조청관계에 대한 편의적 이해 사례

Abstract

What kind of attitude is reasonable for Korean and Chinese to face the other and develop a future-oriented relationship? One way to answer this question is to study how the two peoples regard the relationship between them. This thinking led me to analyze the historical and scholastic materials of the Joseon-Qing wars and the tribute system. First, I analyzed how the court annals of Joseon and of Qing recorded the Joseon-Qing wars. The wars, I thought, had a strong influence on presenting the Chinese image to average Koreans. The average Koreans regard the wars as an accident that barbarians invaded and caused chaos. They are accustomed to calling it “Horan ”(胡亂), and not war. The Joseon annals tell us that the recorders of Joseon looked down upon Manchus as barbarians, and their army as bandits. After the war, they did not change their attitude and opinion regarding the Manchus. There was a contradiction that Joseon continued to look down upon the Manchus, even though they presented tribute to the Qing Dynasty. We can say that people in the Joseon period made an arbitrary understanding of the relationship with the Qing Dynasty. Second, I analyzed how several Chinese scholars, including Pu Baichen, describe the tributary relationship between Joseon and the Qing dynasty. They took the suzerain-vassal relationship based on the tribute system as the basic frame to analyze and state the relations between Joseon and Qing Dynasty. However, the tribute system displays its falsity in that the relations with Joseon were analyzed through the management of the Qing Dynasty, and when referring to the relation of suzerain-vassal(宗藩), 藩 means fanbu (藩部) and is not an accurate term in the sense that it has a different meaning from that of fan in earlier periods. They use the terminology, and this led writings to flow focused on the Qing Dynasty. They insisted that the Qing Dynasty was very considerate of Joseon,and claimed that the Qing Dynasty requested much tribute in the beginning stage, but the quantity gradually lessened as they were politically stabilized, and when Joseon suffered from the famine, Qing Dynasty sent food and provided dispensation. Also, it is insisted that the Qing Dynasty promised to militarily protect Joseon from Japan, and that domestic affairs and diplomacy could enjoy considerable freedom. However, they overlook the following matters. The political stabilization of Joseon from the standpoint of Qing Dynasty was directly related to the stabilization of that country’s border regions. Because of this, it is natural to interpret that since it was believed that the requests for numerous tribute and excessive political interference could trigger unwanted issues and the quantity of tribute was reduced. Next, by focusing on the responsibility of Japan in the process by which the tributary relationship was broken, they tried to hide the fact that the Qing Dynasty could not cope with the changed situation. The Sino-Japanese War occurred as Qing China and Japan fought to exert exclusive influence, and the people of Joseon suffered material losses due to the war. We believe that both Qing Dynasty and Japan are not freed from responsibility in the war. However, Pu insists as follows:Japan could not hide its warlike nature and intrusive expansionist policies and provoked the war, and Qing Dynasty encouraged the conclusion of treaties between Joseon and foreign nations in order to protect Joseon from danger. In short, it is not true that only one country among Korea and China has the attitude of arbitrary understanding of the other. This kind of understanding was transferred to the average people by official records,and resulted in distortion of the historical facts. We should have a mature attitude to accept uncomfortable truth. If so, we can develop a future-oriented relationship between Korea and China.