Provincializing Korea: The Construction of the Chinese Empire in the Borderland and the Rise of the Modern Chinese State

This article examines China’s approach to integrating Korea into Chinese territory in history and its significant influence on the construction of the Chinese Empire and state. It discusses major instances of Chinese integration of Korea before and under the Mongol Empire and reveals that the tributary relationship with Korea that the Ming and Qing dynasties cultivated in the post-Mongol period allowed Korea to maintain a significant degree of independence from China. It points out that the Qing imperial discourse described Korea as a province by combining the Manchu ruling house’s and European Jesuits’ understandings of the Chinese empire. Qing China refrained from colonizing Korea in the nineteenth century primarily because of the post-Mongol shift in its policy toward the country and because of its Confucian ethos. The article further argues that China did not become a modern state until the 1950s, when the Chinese option of provincializing Korea permanently disappeared.