Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤諭吉, 1835-1901) employed the term 支那朝鮮, where 支那 is pronounced as しな /ʃina/ in Japanese, in his article titled 脫亞論 published in《時事新報》in March 1885. By the term, he referred to both 支那 and 朝鮮 as if they should well be lumped together as one for his scathing remarks against them. He did distinguish 支那 from 朝鮮saying that ‘it is unfortunate for us Japanese to have neighboring states, one called S(h)ina, the other named Chosŏn’ (然るに爰に不幸なるは近隣に國あり一を支那と云い一を朝鮮と云ふ) (when the Japanese are trying to distance themselves from the stubbornness of Asia and moving toward the Western civilization).[1] But it is still quite characteristic of him to use the compound word when he says that ‘S(h)inaChosŏn have so far not provided a tiny bit of assistance to our Japan’ (今の支那朝鮮は我日本のために一毫の援助と爲らざるのみな らず) or as in the phrases ‘the government of S(h)inaChosŏn’ (“支那朝鮮の政府) and ‘the literati of S(h)inaChosŏn’ (支那朝鮮の士人) while speaking of 朝鮮國, 日本國, 支那人, but not 支那國, although he used the phrase 支韓兩國.[2] This seems to reflect Fukuzawa’s perception that 支那 is not the name of a state officially declared by any government concerned, although later in the 1910s the Japanese did use the term 支那國(政府) in diplomatic communications.
Of course, 支那, /ʃina/, is not a mere cliché exclusively spoken by Fukuzawa or other Japanese only. In an entry on the monk named Marananta (摩羅難陀) in Book 1 of《海東高僧傳》(Biographies of Eminent Monks East of the Sea) compiled in 1215, there is this paragraph mentioning 支那 as follows:
…夫三韓者 馬韓辰韓卞韓是也 寶藏經云 東北方有震旦國 或云支那 此云多思惟 謂此國人思百端故 即大唐國也 然則三韓在閻浮提東北邊 非海島矣…[3]
Here it is said that 震旦國 was also called 支那. To trace where the two terms 震旦 and 支那 originally came from and to examine their relations to 大唐國 and 三韓 is another matter beyond the scope of this report but it is evident that the name 支那 was used in reference to these terms well before early thirteenth century Koryŏ dynasty.
Pak Kyusu (朴珪壽, 1807-1877), in defense of Kim Yunsik (金允植, 1835-1922) against reproof that Kim had not voiced a policy strongly enough to deal with external affairs upon the General Sherman Incident in 1866, stated that he would have been in a similarly inconvenient situation as Li Hongzhang had been criticized for arguing for amicable relations with the Western nations. Also Pak described Li as a great man of 支那 (子不見夫淸國李少荃之事乎少荃支那之偉人也審察天下大勢力主和洋之議 鋒鏑叢集…).[4] The term 淸國 here, which Fukuzawa did not use in his article 脫亞論, is contrasted with 支那, which can be construed as the territory or the location of the peoples under the current jurisdiction of the Ching state (淸國). Zhang Taiyan (章太炎, 1869-1936), in Tokyo in 1902, held a memorial meeting with some like-minded people that was titled ‘Commemoration of the two-hundred-forty-second year of the ruin of 支那’ (支那亡国二百四十二年紀念會). It is unclear which event he alluded to but such labelling came out of subjective sentiment. Then this also serves as an ironical reference to the Ching state’s rule over 支那 thereafter.
One day Kim Yunsik met a Japanese intellect named 今關天彭, who told Kim that 支那 is the place where our East Asian civilization has arisen amid the mountains and streams that are vast and people who are simple-hearted (支那吾東亞人文之所自出也 其山川廣邈風氣樸厚).[5] Shin Chae-ho (申采浩, 1880-1936) classified six ethnic groups constituting Eastern State nations (東國民族), one of which would be 支那族.[6]
To sum up, the denotation 支那 was more of geographical or ethnological connotations than of administrative or legal. For this point, it is noteworthy that Fukuzawa employed the compound word 支那朝鮮 to emphasize the shared backwardness in civilizational development of the two putatively distinct polities.
In contrast, another compound term 皇淸朝鮮, Imperial-Ching-Chosŏn, carries qualitatively different connotations. It seems that the usage of this term has so far been identified only with a communication produced by Lee Chung-ha (李重夏, 1846-1917). Lee was magistrate of the prefecture of Anbyun (安邊府使) before being entrusted by King Kojong to negotiate with the Ching counterpart for joint investigations of frontier demarcation. The summarizing paragraph attached to the note Lee submitted in March 1886 to a Ching official, named 姚文藻, who was commissioned for a part of joint frontier investigation in consultation with Lee and to report to Yuan Shikai, is as follows:
土門界址事 以大體論之 中韓論界初非羙事 自有皇淸朝鮮以來 原有邊疆莫越之限 兩界人民相安無事 今宜一體仍舊遵守 則帖然更無可勘之端 但朝鮮流民不可不安揷 只從江岸立標借給 卑無顚連之患 以此妥勘 恐合事宜[7]
Here Lee writes that, ever since the era of Imperial-Ching-Chosŏn, there has been frontier boundaries that cannot be crossed and people on both sides have lived peacefully. The two words 皇淸and 朝鮮 are combined but this combination is different from 支那朝鮮 or 上國朝鮮 in its construction. In Fukuzawa’s words, 支那 and 朝鮮 were put together each as place-name or polity’s name on a semantically equal level – neither one is modifying or being modified by the other. When speaking of “demarcating frontiers between the upper state and Chosŏn by the south and north sides of River Tomun (以土們江以南以北定爲上國朝鮮界限)”[8], it refers to, in parallel, the “upper state” (上國) as a higher authority and a polity under such authority. In Lee’s words, however, 皇淸 does seem to modify that which follows it – 朝鮮 – because 皇淸 itself is a compound term to designate the Ching dynasty wielding its imperial superior authority over other subordinate polities and has been used as such in other examples, such as 皇淸開國方略, 皇淸三代聖祖, 皇淸職貢圖, 皇淸經世文編, to list a few. This is similar to the diction 我大淸藩屏[9] (our great Ching’s subject polity) in 朝鮮爲我大淸藩屏二百餘年 歲修職貢爲中外共知[10] (all those within and without know of Chosŏn having been our great Ching’s subject polity for over two hundred years, with its tributary practices kept every year). Such modifying effect becomes clearer by the words 自有 and 以來 that come, respectively, right before and after 皇淸朝鮮. This phrase 自有皇淸朝鮮以來, which denotes a continuation of a state of things since the birth of a political order in the past, may connote an overarching and unifying authority over significant issues, both in name and in substance to some degree, or some sort of political union by that compound name. Placed at semantically different levels, the two compound terms 皇淸朝鮮 and 支那朝鮮 may help enhance historical understanding of the concerned polities during the critical last decades of the nineteenth century.
[1] Fukuzawa Yukichi, March 16, 1885, 脫亞論,《時事新報》(Jiji Shimpo); Dwight Tat Wai Kwok, “A Translation of Datsu-A Ron: Decoding a Pre-war Japanese Nationalistic Theory”, University of Toronto, MA Thesis, 2009, p. 12.
[2] Fukuzawa Yukichi, 脫亞論; Dwight Tat Wai Kwok, “A Translation of Datsu-A Ron”, p. 13.
[3]《海東高僧傳》卷第一 , 京北五冠山靈通寺住持教學賜紫沙門(臣)覺訓奉 宣撰, http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/sutra/chi_pdf/sutra20/T50n2065.pdf (《海東高僧傳》CBETA 電子版)
[4]《瓛齋先生集》咨文 卷之七, 美國兵船滋擾咨 한국고전종합DB (itkc.or.kr)
[5]《雲養續集》卷之二, 送今關天彭 西遊中華序 한국고전종합DB (itkc.or.kr)
[6] 註釋 朝鮮上古文化史 附: 讀史新論⸱朝鮮史硏究草, (著者 申采浩, 註釋者 李萬烈, 螢雪出版社, 1998), 讀史新論 敍論 p. 20.
[7] 中央硏究院近代史硏究所檔案館藏, 總理各國事務衙門 駐韓使館保存檔, 袁世凱: 邊界 吉朝會勘圖門江界址案, 光緖 十二年二月 (Mar. 1886)
[8]《淸季中日韓關係史料》 中央硏究院近代史硏究所 朝鮮檔 01-25-019-02-008 已轉咨朝鮮國王派員定期會勘疆界 光緒十一年七月十五日 (1885-08-24) 朝鮮國王咨
[9] For 藩屛, a more literal word would be ‘fence vassal’ or ‘frontier vassal’. But the term ‘vassal’ does not seem adequate because of its historical connotations, which would not match 屬邦 and any other similar term used to refer to Chosŏn vis-à-vis the Ching, such as 藩屛, 藩封, 藩屬, 屬國.
[10]《淸史稿》卷五百二十六 列傳三百十三 屬國一 朝鮮