[KS] re: Tsushima/Taema-do

Gari Keith Ledyard gkl1 at columbia.edu
Thu Oct 8 13:05:53 EDT 1998


Dear Ken,
	Thanks for your response to my posting on Tsushima.  It is not
news that in Korea there were and are different discourses on Tsushima.  I
wonder if you could identify some of the "multiple"  discourses "current
in ChosOn" on the subject of Tsushima's territoriality, and illustrate
them with some names and typical texts, whether oral or written, whether
transmitted or only reported.  I'm really interested in checking some of
these things out.  
	I cited some Korean historical texts on Tsushima and identified
some consistency in them on the question of Tsushima Island and national
territoriality.  Within my human limits I did not find other texts of
comparable date or interpretability for the Three Kingdoms, Silla, and
KoryO periods.  I certainly would welcome any others that might be
pointed out to me.  I freely concede that for the early decades of ChosOn
history I would expect to find some asserting Korean possession of the
territory of Tsushima at some time in past.  I concentrated on T'aejong's
statement because it had already come up in the postings and because, of
all of ChosOn's early kings (say, up through SOngjong) he seems to have
been more of a nationalist than the others.
	Your response asserts that "...the ChosOn government treated the
island as Korean territory, at least during the first 200 years."  You do
not cite any evidence for this view, but I cited some against it which you
didn't mention or criticize.  Sin Sukchu, as one of the negotiators of the
1443 trade agreement and structure for diplomatic relations with Tsushima
and Japan, certainly represented the ChosOn government.  As director
of the Board of Rites during the Sejo years, he presided over
Japan/Tsushima relations in the name of that government.  That government
officially printed and once or twice reprinted his book <Haedong cheguk
ki>, which considers Tsushima a part of Japan and provides explicit
cartographic representations of that fact.  I'm curious how you reconcile
that with your assertion.
	You say: "On several occasions Korean kings assigned a domestic
post to officials being sent to the island."  Without knowing which
particular domestic post you refer to, I'm not sure what posts you include
and exclude from that category.  But sure, people with a post like the
magistrate of Tongnae (Tongnae pusa), along with his superior the governor
of KyOngsang province (surely domestic posts), are the designated
authorities for dealing on the spot with Tsushima.  If these are the
domestic officials you speak of, it is just that they are the closest
<tangsang> officials available and have been given that responsibility. In
the same way, under the tributary system the governor of Liaodong had pro
tempore authority for dealing with Korea and officially and frequently
communicated with the Korean Board of Rites or sent his subordinates on
missions in Korea.  Likewise the governor of Guangdong dealt with the
British in the 19th century as China's official spokesman and executive. 
Koreans holding domestic posts frequently went as ambassadors and in other
official capacities to Ming and Qing, but of course that fact had nothing
to do with Chinese territoriality.  In the absence of particulars on what
you mean by domestic posts in connection with Korea/Tsaushima affairs, I'm
just not sure how to take your statement.  I'd be happy to see some
expansion on this point.
	In trying to imagine for myself some serious grounds on which the
ChosOn government might consider Tsushima territory its own, the only
thing I could think of was the tributary system.  There are some ways one
could consider Tsushima a tributary, or at least some kind of a
dependency, of Korea.  One could cite in support of that argument that the
king of Korea granted a seal to the daimyo^ of Tsushima that in effect
licensed his trade with Korea through three designated ports (Tongnae,
Ulsan, Ungch'On), that for protocol purposes the assistant director of the
Board of Rites was equal in status to the daimyo^ (implying that all
Korean officials of higher rank and of course the king himself were the
daimy^o's superiors), and that Korean military authorities had control
over who went into and out of the Japanese compound in Tongnae.
	This model would closely parallel Chinese arrangements with Korea. 
My view, though, is that Tsushima was not a Korean tributary, because its
relationship with the island also provided a relationship with Japan
proper, and in fact the latter was a particular goal of both the KoryO and
ChosOn governments.  Remember that the normalization of 1443 was
negotiated in Japan with the Ashikaga shogunate, not on Tsushima with the
daimyo^, although he was a party on the Japan side. 
	But beyond that, I don't believe that tributary status has
anything to do with territory, at least as that system was practiced in
East Asia in the last thousand years.  Tributary relations between China
and Korea provide the structure of a superior/inferior relationship
between the Chinese and Korean monarchs, certain ritual obligations (New
Year's bows in the superior's capital, mutual notification of deaths and
changes of status within the two ruling families, etc.), acceptance of the
superior's calendar including year designations, tribute from inferior to
superior, superior's providing of diplomatic and living expenses within
China, and access by the inferior (within specified conditions) to the
markets of the superior.  In 1592, Korea claimed that that tributary
status required the Chinese emperor to send troops to help defend Korea
against the Japanese, and the Chinese agreed and sent the troops.  (On the
other hand, if they had decided not to, as many Chinese officials at the
time urged, Korea would have had no appeal and would have been out of
luck.)  But none of this meant, for instance, that Korea lost its
<<territorial>> rights.  Koreans could and did refuse entry to Chinese
diplomats in cases where they had not followed specific tributary
procedures.  Korean law and Korean law alone applied on Korean territory. 
Korea determined its own royal succession without China's approval in
advance.  Korea made its own political decisions independently.  Korea
administered every square inch of its territory and China could not
meddle.  On Korean territory, Korea could and regularly did restrict the
movements of Chinese officials including the ambassador.
	I go into this kind of detail simply to emphasize that mere
tributary status, which might be claimed or implied by those who assert
some kind of Korean sovereignty over Tsushima in the first 200 years of
the ChosOn dynasty (and for that matter even after), does not mean
territorial possession.  A tributary relationship is one between separate
and distinct countries, each with its own territory.  It specifically
excludes jurisdiction of the territory of the tributary state.  Chinese
administrators, judges and prosecutors, tax collectors, etc.,
do not operate there.  Chinese law is not in effect there.  No Chinese can
go there but by the agreed joint understanding of the two governments. 
Even during the Imjin Wars of the 1590s, when Chinese generals often
spurned diplomatic niceties, there were limits on what Chinese military
authorities could do.  When the tributary relationship was collapsing
during the years after the Kanghwa treaty and specifically during the Yuan
Shikai interlude from 1885 to 1894, some of these principles were
compromised or violated by the Chinese, but that was the end of the system
anyway. 
	If you think that the "ChosOn government treated the island as
Korean territory," I would welcome a discussion of the details of this
treatment, specifically, how that treatment concretely operated on
Tsushima, and what is the definition of "territory" for purposes of this
discussion.
	Also, I would like to hear from you or anyone on the details of
the "Tsushima is (was) ours" discourse?  Who are its heroes and villains? 
In what ideology or theoretical construct is it embedded?  What classes or
groups constructed these concepts and practiced this discourse, in order
to advance what interests?  What texts or narratives, oral or written,
represent this discourse?  When does this discourse make its first
historical appearance?  
	
 			*	*	*
	In regard to your question about the <KoryO sa> on CD-ROM, I see
that another list member has already given you the information on
ordering, etc.  
	For those who rely on more traditional versions of the text, and
who are accustomed to dealing with it in its original language and not
through a translation, there is an extremely thorough index of all the
names, terms, and institutions in the <KoryO sa>.  It is entitled <KoryO
sa saegin>, compiled by the Tongbanghak yOn'guso (YOnse University) under
the supervision of Paek Nakchun, and published by YOnse University Press
in 1961.  It is beautifully printed and bound, 1,094 pages in length, and
its listings deliver you to the specific line where the name or term
appears in the YOnhUi University photolithographic reprint of the original
ChosOn movable type printing (1454?).  The CD-ROM will certainly have its
attractions, but with this index and the three volumes of the photolitho-
graphic reprint you have access in seconds, without even booting up, to
the original text in Chinese.  For many purposes this will still be
superior to the CD-ROM version.  Of course, it is admitted that it is not
that easy to find a copy of this index these days.  But major east Asian
research libraries should have it.  Perhaps an inquiry to the Tongbanghak
yOn'guso at Yonsei would yield more up to date information.
	The most interesting thing about this new CD-ROM version of the
<KoryO sa> is that the translation was done in the DPRK, but it is being
published in Seoul by a private publisher.  Thus it's kind of a first in
DPRK/ROK cultural cooperation.  I hope that this is only the beginning of
such joint efforts.  When you think that both the DPRK and the ROK
separately translated the entire sillok (over 115,000 pages in the
original printings, with between three and four hundred Chinese characters
per page), the mind boggles at the needlessly duplicated effort and
expense.  The ROK's publication of its translation of the sillok on CD-ROM
was a great milestone in Korean history and historiogreaphy, but for all
practical purposes the DPRK effort has been rendered worthless. 

Gari Ledyard

On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Kenneth R. Robinson wrote: 
> 
>         Thanks to Professor Lewis and Professor Ledyard for their detailed
> and informative comments about Tsushima.  If I may add a footnote, the
> ChosOn government treated the island as Korean territory, at least during
> the first 200 years.  On several occasions Korean kings assigned a domestic
> post to officials being sent to the island.  The first instance occurred
> before the retired king T'aejong made his comments in 1419.  Korean elites
> often repeated this Korean history of the island.  Multiple discourses on
> Taema-do/Tsushima were current in ChosOn, and a Japanese history of
> Tsushima was but one history of the island.
> 
>         On a different note, several months ago someone asked for
> information about a CD-ROM version of the KoryO sa.  I don't recall seeing
> a reply, but I may have overlooked it.  Is there any information available?
> 
> 
> Ken Robinson
> 






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