convergence-divergence frame in the historiography of world history.

Collective Identity in the Context of Late Chosŏn

Since the 1980s, Korea historians in Western scholarship have made significant progress in examining Korean history in the context of East Asia. The development has had great impact on Korean scholarship’s awareness of the growing demand for a constructive dialogue between world history and Korean history. Still, Korea historians, if unwittingly, have tended to follow the footsteps of the conventional Eurocentric interpretation that dichotomizes China/ as a familiar Other and Korea as an unfamiliar Other within East Asia.

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This dual demarcation of Otherness has created a betwixt-and-between image of Korea, by which means the status of Korea has been posited somewhere in the middle of China, whose all-around influence faded away only after the late 19th century and Japan, whose modernizing muscle gave formidable shape to the history of early modern Korea.22 The Eurocentric modernist interpretation also has a direct bearing on colonialist historiography, which copies the hierarchy of superior/impact and inferior/response between Europe and the rest of world into that between Japan and the rest of Asia and which produces Nipponcentrism in East Asia.23 The demarcation of Otherness in Korean history has caused Korean historians, mostly armed with , to seek after both self-reliance as opposed to imperial China and indigenous prototypes of the modern within the course of pre-modern Korean history. 24 This nationalist defense for a non-marginalized history of Korea comes in step with their attempt to discover an essential core of Korean-ness throughout Korean history. The Korean nation has been held as the primary agent encompassing the whole spectrum of individuals, class, and state, all of which are actually defined and patterned on Eurocentric terms. Regardless of diverse viewpoints in historiography, fact and interpretation are totalized into a history of the Korean nation. Accordingly, as much as colonialist historiography, nationalist historiography operates on the essentializing mechanism of the Eurocentric paradigm. What we can’t dismiss is the fact that the opposing language and criticism themselves hinge on the Eurocentric orbit so any immediate counterarguments might steep an indelible centrality of the European model as an ideal reference point in Korean history. Obsessions with how to overcome the colonialist narrative involves the pitfall of ‘a definitional dependence’ between nationalist scholarship and colonialist scholarship.25 The reason is that despite the highly discordant relationship, nationalism and colonialism hinge upon ‘the shared roots of both these modes of thought in the ideologies of capitalist modernity.’26 However, pinpointing the hermeneutical dialectics of nationalism and

86 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective colonialism comes under the sway of convergence, in which the European originality of modernization/modernity is oftentimes over-valorized. Yet, as mentioned in the previous section, divergence is another fulcrum of modernization/modernity, which centrifugal force gives concrete and deep-seated shape to diverse facets of a modern civilization in accord with the structural contingency and historical actuality of each locale. Some scholars have been indicating that even the West has seriously wrestled with the question of divergence within itself. 27 With the Weberian emphasis on the inner world of human agency, S. Eisenstadt believes that divergence is central to explaining the specific and practical working of modernization/modernity and to understanding the current plurality of modern civilization. This renewed attention to diversity and plurality encourages him to argue for ‘a highly selective incorporation and transformation’ of modern civilization whose specific form and content are determined in a complexity of interpretations by human players. As a high pitch of divergence, Eisenstadt also takes into consideration multifarious cultural programs. Particularly, the invention of collective identity comes into completion via a connection between center-periphery relations in the political arena and three layers of primordiality, civility, and transcendental/sacredness in the cultural arena. What is remarkable is that he envisages the formation of collective identity as an artificial project in the intersection of symbolic space and institutional mechanism.28 The interlocking of political and cultural elements is tied to the unfolding of ‘the divisions of labor, the control over recourses, and social differentiation,’ all of which run in concurrence with the changing compound of centers and sub-centers.29 It seems that the politico-cultural synthesis proposed by Eisenstadt can serve as a useful analytic tool to examine the issue of collective identity in late Chosŏn, particularly between the 17th and 18th centuries. First and foremost, Chosŏn had a clear set of center-periphery relations. As a self- sufficient agricultural polity, the state held a well-organized central bureaucracy, under which local administration systematically operated, and

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 87 raised Confucianism as their orthodoxy, supporting civil government.30 Internationally, the center-periphery relations of domestic politics were also connected with the move of the China-led world system.31 Aforementioned, North China was confirmed as the geopolitical and civilizational center of the continental East Asia. As late as the 16th century, the Mongols and Jurchens in continental East Asia were powerful contingents with the result that the defensive line of Chosŏn was mainly concentrated along the northern border. The state and ruling elites at the political center maximized the peristaltic nature of center-periphery relations between domestic politics and geopolitics, in which process the discourse on an independent community of Chosŏn was vigorously resuscitated. Holding to a strong sense of collective identity was effective in integrating any decentralizing voice in society and retuning numerous local practices according to a state orthodoxy modeled on a Confucian mode of civilization.32 Promoting the collective identity of Chosŏn as a distinctive another realm of Confucian civilization (So Chunghwa; 小中華) also helped confirm the sovereignty of Chosŏn next to Ming China in the world of Confucian civilization, which rhetoric downplayed the hostile (semi-)nomadic neighbors, Mongols and Jurchens in particular, as uncivilized.33 Late Chosŏn had a two-tiered structure of center-periphery relations containing domestically the power structure of Chosŏn and internationally the Qing-led continental system of East Asia.34 The two state-driven projects of centralization and cultural policy kept on the move even after the Japanese invasions (1592-1599) and Manchu invasions (1627, 1636). Political and institutional readjustments made it possible for the political center to survive wars, domestic unrest, and natural disasters in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.35 Numerous cultural programs fueled by the ethos of Confucian civilization were vigorously taken down to every corner of society.36 The state also experienced an intense ideological confrontation with Qing, the erstwhile Jurchens thought of as being inferior to Chosŏn for a long time. The political center waged cultural loyalism towards the late Ming and reinforced the Chosŏn version of

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Confucian civilization in the Qing-centered East Asian world.37 In this aspect, it can be postulated that Confucian civilization—a concrete historical entity applicable in late Chosŏn to the notion of civility—functioned as the major medium by which means Qing and late Chosŏn, on the one hand, and the political center and localities, on the other, could communicate with each other. Still, the passionate spread of Confucian ideology into the rest of the society was far from mere . Instead, along with ample debates on how to make a balance between tradition/nativism and universal/Confucianism the political center continued to arrange both institutional and symbolic devices for the accommodation of Confucian civilization according to the demands of their own agenda.38 The complicated internal and external structure of power relations informs us of the way in which we should contextualize the symbolic capital of civility within the context of late Chosŏn and continental East Asia. The other symbolic capital of primordiality can also be reexamined via the window of this politico-cultural collaboration made in late Chosŏn. To be certain, this was hardly looked upon as a pristine category of universal human value or a non-Confucian, de-Sinicized essence of Chosŏn uniqueness. Between the 17th and 18th centuries, the state and ruling elites mounted ideological propaganda in which to rediscover various facets of knowledge about Chosŏn in such fields as customs, ecology, terrain, history, ethnicity, and language in Confucian terms and to articulate the innate disposition of the Chosŏn people in embodying Confucian civilization.39 Finding the natural aptitude of Chosŏn toward the exercise of Confucian civilization became the springboard for answering to what degree the original uniqueness of Chosŏn people could be viewed as proto-Confucian. In short, Confucian vocabularies became integral to defining that which was of Chosŏn.40 But, the anthropo-geographical line of discursive practice, however, was at no time exercised in a simple tendency or Confucian penchant. What should not be discounted here is the heft of the anti-Qing culturalist battlefield in which the ultimate objective for shining a

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Confucian naturalness was to rephrase Confucian civilization on their own and to affirm the dynastic establishment of Chosŏn in the Qing- centered world order of continental East Asia. The interlocking of Chosŏnness and Confucian affinity was meant to bring Jurchenness and barbarism into bold relief, to pronounce the collective identity of Chosŏn as the extant legitimate participant in the post-Ming preservation of Confucian civilization, and to typify a tenacious presence of her polity vis-à-vis Pax Manjurica in continental East Asia. Domestically, this measure helped the state to brag to the rest of society about the survival of Chosŏn amid the geopolitical turmoil of the Ming-Qing transitional period. 41 Hence, as well as civility, the dualistic center-periphery relations also conditioned the topology of primordiality in the case of late Chosŏn. Meanwhile, Eisenstadt recounts the importance of universalism/ transcendence as another symbolic capital of collective identity. In medieval Europe, was the main source of universalism/ transcendence. From the 16th century, Europe witnessed the development of discursive practice on universality/transcendence associated with the dramatic course of wars including bellum sacrum. In the process, the vital reconstructions of centers and collective identities came into being, and the emergence of the modern nation-state was made possible. Continental East Asia did not experience any serious interstate religious wars. Still, the Qing of Jurchen/Manchurian origin vigorously produced their cosmic and celestial charisma by utilizing various symbolic and cultural sources, based on sage-rulership from Confucian civilization, and claimed ownership of a universal empire and civilization in continental East Asia.42 Again, for the state and ruling elites of late Chosŏn, the most pressing question at present was how to address the universality of Confucian civilization in the reality of Chosŏn suffering from the culturalist offensive of Pax Manjurica. The intellectual community of late Chosŏn extensively developed the discussion of Confucian universal (li; 理) and charted a metalanguage able to delineate the relationship between universal and specific, part and

90 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective whole, transcendental and immanent, totality and individuality, presentist and transhistorical, theory and praxis, and self and other.43 By so doing, the Sa ruling elites expanded the concept of universality into the universal practice of Confucian civilization beyond time and space, specifically out of imperial China, sufficient to objectify the position of Qing and Chosŏn on the same level of comparison.44 At the same time, the sophisticated command of universality also helped create a middle ground of engagement that localized contentious voices of any social group eager to transcend or disown the establishment in domestic politics. Likewise, it can be said that the use of universalism/transcendence did much towards engendering an ideological cohesiveness in domestic order and couching the collective identity of Chosŏn under the universal façade of Confucian civilization in counter to the poltico-cultural hegemony of Qing in continental East Asia. Hence, without drawing on a mechanist mode of imitation or transplantation of Confucian civilization, the political center orchestrated the symbolic capitals of civility, premordiality, and transcendence, coterminous with the binary structure of domestic and geopolitical power relations, and revived a competitive self-reliant realm of Confucian civilization, or another realm of Confucian civilization (So Chunghwa) in continental East Asia.45 The court debate over the ritual ceremony for Paektu Mountain—the highest and northernmost mountain in Korea— exemplifies the operation of this identity politics.46 Along with the state- authorized ceremony for Halla Mountain—the second highest and southernmost mountain in Korea—the Paektu ceremony became the chief symbolic resource of state rituals for natural entities and spirits, which had been performed as the main civilizational projects long before the period of Chosŏn.47 Significant in the debate of the Paektu ritual was the ongoing negotiation between one symbolic meaning of the mountain as the ancestral mountain of the whole country and the other as the origin of the royal family equivalent to the most dignified form of metaphor.48 The recognition of Paektu Mountain as the originator of all mountains and

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 91 rivers in her realm, connected tightly with geomancy theories that existed in the previous Koryŏ, was rendered as the most geographically primal reference point of holiness. At the same time, the political center also toiled to attach the other vein of charisma to the mountain by way of recognizing it and its environs as the time-honored sanctuary from where the ancestors of the royal family came. The two interpretations above set the stage for the creation of a spatio- temporal sacredness of Chosŏn’s origin, which could be shared by the whole nation. From the perspective of the political center, then, this attribute of sharability could be converted into a common selfhood pivotal to reinforcing a sense of belonging that encompassed the time and space of Chosŏn. So, the Paektu ceremony served as an effective ideological means of fashioning a highly integrative scale of symbolic magnetism for statewide unity and of funding the representational asset to refurbish the territoriality—the epitome of collective identity—of late Chosŏn. Validating the territoriality of a greater transcendental Chosŏn via the symbolic act of the Paektu ceremony also concerned the geopolitical relationship between Qing and Chosŏn.49 The emphatic interest of the Peking government in incorporating Manchuria into Qing effectuated the absence of bumper zones between Chosŏn and the nomadic forces in continental East Asia. In fact, the Border Stone at Paektu Mountain ignited and held the sensitive borderline dispute between the two sides.50 And, the imperial ceremony for Paektu Mountain by the Qing court, conducted from the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1651-1722), meant an official recognition of the mountain as the sacred origin of the imperial house. This act, again, reflected the troubled reality of Pax Manjurica that the state and Sa ruling elites of Chosŏn had to face. At the same time, given the fact that Manchuria covers in good part the time and space of ancient Chosŏn, the assertive step of Qing was seen as a serious encroachment on the history of Chosŏn and the sacrosanct dignity of the royal house. This sentiment of psychological infringement sufficed to trigger a traumatic juncture reminiscent of her devastating defeat from the Manchu invasions in 1637, the collapse of Ming in 1646, and the

92 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective following decadence of Confucian civilization. As a response, there emerged a growing consensus at the political center that at least half of Paektu Mountain should appertain to the boundary of Chosŏn. The reinforcement of border patrols and defensive lines were deliberated in multiple ways at court.51 What was also promoted especially among the central elites were travelogue/reportage on the mountain and its surrounding areas, and historiographies, including the geography, territory and manners of ancient Chosŏn beyond the Korean Peninsular. These travelogues and historiographies are all attributable to fleshing out the historical, cultural, and political identity of Chosŏn.52 Once more, as in the case of the Paektu ceremony we should not discount the fact that flashing natural, spiritual, cultural, and historical resources on the construct of Chosŏn sovereignty in the 17th and 18th centuries was interrelated with the center-periphery relations on intrastate- and interstate-levels, and the symbolic codifications of primordiality, civility, and sacredness/transcendence. This interactive yet intricate process of distinguishing Self from Other motivates us to promulgate the claim that the considerable development of collective identity in late Chosŏn had less to do with the prototype of modern national consciousness, as has been widely supported by Korean historians, than it did with the dual mechanism of center-periphery relations inseparable from the discursive practices of civilization, borders, and past.53 This perspective directs towards a more constructive methodology in which to contextualize discursive practices of late Chosŏn on collective identity in continental East Asia.

Concluding Remarks

In this paper, we have touched on the issue of collective identity in late Chosŏn and, if only briefly, entertained the possibility of reckoning a non- West trajectory in the construction of modern civilization. By so doing, different from the established modernist or new globalist approaches, we

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 93 argue for a concurrence of convergence and divergence in examining the historical process of modern civilization. This approach enables us to envision a truer sense of world history that opens up a coexistence of West-focused, Asia-focused, East Asia-focused, China-focused, and Korea-focused perspectives with mutual respect. The Chosŏn-focused perspective, then, also can spell out divergence and help chart a concrete yet sharable category of comparison between Chosŏn, particularly from the 17th and 18th centuries, and other locales in a reciprocal and multidimensional way of thinking. The overall sketch of the themes and studies—including continental orientation of East Asia, the Paektu ceremony, Confucian civilization, and the divergence theory of Eisenstadt—drawn in this article is an inchoate attempt to expand the new approach to the matter of collective identity into more concrete research to come.

Notes :

1 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (The University of Chicago Press, 1995). 2 Pamela K. Crossley, What is Global History? (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009); Bruce Mazlish, The New Global History (Routledge, 2006); Christopher Chase-Dunn and E.N. Anderson, eds., The Historical Evolution of World- Systems (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); J.M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Andre Gunder Frank, Re-orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California, 2003); Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (NY: Palgrave Macmilan, 2003); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History (Cambridge, UK and NY:

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Cambridge University Press, 1993). 3 There is a sense in which world history is oftentimes categorized into modern times while global history is categorized into post-modern times. Pamela Kyle Crossley, What is Global History?; Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriye, The Global History Reader (NY: Routledge, 2004). Though beyond the scope of this paper, more should be discussed with respect to the definition and categorization of two histories in two separate venues. 4 For more reference to the academic literature on the ‘Age of Indian Ocean,’ see Michael Pearson, The Indian Ocean (NY: Routledge, 2003); Michael Adas, ed., Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993); Jerry H. Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (NY: Oxford University Press, 1993); K.N. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 5 R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). 6 As a means of understanding the 21st-century globalization, there has a discussion on glocalization. Jamie Peck and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, eds., Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-geographical Perspectives (London: Sage, 2003); Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, eds., Global Modernities (London: Sage Publication, 1995). 7 One of the scholars who emphasizes the importance of divergence and the presence of several modern civilizations in global history is S. N. Eisenstadt. Divergence and plurality go against “[t]he so-called convergence of modern society which was very prevalent in early studies of modernization. While, true enough with the passing of time, there developed in all these studies a growing recognition of the possible diversity of transitional societies, it was still assumed that such diversity could disappear, as it were, at the end-stage of modernity. But, as is well known, and as has been abundantly analyzed in the literature, the ideological and institutional developments in the contemporary world have not upheld this vision, and the fact of the great institutional variability of different modern and modernizing societies-not only among the “traditional,” but also among the more developed, even highly industrialized societies- become continuously more and more apparent, calling for a new perspective.” S. N. Eisenstadt, “Modernity and the Construction of Collective

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Identities,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 39, no. 1 (1998): 139. 8 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Wolfgang Schluchter and Björn Wittrock, eds., Public Spheres & Collective Identities (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 4. 9 Eisenstadt, 138. 10 Wong, 88-122. 11 Ibid., 82-83. 12 For instance, Paul Cohen writes: “The modernization, or tradition-modernity approach, with deep roots in nineteenth-century Western attitudes towards culture, change, China, and the West, sins in imposing on Chinese history an external-and parochially Western- definition of what change is and what kinds of change are important. Implicitly, if not explicitly, it concentrates more on asking of Chinese history questions posed by modern Western history-whether, for example, China could have generated on its own a modern scientific tradition and an industrial revolution or why it didn’t- and less on asking questions posed by Chinese history itself. The underlying assumption is that modern Western history is the norm, with the corollary assumption that there is something peculiar or abnormal about China requiring special explanation.” Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (NY: Columbia University Press, 1984), 3-4. 13 Jacob Selwood, Diversity and Difference in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009); István Keul, Early Modern Religious Communities in East-Central Europe: Ethnic Diversity, Denominational Plurality, and Corporative Politics in the Principality of Transylvania, 1526-1691 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009); Jaroslav Miller, Urban societies in East-Central Europe : 1500-1700 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008); Almut Bues, ed., Zones of Fracture in Modern Europe; the Baltic Countries, the Balkans, and Northern Italy (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005); M.L. Bush, ed., Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500 : Studies in Social Stratification (Harlow and Essex, London: Longman, 1992). 14 Pamela Crossley also addresses the significance of narrational questions in the study of global history. See Crossley, What is Global History?, 4-10 and 102- 120. 15 Min Deak-kee [Min Tŏkki], “Chung·kŭnse Tong Asia ŭi haegŭm chŏngch’aek kwa kyŏnggye insik” [The ocean prohibition policy and recognitions of

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borders in East Asia during the Middle Age and the Early Modern Period], Han Il kwangye sa yŏn’gu 39 (2011): 103-129. 16 Admiral Zheng He’s (1371-1433) maritime expedition ended in 1434, and the navy was remobilized in preparation for the possible massive attack of the Oirat Mongols in the north. For more information, refer to Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405- 1433 (NY: Oxford University Press, 1997). 17 David M. Robinson, ed., Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368-1644) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008); Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: the Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005); David Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia, vol I (Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998); Fred W. Bergholz, The Partition of the Steppe: The Struggle of the Russians, Manchus, and Zunghar Mongols for Empire in Central Asia (NY: Peter Lang, 1993); Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 1989). As of the early 18th century, the court and ruling elites of Korea also formulated several scenarios in which they regarded the Mongols—not England, the Netherlands, or Japan—as a realistic post-Qing hegemon in imperial China. In the Chosŏn court, information on the relationship between the Mongolian kings and the Qing court was one of the key military and security issues at that time. The defensive lines were vigilantly prepared along with the border facing Manchuria. For more reference, see Pae Usŏng, Chosŏn hugi ch’ŏnha kwan kwa kukt’o kwan ŭi pyŏnhwa (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1998); Song Miryŏng, “17-18segi Chosŏn chŏngbu ŭi Mongol ihae” [Understanding of the Chosŏn government on Mongols in the 17th and 18th centuries], Chungguk sa yŏn’gu 62 (2009): 138-167. 18 In the case of global silver flows, global historians have taken little note of the critical role that North China played in forming a regional connection of silver trade with Korea and Japan at that time. Pak Pŏm, “17-8segi Ŭijubu ŭi kyŏngje sanghwang kwa chaejŏng unyŏng ŭi pyŏnhwa” [The economic climate of Ŭijubu and change of finance management during the 17~l8th century], Chosŏn sidae sa hakpo 58 (2011): 97-137; Kim Yangsu, “Chosŏn hugi yŏkkwan ŭi chunggae muyŏk kwa woeganyujibi” [The merchant trade of official interpreters and the maintenance expenses of the Japanese residency in Pusan(倭館) in the Latter Period of the Chosŏn dynasty],

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Yŏksa wa silhak 32 (2007): 639-671; Kwon Nae-Hyun, Chosŏn hugi Pyŏng’ando chaejŏng yŏn’gu (Seoul: Chisik Sanŏpsa, 2004); Yu Sŭngju and Yi Ch’ŏlsŏng, Chosŏn hugi Chungguk kwa ŭi muyŏk sa (Seoul: Kyŏngin Munhwa Sa, 2002); Yu Sŭngju, Chosŏn sidae kwang’ŏp sa yŏn’gu [Studies on mining industry in Late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Koryŏ Taehakkyo Ch’ulp’anbu, 1993). 19 Benjamin A. Elman, John B. Duncan and Herman Ooms, eds., Rethinking Confucianism : Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph Series, 2002). 20 For instance, Peter I. Yun critically rethinks the excess of Sinocentrism in the historiography of foreign relations among East Asia historians in West. Peter I. Yun, “Sŏgu hakkye chogong chedo iron ŭi Chungguk chungsimjŏk munhwa ron pip’an” [Critical review on the Sinocentric culturalism – focusing on the tributary system in western scholarship], Asea yŏn’gu 45, no. 3 (2002): 269- 290. 21 Elman, Duncan, and Ooms, eds., Rethinking Confucianism : Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea. 22 Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (NY: Columbia University Press, 2002), 9-17. Not a few historical works in Western scholarship have tended to remain silent regarding this sandwich mentality. What is worse, among East Asia historians in Western scholarship, there has long been a tendency in the study of Japanese history to understate Japan's historical relations with Korea and to overemphasize Korea's relations with China. For instance, see D.R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996). At the same time, there is also a recent presentist tendency in the study of Chinese history that not only distorts the Chinese past in but also minimizes important historical differences between China and Korea. For these reasons, pre- modern Korean history has been wedged between Pax Sinica and Pax Nipponica. Yi Chŏngch’ŏl, “Introduction,” in The Institutional Basis of Civil Governance in the Chosŏn Dynasty, ed. John B. Duncan et al (Sŏngnam, Republic of Korea: the Academy of Korean Studies, 2009), 9-10. 23 Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 31-227. 24 Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 264-268. 25 Schmid writes: “What constitutes minjok history is in part defined as what

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colonial history is not… In this way, more than half a century after liberation, colonial history still exists as one of the fundamental parameters of Korean historiography, to the extent that it is difficult to imagine a minjok history without reference to its counterpart.” Ibid., 265. 26 Ibid., 266. 27 Benjamin Schwartz writes: “One could of course extend ad infinitum the discussion of the tensions, conflicts, and incommunicabilities, within the world of modernity. One could point to such diverse phenomena as the complete noncommunication between the worlds of Anglo-American linguistic philosophers and French existentialists; to the ambiguous relations to modernization of the various movements spawned by Freud in spite of his own self-conception as a thoroughly modern engineer of the soul. Enough has been said, it seems to me, to make it quite clear that the word “modernity” refers to no simple entity…. Yet whatever may be the underlying common premises, the horizontal tensions and conflicts among the various currents and countercurrents of the modern world make it impossible to think of modernity as any kind of completed or synthetic whole.” Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Limits of “Tradition Versus Modernity” as Categories of Explanation: The Case of the Chinese Intellectuals,” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (1972). 28 S.N. Eisenstadt, “Modernity and the Construction of Collective Identities,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 39, no. 1 (1998): 139-144. 29 Ibid., 140-144. 30 John B. Duncan, The Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Seattle, WA: University of Washington, 2000); Kim Tae-Yeong, “Chujahak segye kwan kwa Chosŏn sŏngnihak ŭi chuche ŭisik” [World view of Chujahak and self reliant consciousness of Chosŏn sŏngnihak], Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 37 (2000): 5- 71. 31 Pae Usŏng , Chosŏn hugi ch’ŏnha kwan kwa kukt’o kwan ŭi pyŏnhwa (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1998); Kang Sŏkhwa, “Chosŏn hugi pukpang yŏngt’o ŭisik,” Hanguk sa yŏn’gu 129 (2005): 95-115; Kim Hyŏnyŏng, “Chosŏn hugi choch’ŏng pyŏn’gyŏng ŭi in’gu wa kukk’yŏng ŭisik,” Han’guk saron 41: 109-144; Han Myŏnggi, “Chaejo chiŭn kwa Chosŏn hugi chŏngch’i sa,” Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 59 (2007): 191-230; Yŏn Kapsu, “Yŏngjo Tae taech’ŏng sahaeng ŭi unyŏng kwa taech’ŏng kwan’gye e taehan insik [Envoy dispatched to Qing perceptions of the relation with Qing during King Yeongjo Period],” Han’guk munhwa 51 (2010): 29-63; and Kye Seung-Bum [Sŭngbŏm], “Chosŏn hugi

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Taebodan ch’inhaeng hyŏnhwang kwa kŭ ch’ŏngch’i•munhwajŏk hamŭi” [The Altar of Great Gratitude (Taebodan): Its political and cultural aspects in late Chosŏn Korea], Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil 75 (2010): 165-200. 32 Kim Paekch’ǒl, “Chosŏn ŭi Yugyojŏk isang kukka mandŭlgi” [Creation of a Confucian ideal state during the Chosŏn era ― rediscovery of implications for Western Zhou and Yao and Shun], Kukhak yǒn’gu 17 (2010): 247-290. 33 Pae Usŏng, “Chosŏn hugi chisikin ŭi hanŏ insik kwa manjuŏ” [The intellectuals’ view on the colloquial Chinese and the Manchu language in late Chosŏn Korea], Chosŏn sidae sa hakpo 43 (2007): 133-166; ______, “Manju e kwanhan chisik kwa Chosŏn hugi sahoe” [Knowledge on Manchuria and the late Chosŏn dynasty], Yŏksa hakpo 208 (2010): 235-270. 34 Kwon Nae-Hyun, “Chosŏn-Qing Relations and the Society of P’yŏngan Province During the Late Chosŏn Period,” in The Northern Region of Korea: History, Identity, and Culture, ed. Sunjoo Kim (University of Washington Press, 2010). 35 Kim Paekch’ǒl, “Chosŏn hugi Sukchong Tae kukpŏp ch’egye wa Chŏnnok t’onggo ŭi pyŏnch’an” [The National Law System during King Sukjong’s age, of the latter half period of the Chosŏn dynasty, and the Compilation of Chŏnnok Tonggo(典錄通考)], Kyujanggak 32 (2008): 63-107; O Int’aek, “Sukchong Tae kukhaeng kiuje e nat’anan hanjae taeŭng pangsik ŭi chŏngch’isŏng” [The political character of the response to the drought calamity according to the Rite to Pray for Rain during the reign of Sukjong], Yŏksahak yŏn’gu 29 (2007): 171-195; Kim Paekch’ǒl, “Chosŏn hugi Sukjong Tae Sugyo Chimnok p’yŏnch’an kwa kŭ sŏngkyŏk ch’egae punsŏk ŭl chungsim uro” [The Publication of『Sugyo Chimnok] during the reign of King Sukjong, and its significance—focusing on the examination of its structure], Tongbang hakchi 140 (2007): 131-194; Lee Sang-Sik [Yi Sangsik], “Chosŏn Sukchong Tae kunsabuilch’e ron ŭi chŏn’gae wa wanggwŏn kanghwa [On the unfolding of the doctrine of trinity” (King-Master-Father) and the strengthening of the royal authority under King Sukjong], Han’guk sa hakpo 20 (2005): 165-192; Song Ch’ansŏp, “Sukchong Tae chaejong ch’ui wa kyongja yangjon” [Changes in finances and the land survey of 1720 during the reign of Sukjong], Yŏksa wa hyǒnsil 36 (2000): 110-139; Kwon Nae-Hyun, “Sukchong Tae chibang t’onch’i ron ŭi chŏn’gae wa chŏngch’aek unyŏng” [Discourse on local control and policy management under King Sukchong], Yŏksa wa hyǒnsil 25 (1997): 87-112.

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36 Sun Joo Kim, Marginality and Subversion in Korea: the Hong Kyŏngnae Rebellion of 1812 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007); Kim Kyŏngok, Chosŏn hugi tosŏ yŏn’gu [Studies on islands in late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Hyean, 2004); Son Sŭngch’ŏl, “Chung•kŭnse Chosŏn in ŭi tosŏ kyŏngyŏng kwa kyenggye insik koch’al” [The management of islands and boundary perception of medieval and modern Chosŏn], Han Il kwangye sa yŏn’gu 39 (2011): 205-259; Chosŏn ŭn chibang ŭl ŏttŏkke chibaehaennŭn ga [How did Chosŏn govern localities] (Seoul: Akanet, 2003); Kang Sŏkhwa, Chosŏn hugi Hamgyŏng do wa Pukpang yŏngt’o ŭisik [Hamgyŏng province and consciousness on northern territories in Late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Kyengsewŏn, 2000). 37 Kwon Oh-Young [Kwŏn Oyŏng], “Namhan sansŏng kwa Chosŏn hugi ŭi Taemyŏng ŭiri” [Nanham sansŏng and Taemyŏng ŭiri during the late Chosŏn dynasty], Han’guk silhak yŏn’gu 8 (2004): 213-258; Noh Tae-Hwan [No T’aehwan], “Sukjong•Yŏngjo Tae Taemyŏng ŭiri ŭi sahoe•chŏngch’ijŏk kinŭng” [The socio-political functions of the Taemyŏng ŭiri discourse under Sukjong and Yŏngjo], Han’guk munhwa 32 (2003): 153-179; Cho Yŏnghi, “Yŏngjo ŏje wa ‘p’ungch’ŏn’ kŭrigo ‘p’ungch’ŏn’ ŭi chŏn’gohwa yangsang” [P’ungch’ŏn in King Yŏngjo's Writings and its literary development during the late Chosŏn Period], Changsŏgak 20 (2008): 117-142; Hŏ T’aeyŏng, “17 segimal-18 segich’o chonju ron kanghwa wa sam’guk chiyŏnŭi ŭi yuhaeng” [The consolidation of the theory of esteem China and propagation of ‘The Romance of Three Kingdoms’ in late 17th and early 18th century Korea], Han’guk sa hakpo 15 (2003): 131-157; No Hyegyŏng, “Yŏngjo Tae hwangjoin e taehan insik” [The conception of “Hwangjoin” during the reign of King Yŏngjo], Tongyang kojŏn yŏn’gu 37 (2009): 127-159; Chong Okch’a, Chosŏn hugi Chosŏn chunghwa sasang yŏn’gu [Studies on self-reliant discourses on Confucian civilization of Chosŏn during late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Ichisa, 1998). 38 Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asia Studies at Harvard University, 1992); JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Constructing the Center: The Ritual Controversy and the Search for a New Identity in Seventeenth-Century Korea,” in Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, eds., Jahyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), 46-90. 39 Joseph Jeong-il Lee, “Historicist View and Confucian Repertoire in Late Chosŏn: A Southerner Prism,” International Journal of Korean History 14

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(2009): 187-215; Jang Yoo-Seung [Chang Yusŭng], “Yi Chonghwi ŭi chaguk sa insik kwa sojunghwa chuŭi” [Yi Chonghwi’s awareness of the country`s history and self-consciousness of small China], Minjok munhwa yon’gu 35 (2007): 40-82; Cho Songsan, “Choson hugi sorongye ŭi tongum insik kwa humnin chŏngum yŏn’gu” [Research on Soron faction’s recognition of Chosŏn’s Chinese character sound and hum-min-chŏng-ŭm in the latter half of the Chosŏn dynasty], Han’guk sa hakpo 36 (2009): 87-118. 40 Martina Deuchler, “The Practice of Confucianism: Ritual and Order in Chosŏn Dynasty Korea,” in Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam; Joseph Jeong-il Lee, “Patterning a Chosŏn -focused Discoursein Yi I’s Understanding of Li,” Journal of Asian History 46, no. 1 (2012): 37-57. 41 Use of anti-Qing ideology and Ming loyalism in the context of domestic politics are well addressed by Han Myonggi and Noh Tae-hwan. See Han Myonggi, “Chaejo chiŭn kwa Chosŏn hugi chŏngch’i sa— Imjin woeran~ Chŏngjo Tae rŭl chungsim ŭro” [Political roles and significances of “Chaejo chiŭn” in late Chosŏn Korea], Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 59 (2007): 191-230; Noh Tae-Hwan, “Sukchong·Yŏngjo Tae Taemyŏng ŭiriron ŭi chŏngch’i·saheojŏk kinŭng [The Socio-Political functions of Taemyeong Euiri discourse(對明義理論) in Sukjong(肅宗)·Yŏngjo(英祖)],” Han’guk munhwa 32 (2003): 153-179; Han Myonggi, “Myŏngch’ŏng kyoch’egi tongbu ga chilsŏ wa Chosŏn chibaech’ŭng ŭi taeŭng” [Chosŏn's response to the changes of situations during the period of dynasty change form Ming to Qing], Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil 37 (2000): 124-148; ______, “Imjin woeran sigi ‘chaejo chiŭn ŭi hyŏngsŏng kwa kŭ ŭimi” [During the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592, the formation and political meaning of 'Chaejo chiun'], Tongyang hak 29 (1999): 119-136. 42 Willam T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009); Mark C. Elliott, Emperor Qianlong: , Man of the World (NY: Pearson Longman, 2009); Pamela K. Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 43 By and large, in modern Korean historiography a sentiment of rejection has emerged against Chosŏn Confucianism portrayed conventionally as invariably dogmatic, Neo-Confucian in specific, and conservative in comparison to Qing or Tokugawa Confucianism. This negative picture has been referred to as one major reason for the absence of epistemological change open to new modern

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ideas from the the larger world beyond China in the 17th and 18th centuries. See Martina Deuchler, “Despoilers of the Way – Insulters of the Sages: Controversies over the Classics in Seventeenth-Century Korea,” in Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, 99-131. Peter Bol defines Neo- Confucianism as identity that stretches to transhistorical and transnational levels in the intellectual history of imperial China. This approach is greatly helpful in exploring the trait of Confucian fellowship or comradeship in traditional East Asia and enunciating differing perceptions of the realm of the Confucian civilization in the region. See Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge, MA: The Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 108- 111. 44 Joseph Jeong-il Lee, “Patterning a Chosŏn-focused Discourse in Yi I’s Understanding of Li,”; Cho Sŏngsan, Chosŏn hugi nangnonye hakp’ung ŭi hyŏngsŏng kwa kyŏngse ron yŏn’gu [Studies on the scholarship and statecraft of the Nak school during late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Chisik Sanŏp Sa, 2007). 45 For more reference to the self-reliant discourse of Chosŏn, see Huh Tae-yong [Hŏ T’aeyŏng], Chosŏn hugi Chunghwaron kwa yŏksa insik [Sinocentrism and memory during late Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Akanet, 2009); Chong Okcha, Chosŏn hugi Chosŏn chunghwa sasang yŏn’gu (Seoul: Ichisa, 1998). 46 Kwon Nae-Hyun, “Chosŏn Yŏngjo Tae Paektu sanje sihaeng nonjaeng – ch’amyŏ inmul ŭi chujang ŭl chungsim ŭro” [Disputes about holding rituals at Paektusan during King Yŏngjo’s reign of Chosŏn dynasty—–focusing on opinions of the participants], Han’guk inmul sa yŏn’gu 15 (2011): 273-301. 47 Agnes Kim , “Koryŏ sidae kaegyŏng iltae myŏngsan daech’ŏn kwa kukka chejang” [Great mountains and streams and national ritual sites in Kaegeong during the Koryŏ dynasty], Yŏksa wa kyŏnggye 82 (2012): 1-45; ______, “Chosŏn sidae sansin sungbae wa Chirisan ŭi sinsa” [Worship of mountain spirits and ritual shrines on Chirisan during the Chosŏn dynasty], Yoksa hak yŏn’gu 39 (2010): 86-119 Park Mi-Ra [Pak Mira], “Samguk•Koryŏ sidae ŭi chech’ŏn ŭirye wa munje” [Heaven worship in the Three Kingdoms and Koryŏ], Sŏndo munhwa 8 (2010): 7-30; Kim Ch’anggyŏm, “ Chungsa ŭi sahae wa haeyang sinang” [Four seas of Silla Chung’sa and maritime beliefs], Han’guk kodae sa yŏn’gu 47 (2007): 159-196. 48 Kwang Seok-Hwa [Kwang Sŏkhwa], “Chosŏn hugi Paektu san e taehan insik ŭi pyŏnhwa” [The perception about the Mt. Paektu in the late Chosŏn dynasty], Chosŏn sidae sa hakpo 56 (2011): 195-224.

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49 Kwon Nae-Hyun, “Changes in the Perception of Baekdusan during the Late Period of Joseon,” The Review of Korean Studies 13, no. 4 (2010): 73-103. 50 Ibid.; Sŏ Kilsu, Paektu san kukkyŏng yŏn’gu (Seoul: Yŏyudang, 2009). 51 Kang Seok-hwa, “Chosŏn hugi ŭi pukppang yŏngt’o ŭisik” [The perception of the northern territory during late Chosŏn ], Han’guk sa yŏn’gu 129 (2005): 95- 115; ______, “Chosŏn hugi Pyŏng’an do chiyŏk Ammok kangbyŏn ŭi pangŏ ch’egye” [The defense system of the Yalu river during the late Chosŏn Period], Han’guk munhwa 34 (2004): 167-199; Pae Usŏng, Chosŏn hugi ch’ŏnha kwan kwa kukt’o kwan ŭi pyŏnhwa (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1998). 52 Sung, Dang-Je, “Yakch’ŏn Nam Kuman ŭi kot’o hoebogŭiji – pyŏnbang umyŏngsi rŭl chungsimŭro” [Regaining the native land lost—Nam Gu-man`s frontier poetry], Hanmun hakpo 10 (2004): 143-166; Suh In-Won, “Igye Hong Yangho ŭi yŏksa insik” [Hong Yang-ho’s historical view], Tongguk sahak 29.1 (1995): 91-116; Choe U-Young, “Hong Yangho ŭi munhaksagye e nat’anan yŏksa ŭisik” [Historical consciousness in Hong Yangho’s Literature], Mogwon’omunhak 8 (1989): 157-172. 53 Recently, some Korean scholars also have problematized the nationalist interpretation concerning the question of collective identity in late Chosŏn. Huh Tae-yong, “A Critical Review on the Issue of Proto-Nationalism during Late Chosŏn,” International Journal of Korean History 12 (2008): 89-112.

†

Submission Date: 2012. 5. 27. Completion Date of Review: 2012. 7. 1. Accepted: 2012. 8. 13.

104 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective

Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective

Kwon Nae-hyun Joseph Jeong-il Lee

Some Asia historians have recently argued for a new understanding of global history by reexamining how the European countries took the lead in making modern civilization and capitalism, specifically concentrating on historical exchanges between Europe and Asia from the 17th to 18th centuries. The European countries, according to these scholars, learned far more from their contact with Asia than is conventionally known, to the point of building the groundwork for the early shape of modern civilization in Europe. This way of looking at Europe and China on the same level is relevant both for a future-oriented discussion on symmetric perspectives in the shape of early modern history. However, global historians do not seem to effectively deal with the problem of the established Eurocentric interpretation. In this paper, we argue that the globalist frontage on convergence is not to neglect divergence but maintain the co-operation of convergence and divergence together from a balanced perspective. To be specific, the analytic unit of comparison should move further into the history of Asia, East Asia, and even more specific narrower locales so as to shed light on the working of convergence and divergence in the unfolding of modern civilization. The above approach behooves us to catechize afresh such crucial subject matters as power relations, cultural order, collective identity and historiography 1) within the context of specific locale, 2) in the historical setting of continental East Asia, and 3) along with the advent of modern civilization. In light of this, we revisit the issue of collective identity in late Chosŏn from the 17th to 18th centuries, and briefly discuss how Chosŏn actors, specifically state and ruling elites, developed

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 105 the collective identity of Chosŏn herself without breaking the long-standing partnership with the China-led world order and civilization in continental East Asia. This paper stays away from any debate over a Korean prototype of modern nation-state or a pristine non-Confucian nativism contrary to Confucianism during the periods. Instead, it takes on the issue in such a way as to understand the vivid process of interactions displaying one layer of convergence (universal civilization/ imperium) and divergence (accommodations/sovereignty) within the East Asia of the time. This paradigm will help us to look not only at the dynamic workings of globalism and localism in East Asia, but also the larger scale of the convergence- divergence frame that opens up a coexistence of the West-focused, Asia-focused, East Asia-focused, China-focused, and Korea-focused perspectives in a truer sense of world history.

Keywords : Collective Identity, Convergence, Divergence, Eurocentrism, Global History, Historiography of World History, Late Chosŏn

106 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective

<국문초록>

조선후기에서 보는 동아시아와 지구사 서술

권내현(고려대학교 역사교육과 교수) 이정일(동북아역사재단 연구위원)

16세기 이후 제국주의 확장과 더불어 서구가 쌓아 올린 근대 학문의 체계와 이 론은 19세기 보편의 이름으로 변색되면서 서구중심주의를 탄생시켰다. 세계사 서 술에 있어서도 보편화된 서구중심주의적 관점이 그대로 투영되었고 이 과정에서 서구, 보편, 발전, 근대가 한 축을 형성하고 비서구, 특수, 지속, 전근대가 또 다른 축을 형성하면서 있다-없다/이다-아니다의 이분법적 사고가 형성됐다. 최근 서구학계에서는 기존의 근대화, 문명, 민족-국가 등 서구중심주의가 수반 하는 이분법적 사고를 폭넓게 비판해 오고 있다. 아시아사의 경우 16세기부터 18 세기까지 전지구적 팽창을 시도하는 일부 서구 국가들에 의해 주도된 근대문명의 건설이 인도, 중국, 동남 아시아 등 아시아 지역과의 상호교류 속에서 탄생된 사 실에 주목하는 연구성과들이 도출되고 있다. 관점의 전도를 통하여 이 시기를 재 평가하려는 시도는 세계사 서술의 폭을 넓힐 수 있다는 점에서 긍정적이다. 그러 나 서구중심주의의 도식화와 본질화에 대한 근본적인 문제제기가 이루어 지지 못 했다. 따라서 기존의 수렴이론(convergence)을 벗어나기 보다는 오히려 서구의 우 위성을 용인하는 결과를 초래하고 있다. 지구사 담론을 주창하는 중국사 전공자들 이 조선을 포함한 당시 동아시아사 문맥에 대한 충분한 고려 없이 중국과 서구 양자 간 평면적 비교연구에 몰두하면서 새로운 지구사 서술을 모색하려는 것도 이러한 문제점을 극명하게 보여주고 있는 것이다. 서구 한국사 분야 또한 서구/비서구의 이분법적 패러다임에서 벗어나기 위해서 수렴에 대해서 보다 신중하게 접근해야 한다. 양적으로나 질적으로 괄목할 만한 성장을 보여왔음에도 불구하고 이 지역 한국사 분야는 서구중심주의에서 파생된 ‘중국사와 일본사 중간쯤의 한국사 像’이 여전히 무비판적으로 수용되고 있다. 이 는 서구중심주의와 중·일중심주의의 이중적 굴절이 불식되지 못하고 있는 구미 아시아사 학계의 현실을 반영하고 있는 것이라 할 수 있다. 특히 정체성 연구의

Kwon Nae-hyun & Joseph Jeong-il Lee 107

경우 민족-국가의 형성과 서구중심적 근대주의를 바탕으로 근대/전근대, 서구/비서 구라는 이분법적 사고에 기반하여 청과 도쿠가와 시대의 탈주자학적 흐름-근대로 의 수렴-과 조선후기 주자학적 편향-근대로의 수렴 부재-을 대비시켜 왔다. 본고는 17-18세기 조선의 다양한 역사주체들이 어떻게 국내상황과 국제상황에 대응하는 과정에서 조선적 정체성을 재구성하고자 했는가에 초점을 맞춘다. 그리 고 조선 내부의 문맥, 동아시아의 문맥, 지구사적 문맥이라는 다면적인 차원에서 수렴 뿐 아니라 분산(divergence)에 대해서도 논할 수 있는 비교방법론의 가능성 을 펼치고자 한다. 이런 측면에서 볼 때, ‘완성된 근대’라는 틀에서 구축된 수렴이 론을 지양하려는 아이젠슈타트의 연구는 기존의 서구중심주의적 해석과 차별성을 가진다고 할 수 있다. 그는 근대문명의 역사적 전개에 있어 끊임없이 변화하는 운 동성, 다양성, 차이를 발견하고 그 동력으로서 역사주체들 간 상관관계에 주목함 으로써 수렴의 중요성을 부각시켰다. 더욱이 근대 민족-국가론의 핵심이 되는 집 단적 정체성 형성 문제를 서구중심적 도식화에서 벗어나 중심-주변의 역학관계(정 치)와 문명성, 원초성, 초월성의 세 가지 표상들-civlity, primordiality, transcendence- (상징) 간 배합 속에서 입체적으로 조명하고자 하는 점에서 열린 방법론을 추구하 고 있다. 실제로 17-18세기 동아시아의 대외관계에 대한 보다 적극적인 해석이 가미된다 면 이러한 접근은 조선의 주체의식 내지는 집단적 정체성에 대한 연구에 생산적 으로 활용될 수 있으리라 생각한다. 현 국내학계에서는 해방 이후 견지된 민족주 의 사관에 대한 재고 속에 동아시아와 조선후기의 문맥에 대한 새로운 이해를 토 대로 한국사 서술을 재구성하고 있다. 양난 이후 중앙정부의 다양한 국책사업 실 행과 지방행정체재 재조직 그리고 기층 민들의 대응에 대한 실증적 분석이 밀도 있게 이루어지고 있다. 문치주의의 구체적 작동과 그 이념적 발산 효과를 재조명 하는 연구들이 나오고 있다. 이와 관련해서 夷狄 청 중심의 동아시아 세계질서로 의 재편과정에 맞서는 조선후기 (유교)문명론과 자타인식론의 발전에 대해서도 심 층적인 연구들이 다각적으로 진행되고 있다. 한 예로 이 시기 조선적 고유성, 자 연성, 독자성 담론의 심화 현상에 대해서 원민족주의론이 아닌 새로운 해석이 등 장하고 있다. 이기논쟁이나 호락논쟁 등 유교보편주의의 초월성 문제를 포함하는 당시 지성사 연구에서도 기존의 탈주자학적 경향에 대한 집착과는 달리 국내정치 의 역학관계, 조청관계 및 현실인식과 연계해서 당대적 의미를 조명하는 연구들이 나오고 있다. 따라서 국내학계의 진전은 조선후기 정체성 담론 전개를 하나의 고착화 된 형 태가 아닌 국내외적 중심-주변의 역학관계와 문명, 원초, 초월의 상징기제들과의 상호작용 속에서 분석할 수 있는 학적 조건들을 마련해 가고 있다고 할 것이다.

108 Global History and East Asia: A Late Chosŏn Perspective

앞으로 분산에 대한 보다 체계적이고 심도 있는 이론 개발과 조화를 이룬다면, 이 는 정체성 문제를 조선 내부의 문맥, 동아시아의 문맥, 지구사적 문맥이라는 3차 원적인 관점에서 통찰하여 이 시기 세계사 서술에 있어 수렴과 분산의 동시적 전 개를 균형적 시각에서 바라 볼 수 있는 비교방법론을 모색하는 데 도움이 될 것 이다. 나아가 상호이해의 세계사 서술 속에서 어떻게 조선후기의 역사가 다른 지 역의 다양한 역사들과 소통할 수 있을 것인가에 대한 전망을 타진하는 데도 기여 할 것이다.

주제어: 분산, 서구중심주의, 수렴, 세계사 서술, 역사주체, 정체성, 조선후기, 지구사

* The publication of this article was supported by a Korea University Grant.

**Professor Kwon Nae-hyun works in the Department of History Education, at Korea University. Research Fellow, Lee Jeong-il, currently works at the Northeast Asian History Foundation. Dr. Lee was a research professor at Tong Asia Munhwa Kyoryu Yŏn’guso (Institute for East-Asia Cultural Exchange), Korea University.

*** Please note that the Romanization systems employed in this paper are the McCune-Reischauer for Korean and the for Chinese (diacritical marks omitted). Unless otherwise mentioned, transliterated terms in this article are Korean.

1 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (The University of Chicago Press, 1995).

2 Pamela K. Crossley, What is Global History? (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009); Bruce Mazlish, The New Global History (Routledge, 2006); Christopher Chase-Dunn and E.N. Anderson, eds., The Historical Evolution of World-Systems (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); J.M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Andre Gunder Frank, Re-orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California, 2003); Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (NY: Palgrave Macmilan, 2003); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2000); R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History (Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

3 There is a sense in which world history is oftentimes categorized into modern times while global history is categorized into post-modern times. Pamela Kyle Crossley, What is Global History?; Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriye, The Global History Reader (NY: Routledge, 2004). Though beyond the scope of this paper, more should be discussed with respect to the definition and categorization of two histories in two separate venues.

4 For more reference to the academic literature on the ‘Age of Indian Ocean,’ see Michael Pearson, The Indian Ocean (NY: Routledge, 2003); Michael Adas, ed., Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993); Jerry H. Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (NY: Oxford University Press, 1993); K.N. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

5 R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

6 As a means of understanding the 21st-century globalization, there has a discussion on glocalization. Jamie Peck and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, eds., Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-geographical Perspectives (London: Sage, 2003); Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, eds., Global Modernities (London: Sage Publication, 1995).

7 One of the scholars who emphasizes the importance of divergence and the presence of several modern civilizations in global history is S. N. Eisenstadt. Divergence and plurality go against “[t]he so-called convergence of modern society which was very prevalent in early studies of modernization. While, true enough with the passing of time, there developed in all these studies a growing recognition of the possible diversity of transitional societies, it was still assumed that such diversity could disappear, as it were, at the end-stage of modernity. But, as is well known, and as has been abundantly analyzed in the literature, the ideological and institutional developments in the contemporary world have not upheld this vision, and the fact of

the great institutional variability of different modern and modernizing societies-not only among the “traditional,” but also among the more developed, even highly industrialized societies- become continuously more and more apparent, calling for a new perspective.” S. N. Eisenstadt, “Modernity and the Construction of Collective Identities,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 39, no. 1 (1998): 139.

8 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Wolfgang Schluchter and Björn Wittrock, eds., Public Spheres & Collective Identities (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 4.

9 Eisenstadt, 138.

10 Wong, 88-122.

11 Ibid., 82-83.

12 For instance, Paul Cohen writes: “The modernization, or tradition-modernity approach, with deep roots in nineteenth-century Western attitudes towards culture, change, China, and the West, sins in imposing on Chinese history an external-and parochially Western- definition of what change is and what kinds of change are important. Implicitly, if not explicitly, it concentrates more on asking of Chinese history questions posed by modern Western history-whether, for example, China could have generated on its own a modern scientific tradition and an industrial revolution or why it didn’t- and less on asking questions posed by Chinese history itself. The underlying assumption is that modern Western history is the norm, with the

corollary assumption that there is something peculiar or abnormal about China requiring special explanation.” Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (NY: Columbia University Press, 1984), 3-4.