뉴스레터

There is a tendency to often blame the distortion of ancient Korean history on modern colonial history, but its cause is rooted in the records of ancient Japanese history. At the time when Unified Silla was established, the king of Wa created the title of king 'Tenno (Emperor)' and the name of country 'Nihon (Japan).' At the same time, he compiled The Nihon Shoki (The Chronicles of Japan) to assert the justification, legitimacy, and timelessness of rule by the Emperor. This historical book is a strong reflection of the view of history that Japan ruled over the Korean Peninsula. The book is based on the thought (內官家) that many states in the Korean Peninsula were under the direct control of the Emperor, and it describes them as Japan's tributary states and savage countries.

This view of history, formed at a time when Japan's national consciousness was at its peak, continued into modern times. In modern colonial history, The Nihon Shoki was used as the basic material for the study of ancient Korean history and as the evidence to support the claim of the historical justification of Japan's rule over Korea. Tracing ancient Japan's such subjective perception of history and its origin is the main goal of How Ancient Japan Perceived and Exchanged with Korea, a book based on 19 papers selected from those that I have published over the past ten years. It represents the result of the second-half of my research career of about thirty years.

The 8th-Century Emperor-ruled Ritsuryou State's View of History to Overcome Silla

In Part 1, Gaya, Baekje, Koguryo, Silla, and Balhae, and the Japanese ruling class's perception of Korea related to the Legend of Empress Jingu were analyzed. Those five ancient states established in the Korean Peninsula used war and diplomacy in their exchange with Japan amidst tensions in international situations. On the other hand, Japan, ruled by a single dynasty, had a relatively more options to choose from in diplomacy. It has been found that Japan perceived and dealt with each of the states in the Korean Peninsula differently. For instance, Japan was friendly toward Gaya, Baekje, and Balhae, and first hostile but later friendly toward Koguryo, while constantly regarding Silla as its enemy. This negative view on Silla can be said to have been the origin of the 8th-century Emperor-ruled Ritsuryou State's perception of Korea. The hostility that underlies this perception stems from the fact that Gaya and Baekje, both sharing a kinship with the king of Wa, were destroyed by Silla. When a group of people from Baekje fled to Japan after the fall of Baekje, the Emperor of Japan treated them as his servants by appointing them to office. He also placed the royal families of Baekje and Koguryo under his dominion by giving them the family names 'King of Baekje' and 'King of Goryeo,' respectively. This fact encouraged the Japanese Emperor to develop a view that states in the Korean Peninsula were Japan's tributary states and savage countries.

The rosewood-carved go board
(木畵紫檀棊局) of Baekje, housed in
Shosoin in Japan. It is a symbol of
exchange between the two countries,
sent by the King Euija of Baekje to
Nakatomi no Kamatari, a Japanese
aristocrat at the top of the class
at that time.

In this new international order in East Asia, Japan faced the challenge of overcoming its rival Silla. Japan's view of history to overcome Silla represented a sense of superiority to Silla and other empires in the Korean Peninsula. Not only was it made into Ritsuryou law, but expressed in The Nihon Shoki as the historical source of the claim that Japan was politically superior as well. Such a perception was entirely reflected and continued in Joku Nihonki and other official histories written after that.

Meanwhile, the view of history that Japan was politically superior gave rise to a perception that the advanced culture introduced from the Korean Peninsula was nothing more than tribute. This is a sense of their cultural inferiority disguised as a sense of their political superiority. This contradictory perception of Korea inevitably resulted because in order to achieve what was akin to the Sinocentrism of China as a country that had established a tributary system with its surrounding empires, Japan had to emphasize that they were also culturally superior, even though, in reality, the opposite was true.

The Legend of Empress Jingu was analyzed by period, from which it was deduced that Japan had a tendency to get out of a crisis in foreign relations by recalling Empress Jingu's rule over ancient Korea. In modern times, in order to assert the legitimacy of its aggression against the Korean Peninsula, Japan promoted Empress Jingu as a figure who raised the country's status overseas, by featuring her portrait on currency, teaching about her in school, and building shrines for her.

The king of Silla on his knees surrendering to Empress Jingu,
featured in Japanese History for Normal School published in 1875.
This picture is based on the Legend of Empress Jingu from The Nihon Shoki,
and it is a good example illustrating the distorted Japanese perception of Korea.

Exchange between Korea and Japan Continued Despite Political Strife

In Parts 2 and 3, the history of exchange between the two regions was addressed. The topics covered include: the nature of Baekje's alliance with Wa during the period of Woongjin; the truth about Wa-Baekje officials; the activities of Baekje immigrants to Wa; and the introduction of the artifacts of Baekje to Japan which are now housed in the Japanese treasure house Shosoin. Those artifacts of Baekje housed in Shosoin illustrate how much Beakje artifacts were valued by the Japanese ruling class. In the papers related to Silla, the steps that led to the immigration of forces from Silla to the Japanese Archipelago, which can be inferred from the legend of Yeonorang and Seonyeo, were traced, and Kim Chun-chu's diplomacy with Wa was analyzed. And it was clarified that Dazaifu (大宰府) of ancient Japan had been established and maintained for the purpose of dealing with Silla and that coming up with measures against Sill had been the most important task at hand for the Japanese ruling class at that time.

The additional topics analyzed were the exchange between the powerful clan of North Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula and the nature of the controversial Japanese-style ancient tomb (a circular‐shaped ancient tomb with rectangular frontage) discovered in the Yeongsan River basin in Korea. These were presented as examples illustrating the plural nature of the exchange between the two regions during this period. And then Koguryo's view of the southern world as reflected in the Gwanggaeto Stele inscription, and the existing theory, in which Haji the King of Gara from the History of Qi of the Southern Dynasties (南齊書) and the Chronicle of Gara (加羅國傳) was viewed as the King of the Great Gaya, were revisited and reexamined. Additionally, the characteristics of the view of history consistently reflected in all of the right-wing textbooks of Japan advocating the liberal view of history, the national issue found in the descriptions of ancient history in the history textbooks and other government-designated textbooks of Japan, and the nature and characteristics of descriptions related to the Emperor were analyzed. It is the personality of the Emperor that functions as the ideology supporting the right-wing view of history in Japan.

To study the history of the relationship between ancient Korea and Japan is to grapple with the records of Japanese history. They contain elements contaminated by the ideology of the Emperor system of the Japanese Ritsuyou State, and those elements should be removed before the objective truth can be pursued. Despite the political strife, however, the exchange between Korea and Japan continued, and even beame more active because they actually needed each other during this period. If the period of the Three Kingdoms was a time when culture was introduced through war and diplomacy, it was economic activities involving the export and import of culture that were principal activities during the period of Unified Silla and Balhae. Exchange is the key to survival, a timeless and universal phenomenon that also applies to the world today.