中國과 韓國 - 韓中關係史 導論의 一齣

SOME NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE SINO-KOREAN RELATIONSHIP

For the extensive studies of the history of Sino-Korean relations for two millenia it is desirable to survey the general trends of China s attitudes toward foreigners, the nature of the tributary system, general patterns of the roles of northrn peoples in connection with China and Korea as well as others. This paper deals with some of the significant points of these problems. Eastern Barbarians Some of Korean scholars have tried to identify the eastern barbarians, or tung-i in Chinese and tong-i in Korean, in the pre-Ch in period with those in the later times. This attempt seems to have been based on the false assumption that the term of eastern barbarians had been a proper noun. Eastern, however, simply meant east to the center of China. Herewith the concerned was the problem of formation of the Chiness people, the process of which took place in the pre-Ch in period culminating at the time of the unification of Ch in and Han. The eastern barbarians in the pre-Ch in classics and other literature were the barbarians in esatern and southeastern parts of the present China proper, but after the unification the eastern barbarians became to mean the foreigners in the area to the east of China. The term in Shih-chi was for those in eastern China in the pre-Ch in period, and the same term in San-kuo-chih was mainly for Koreans in the Korean Peninsula and south Manchuria. Tributary Relationship Chinese historical records often relate the facts that foreign, including Korean, envoys visited Chinese court bringing tributary goods with them in the Han period. But this does not necessarily mean that tributary system as a machine of the Chinese world order was already set up in this period. Since the tributary relationship had to be a constant, not an occasional, relationship, the beginning of the Sino-Korean tributary relationship seems to have started in the early Southern·and·Northern Dynasties period. The Chinese tributary system developed through the ages, and highly institutionalized in the Ming and Ch ing period. But Sino-Korean relations are not to be explained solely in terms of tributary relationship. There have been non-tributary relations along with tributary relations, although the latter became insignificant in the later times. Some of the features of the tributary relations have beeu characteristic, but some have not been. The former may be called fundamental tributary relationship and the latter quasi-tributary relationship. Quasi-tributary relationship has been regulated by the tributary relationship, but they have been such as we may see in the modern, or non-tributary, international relations. The Open Society The T ang, succeeding to the Sui, again achieved the unification of the whole China and the second formation of the Chinese nation. the latter being not so significant as the first formation mentioned above. The Chinese society had been regenerated during the preceeding period of disunion. And the T ang society was full of vigor and vitality to conquer peripheral states, communicate with them, and receive their cultural elements. The peripheral states, on the other hand, were strongly influenced by the T ang culture. The T ang was, therefore, not a closed, but an open society. Northen Peoples The roles played by the Kitans, Jurched and Mongols during the period of the Northern and Southern Sung were really significant. They not only conquered and subjugated China, but changed the Chinese world order. Not the Chinese but the nothern peoples were in the superior position in the relations between Chinese and northern peoples, and the open society of China gradually changed into a closed society. Compared to the T ang China, even the Mongol China was more closed.