In Traditions, Treaties, and Trade, Kirk Larsen seeks to reinterpret Qing policy in Korea in the second half of the nineteenth century. He rejects the standard view that sees the Qing state as engaged in the conservative preservation of the tribute system in Korea. Instead, Larsen portrays Qing officials creatively utilizing the tools of European informal empire and unequal treaties to assert Qing power and promote Chinese commercial interests in the Korean peninsula. While Larsen is not, as he admits, the first to suggest that Qing policy was imperialistic, this volume pursues this interpretation far more systematically than previous works and develops it into a coherent narrative.
The first two chapters, focusing on the period up to 1882, synthesize a wide range of Chinese-, Korean-, and English-language sources. They discuss Qing relations with Choson Korea before the nineteenth century through the tribute system, the challenges to this relationship in the 1850–82 period, and the efforts of Li Hongzhang and other Qing officials to convince the Choson leadership that it must open to the outside world. Three events in 1882 marked the turning point: Li Hongzhang's negotiation of the Sheffeldt Treaty between Korea and the United States, direct Qing intervention in Korean politics after the Imo soldiers rebellion, and the signing of a commercial treaty between the Qing empire and Choson Korea.
The core of the book consists of a close analysis of the residency of Yuan Shikai from 1882 to 1894. Larsen focuses on the efforts of Yuan and other Qing officials to promote a variety of state-supported Chinese economic ventures, including a telegraph line, commercial steamship service between China and the Korea, and loans to the Choson government. In perhaps the most impressive chapters of the book, Larsen demonstrates that Qing officials encouraged Chinese merchants to move actively into the Korean market, where they quickly emerged as the most important players in the nascent international trade. Even after the disastrous defeat of Qing forces in the Sino-Japanese War, Larsen finds that Chinese merchants continued to play a central role and that Qing diplomats persevered in their efforts to protect them. Only after 1905, as the Japanese government established special privileges and moved decisively toward colonial government, did Chinese mercantile activity wane.
While outlines of the diplomatic aspects of this history could be gleaned from works by Key-huin Kim, Louis Sigel, and others, there is a great deal that is new to Larsen's book. First, like a number of recent scholars, he tends to deemphasize the notion (generally associated with John Fairbank) of a Sinocentric tribute system as the sole framework by which Chinese understood relations with the outside world. He draws on the recent scholarship on the efforts of the Qing state to manage frontier areas (citing Peter Perdue, Laura Hostetler, Emma Teng, James Millward, and others) to reconsider the ambiguous Qing–Choson relationship, which entailed both Korean submission to Qing overlordship and, until 1882, Qing noninterference in Korean politics. Larsen points out that Qing activism in Korea from 1882 onward paralleled intensified Qing political involvement in a number of frontier areas, including Xinjiang and Tibet.
Larsen's most original contribution is his discussion of Qing utilization of many of the tools of European “informal empire”—extraterritoriality, fixed tariffs, loans, foreign involvement in customs administration, and the emphasis on promoting commerce. In part, not surprisingly, this effort sought to limit the expansion of Japanese political influence, but Larsen shows that significant economic interests were involved as well. Drawing inspiration from studies of British imperial expansion in the nineteenth century, Larsen suggests that many developments originated not from the Zongli Yamen in Beijing or even Li Hongzhang's Tianjin headquarters, but from aggressive “men on the spot,” such as Yuan Shikai. These moves drew support from the ostensibly “conservative” purist party (qingliudang) activists, who were sharp critics of Li Hongzhang. For those who take seriously textbook notions about the passivity of Qing foreign policy in this era, this book will be an eye-opener.
Traditions, Treaties and Trade has its limitations. There could be more attention to the ideological frameworks shaping Qing policy; both the attitudes of the purists and the idea of “commercial war,” which Larsen suggests motivated those involved in shaping Qing policy in Korea, deserve more analysis. I also wish that the book said more about Korean views of Qing efforts. Readers looking for a deep discussion of Sino-Japanese relations in this period, or Japanese involvement in Korea, will need to look elsewhere. But no study can be comprehensive. This is an important and stimulating work, and it deserves to be widely read.
