Owen Nickerson Denny, foreign advisor to King Kojong (高宗, 1852-1919), published in 1888 in Shanghai a booklet titled China and Korea.[1] This work offers a useful glimpse into how an American advisor to the King perceived the relations between the Ching and Chosŏn that might have felt peculiar enough even for such a high-ranking foreigner like him. Although he was given the position by Li Hongzhang (李鴻章)’s recommendation, he turned out, somewhat ironically, to become a harsh critic of Ching government’s continued effort to keep Chosŏn as “vassal”[2] as well as of Yuan Shikai (袁世凱)’s activities as Imperial Resident during their overlapped years in Hansŏng (漢城).
Denny claims that “the only vassal or dependent relations recognized by the law of nations are those resulting from conquest, international agreement or convention of some kind” and that such relations do not exist between the two polities. Such a conquest and a subsequent convention did exist. The capitulation of King Injo (仁祖) in February 1637 was a direct result of Ching conquest of Chosŏn and the Ching emperor’s message containing the regulations to govern future bilateral relations, as capitulation terms, and the Chosŏn King’s acceptance of it were a convention of such kind as befitting Sovereign-Subject [君臣] hierarchy as stipulated therein.
One conspicuous usage of a term throughout Denny’s writing is “tributary” as in “Korea is a tributary state of China”.[3] Denny says that “the language used by the King to express his tributary relations is persistently and erroneously interpreted to mean vassal relations”[4] by the Ching side. But in Elements of International Law, Wheaton clearly distinguished “vassal”, translated in 《萬國公法》 as 藩屬 in one instance, from “tributary”, rendered as 進貢. Chosŏn was referred to by scholar-officials in both Ching and Chosŏn as 屬國 or 屛藩, both of which came to be used, along with 藩屬, to translate “vassal” in 《公法會通》. He adds that “tributary relations one state may hold to another do not and cannot in any degree affect its sovereign and independent rights.”[5]
First, the sentence “Korea is a tributary state of China” should have been rendered as “Chosŏn is [was] a vassal state of the Ching” because, as Prince Kung (恭親王奕訢) explained to Mori Arinori (森有禮) in 1876[6] and as Möllendorff correctly pointed out in his reply to Denny’s pamphlet, the term “tributary” would only express one of the obligations of a vassal state.[7] In return, a vassal Chosŏn is to be provided with security guarantee and other supports [紓其亂解其紛期其安全 中國之於朝鮮自任 之事也 此待屬邦之實也].[8] Second, tributary states, as long as their sovereignty is affected by their relation with the states to which tributes are paid, are not to be considered as (fully) sovereign.[9] From the following passage, it can be interpreted that vassals (屛藩) may be deemed “semi-sovereign” (半主) because a semi-sovereign state, as recipient of protection by another state, resembles 屛藩 vis-à-vis its 上國:
半主之國賴他國保護 略如屛藩之於上國 其主權易減而難存
蓋國不能自護 即難以自立[10]
“Le droit de protéger un état est analogue à la suzeraineté, en
ce sens que le protecteur, comme le suzerain, pretend à une
position supérieure à celle du protégé. Mais la demi-
souveraineté de l’état protégé ne découle pas de la
souveraineté de l’état protecteur.”[11]
Denny provides a laundry list of what rights Chosŏn has and what a vassal state cannot have – the right of negotiation, concluding treaties with other sovereign and independent states, dispatching public ministers to the respective treaty powers, the right to declare war[12] or peace.[13] Although he argues that Chosŏn has all these rights, he does not give explanations thereto. However, since 1882, Chosŏn performed its foreign affairs functions through the presiding authority of the Ching government, as shown in the negotiations between Li Hongzhang and Commodore Shufeldt for the Chosŏn-U.S. treaty in 1882, and the legitimate intervention of Li and Yuan in Chosŏn’s external affairs thereafter. In regard to the right to dispatch public ministers to foreign states, Denny claims that King Kojong denied the fallacious assertion that Chosŏn government admitted vassalage without any qualifications whatever by the public act, “under well-considered advice” (of Denny’s)[14], of appointing and sending a Minister to Japan and the plenipotentiaries to Europe and America.[15] Actual content of or qualifications to such a vassalage, however, could not be unequivocally specified, and it fluctuated upon changing circumstances. Furthermore, it, in large part, depended on the will of the suzerain, as Möllendorff observed.[16] Irrespective of whether the attempts to send ministers to treaty powers were Kojong’s initiative or Queen Min and her clan’s initiative issued in the name of Kojong, it was because the Chosŏn court desired, upon some occasions, to break away from limitations of already existing vassalage relations, not because the Ching tried to place Chosŏn under vassalage relations when the latter had not initially been in such relations.
Indeed, the Ching authorities evaluated such a move as sending legations to Western states – even with the title of plenipotentiary, considering that not one of the Ching ministers was of plenipotentiary – would certainly be detrimental to maintaining the construct of suzerainty. Thus they imposed three provisions on dispatching diplomatic representatives [三端]: first, the Chosŏn representative, after arriving at his post, has to call at the Ching legation and ask the Ching minister to go with him to go to the Foreign Office to introduce him; second, in any official gatherings the former should stand behind the latter; third, the former should first consult with and seek guidance from the latter on important matters of diplomatic negotiations.[17]
The Chosŏn court did not quite abide by these provisions for its minister plenipotentiary to the U.S. and eventually the minister to the U.S. had to return in early 1889 upon the Ching government’s censure. Such violation was abrogating obligations stemming from vassalage system that no other state can interfere with or take issue with [屬邦分內之體制與各國無干各國不得過問].[18] The representative to five countries in Europe (British empire, German empire, French Third Republic, Russian empire, Kingdom of Italy) could not even depart for his post. Denny quotes the good offices provision in the treaties with the U.S. and Britain to dispel Ching pressure to Chosŏn’s diplomatic action. While the good offices provision[19] was invoked by Kim Yunsik when he, in his official capacity, protested the British occupation of 巨文島 (Port Hamilton), it was not used for any other issues by the Chosŏn government.
Overall, Denny insisted on an “independent” Chosŏn. His arguments seem to have come from his desire to justify his engagement with the Chosŏn court to assist its attempts to be partly, if not wholly, freed from the constraint set by its upper state or suzerain (上國) and thereby win favor for himself or for his own nation. But most of them have not been well grounded.
[1] Without harming the context of his writing, ‘China’ is replaced by “the Ching” and ‘Korea’ by “Chosŏn” in this post. Using these names for late nineteenth-century Ching-Chosŏn relations can be ahistorical because ‘China’ and ‘Korea’ as such did not exist – until much later – as nation-states, among other reasons.
[2] The term “état vassal(états vassaux)” [“vassal”] in Le droit international codifié was used to match such terms as 屬國, 藩屬, 屛藩, 半主, all of which were actually or could be used to describe Chosŏn vis-à-vis the Ching, in 《公法會通》, translated work of Le droit international codifié. Thus, considering the wide usage in its “imaginary equivalence” in the translated language, in this post the term “vassal” will be used for Chosŏn in its relations to the Ching.
[3] 淸韓論, O. N. Denny, 柳永博 譯註, 東方圖書, 1989, p. 100.
[4] 淸韓論, O. N. Denny, 柳永博 譯註, 東方圖書, 1989, p. 122.
[5] Ibid.
[6] 《淸光緖朝中日交涉史料》 卷一 (二)總理各國事務衙門奏與日本使臣往來照會等件擬咨送禮部轉行朝鮮摺 光緖二年正月三十日 (1876-02-07) (二)附件六 覆日本國照會
[7] P. G. von Möllendorff, Ein Lebensbild, Otto Harrassowitz (Leipzig, 1930), p. 129.
[8] 《淸光緖朝中日交涉史料》 卷一 (二)總理各國事務衙門奏與日本使臣往來照會等件擬咨送禮部轉行朝鮮摺 光緖二年正月三十日 (1876-02-07) (二)附件六 覆日本國照會
[9] Wheaton, Henry, Elements of International Law, Eighth Edition, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1866, p. 57.
[10] 《公法會通》 建陽元年(1896), 漢城 學部編輯局, 卷一論公法之源流及邦國之權位 第七十八章
[11] Bluntschli, Johann Caspar, Le droit international codifié, translated by Charles Lardy, 1874, pp. 92-93.
[12] The war against the invading Japanese in 1894 was declared in the name of the Ching emperor on behalf of Chosŏn.
[13] 淸韓論, O. N. Denny, 柳永博 譯註, 東方圖書, 1989, p. 114.
[14] In one telegram to Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai said that Denny numerously recommended King Kojong to send a Minister to the U.S. 《李文忠公電稿》 卷之八 寄譯署 光緖十三年七月初二日酉刻
[15] 淸韓論, O. N. Denny, 柳永博 譯註, 東方圖書, 1989, p. 117.
[16] P. G. von Möllendorff, Ein Lebensbild, Otto Harrassowitz (Leipzig, 1930), p. 130.
[17] 《淸光緖朝中日交涉史料》 (五七八) 北洋大臣來電 光緖十三年九月二十四日到
[18] 《李文忠公奏稿》 卷之六十一 籌議朝鮮通使各國摺 光緖十三年十一月十一日
[19] Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Corea and the United States of America, Article 1 “… If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangements, thus showing their friendly feelings.” 若他國有何不公輕藐之事一經照知必須相助從中善爲調處以示友誼關切