(Un)forgotten: in the shadow of the Great Game, or East Asia in trans-imperial contexts

Abstract

This article looks at the juxtaposition of empires, exploring how linkages between and across varied imperial phenomena might work. Through the career of Harry Smith Parkes (1828–85), British minister to China, Japan and Korea, as well as almost forgotten stories of the British occupation of Geomundo or the Port Hamilton Affair (1885–87) in Korea, it aims to understand the interconnectedness of geopolitical regions and the work of global processes in trans-imperial contexts. Parkes is a controversial figure who played a key role in the relations between East Asia and the West from the 1850s until the 1880s. After he died in Beijing in 1885, his bust was unveiled in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. Meanwhile, in Shanghai, a bronze statue of Parkes was placed on its pedestal in 1890. While the monument to the British imperial past in China was removed by the Japanese during the Second World War, the white marble bust remains in metropolitan London, representing the imperial hero. British soldiers who died during the occupation and their gravesites in Korea, by contrast, have been largely forgotten in British imperial history. In the nineteenth century, Geomundo (Port Hamilton) was the international stage where five high-powered nations competed for political hegemony in East Asia. Now a British soldier cemetery in Geomundo History Park makes us consider the possibility of writing further trans- and inter-imperial histories beyond the silence.