Remaking the Chinese Empire

Manchu-Korean Relations, 1616–1911

Yuanchong Wang

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781501770142
• eBook ISBN: 9781501730528
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

Remaking the Chinese Empire examines China's development from an empire into a modern state through the lens of Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period. Incorporating Korea into the historical narrative of the Chinese empire, it demonstrates that the Manchu regime used its relations with Chos?n Korea to establish, legitimize, and consolidate its identity as the civilized center of the world, as a cosmopolitan empire, and as a modern sovereign state.

For the Manchu regime and for the Chos?n Dynasty, the relationship was one of mutual dependence, central to building and maintaining political legitimacy. Yuanchong Wang illuminates how this relationship served as the very model for China's foreign relations. Ultimately, this precipitated contests, conflicts, and compromises among empires and states in East Asia, Inner Asia, and Southeast Asia – in particular, in the nineteenth century when international law reached the Chinese world. By adopting a long-term and cross-border perspective on high politics at the empire's core and periphery, Wang revises our understanding of the rise and transformation of the last imperial dynasty of China. His work reveals new insights on the clashes between China's foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism in the Chinese world, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia. Most significantly, Remaking the Chinese Empire breaks free of the established, national history-oriented paradigm, establishing a new paradigm through which to observe and analyze the Korean impact on the Qing Dynasty.

Table of contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Romanization and Conventions
• Chinese and Korean Reign Periods, 1600–1911
• Introduction
• Part I KOWTOWING TO OUR GREAT EMPEROR
• Part II SAVING OUR CHOSŎN
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Glossary of Chinese Characters
• Bibliography
• Index