뉴스레터

Questions

On November 24, 2012, the NAHF held a conference on 'Yeonhaengrok (燕行錄: Joseon Envoys' Travelogues to Beijing)' celebrating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the ROK and China. What is the historical significance of Yeonhaengrok?

Answer

Recently, Korean academia's interest in Sino-Korean relations has increased with China's upgraded status and in the repercussions of historical issues among Korea, China, and Japan. This year, in particular, a year that marked the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the ROK and China, has seen plenty of related conferences held. This trend of the academia is well reflected in the attempt to shed new light on Yeonhaengrok from the angles of politics, history of culture, and history of intellect. Being the primary source that documented a variety of descriptions and information on Qing, the backbone of world order and development of civilization theory in the Northeast Asian region at that time, over a period of two centuries, Yeonhaengrok is of extremely high historical value. This explains why both Korean and Chinese academia are placing Yeonhaengrok under a new spotlight in understanding the situations of East Asia and Northeast Asia at this particular juncture.

In relation to the NAHF-hosted conference, we need to address one question: How is Yeonhaengrok being studied in the Qing Dynasty History Project under way? If they attempted a present-focused, self-serving interpretation of the significance of Yeonhaengrok with no regards for historical context, as they did in the Northeast Project, this might cause the historical issue between Korea and China to enter a new phase.

There are two possible action plans we can consider. The first is to study the text of Yeonhaengrok in more detail. We need to analyze the authors. In other words, we need in-depth studies on their political, social, and cultural position in Korean society during the late Joseon period, including their relationship with state power or the central government. This means implicit expansion of Yeonhaengrok research. Also, research on Yeonhaengrok shouldn't be limited to Joseon-Qing relations. We should also work on explicit expansion by building on and expanding research on the comparative history of the North Asian and Central Asian regions, including Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, states on the border of Western China, which appeared in Yeonhaengrok.

This approach will contribute to creating an academic space in which the contemporary significance and implications of the terms appearing in Yeonhaengrok, such as China, Sinocentrism, Middle Kingdom, civilization, world order, etc., can be understood in a more 'objective' manner. At the same time, I believe that it will also allow us to have a more complex understanding of the historical reality of the issues being debated in Northeast Asia, such as identity, border, frontier, and cross-border cultural exchange.