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An international conference, co-hosted by the Northeast Asian History Foundation and East Asian History Research Forum, was held with resounding success at Yonsei University for two days, from November 2, Friday, to November 3, Saturday, 2012, on the theme 'China within East Asian Culture.' East Asian History Research Forum, initiated from an international conference conducted by the NAHF in 2008. has co-hosted conferences with the NAHF on global scales every year with the objective of "providing scholars of East Asian history with an opportunity to communicate and exchange views with one another, in order to resolve the issue of conflicts arising from differing perceptions of East Asian history." This conference was the fifth of its kind, where a total of 40 scholars and experts at home and abroad participated in presentation and discussion. With focus on such topics as 'Chinese Characters and Text,' 'The Order of Tribute', 'Print Media and the Symbol of China,' 'The View of All Things Under Heaven: Past and Present,' they had heated debate on how China and the rest of East Asian nations perceive and communicate with one another, and the perception and outlook of regional order.

Analyzing the Significance of China Emerging as a Power

In his opening address, Baek Young-seo, Chairman of the Forum Steering Committee and Professor of Yonsei University, said that the purpose of the conference was to "rethink the significance of China emerging as a power in the context of East Asia."

As the first keynote speaker, Kyoto University professor Yamamuro Shinich (山室信一) gave a speech entitled "China as Mandala: A View from Japan" in which he noted that "For Japan, Chinese culture, for its overwhelming superiority, was an object of strong admiration and, at the same, an object of the fear that would make Japan unable to secure its footing unless it escapes from its sphere of gravitation," and drew attention from the audience with his explanation that the two conflicting concepts of admiration and fear resulting from the 'pathos of distance' were Japan's historical psychological mechanism that caused modern Japan to despise China and Joseon and turn aggressive toward them. According to him, Japan's ungrounded attitude of superiority toward Joseon and China at that time, as reflected in the Policy of Conquering the Three Han States (三韓征伐論) and the Theory of Japan the God State (日本神國論), was nothing but an illusion spawned by the two contradicting feelings of admiration and fear, and the refraction of these two feelings was the underlying factor of Japan's modern aggressions. Based on this point of argument, Professor Yamamuro criticized the trend of Japan's Chinese studies that was currently disconnected from the public sentiment, and proposed a critical and scientific approach to Chinese studies. As the next speaker, Professor Umicha (吳密察) of the National Cheng Kung University of Taiwan spoke on "Chinese Culture in Taiwan," explaining the diversity of Taiwanese culture in the context of history and emphasizing the pluralism of East Asian culture. Hanyang University professor Park Chan-seung, in his speech titled "The 18th- and 19th-Century Joseon's Sinocentrism and View of China," addressed the two sides of Joseon in its perception of China during the transition to modern periods. And University of Tokyo professor Murada Ujiro (村田雄二郞) gave a speech entitled "Same-Bed-Different-Dream (同床異夢) in the Chinese Character Cultural Sphere" noting that in East Asia, Chinese characters functioned not only as communication tools but also as suppression of ethnic minorities or neighboring peoples, forcing assimilation upon them. He drew attention by emphasizing the various social contexts of the term 'Chinese character cultural sphere.'

Various Discussions and Debates on the Order of Tribute

But the most heatedly debated topic was 'the order of tribute.' Tokyo Women's Christian University professor Motegi Doshio (茂木敏夫), in his speech entitled "The Reality of the Order of Tribute in East Asia and Its Discourse," explained the order of tribute as a traditional international order in East Asia to be a diverse and flexible relationship formed among the Chinese dynasty, its neighboring states, regions, and social groups based on Sinocentric ethnocentrisim (華夷觀) and the Confucian idea of rule by virtue, and understood it to be a universal order that may apply to Japan's relationship with the Ainu and Okinawa. By contrast, Beijing Normal University professor Zhang Shuangzhi (張雙智) noted that the system of tribute was not simply a byproduct of the ideologies of ethnocentrisim and Sinocentrism, but had been formed in the process of internationally expanding and applying the political, administrative management system toward frontier peoples that was enforced by the ancient Middle Kingdom for self-defence, and caused controversy by using the concept of geopolitics or international politics in explaining the system of tribute.
While the debate was heated, it was hard to reach consensus, considering the differences in the state-founding process as the basics of modern scholarship and in perception of reality. At least, however, the serious debate was highly significant in that it served as an opportunity to turn the existing discussions on East Asia which had remained at the levels of educative discourse into academic discussions with perception of history and outlook for the future taken into consideration.

Shanghai Determined as the Next Venue, a Bright Prospect for Turning the Conference into an Institutionalized Event

Overall, this conference, compared with the previous ones, was focused on choosing a more specific theme and making the event more organized and systematic, and produced a lot of significant results in that it 1) allowed enough time for discussion to make the conference more focused while reducing the scale of the conference; 2) moved the venue to a university to make the conference more accessible by the general public; and 3) determined the next venue to be Shanghai, back to an overseas venue after the previous conferences having been held in Beijing then in Seoul, a bright prospective for turning the conference into an institutionalized event.
Considering the reality of East Asia in which China's rise and the United States' return to East Asia are making instability in regional order apparent, there is rising tension between each of the nations over territory and history, and the public's negative perception of the other country is spreading, it is necessary to further invigorate serious exchange among historians that will allow them to seek historical reconciliation and peace in the future of East Asia while building cross-border friendship.