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The Adaptability of Ch'ing Diplomacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Mary C. Wright
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Historians of the modern Far East have usually assumed that in spite of the founding of the Tsungli-yamen and the launching of the self-strengthening movement of the 1860's, Chinese foreign policy remained weak, inept, and uninformed. Typically, China's handling of the Korean problem is contrasted with the swift and sure diplomacy of the new Japan to show how little Chinese statesmen understood of changing world conditions or of the altered character of the threat from Japan. China's failure to prevent Korea from slipping out of the tributary system is held to offer such obvious proof of the inadaptability of Ch'ing diplomacy as to make the issue scarcely worth discussing.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , May 1958 , pp. 363 - 381
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1958

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References

1 Abbreviations used: CSS—Chōsen shi [History of Korea], 35 vols. (Keijo [Seoul]: Government-General of Korea, 1931–39); HF—Hsien-feng reign; HT—Ta-Ch'ing hui-tien (Kuang-hsü ed.); HTSL—Ta-Ch'ing hui-tien shih-li (Kuang-hsü ed.); IWSM—Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo; NCH—North China Herald; SL—Ch'ing shih-lu; TC—T'ung-chih reign; TK—Tao-kuang reign; WHTK—Ch'ing-ch'ao hsü wen-hsien t'ung-k'ao (Commercial Press ed.).

On the treatment of four shipwrecked Americans in 1855–56, see, e.g., HTSL, 513.27 a-b; IWSM-HF, 12.24a–25a. On the generous treatment accorded the crew of the American vessel Surprise in 1866, see the report of Capt. McCaslin in NCH, Oct. 13, 1866; June 27, 1868; IWSM-TC, 45.15a-b, 59.7a-12a; E. M. Cable, “The United States-Korean Relations 1866–1871,” TKBRAS, XXVIII (1938), 3–7.

2 Some of the lines along which investigation of this important subject might proceed are suggested in Key P. Yang and Gregory Henderson, “An Outline of the History of Korean Confucianism,” Washington, D. C, State-FD, 1957, mimeographed.

3 HTSL, 511.5a.

4 WHTK, p. 10,703; edicts to the Grand Council, 1867–68, covering deliberations of the Six Boards and the Nine Ministries on reports from the Korean King, the Board of Rites, and ranking military officials at Mukden, SL-TC, 210.23b-24b, 225.31a–33a, 226.31a–b, 227.20b–21a.

5 HTSL, 511.4a-b, 9b-10a; 512.8b-9a; IWSM-TC, 21.23a-25b.

6 HTSL, 511.3a, 512.19a.

7 HTSL, 511.1a, 4a–b, and passim.

8 HTSL, 511.6a, 16b.

9 HT, 39.13a-15a; HTSL, 510.22b and passim; 511.6b; 512.4b; WHTK, pp. 10,701–02.

10 Meadows to Bruce, Nov. 18,1862, Parliamentary Papers, China, No. 4. (1864), p. 6.

11 There are vivid details in Charles Dallet, Hisloire de l'église de Corée (Paris, 1874), I, clxxxviii-clxxxix.

12 IWSM–TC, 47.19b–20a, 26b–28a, 32b–33a; WHTK, p. 10,703.

13 For example, HTSL, 511.7b.

14 For the statutory provisions see HT, 39.11a–b; HTSL, 15.13a; 502.15a-b; 504.21b–22a; 513, passim; 514.12b–13b; IWSM-TC, 57.22a–23b.

15 The envoy K'uei-ling, who was sent to Korea during the critical autumn of 1866, wrote i n his travel account that upon returning to Peking he was received in audience by the Emperor. “The Emperor interrogated me during this audience on all the affairs of Korea; I gave respectful and detailed replies on all points.” See his Tung-shih chi-shih shih-lūeh (postface winter 1866–67), trans, by F. Scherzer under the title Journal d'une mission en Corée (Paris, 1877), p. 38. From the diary itself, however, the reader will learn nothing about “the affairs of Korea.” Its pages are filled with details on ceremonial, the routines of travel, and a few passing comments on the scenery and the inferior Korean accommodations. K'uei-ling must have talked seriously with the prefect of Pyongyong when he passed through, for the recent burning of the General Sherman there had raised international complications (see below). But from the diary one would suppose that th e two officials confined themselves to the literary game of capping each other's rhymes, the results being copied on to fans as mementos. The account by Hua-sha-na and others of an 1845 mission is similar; see Tung-shih chi-lüeh (preface 1848).

16 See below, n. 71.

17 HT, 39.2a–10a; HTSL, 295.18a, 21a; 297.3a; 503–509, 297, and 514, passim; Ming-Ch'ing shih-liao, 1st Ser., Vol. X, passim; Wen-hsien ts'ung-pien, Vol. XXIV, Sec. 8, passim.

18 HTSL, 502.22b, 512.21b.

19 See, e.g., HTSL, 510.22a. It is worth noting as a sign of Chinese laxity that some of the violators of the regulations had evidently succeeded in selling copper and ginseng in Tientsin, Anhwei, and other points remote from their supposed route (HTSL, 512.20a–21b). The tributary mission's trade is discussed in George M. McCune, “Korean Relations with China and Japan, 1800–1864,” diss. (Univ. of California, 1941), pp. 18ff.; and in Carl F. Bartz, Jr., “The Korean Seclusion Policy, 1860–1876,” (diss., Univ. of California, 1952), pp. 26–29.

20 Text of an offending letter, 1866, IWSM-TC, 45.22b–25a; demotion by the Korean King, of the envoy who wrote it, CSS, Vol. VI-4, p. 120.

21 Order for an investigation, 1865, HTSL, 509.19a.

22 HTSL, 511.3a. In this case, I interpret the rule as intended to keep Korea secluded rather than to prevent information about China from leaking abroad.

23 Dallet (n. 11), I, 11–12, 13–20; Yamaguchi Masayuki, “Shinchō ni okeru zai-Shi Ōjin to Chōsen shishin” [“Europeans in China and the Korean Envoys during the Ch'ing Period”], Shigaku zasshi, XLIV, 7 (1933), 1–30; Bartz (n. 19), pp. 25–26.

24 HTSL, 512.31–4b; see also 504.15a.

25 HTSL, 504.1b–2a.

26 HTSL, 503.21a–b, 511.19b–20a, 512.8b–9a; WHTK, pp. 10,702–03; Memorial of the President of the Board of Rites, in T'ung-chih chung-hsing ching-wai tsou-i yüeh-pien [Memorials of Metropolitan and Provincial Officials of the T'ung-chih Restoration], comp. by Ch'en T'ao (1875), 6.40a–41b.

27 HTSL, 512.14a–15a, 20b.

28 Dallet, II, 467–469; Homer B. Hulbert, The History of Korea (Seoul, 1905), II, 200–202.

29 The program is summarized in Bartz (n. 19), pp. 67–69.

30 M. C. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862–1874 (Stanford, Calif., 1957), Chap. x.

31 HTSL, 512.11a–b; SL-TK, 222.31a; WHTK, p. 10,702; CSS, VI-2, pp 4.16–120.

32 IWSM-TK, 74.25b–26a; SL-TK, 421.22b–23a; CSS, VI-3, pp. 113–114.

33 Exchange of correspondence and Tsungli-yamen memorial, IWSM-TC, 42.50b–53b.

34 Korean report, IWSM-TC, 45.1a–7a; Western reports in NCH, Dec. 1, 1866; account from the Yi Dynasty Annals, Western and Chinese documents, and other sources in Cable (n. 1 above), pp. 11–53; further supporting material in K. Jack Bauer, “The Korean Expedition of 1871,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. LXXIV, No. 540 (Feb. 1948), p. 197.

35 The yamen was basing this judgment on its dealings with Anson Burlingame and S. Wells Williams. It picked up a rumor in Chefoo that the United States and France were planning a joint expedition to force the opening of Korea, but discounted it (IWSM-TC, 47.20a–23a). In fact, Secretary of State Seward did propose such an expedition on March 2, 1867. It was France that held back, thus preventing what would have been a complete about-face in U. S. Far Eastern policy. See Harold J. Noble, “Korea and Her Relations with the United States before 1895,” diss. (Univ. California, 1931), pp. 34–35.

36 See below.

37 Williams to the Tsungli-yamen, Nov. 11, 1866, IWSM-TC, 45.15a–b; Tsungli-yamen memorial of March 11, 1868, and attached exchange of notes with Alcock and Williams, IWSM-TC, 57.22a–28a; Korean report, presented July 28, 1868, IWSM-TC, 60.13b–15a; Tsungli-yamen memorial of Aug. 1,1868, IWSM-TC, 60.18b–19b; NCH, May 30,1868; Dallet (n. 11), II, 570.

38 For the Korean report presented Nov. 8, 1866, see IWSM-TC, 45.1a–5b; for other reports see n. 37 above. See also the court record of the prosecution of F. H. B. Jenkins in the U. S. Consular Court at Shanghai, NCH, July 11, 1868. Oppert's own account (A Forbidden Land: Voyages to the Corea [New York, 1880]) must be used with considerable caution.

39 The Low mission is carefully described, with substantial excerpts from both Korean and American documents, in Cable (n. 1), pp. 63–121; see also Bartz, (n. 19) pp. 101–107.

40 Tsungli-yamen memorials of March 12, with enclosures, and April 30, 1871, IWSM-TC, 80.12a–15a, 39b–40a; Board of Rites memorial of March 12, 1871, IWSM-TC, 80.19b–20b.

41 Korean letter presented June 4, 1871, IWSM-TC, 81.8a–12a.

42 Low to Fish, June 20, 1871, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1871–78, p. 128; substantiated by U. S. Naval Archives, Bauer (n. 34), pp. 198–203.

43 Low to Fish, June 20, 1871, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1871–72, p. 129.

44 Korean report presented Sept. 18, 1871, with attached correspondence between the Low mission and Korean coastal officials, IWSM-TC, 83.3b–15a.

45 Tsungli-yamen memorial of Oct. 9, 1871, and attached correspondence with S. Wells Williams, IWSM-TC, 83.27b–30b.

46 Tsungli-yamen memorials, edict, and enclosures, Dec. 24, 1871, IWSM-TC, 84.16b–24b.

47 WHTK, pp. 10, 702–03.

48 Korean report presented March 22, 1867, IWSM-TC, 47.25b–26b; Tsungli-yamen memorial and edict, April 12, 1867, IWSM-TC, 48.5a–7b; SL-TC, 198.16a–17a; Board of Rites memorials and Korean reports presented June 8 and June 20, 1867, IWSM-TC, 49.3b–5a, 11a–12a; Memorial of the Military Governor of Kirin reporting his unsuccessful efforts to verify the Korean reports, June 19, 1867, IWSM-TC, 49.7b–10b.

49 Board of Rites memorial and Korean letter, Sept. 16, 1868, IWSM-TC, 61.1a–3a; Tsungli-yamen memorial, Sept. 29, 1868. IWSM-TC, 61.10b–11b.

50 Tsungli-yamen memorial of July 27, 1864, IWSM-TC, 26.41a–42a.

51 Memorials of the military governor of Kirin of March 18 and June 19, 1867, reporting questioning of refugees, IWSM-TC, 47.19b–20a, 49.7b–10b.

52 Report from Kirin, quoted in Tsungli-yamen memorial, March 27, 1867, IWSM-TC, 47.28a–30b.

53 See the references in Bartz, pp. 71–72 n.

54 Memorial of the Board of Rites, Dec. 7,1869, citing reports from Ninguta, IWSM-TC, 70.1b–3b.

55 For example, 1867 incident reported by Korea, IWSM-TC, 47.25b–26b.

56 Korean letter presented March 25, 1870, IWSM-TC, 71.36a–38a; memorial of the Board of Rites, Oct. 7, 1870, IWSM-TC, 77.15b–18a; WHTK, p. 10,704.

57 Tsungli-yamen memorial and edict, Oct. 24, 1870, IWSM-TC, 78.1a–3a.

58 Korean letters presented Feb. 6, 1871, IWSM-TC, 79.54a–57b.

59 Percival Lowell, Choson, The Land of the Morning Calm (Boston, 1886), Chap. xix.

60 Kusuda Fusaburō, Chōsen tenshukyö koshi [A Short History of Catholicism in Korea] (Fusan [Pusan], 1934), pp. 7–8.

61 Ibid., Table following p. 374.

62 Bartz, p. 43.

63 Korean report, IWSM-TK, 78.24b–26a; memorial of Ch'i-ying, IWSM-TK, 78.23a–24b; WHTK, p. 10,703. Kusuda, pp. 56–64; Hulbert (n. 28 above), II, 197–200.

64 The appearance of a Russian gunboat in January 1866 seems to have persuaded certain prominent Korean Catholics to urge the Taewongun to ally himself with the Western powers against Russia, to use Catholic priests as negotiators, and to revoke the prohibition against Christianity. It appears that the priests themselves were reluctant to become embroiled. Whether the Taewongun thought he had been tricked by the converts when the Russian ship disappeared without causing trouble, whether he thought the priests were playing a devious game, or whether the whole affair was a ruse of the extreme antiforeign party is not clear. See Kusuda, pp. 98–99; Hulbert, II, 205–06; CSS, VI-4, pp. 64 ff.

65 See Bishop Berneux's letters of 1864–65, Dallet (n. 11), II, 501–505, 510.

66 For the details see Dallet, II, 521–570.

67 NCH, Chefoo correspondent, July 21, 1866.

68 IWSM-TC, 42.54a–b; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1867, Pt. I, pp. 420 ff.

69 Korean report, IWSM-TC, 47.1a-3a; two Western accounts, NCH, Dec. 1, 1866; Bartz, pp. 82–87.

70 Tsungli-yamen memorial, with attached reply to Bellonet, July 18, 1866, IWSM-TC, 42.50b–51b, 54b–55a.

71 First warning authorized Aug. 1, second warning authorized Oct. 1, IWSM-TC, 42.65b–66a, 44.14a. The Tsungli-yamen publicly denied tha t China's envoys to Korea transmitted political messages (IWSM-TC, 45.29a–b), and in the whole of the HTSL, which was in general circulation, I can find only one ambiguous reference (504.22b). However, the facts are clear from the nonpublic documents in IWSM, and were widely known at the time. According to Dallet (n. 11 above), II, 570, a special envoy from China arrived with a warning so secret that the strongly anti-Christian envoy then in Peking knew nothing of it. “But in Korea nothing is secret.” Copies of the warning and the Korean reply soon circulated throughout Korea, and were discussed in the Treaty ports of China (NCH, Dec. 8, 1866).

72 Korean letter presented Sept. 29, 1866, IWSM-TC, 44.12a–b.

73 Bellonet's dispatch, received Oct. 24, and Tsungli-yamen reply of Nov. 4, 1866, IWSM-TC, 45.14a–15a.

74 IWSM-TC, 45.26b–29a.

75 IWSM-TC, 45.29a–b. See n. 71 above.

76 Tsungli-yamen's note to the four ministers, IWSM-TC, 45.30a; memorial reviewing this and other measures, Nov. 26, 1866, IWSM-TC, 45.25b–26b.

77 IWSM-TC, 46.14a–b.

78 IWSM-TC, 46.15a–16b.

79 IWSM-TC, 46.12a–13a. There was considerable criticism of the French action among Westerners in China (NCH, Dec. 8, 1866).

80 IWSM-TC, 46.13b–14a, 47.8b–10a.

81 IWSM-TC, 47.20a-23a.

82 Korean letter presented Feb. 16, 1867, IWSM-TC, 47.1a–3a; further letter, identical in tone, presented June 20, 1867, IWSM-TC, 49.12a–13a.

83 The second Korean letter presented Feb. 16, 1867, IWSM-TC, 47.5a.

84 France, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Documents diplomatiques, 1867, No. VIII, p. 16.

85 Hulbert (n. 28), II, 201–11; Dallet, I, cxc-cxci.

86 Inscription translated in Cable, p. 62.

87 Memorial of Sept. 2, 1879, Ch'ing-chi wai-chiao shih-liao, 16.11b–13a.

88 Tsungli-yamen memorial of March 20, 1867, IWSM-TC, 47.20a–23a. See also CSS, VI-4, p. 142, and Watanabe Katsumi, Chōsen kaikoku gaikō shi kenkyū [A Diplomatic History of the Opening of Korea] (Keijo [Seoul], 1937), pp. 134 ff.

89 IWSM-TC, 47.23a–b.

90 Board of Rites memorial and Korean letter acknowledging the clippings, May 27, 1867, IWSM-TC, 48.25b–27a. Board of Rites memorial, Korean letter, and attached letter of reassurance from Japan to Korea, Jan. 16, 1868, IWSM-TC, 56.19a-20b.

91 Tsungli-yamen memorial of July 13, 1874, IWSM-TC, 94.37a–b.

92 Board of Rites memorial and Korean letter, Sept. 24, 1874, IWSM-TC, 97.15a–17a; Tsungli-yamen memorial pointing out that China could do nothing further and that the decision must rest with Korea, Oct. 5, 1874, IWSM-TC, 97.27b–28a.

93 Memorial of Ting Jih-ch'ang, 1879, WHTK, p. 10,704.