Conflicting Images of Korea

Abstract

This article examines the complicated and even conflicting images of Korea represented by the Shenbao 申報(Shanghai Newspaper) between the 1870s and the 1890s, when the relationship between Qing China and Joseon Korea was being fundamentally transformed as the Qing court changed its Korean policy from the tributary laissez-faire policy into an interventionist policy beginning in the early 1880s. In particular, I investigate the ways in which the Shenbao invoked, redefined, and used the age-old Confucian and tributary ideas for the purpose of justifying the Qing’s non-Confucian and non-tributary actions toward Korea. For example, the Confucian ideal of familism was enthusiastically invoked by the Shenbao when the very familistic Sino-Korean relationship was broken by the Qing’s pursuit of non-familistic interests. In addition, the Shenbao eagerly reproduced the long-standing metaphor of the lips and teeth in order to defend the Qing’s interventions toward Korea. The fact that the traditional ideas were relentlessly called upon and served the Shenbao’s defense of the Qing’s pursuit of practical interests clearly shows that the traditional way of thinking neither disappeared nor was passively replaced by the present reality; rather, it constantly interplayed and was intertwined with the non-traditional values of the present time.