뉴스레터

Editor's Note: A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea (近代韓國外交文書) Volumes 1 through 5, the publication of which was supported by the NAHF, was recently chosen as the Excellent Academic Book by the National Academy of Sciences, the Republic of Korea. It proves that this masterpiece of research was a great achievement. On this occasion, the NAHF arranged an interview with Kim Yong-gu, director of the Hallym Academy of Science at Hallym University, who planned and carried out a project to publish A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea, about the academic significance of the publication of this collection of diplomatic documents. The interview began with a question about his motivation behind this grand project.
Transcribed and Edited by Seol Won-tae, Senior Administrator at tne NAHF Office of Public Relations & Education

Choi Deok-gyu, Director of NAHF
Research Department Team 2

Q Choi First of all, congratulations! A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea, Volumes 1 through 5, published by the Committee for the Compilation of Modern Korean Diplomatic Documents, has been chosen as the 2013 Excellent Academic Book by the National Academy of Sciences. What was your motivation behind planning and starting a project to compile the diplomatic documents of modern Korea?

A Kim Let me first express my gratitude to the Northeast Asian History Foundation for supporting this historic research project of compiling A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea. Every OECD country today has a collection of its diplomatic documents in place, and Korea is the only exception. This is a shame for a country that has a reputable status in world politics and economy. As a country, not having a collection of its diplomatic documents in place is like not knowing where it stands in the course of history.

Diplomatic documents are more than a simple collection of writings on foreign relations. They are historical records that tell us how Korea has perceived foreign policy and the surrounding powers. Reflecting on how our ancient sages accepted the formation and change of the new order of free-for-all, and how they coped with problems stemming from it will help determine the right direction for the diplomacy of Korea today. To consider challenges in living in the international community, it is essential to have a collection of diplomatic documents. It is like the medical report necessary before the patient can be treated. This is why I have been calling a collection of diplomatic documents a prescription for treating the historical disease.

The powers that led the course of world history started publishing collections of their diplomatic documents as they went through World War I. As a close example, Japan published a complete collection of diplomatic documents from the Meiji Period (1868-1912) in a total of 75 volumes, compiled over a period of thirty years, in 1963. I always felt ashamed of the fact that Korea didn't have a collection of diplomatic documents in place while Japan did. The publication of A Complete Catalogue of the Diplomatic Documents of Modern Korea (Volume on Foreign Countries) (19cm x 26 cm, 1,287 pages) in 1966 came out of my small effort to rid myself of such feelings. But publishing a collection of diplomatic documents in earnest would be a long time coming.

My long-cherished dream finally came true when I chanced upon an opportunity to make it happen as a longtime colleague of mine who took office as president of the Northeast Asian History Foundation in Fall 2006 decided to support my initiative. That's how two volumes of documents on the 1866 French Invasion and the 1871 American Invasion of Korea (2009) and three volumes of diplomatic documents on the treaties of peace between Korea and powers (2012) were published.

Q Choi Tell us about the organization of the Committee for the Compilation of Modern Korean Diplomatic Documents.

A Kim The Committee consists of eight teams: Korea, China, Japan, the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, and Russia. Each of the teams is led by a professor, who is assisted by a researcher (in doctoral program) and a research assistant (in master's/doctoral program). And there are two senior researchers (in national history and diplomatic studies) in charge of coordinating and supervising the overall project.

Q Choi What are the global trends in the publication of diplomatic document collections?

A Kim The term diplomatic document is used in both narrow and broad senses. In a narrow sense, the diplomatic document refers to the government's working papers and directives, documents preparatoires by officials in charge of negotiation and their correspondence, reports sent back to their government, and international treaties. In a broad sense, the diplomatic document also includes memoirs or collections of works by officials in charge of negotiation, or other such personal documents.

The publication of diplomatic documents began in the 19th century, when Britain first made public their topically arranged diplomatic documents known as "colour books." The colour books should be used with caution because their primary purpose is to propagandize their country's policy. Collections of diplomatic documents in a strict sense were not available, except for in the U.S., until after World War I. In particular, the Soviet Union and Germany were among the first to publish their diplomatic documents, although their intentions may have differed. The Soviet Union published their diplomatic documents in order to facilitate global revolution by exposing the decadence of capitalist powers, and Germany did so in order to expose the falsehood of the Treaty of Versailles which held Germany solely responsible for the war. Later, publishing diplomatic documents became an established practice in the international community, although Korea failed to keep up with this global trend.

Kim Yong-gu, Director of the Hallym
Academy of Science at Hallym University

Q Choi What are the challenges, if any, in publishing diplomatic document collections in Korea?

A Kim In any country, publishing diplomatic document collections is the job of its foreign ministry. This is a practice common to powers. And the foreign ministry of powers have organizations that keep and organize records of their diplomatic history. So all these organizations have to do is to select and publish documents related to their country's diplomatic policy by subject.

On the other hand, however, Korea does not have any organization that collected documents on foreign relations from the 19th century onward. Furthermore, the basic historical documents of 19th-century Korea were very reserved in describing those who acted outside the order of subservience to the stronger. Let me give you a typical example. During the occupation of Gangwhado by France from October 16 to November 21, 1866, not only the documents stored in the Royal Library Annex but silver ingots worth up to 200,000 francs were stolen. But the historical records of 19th-century Korea are silent about such plunder. Therefore, it poses the challenge of having to examine both public and private documents of 19th-century Korea in compiling A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea.

This may sound a little bit smug, but the Committee for the Compilation of Modern Korean Diplomatic Documents takes pride in carrying out the historic mission of reviving the tradition of King Jeongjo's Dongmunwhigo. In the eighth year (1784) since his accession to the throne, King Jeongjo visited the Bureau of Diplomatic Correspondence and found out, much to his disappointment, that quite a large number of documents on relations with neighboring countries had been lost or in a state of disorganization. Immediately, he instructed these documents to be organized. By 1788, sixty volumes of Initial Edition and thirty-six volumes of Follow-up Edition were completed. And it was decided that the organization of the existing documents should be improved on every three years. And this task of improvement was carried out ten times before completion in 1881. Since then, no administration of Korea has ever thought, much less willed, to publish collections of its diplomatic documents. Strictly speaking, 1881 was the year that marked the end of Korean diplomatic documents.

Q Choi Every time a historical issue is raised in Northeast Asia, I am reminded of the importance of historical diplomacy. What do you think is the reason that the study of diplomatic history has been neglected in Korea?

A Kim From a broad perspective, I think that the reason has something to do with the academic climate of Korea. When we say so-called intellectuals, we refer to certain social class of people who use letters and symbols to make their voices heard, notably religious leaders, the media, and professors. Aside from religion or the media, fields I am not very familiar with, professors may be largely divided into three categories. Professors in the first category are intellectuals as technicians who teach the theory of powers' international politics. Teaching the theory of foreign nations without keeping in mind its inherent value system can be extremely dangerous, because it could make them the propagator of the powers' theory without them realizing it. Professors in the second category are ideologues for certain political groups. Finally, professors in the third category are intellectuals as philosophers who make efforts to lead the society where they live in the right direction. They are intellectuals who work on general studies, but unfortunately, their academic activities in Korea are not very satisfactory, which I think is the fundamental reason that the study of diplomatic history has been neglected in Korea.

For the study of diplomatic history, many efforts need to be made in studying language and history. Unfortunately, there is so much impatience and short-sightedness in the academia that they don't see that those efforts are worth it.

Q Choi What influence do you think the publication of A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea will have on the academia?

A Kim First of all, I think I can say that it has made possible full-scale studies of Korean diplomatic history. When we compile a collection of diplomatic documents, we make sure to include as many diplomatic documents as possible, already published or not, not only of Korea but of related powers.

Next, I think that it will help powers fix their distorted perception of the Korean peninsula. Specifically, it will reveal problems with the results of the studies overseas that have depended on A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Japan. It is not surprising that A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Japan is propagandizing Japan's policy because a collection of diplomatic documents reflects the given country's policy. Nevertheless, A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea exposes problems with A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Japan by including the documents related to Korea stored in Japan's diplomatic archive that had been deliberately neglected. From 1946 to 1951, after the end of World War II, the U.S. authorities made 2,116 reels of copies of the documents of Japan's foreign ministry, with complete disregard for Korea. While they copied all the Chinese documents in the same category, the U.S. authorities completely left out the Korea-related documents sitting very next to them. Of the documents stored at Japan's diplomatic archive, A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Japan and the Korean-related documents that the U.S. authorities chose not to include in the copied reels were made into 50 volumes for publication, an effort I undertook from 1971 to 1972.

Finally, the study of diplomatic history is about analyzing diplomatic documents. It is a field of research that delves into the mental structure of foreign relations reflected in the diplomatic documents of Korea and powers. But reading and comprehending the diplomatic documents of powers is an extremely difficult and arduous thing to do. As researchers shun the difficult and arduous task of studying diplomatic history, this field is in extremely short supply of researchers.

Q Choi What is your future plan regarding the compilation of modern diplomatic documents?

A Kim The compilation of A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea has been supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea since three years ago. This year, two volumes on the 1882 Mutiny and two volumes on the 1884 Coup will be published. Next year, one volume on the occupation of Geomundo will be published. And by 2015, three volumes of documents on the Sino-Japanese War will be published. The publisher of all these collections will be Seoul National University Press. And if circumstances permit, I will continue to work on compiling diplomatic documents from a period all the way up to 1910.

Q Choi I think that you took the initiative in compiling A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Diplomacy of Modern Korea because you had extraordinary passion for the study of Korean diplomatic history and accomplished a lot in this field. Please tell us more about it.

A Kim When I was a research assistant, I studied in the office of Tabohashi Kiyoshi (田保橋潔), a professor at Keijo Imperial University and accomplished scholar in the studies of Korean and Japanese diplomatic history. Tabohashi's reading cards fascinated me. From 1963 to 1966, I spent day and night in that office making an index of the diplomatic documents of powers on Korean diplomatic history into 30,000 cards. That was the beginning of my study of diplomatic history.

From 1971 to 1972, I stayed in Japan for research with the help of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. It also served as a great foundation for my research. Toyobunko (東洋文庫) is a treasure house of material for Oriental Studies, where I actually saw the material about Korean diplomatic history that I had only heard about. "The diplomatic archive" of Japan's foreign ministry was another place where I spent a long time. I brought to life those unpublished historical records related to Korea by compiling them into 50 volumes for publication.

But circumstances prevented me from focusing on the study of Korean diplomatic history, but forced me to teach international law once I returned from Japan. Under the circumstances, bizarre though it may seem, I was expected to limit my interest in diplomatic history to material collection and focus instead on studying the international law of the Soviet Union. I was obviously disappointed and frustrated, but now I can say with confidence that my experience at that time helped me broaden my views as a scholar.

And the publication of the results of my specialized research in Korean diplomatic history began with The Clash of World Views and Korean Diplomatic History, 1866-1882 (2001) and continued with The Five Years' Crisis, 1866~1871, Korea in the Maelstrom of Western Imperialism (2001), What is Diplomatic History (2002), The 1882 Mutiny and the 1884 Coup: The Change of the Order of Subservience to the Stronger and Korean Diplomatic History (2004), Korea and Japan: The Clash of World Views, 1868-1876 (2006), Geomundo and Vladivostok: The Abnormal Globalization of the Korean Peninsula in the 19th Century (2009), and Predatory Imperialism and the Korean Peninsula: The 1866 French Invasion and the 1871 American Invasion of Korea in the Course of Diplomatic History (2013). If there is anything that needs to be improved upon in my works, which I am sure there is, as I always feel when I publish a work, I will leave it to the hands of younger scholars.

Q Choi What roles do you think the NAHF should play in compiling modern diplomatic documents and stimulating the study of diplomatic history?

A Kim I think that the NAHF should provide a lot of support for young scholars, and create programs for fostering and supporting new researchers. And also remembering that it was the NAHF's support that made it possible to publish the diplomatic documents, I would like to ask the NAHF to consider compiling them into a database that can be accessed by scholars and ordinary citizens for wide use.

Q Choi What do you plan to study in the future?

A Kim I think I am a lucky man because I am working on two projects that I have been dreaming about since when I was a young professor. One is to publish diplomatic documents and the other is to study conceptual history. As for the study of conceptual history, I am currently working on it at the Hallym Academy of Science, which started in 2007 on a 10-year grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea.

And personally, if circumstances permit, I would like to work on a project to get an insight into issues surrounding the Korean peninsula with a broad, long-term perspective across all ages and countries, rather than empirical studies. This will be the main topic of my future studies.