Early Modern Northeast Asia
Overview
Early Modern Northeast Asia
During the early modern period, roughly 1400 to 1800, the traditional societies of northeast Asia faced a number of foreign and domestic challenges that were part of economic, political, social, and technological modernization around the world. These challenges included indigenous imperial competition among the Chinese, Manchurian, and Russian empires; interactions with European explorers, missionaries, and traders; and various proto-industrial technological and organizational advances. The societies of northeast Asia responded to these challenges in a variety of ways, including with numerous economic, political, diplomatic, and social changes that tests their adherence to their own traditions.
Learning Objectives
- Identify and assess the forms, effects, and repercussions of east Asian contacts with Europeans between 1200 and 1800.
- Identify and analyze differences and similarities of the responses of east Asian states toward Europeans, along with accompanying attitudes toward Europeans.
- Examine the impact of east Asia and Europe on each between 1400 and 1800.
- Examine the impact of Early Modern China on other Asian nations, particularly Korea and the southeast Asian states.
- Identify and assess the responses Korea and the southeast Asian states to the continuing Chinese presence across east Asia between 1400 and 1800.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Tokugawa Shogunate - the last feudal Japanese military government, ruling from 1603 to 1867, the end of which paved the way for the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of Japan
Early Modern Northeast Asia
The societies of northeast Asia included Japan, Korea, and Manchuria, with China and Russia as peripheral imperial powers. Geographically Japan and Korea were on the periphery of northeast Asia. Each was also affected by the mercantile and religious intrusions of European maritime imperial powers, including England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. The peoples of northeast Asia were subject to two overlapping sets of imperial competitors: China, Manchuria, and Russia from within the region and the European powers along the coastlines of northeast Asia and the Japanese islands.
Among the Chinese, Manchu, and Russian empires, China was the foundational power of east Asia. Historically the succession of Chinese dynasties from the Han Dynasty to the present Communist Party had taken the initiative periodically in the imperial competition for east and central Asia. Various Han rulers had attempted imperial boundaries into central and southeastern Asia. A number of Tang rulers continued these efforts in the same directions. Such efforts alternated with retrenchment to protect core areas of the empire.
The Ming and Qing Dynasties of China
Although China was still a world power and the major regional power in east Asia during the early modern period, it experienced a steady decline in both respects during the Ming and the Qing Dynasties. This decline, however, was not perceptable to most at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. From the inception of the Ming Dynasty in 1368 into the mid-fifteenth century China also pursued expansion, which belied any signs of decline for China during the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. This expansion included seven voyages by Zheng He into the western Pacific and the Indian Oceans from 1405 to 1433. Zheng He’s expeditions sought to expand Chinese trade and influence. Emperor Yongle initiated these expeditions as part of his larger program for Ming expansion. It is possible that Chinese mariners also made it to the Pacific coast of the Americas, although evidence is not conclusive. From the mid-fifteenth century Ming officials discontinued these efforts in favor of a new focus on domestic priorities, including defense. This change in policy intersected with other developments that marked the gradual decline and eventual fall of the Ming Dynasty.
In 1644 the Manchus overthrew the Ming Dynasty and established the Qing Dynasty. This new dynasty was part of the rise of Manchu power in northeast Asia. Manchuria is north east of China and north of the Korean peninsula, and the Manchurian people are culturally distinct from the Chinese.During the latter half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries the Manchus competed with and expanding Russian empire and ambitious European maritime powers for influence across and control over northeast Asia. During this period the Manchurian empire shared with China status as a premier power in east and northeast Asia, having ruled China through the Qing Dynasty. However, from the late nineteenth century Manchu power in this region waned, due to the growing power of Russia and Japan. Russian power gradually expanded toward and then across northeastern Asia beginning in the late seventeenth century. And Manchuria could not compete with Russian resources, as Russia expanded eastward across the northern half of Asia.
From the fourteenth into the eighteenth centuries Japan and Korea were subject to the imperial ambitions of China and then Manchuria. By the late eighteenth century Russia was also asserting itself into Japanese and Korean affairs. In addition, European traders and missionaries had been travelling to northeast Asia by way of the Pacific Ocean since the sixteenth century. Historically both the Japanese and the Koreans had been subject to Chinese influence since at the Han Dynasty.
Korea
The Koreans were, possibly, the northeast Asian people most affected by and vulnerable to Chinese, Manchu, and Russian imperialism. Despite the nickname of the Hermit Kingdom, the history of the Korean peninsula had not been marked by isolation. Throughout its history various Korean states had interacted with China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and, from the sixteenth century, European maritime powers. At various times Koreans embraced, adapted, and resisted cultural, economic, political, and religious influence from these peoples.
Among these peoples the Korean relationship with China was the most significant. That relationship has been defined by Chinese influence and power over Korea. As qualified by the geography of the Korean peninsula, Chinese forces would have the advantage in an invasion of the Korean peninsula. Accordingly, the succession of Korean states throughout history have had to accept Chinese power and influence. However, the geography of the Korean peninsula makes such an invasion problematic for Chinese forces. This juxtaposition of Chinese power and Korean geography have fostered a tension that continues to define the relationship between these two countries all the way to the present, as manifest in China’s present vulnerability to the possible use of nuclear weapons by the North Korean government under Kim Jong-un.
Tokugawa Japan
During this period Japan underwent political centralization with the emergence of the Tokugawa Shogunate. In Japanese history shoguns were military overlords who controlled Japan in a feudal structure. The Tokugawa Shogunate came to power through the efforts of a succession of three military leaders during the late sixteenth century. After taking control of Japan the Tokugawa Shogunate put into place a number of restrictions which prohibited all forms of contact with all the European powers except the Dutch. Shogunate leaders feared that European influence, including that of Christian missionaries, threatened their control. Through these restrictions the Shogunate also sought to preserve traditional Japanese society.
Being an archipelago Japan was better able to hold off Chinese, Manchurian, and Russian expansion. During the thirteenth century storms and the difficulties of crossing the Sea of Japan had protected Japan from conquest by Khubilai Khan’s Mongol forces. At that time Khan controlled China through his short-lived Yuan Dynasty. During the first half of the seventeenth century the new, indigenous Tokugawa Shogunate had progressively closed off Japan to almost all foreign contacts, particularly with Russia and the European powers. The Tokugawa Shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867, isolated Japan from the outside world to protect its control over Japan and to preserve Japanese culture.
Northeast Asia at the End of the Early Modern Period
By the mid-nineteenth century China, Japan, Korea, and Manchuria were increasingly subject to European incursions in the forms of trade, religious missionaries, and military control. Each tried its own strategy in response to these intrusions, with widely varying degrees of success.
Primary Source: Text of the Sakoku Edict
Text of the Sakoku (Closed Country) Edict of June 1636
1. No Japanese ships may leave for foreign countries.
2. No Japanese may go abroad secretly. If anybody tries to do this, he will be killed, and the ship and owner/s will be placed under arrest whilst higher authority is informed.
3. Any Japanese now living abroad who tries to return to Japan will be put to death.
4. If any Kirishitan believer is discovered, you two (Nagasaki bugyo) will make a full investigation.
5. Any informer/ revealing the whereabouts of a bateren will be paid 200 or 300 pieces of silver. If any other categories of Kirishitans are discovered, the informer/s will be paid at your discretion as hitherto.
6. On the arrival of foreign ships, arrangements will be made to have them guarded by ships provided by the Omura clan whilst report is being made to Yedo, as hitherto.
7. Any foreigners who help the bateren or other criminal foreigners will be imprisoned at Omjra as hitherto.
8. Strict search will be made for bateren on all incoming ships.
9. No offspring of southern Barbarians will be allowed to remain. Anyone violating this order will be killed, and all relatives punished according to the gravity of the offence.
10. If any Japanese have adopted the offspring of southern Barbarians they deserve to die. Nevertheless, such adopted children and their foster-parents will be handed over to the Southern Barbarians for deportation.
11. If any deportees should try to return or to communicate with Japan by letter or otherwise, they will of course be killed if they are caught, whilst their relatives will be severely dealt with, according to the gravity of the offence.
12. Samurai are not allowed to have direct commercial dealings with either foreign or Chinese shipping at Nagasaki.
13. Nobody other than those of the five places (Yedo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sakai and Nagasaki) is allowed to participate in the allocation of ito-wappu.
14. Purchases can only be made after the ito-wappu is fixed. However, as the Chinese chips are small, you will not be too rigorous with them. Only twenty days are allowed for the sale.
15. The twentieth day of the ninth month is the deadline for the return of foreign ships, but latecomers will be allowed fifty days grace from the date of their arrival Chinese ships will be allowed to leave a little after the departure of the (Portuguese) galliots.
16. Unsold goods cannot be left in charge of Japanese for storage or safekeeping.
17. Representatives of the five (shogunal) cities should arrive at Nagasaki not later that the fifth day of the long month. Late arrivals will not be allowed to participate in the silk allocation and purchase.
18. Ships arriving at Hirado will not be allowed to transact business until after the nineteenth day of the fifth month of the thirteenth year of Kwanei (June 22, 1636)
From University of Pittsburgh Translation from C.R. Boxer. The Christian Century in Japan.
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