‘영원평화’의 기대지평과 근대 한국 - 일본 제국주의 기획과 칸트의 세계시민주의 이상 -

Abstract

This study reviews how the concept of ‘lasting peace among states’ evolved in modern Korea. The relevant concept was set forth in several treaties which Joseon signed with Japan and with Western states, but it contained two meanings: one referencing the Gyorin order, a policy of good-neighborliness deriving from the traditions of Sinocentrism, and the other indicating public international law, which concerns the conduct of sovereign nation-states. This effectively deferred the work required to definitively establish a clear meaning for the concept. In these circumstances, when Japan fought the First Sino-Japanese War to wrest control of Korea from China, the slogan ‘eternal peace in the Orient’ was deployed to express its policy. In practice, however, this was intended to perpetuate Japan’s rights and interests through the inequitable ‘treaties’ and ‘agreements’ forced upon Korea which led ultimately to annexation. This policy was nothing more or less than an attempt to exclude any discussion of Korean independence, and thus to defer it further into the future. As a counter-principle to resist the Japanese enunciation of ‘eternal peace in the Orient,’ Korean intellectuals turned to the Kantian concept of ‘eternal peace,’ from which they proposed clauses pertaining to civil law, to international law, and to cosmopolitan law. By thus articulating the concept of genuine ‘eternal peace,’ they hoped to reveal the true extent of the Japan’s depredations and expose its hypocrisy. During the latter period of the occupation, however, Korean intellectuals began to differentiate ‘eternal peace’ from ‘perpetual peace’ : they appropriated ‘perpetual peace’ in Kantian terms of moral idealism and internationalism, whilst also criticizing its use as an imperialist concept. In the prevailing geopolitical situation of the times, the concept of ‘eternal peace’ (and also ‘perpetual peace’) was abused by the strong to justify their ascendancy and to maintain the balance of power, while simultaneously offering a utopian illusion to the weak, thereby functioning as a major device to control the aspirations of the oppressed.