How and when the Gyeongguk daejeon System Dismantled?: A Study on Political Meaning of the Daehan Empire’s Birth

Abstract

The Joseon dynasty, based on its approximate 500 year-long Gyeongguk daejeon system, maintained its two governmental features: internationally “respecting the senior state”(sadae) with China and “keeping friendship with neighboring countries”(kyorin)(Jurchin and Japan) on the one hand, while it domestically pursued respect for Confucian proprieties and conceded only relative sovereignty to the Joseon king on the other hand. This political system, however, was dismantled in 1897 following the birth of the Daehan Empire, which proclaimed itself as a self-reliant independent nation in the international community and in which unlimited sovereign authority was granted to the emperor. How is the Daehan Empire different from the Joseon Dynasty? For this, I compared the provisions of the Daehanguk gukje(hereafter, Gukje), which was established with the birth of the Daehan Empire in 1897, with those of the Gyeongguk daejeon as follows. First, Gukje states that the Daehan Empire is an independent empire that can make its own decisions regarding important matters of the Empire, such as the dispatch of diplomats, declarations of war, and conclusion of peace treaties. In comparison, Gyeongguk daejeon accepted a junior status to China and scrupulously observed the ritual practices of a tributary state, based on the tradition of “the respect for the senior state(sadae) diplomacy”. Second, another point to be noted is the stipulation that grants unlimited military power to the emperor. According to the Gukje, the emperor has the command of the military and naval forces, the right of enacting and enforcing laws, and even the power to pardon (Article 6). Compared with this, the royal authority prescribed in the Gyeongguk daejeon is relative. Unlike the Gukje, according to which the emperor is supposed to assume all responsibilities from the enactment of laws to the appointment of government officials, the Gyeongguk daejeon system makes it a principle to entrust all those responsibilities to ministers. The third difference is found in the upgrading of state rituals. Whereas the Gukjo oryeui established the norms for the state rituals at the kingdom level, the Daehan Empire raised all its state rituals to the level of those of an empire and stipulated the norms in the Daerye uigwe (Ceremony Manual for the Grand Rites). For example, the Daerye uigwe assigns to the country a different status from that specified in the Gukjo oryeui, which is a counterpart to the Gyeongguk daejeon.