1. Introduction
Many scholars, both of the East and the West, have posited their hypotheses for the meaning of
chung-kuk/
chung-kuo/
zhongguo 中國, and some have criticized the inappropriateness of the usage of the term in historiography, along with its usage in connection with the word ‘China’. But there seems to be no definite consensus as for how the term
chung-kuk 中國 has to be construed or qualified in different contexts, particularly in those of historical narratives. Peter K. Bol, in his paper “Reflections on the Zhong Guo and the Yi Di with Reference to the Middle Period,” poses the question of whether it was ever contended that “the
zhong guo as a cultural entity belonged to or was defined by the entire population rather than the national cultural and political elite” and yet he mixes the alleged “possession of a high culture that set the
zhong guo apart,” with the claim “that China possesses a unique and moral culture that sets it apart from all others and places it beyond external criticism.”
| [1] | Bol, Peter K. “Reflections on the Zhong Guo and the Yi Di with Reference to the Middle Period,” The China Review, May 2023, Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 102. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48726992 |
[1]
This is but one recent example of how so many authors are still mired, inadvertently or not, in ahistorical correspondence between 中國 and ‘China’, disregarding the fact that it was not until after the People’s Republic of China was set up in 1949 that
zhongguo began to be used as a shorthand for the former. Early editorial pieces by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao 梁啓超 admitted that "one most embarrassing thing for us is that our polity has no name" [吾人所最慚愧者莫如我國無國名之一事]
before he talked of
chung-kuo or
chung-hua/
zhonghua 中華 in an anticipation of a broader collectivity with a new governing order in some of his early editorial pieces.
| [2] | Liang Ch'i-ch'ao 梁啓超, Yin-ping-shih-wen-chi飮冰室文集 [Collected Works of Yin-ping-shih (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao)], Book 3 (第三冊) No. 6 (文集之六), Prolegomenon to a history of chung-kuk (中國史敍論), 1901 (Taipei: Chung Hwa Book Company (臺灣中華書國), 民國59年(1970), 三(p. 3)). |
[2]
Admittedly, the state
chung-hua min-kuo 中華民國, which was set up in 1912, was called by its people in short
min-kuo 民國, not
chung-kuo 中國. The independence declaration of March 1, 1919, by Chosŏn 朝鮮 intellectuals and activists against Japanese rule, spoke of
chi-na/
shina/
zhina ("Sina" in Latin) 支那, not /ˈtʃʌɪnə/ or
chung-kuk 中國.
Historically, the polities that perched on the East Asian continent, the land of which has been occupied by the People’s Republic of China only since 1949, had not been called
Chi-
na/
Shina/
Sina 支那 nor as
chung-kuk 中國 by the people thereof. Instead, it had been called by the name of the ruling dynasty that held domestic hegemony over the polity and people under it. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao said that such names as
che-
ha/
chu-
hsia諸夏,
han-
in/
han-
jen(
hanren) 漢人,
tang-
in/
t'ang-
jen(
tangren) 唐人 are all from the dynasties concerned, and other names like
chin-
tan/
chen-
tan 震旦, and
chi-
na/
chih-
na 支那 were not ones by which his compatriots would call themselves.
| [2] | Liang Ch'i-ch'ao 梁啓超, Yin-ping-shih-wen-chi飮冰室文集 [Collected Works of Yin-ping-shih (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao)], Book 3 (第三冊) No. 6 (文集之六), Prolegomenon to a history of chung-kuk (中國史敍論), 1901 (Taipei: Chung Hwa Book Company (臺灣中華書國), 民國59年(1970), 三(p. 3)). |
[2]
Galeote Pereira found out that the people he encountered in the southern part of the continent during the mid-sixteenth century had not heard of the names ‘China’ or ‘Chins’ but would call themselves
Tamenjins –
Ta Ming Jen 大明人, ‘Great Ming person (or people)’ – as subjects of the ruling dynasty
Tamen (
Ta Ming 大明, ‘Great Ming’) in an admission that they had not identified themselves with a piece of territory or as belonging to an ethnic group.
| [3] | C. R. Boxer (ed.), South China in the Sixteenth Century (1550-1575): Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P., Fr. Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A., (1550-1575), London: The Hakluyt Society, Second Series No. 106, p. 29. |
[3]
An official of the late Ch'ing 淸, named Chang Te-i 張德彝, complained that Westerners insisted to call
chung-kuk 中國by the names
Zhaina/
Qina (China),
Shiyin(La Chine),
Zhina(Shina), knowing that
chung-kuk was called
Ta Ch'ing Kuo 大淸國 (Great Ch'ing State) or
Chung-hua 中華 (Central Efflorescence).
Numerous commentators so far described
chung-kuk 中國 as ‘Middle Kingdom’
, ‘Central Kingdoms’
| [6] | Mencius, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by D. C. Lau, Revised Edition, Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 12, 48, 117. |
[6]
, ‘central states’
| [5] | Fairbank, John K. “A Preliminary Framework” In John King Fairbank, The Chinese World Order: Traditional Chi-na's Foreign Relations, Harvard University Press, 1968, pp. 2-3. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674333482.c3 |
| [7] | Esherick, Joseph W. “How the Qing became China” In Esherick, Joseph W., Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, eds. Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World, Rowman & Littlefield Publish-ers, 2006, pp. 232, 237. |
[5, 7]
or even ‘central country’
| [8] | Bol, Peter K. “Geography and Culture: The Middle-Period Discourse on the Zhong guo - the Central Country” In Huang Ying-kuei, ed. Space and Cultural Fields: Spatial Images, Practices and Social Production, Taibei: Center for Chi-nese Studies, 2009, pp. 61-106. |
[8]
but all these phrases are off the mark at least for the period since the fourteenth century until the nineteenth century, while ‘central states’ might be a valid description as an earlier usage for the collection of states during the Spring and Autumn (春秋) period.
| [9] | Granet, Marcel. Chinese Civilization, trans. by Kathleen E. Innes and Mabel R. Brailsford, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1930, p. 76. |
[9]
中國 had always connoted “the primacy of a culturally distinct core area,” being often applied to “the area directly administered by the imperial state.”
| [7] | Esherick, Joseph W. “How the Qing became China” In Esherick, Joseph W., Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, eds. Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World, Rowman & Littlefield Publish-ers, 2006, pp. 232, 237. |
[7]
But
chung-kuk 中國 did not exist as any territorial entity per se or a country in any modern sense. If the character 國 is to be construed as dynastic government, given the example
kuk-
mal/
kuo-
mo 國末 – which may be translated as "the final period of the dynastic government’s rule" – used by Ch'oe Nam-sŏn 崔南善
| [10] | Ch'oe, Nam-sŏn 崔南善. Chosŏn-sang-sik: che-to-p'yŏn 朝鮮常識 制度篇 [General Knowledge of Chosŏn: Governance System], Seoul: Tong-myŏng-sa 東明社, 1948, p. 15. |
[10]
, it would be appropriate to render 中國 as the
Central Dynasty or
Central Government, with the capital letters to emphasize its contemporary uniqueness and hegemony.
| [11] | Chun, Jihoon. “Sangguk-sokpang 上國-屬邦: Ch'ing-Chosŏn 淸-朝鮮 Confucian Protectorate, 1881-1895,” PhD dissertation, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2023, pp. 12-13. https://doi.org/10.13154/294-10619 |
[11]
This study, as a revisionist re-examination of the meaning of chung-kuk 中國 that defies any presentism, seeks to contribute both to rectifying an East Asian historiography and a historiography in general that tend to, knowingly or not, conflate chung-kuk and ‘China’ into a single construct, and to more accurately contextualizing the concept of chung-kuk. Challenging existing assumptions, it draws on a textual analysis of part of Hunmin chŏng'ŭm 訓民正音 (Correct Sounds for Instructing the People), historical texts spanning several centuries, and related cultural studies to examine the term’s signification by tracing its historical, linguistic, and political dimensions anew. In this critical reconsideration of how the term should be carefully construed in each case to be faithful as much as possible to what the texts and interlocutors have to say, one central argument is that it would be rational to regard chung-kuk in the words of King Sejong 世宗 in Hunmin chŏng'ŭm as the seat of the Chosŏn emperor’s court from which language standardization policy would emanate.
2. Chung-kuk 中國 as Reflected in Hunmin chŏng'ŭm 訓民正音
The historicity of
chung-kuk/
chung-kuo 中國 has yet to be clarified. One of the surviving records with its unequivocal reference to the term is
Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae 訓民正音諺解 (Vernacular Annotation of Correct Sounds for Instructing the People) published as part of
wŏl-in-sŏk-po 月印釋譜 in 1459, thirteen years after King Sejong’s promulgation of
Hunmin chŏng'ŭm. According to the Annotation, c
hung-kuk, as the "seat of government of the Emperor" [中듕國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᆼ帝뎽겨신나라히니], “has been referred to in our daily expressions as "
south of the River"” [우리나랏常썅談땀애江강南남이라ᄒᆞᄂᆞ니라] (See
Figure 1 below).
Figure 1. Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae 訓民正音諺解 (the first two pages with the term 中國 and the commentary on it: 中듕國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᆼ帝뎽겨신나라히니우리나랏常썅談땀애江강南남이라ᄒᆞᄂᆞ니라 [highlighting by author]) (Source: Sogang University Loyola Library, https://mms.hangeul.go.kr/koreanHeritage/3).
2.1. A Linguistic Analysis of the First Part of Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae with the Phrases on Chung-kuk 中國
To put this in a proper context, the first part of Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae containing these phrases has to be analyzed.
The first phrases of the Annotation, which succinctly proclaims the rationale of why King Sejong and his aides decided to come up with the new system based on the old seal scripts (古篆) and combining phonemes of the language in syllabic units, before getting into the explanations on each phoneme in the new writing system to be called Chŏng'ŭm 正音 (literally, "Correct Sounds"), read as following:
國귁之징語ᅌᅥᆼ音ᅙᅳᆷ이 (Language sounds of each region, called kuk 國, are)
나·랏:말ᄊᆞ·미
異잉乎ᅘᅩᆼ中듀ᇰ國귁ᄒᆞ야 (different from that of the central region, chung-kuk 中國)
中듕國·귁·에달·아
與영文문字ᄍᆞᆼ로不부ᇙ相샤ᇰ流류ᇢ通토ᇰᄒᆞᆯᄊᆡ (such that they are not compatible with the written language, muncha 文字)
文문字·ᄍᆞᆼ·와·로서르ᄉᆞᄆᆞᆺ·디아·니ᄒᆞᆯ·ᄊᆡ
故공로愚ᅌᅮᆼ民민이有ᅌᅮᇢ所송欲욕言ᅌᅥᆫᄒᆞ야도 (for this reason, even when the ordinary people want to say something)
이런젼·ᄎᆞ·로어·린百·ᄇᆡᆨ姓·셩·이니르·고·져· 호ᇙ·배이·셔·도
而ᅀᅵᆼ終쥬ᇰ不부ᇙ得득伸신其끵情쪄ᇰ者쟝ㅣ多당矣ᅌᅴᆼ라 (many of them end up not being able to express their thoughts and feeling in words.)
ᄆᆞ·ᄎᆞᆷ:내제·ᄠᅳ·들시·러펴·디:몯ᄒᆞᇙ·노·미하·니·라
予영ㅣ爲윙此ᄎᆞᆼ憫민然ᅀᅧᆫᄒᆞ야 (Out of compassion for them, I [King Sejong])
내·이·ᄅᆞᆯ爲·윙·ᄒᆞ·야:어엿·비너·겨
新신制졩二ᅀᅵᆼ十씹八바ᇙ字ᄍᆞᆼᄒᆞ노니 (have newly come up with 28 characters)
새·로·스·믈여·듧字·ᄍᆞᆼ·ᄅᆞᆯᄆᆡᆼ·ᄀᆞ노·니
欲욕使ᄉᆞᆼ人ᅀᅵᆫ人ᅀᅵᆫᄋᆞ로易잉習씹ᄒᆞ야便뼌於ᅙᅥᆼ日ᅀᅵᇙ用요ᇰ耳ᅀᅵᆼ니라 (to make it easy for everyone to learn and use them every day.)
:사ᄅᆞᆷ:마·다:ᄒᆡ·ᅇᅧ:수·ᄫᅵ니·겨·날·로·ᄡᅮ·메便뼌安ᅙᅡᆫ·킈ᄒᆞ·고·져ᄒᆞᇙᄯᆞᄅᆞ·미니·라
According to these phrases, the primary purpose of devising the new phonetic system, consisting of 28 vernacular characters with which to transcribe hanmun 漢文 texts and hancha 漢字 characters, Chŏng'ŭm (Correct Sounds), was to standardize many different local variants in language. A standard system of language sounds compatible with the written language, hanmun composed of hancha, would serve as the official and common basis in national language life on a daily basis in facilitating communication and societal development: for anyone wishing to express their thoughts and feelings to easily learn the system and use it for daily needs [欲욕使ᄉᆞᆼ人ᅀᅵᆫ人ᅀᅵᆫᄋᆞ로易잉習씹ᄒᆞ야便뼌於ᅙᅥᆼ日ᅀᅵᇙ用요ᇰ耳ᅀᅵᆼ 니라].
The first three lines describe how the local language variants had caused problems in national life. Language sounds of the numerous constituent polities within Chosŏn – called
kuk/
kuo(
guo) 國, technically singular but actually representing multiple provinces, (semi-)autonomous regions – were all different from the language sound of the "central government" –
chung-kuk 中國, as a singular – such that the dialects could not correspond to the written language,
muncha 文字. Consequently, the new system aimed at accurate transliteration of the sounds of the written language and unifying as much as possible the pronunciation of dialects into the standard of
chung-kuk.
| [13] | Sejong sillok 世宗實錄 [Annals of King Sejong], twenty-fifth reign year of King Sejong, twelfth month, thirtieth day (second entry) (Jan. 19, 1444):...是月上親制諺文二十八字其字倣 古篆分爲初中終聲合之然後乃成字凡干文字及本國俚語皆可得而書字雖簡要轉換無窮是謂訓民正音 https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kda_12512030_002 |
| [14] | Bibliographie coréenne: tableau littéraire de la Corée, contenant la nomencla-ture des ouvrages publiés dans ce pays jusqu'en 1890 ainsi que la description et l'analyse détaillées des princi-paux d'entre ces ouvrages [Corean Bibliography: Literary Inventory of Corea, Containing the Titles of the Works Published in the Country up to 1890 Together with a Detailed Description and Analysis of the Main Works], Tome Premier, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894, Introduction XCIII. |
| [15] | Lee Sung-nyŏng 李崇寧. “Sejoing-ŭi ŏn-ŏ-chŏng-ch'aek-e tae-han yŏn-ku” 世宗의 言語政策에 關한 硏究 [A Study on Sejong’s Language policy], A-se-a Yŏn-ku (亞細亞硏究), Vol. 2(2), 1958, p. 50. |
[13-15]
Here,
chung-kuk has to be construed as the political/cultural center of the Chosŏn territory from which the standard of national language should come into existence. There should be no reason for the king to devise a phonetic system that corresponds to that of a
foreign entity when designing one for daily usage throughout the provinces and regions of Chosŏn.
2.2. Chung-kuk 中國Reified by the Name ‘China’ Is a Fiction, Historically
The promulgation of
Hunmin chŏng'ŭm in 1446 falls into the period when the so-called ‘Ming China’ is said to have existed on the East Asian continent. Although many writers would use the term ‘Ming China’ as if it were a "country" that allegedly covered a vast territory between 1368 and 1644, it is clearly a misnomer underpinning a teleological distortion of history and should be avoided (along with ‘Qing China’). Some commentators even translate the first two lines as “The sounds of the nation’s language are different from those of China…”
but this is a grave misrepresentation. First, ‘China’ is a perennial red herring. The Western term ‘China’ has only become equated with a modern ‘nation-state’ in the early twentieth century.
| [8] | Bol, Peter K. “Geography and Culture: The Middle-Period Discourse on the Zhong guo - the Central Country” In Huang Ying-kuei, ed. Space and Cultural Fields: Spatial Images, Practices and Social Production, Taibei: Center for Chi-nese Studies, 2009, pp. 61-106. |
[8]
‘China’ or ‘Chinese’, until the twentieth century, “did not have native equivalents.”
As aptly observed by Lydia Lyu, “the English terms "China" and "the Chinese" do not translate the indigenous terms
hua,
xia,
han, or even
zhongguo now or at any given point in history.”
| [19] | Liu, Lydia. The Clash of Empires, Harvard University Press, 2004, p. 80. |
[19]
As mentioned above, ‘China’ did not exist at all as a country before the early years of the twentieth century, and as modern nation-states were invented, it was invented as one, “in the context of establishing the equality of the country in international relations and creating a Western-style nation-state, a "China" to which the "Chinese" could be loyal.”
| [8] | Bol, Peter K. “Geography and Culture: The Middle-Period Discourse on the Zhong guo - the Central Country” In Huang Ying-kuei, ed. Space and Cultural Fields: Spatial Images, Practices and Social Production, Taibei: Center for Chi-nese Studies, 2009, pp. 61-106. |
| [20] | Harrison, Henrietta. China, Hodder Arnold, 2001. |
[8, 20]
Second, the term
Myŏng/
Ming 明, as used in the terms 明朝 or 明國, was not a name of any country or nation in its modern sense. It was a specific example of
dynastic government, not a territorial entity. In a copy of
Ch'ŏn-
ha-
che-
pŏn-
sik-
kong-
to/
t'ien-
hsia-
chu-
fan-
shih-
kung-
t'u 天下諸番識貢圖 (World Map of Tribute-bearing Polities), the part of the East Asian continent which the People’s Republic of China now occupies is marked as 皇朝聖土 (Imperial Dynasty’s Sacred Land)
| [21] | 1418年「天下諸番識貢圖」摹本 [1418 Facsimile of the World Map of Tribute-bearing Polities] (Liu Kang (劉鋼), 《古地圖大密碼》[The Great Code of Ancient Maps] (Taipei: Lingking Books (聯經出版公司), Nov. 2010, http://www.pro-classic.com/ethnicgv/cmaps/2010/gdtmm-1.htm)) |
[21]
: dynasty (朝) could command the people on land (土) but dynasty cannot be equated with any land.
The character 國 was used to generically refer to
dynastic states, that is, dynastic governments that had jurisdiction – not necessarily exclusive – over some regions, and cannot and must not be construed as something of a territorial entity. That
kuk/
kuo(
guo) 國 cannot be a territorial entity is shown in such examples as
kuk-
mal 國末, as mentioned above, and
kuk-
ch'o-
si/
kuo-
ch'u-
shih 國初時 (at the beginning of the dynastic government’s rule).
| [22] | Seungjeongwon Ilgi 承政院日記 [The Daily Records of Royal Secretariat of the Chosŏn Dynasty], the year King Yŏngjo’s 英祖 accession to the throne (卽位年), eleventh month, twenty-ninth day (twenty-sixth entry, 26/34)) (Jan. 13, 1725). https://sjw.history.go.kr/id/SJW-F00110290-02600 |
[22]
Thus it becomes clear that the conception of
chung-kuk 中國 as a nation-state reified by the name ‘China’ based on a Western invention is a fiction and that
chung-kuk 中國 cannot be a name of any country, nation, or territorial entity itself.
2.3. Further Deliberation on Chung-kuk 中國
While there existed no dynasty or government that went by the name
chung-kuk 中國 during the reign of King Sejong, the meaning of
chung-kuk is unequivocally given in the Annotation as follows, marked in red on
Figure 1 above: 中듀ᇰ國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽겨신나라히니우리나랏常쌰ᇰ談땀애江강南남이라ᄒᆞᄂᆞ니라 [中듀ᇰ國귁(
chung-kuk) is the place where the Emperor governs and resides, which has been called "South of River" in our everyday discourse]. This explanation has two elements in it: first,
chung-kuk is the place where the Emperor governs and resides (“中듀ᇰ國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽겨신나라히니”); second, it has been called "South of River" in everyday vernacular at the time.
The first phrase, 中듀ᇰ國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽겨신나라히니, indicates that chung-kuk had never meant a state associated with modern territoriality or a territorially delimited country with a government and the people governed by it. That chung-kuk is the seat of imperial government implies the existence of regions which are not so and the latter is referred to as kuk/kuo 國, which did not mean a territorial country either, as explained above, and is to be understood in contradistinction to chung-kuk. On the other hand, there are innumerable references to Tong-I/Tung-I 東夷 or, for that matter, to Sa-I/Ssu-I 四夷 – regardless of the fact that these terms now often carry derogatory connotations – in historical records, and if the East Asian continent were all to be designated by chung-kuk, the referents of Tong-I or Sa-I could not have been located anywhere in the continent. Rather, in the above-mentioned phrase, chung-kuk was used as a sui generis symbol in so far as the Emperor, as not plural, commands a unique authority over all the spheres where such an authority would be accepted in one form or another, though in varying degrees.
Given the Emperor (皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽) signifies the ruler with the highest authority and mandate, the place where he governs and resides should be the "central" location – denoted by 中듀ᇰ國귁 – of the entire domain over which his authority extends. But it may not necessarily be a geographical area. It could refer to a political realm in an abstract sense, apart from a geographical or territorial one. Again, it is irrational to construe the Emperor in question as a foreign ruler. If there was no reason for a phonetic system in Chosŏn to be formulated to conform to that of a foreign polity, no foreign ruler would have to be invoked. Therefore the Emperor should imply the emperors of Chosŏn and chung-kuk 中듀ᇰ國귁 in the phrase should be the central location, either as a political symbol or in a geographical sense or both, of Chosŏn, not one of any foreign polity: chung-kuk in and of Chosŏn as the inmost domain of the Chosŏn emperors.
The second part, 우리나랏常쌰ᇰ談땀애江강南남이라 ᄒᆞᄂᆞ니라, helps further determine the meaning: geographically speaking, it is located south of river. The referent of chung-kuk explained in the Annotation served as the political locus of control, and certainly was the capital region south of river. If we assume the capital area to be of the present-day Seoul, the capital city of the Republic of Korea, an objection is raised: the royal palaces that remain today in Seoul are all located north of the Han River (漢江).
If we turn to the East Asian continent that the People’s Republic of China currently occupies, the potential location of the
chung-kuk clarified as such will be the area along the Wei River (渭水) and the Yellow River (黃河) valleys that includes
Chang-
an/
Ch'ang-
an 長安 (today
Hsi-
an/
Xi'an 西安), the historical Western Capital (西京), and
Lak-
yang/
Lo-
yang(
Luoyang) 洛陽, the historical Eastern Capital (東京), both of which are located on the southern side of the rivers. The dictionary
Han-ŏ-tae-sa-chŏn/
han-yü-ta-tz'u-tien 漢語大辭典 says that
chung-kuk had been associated with the Yellow River basin and would later refer to the ‘Central Plains’ (中原) area. The second and third meanings given in the dictionary are the ‘imperial court’ (朝廷) and the ‘capital area’ (京師), respectively.
| [23] | Han-yü ta-tz'u-tien 漢語大辭典 [Great Dictionary of the Han Language], Shang-hai: Han-yü ta-tz'u-tien ch'u-pan-she (漢語大辭典出版社), first edition, 1990, p. 606. |
[23]
The area that includes both the Western and Eastern capitals south of the Wei River and the Yellow River fits with these three meanings. Then we can come to a provisional conclusion that
chung-kuk mentioned in the Annotation could
not be on the Korean peninsula and that, as a corollary, Chosŏn with such a
chung-kuk could
not be of, or at least confined to, the peninsula.
Therefore, turning back to the first two lines of the Annotation, 國귁之징語ᅌᅥᆼ音ᅙᅳᆷ이 異잉乎ᅘᅩᆼ中듀ᇰ國귁ᄒᆞ야 (Language sounds of each region, called kuk 國, are different from that of the central region, chung-kuk 中國), we should take this to mean that the different language sounds of each region (國) differed also from that of chung-kuk 中國 – the ruling dynasty in the Central Plains area of Chosŏn. It did not say ‘different from the language sound of the Myŏng/Ming state (異乎明國)’ but instead spoke of ‘different from that of chung-kuk’ (異乎中國) because chung-kuk was the central area of Chosŏn according to which the standardization of language sounds, through the newly devised phonetic system called Chŏng'ŭm 正音, was to be achieved.
3. A Brief Tracing of the Meaning of Chung-kuk/Chung-kuo(Zhongguo) 中國
It would now be in order to consider some usages of the term chung-kuk, apart from the one in Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae, that appeared before the twentieth century, together with a few instances in the early twentieth century, to put in perspective the historical references of the term.
3.1. Some Notable Pre-twentieth Century Uses of the Term in Its Evolution over Time
In
Maengcha/
Meng-tzu(
Mengzi)《孟子》(Mencius), the supreme ambition of King
Sŏn/
Hsüan of
Che/
Ch'i 齊宣王 is said to be "extending his territory, getting the states of
Chin/
Ch'in 秦 and
Ch'o/
Ch'u 楚 to pay homage to him, and ruling over “the Central Kingdoms and to bring peace”
| [6] | Mencius, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by D. C. Lau, Revised Edition, Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 12, 48, 117. |
[6]
to the outlying tribes on the four quarters" [然則王之所大欲可知已欲辟土地朝秦楚莅中國而撫四夷也]. Here the ‘Central Kingdoms’, in D. C. Lau’s translation of
chung-kuk, may also be described as the “chief States of the Centre” which felt themselves connected by “a certain community of civilization.”
| [9] | Granet, Marcel. Chinese Civilization, trans. by Kathleen E. Innes and Mabel R. Brailsford, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1930, p. 76. |
[9]
In Mencius’ words, on the other hand, the character
kuk/
kuo 國, without
chung/
zhong 中 in front, denotes the rulership of a feudal lord, juxtaposed with the term for feudal lords, 諸侯: 諸侯失國而後託於 諸侯禮也 (“According to the rites, only a feudal lord who has lost his state places himself under the protection of another”
| [6] | Mencius, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by D. C. Lau, Revised Edition, Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 12, 48, 117. |
[6]
). An annotation by Yang Bo-jun 楊伯峻 puts in proper perspective this association between a lesser lord whose status is lower than that of a King or an Emperor and the character
kuk 國. He explained that
chung-
kuk 中國 in the phrase 我欲中國而授孟子室 (“I wish to give Mencius a house in the most central part of my capital”
| [6] | Mencius, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by D. C. Lau, Revised Edition, Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 12, 48, 117. |
[6]
) indicates "in the middle of the capital" [在國都之中], where
kuk 國 refers to the capital of the state of
Che/
Ch'i 齊 – the castle of
Lim-
ch'i/Lin-
tzu (臨淄城).
| [26] | Yang Bo-jun 楊伯峻. Mengzi Yizhu 孟子譯注 [An Annotated Translation of Mencius], Beijing (北京): Zhong hua shu ju chu ban (中華書局出版), 1990, p. 105. |
[26]
In other words, during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States (戰國) period,
kuk 國 would signify either the rulership or the capital corresponding to such a rulership of the feudal lords, and
chung-
kuk would indicate the central states/governments bound in a common conception of civilization. Neither meant any territorial entity with clearly delimited borders.
In biographies of Mencius and
Sun-
kyŏng/
Hsün-
ch'ing(荀卿) (
Sun-
cha/
Hsün-
tzu(荀子)) [孟子荀卿列傳] of
Sa-
ki/
Shih-
chi 史記 (Records of the Scribe), it says that "
chung-kuk may be called
chŏk-hyŏn-shin-chu/
ch'ih-hsien- shen-chou" (中國名曰赤縣神州).
| [27] | Shiki retsuden 史記列傳 [Biographies of the Records of the Scribe], trans. by Ogawa, Tamaki (小川環樹), Makoto Imataka (今鷹眞), and Yoshiko Fukushima (福島吉彦), Tokyo (東京): Chikuma Shobo (筑摩書房), 2005, p. 94 (孟子荀卿列傳 第十四). |
[27]
The term
chŏk-hyŏn/
ch'ih-hsien 赤縣, literally meaning ‘district adorned in red’, is said to represent the district Flame Emperor (炎帝) directly ruled over, and can be said to have come from the custom of attributing highness to the color of red.
Shin-
chu/
Shen-
chou 神州, ‘sacred prefecture’, stands for the district that was directly ruled by Yellow Emperor (黃帝), and can be taken to mean the region where the King or Son of Heaven (天子) is located.
Looking at a dictionary on the Records of the Scribe (史記辭典), we again see that
chung-kuk does
not denote a totalized territory. Rather, the term’s first meaning is given as
kyŏng-sa/
ching-shih 京師.
Kyŏng-sa 京師 refers to the capital district in which "the court" (朝廷) or "the central government" (中央政府) of the polity in question is located. The explanation of the term in the dictionary draws from the phrase in the Annals of the Five Emperors (五帝本紀) which says "the place which the Emperor and/or the King designates as the capital is given its centrality,
chung 中, and hence it is called
chung-kuk 中國" [帝王所都爲中故曰 中國]: the capital where the supreme ruler resides is at the center, either in an abstract sense or geographically or both, of the polity and thus to be called
chung-kuk. It also denotes the regions along the Yellow River valley in the provinces of
Sŏm-sŏ/
Shan-hsi 陝西 and
Ha-nam/
Ho-nan 河南 which the polities in antiquity would tend to gravitate toward, and was sometimes written also as
chung-t'o/
chung-t'u 中土,
chung-wŏn/
chung-yüan 中原,
chung-chu/
chung-chou 中州,
chung-hwa/
chung-hua 中華, or
chung-pang 中邦.
| [29] | Shi ji ci dian 史記辭典 [Dictionary of the Records of the Scribe], Cang Xiuliang et al. (倉修良 主編), Jinan (濟南): Shandong Education Press (山東敎育出版社), 1994, p. 76. |
[29]
Beyond a mere geographical signifier, these terms would connote political centrality and attendant cultural superiority.
According to Wang Er-min, in a total of 178 instances in twenty-five books of the pre-Ch'in (先秦) era in which
chung-kuk 中國 appears, the overwhelmingly predominant usage of the term (145 instances) is with the sense of the sphere (jurisdiction) of various polities that together constituted
Ha/
Hsia 夏, thus called
Che-ha/
Chu-hsia 諸夏, while the usage in the sense of the capital district,
kyŏng-sa/
ching-shih 京師, takes a much smaller percentage.
| [30] | Wang Er-min 王爾敏, Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih-lun 中國近代思想史論 [A Theory of Modern Intellectual History in Chung-kuo], “Chung-kuo ming-ch'eng su-yüan chi ch'i chin-tai ch'üan-shih” 「中國」名稱溯源及其近代詮釋, Taipei: Taipei: Huashi chubanshe (華世出版社), 1978, pp. 441-443. |
[30]
Wang speaks of
Chu-hsia-chih-lieh-pang 諸夏之列邦, several polities that together formed
Chu-hsia, but
hsia 夏 herein signifies
civilized, not a territorial entity.
Chung-kuk 中國 in this context may be dubbed as the “central overlordships”
| [9] | Granet, Marcel. Chinese Civilization, trans. by Kathleen E. Innes and Mabel R. Brailsford, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1930, p. 76. |
[9]
or ‘central kingdoms’, but still not in the sense of a territorial country with clearly delimited borders or a nation state occupying the vast land of the continent. Among the other categories, in Wang’s analysis, were
kuk-
chung/
kuo-
chung 國中, which does not need much additional explanation because
chung 中functions as a prepositional particle herein, and
kyŏng-sa/
ching-shih 京師 as mentioned above.
The connotation of
chung-kuk expanded in later periods. A couple of entries, one in the Annals of the Chosŏn dynasty and the other in the Records of Daily Reflections (日省錄), would help elucidate how the term should be contextualized in later usages. An entry in the Annals of King Sejong (世宗實錄) dated close to the creation/compilation of
Hunmin chŏng'ŭm in late 1443 could be particularly revealing. Just a few months after the compilation, some conservative officials petitioned against the use of the new script based on the Correct Sounds, somewhat disparagingly labelled
Ŏnmun 諺文, writing that "since ancient times, within the Nine Provinces, although the customs are different, no separate script has been formulated because of regional dialects, and only the Mongols (蒙古), Western
Ha/
Hsia (西夏), Jurchens (女眞), Japan (日本), and some western tribes (西蕃) had scripts of their own, but there is not much to say about it because they were all outlying/uncivilized peoples" [自古九州之內風土雖異未有因方言而別爲文字者唯蒙古 西夏女眞日本西蕃之類各有其字是皆夷狄事耳無足道者]. They went on to say, "Introducing this new script would now amount to renouncing
chung-kuk and voluntarily assimilating with the outlying tribes… Would not it be a great detraction from Civilization" [今別作諺文捨中國而自同於夷狄…豈 非文明之大累哉]?
Chung-kuk in this utterance is attributed with a sense of sacrosanctity as the locus of civilization with the original written language system.
In 1778, more than three thousand Confucian scholars in several provinces of Chosŏn, through a joint petition recorded in the Records of Daily Reflections, deplored the discrimination against "sons of concubines" (庶類) in appointment to government positions as well as in social treatment. "Such discrimination had not been legalized, in terms of
chung-kuk, during the dynasties of
Yo/
Yao 堯,
Sun/
Shun 舜,
Han 漢,
Tang/
T'ang 唐,
Song/
Sung 宋,
Myŏng/
Ming 明, and it had not been a law, in terms of
Tongbang 東方 (The Eastern), during the times of
Tan'gun 檀君 and
Ki-
Sŏng 箕聖 (Sage
Ki) or in the early period of our (dynastic) government, either" [以中國言之 則旣非漢唐唐虞宋明之法也 以東方言之 則亦非檀君箕聖我國初之法].
| [32] | Ilseongrok 日省錄 [Records of Daily Reflections], King Chŏnjo 正祖, second reign year, eighth month, first day (ninth entry) (Sep. 21, 1778). |
[32]
Here
chung-kuk is an overarching symbol of legitimate political authority presumably ascribed to the dynasties.
3.2. An Ambitious Overhaul and What Might Be Retained of the Term Chung-kuk in the Early Twentieth Century
Around the turn of the twentieth century, reformist intellectuals in the Ch'ing dynasty (淸朝) attempted new forms of national identification, and
chung-kuk now started to be used as a signifier in their nationalistic conception. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, while in exile in Japan away from the Ch'ing court’s persecution, would at first mix
Chi-
na/
Shina/
Sina 支那 and
chung-kuk referring to a place with the people and a history to bind them together.
| [33] | Liang Ch'i-ch'ao 梁啓超. Ŭm-ping-shil-cha-yu-sŏ 飮冰室 自由書 [Works of Ŭm-ping-shil-cha-yu (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao)], trans. by Kang, Chung-ki, and Yang, Il-mo, et al., Seoul: P'u-lŭn-yŏk-sa, 2017, pp. 340-341. |
[33]
This parallel usage of
Chi-
na 支那 and
chung-
kuk 中國 can be an indirect evidence that
chung-
kuk did not refer to and was not equal to a nation state or a territorial country because when he spoke of
chung-
kuk, it was due to the lack of proper terms by which to name the polity he belonged to, as he himself confessed in embarrassment later. In an introductory essay on new historiography published in 1901, accompanied by such a confession, he proposed using
chung-kuk/
chung-kuo (
zhongguo) 中國 to represent a social totality, dismissing
Chi-
na/
Shina 支那 as a foreign borrowing (as a Japanese term
| [34] | Tang, Xiaobing. Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao, Stanford University Press, 1996, p. 15. |
[34]
) and therefore unfit for the political community he would write of.
| [2] | Liang Ch'i-ch'ao 梁啓超, Yin-ping-shih-wen-chi飮冰室文集 [Collected Works of Yin-ping-shih (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao)], Book 3 (第三冊) No. 6 (文集之六), Prolegomenon to a history of chung-kuk (中國史敍論), 1901 (Taipei: Chung Hwa Book Company (臺灣中華書國), 民國59年(1970), 三(p. 3)). |
[2]
This may be called a moment of “the birth of the imagined community of the nation”
| [35] | Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition, Verso, 2006, p. 24. |
[35]
with
chung-kuk serving as a totalizing signifier to connote the polity as a whole with its people, territory, and history, in order for it to ostensibly qualify as a modern nation-state. It was not Liang describing an already existing nation, but him “actually
creating one writing its history”
| [36] | Hayton, Bill. The Invention of China, Yale University Press, 2022, p. 109. |
[36]
with his prime motivation being to justify the Ch'ing state’s territorial realm as the blueprint for the new nation-state’s territory
| [37] | Schneider, Julia C. Nation and Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History, Historiography, and Nationalism (1900s-1920s), Brill, 2017, p. 108. |
[37]
, in contrast to Chang Ping-lin’s 章炳麟 to limit the new polity’s domain to the counties and prefectures of the Han 漢 dynasty.
| [7] | Esherick, Joseph W. “How the Qing became China” In Esherick, Joseph W., Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, eds. Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World, Rowman & Littlefield Publish-ers, 2006, pp. 232, 237. |
[7]
Joseph Levenson pointed out a radical discontinuity between earlier forms of collective identity and a nationalistic identity that came to the Ch'ing-dynasty intellectuals and activists who were reformists or revolutionaries at the turn of the last century. Prasenjit Duara considers this observation of Levenson as mistaken “in distinguishing culturalism as a radically different mode of identification from ethnic or national identification.”
| [38] | Duara, Prasenjit. Rescuing History from the Nation Questioning Narratives of Modern China, University of Chica-go Press, 1996, p. 57. |
[38]
However, what Levenson apparently emphasized is not a collective conviction of cultural superiority putatively attributable to the previous periods, as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao sought to conjure up for a narrative of continuity with the Han 漢 people centered at the nationalist history which would include other significant ethnicities along with their territories, but the chasm between the Confucian Empire – dubbed as
ch'ŏn-
ha/
t'ien-
hsia 天下 – of old, on the one side, and the
kuk/
kuo 國 which was to be completely refurbished from its old status as subordinate to
ch'ŏn-
ha/
t'ien-
hsia to become raised as the object of loyalty by the "nation" – rendered by Liang as
kukmin/
kuomin 國民 – as the proper unit of comparison to achieve the equivalence with the West, on the other. If “culture stood with
t'ien-
hsia,”
that same “culture changed in
kuo,” as nationalism took precedence.
| [39] | Levenson, Joseph R. Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, pp. 98-104, 107-108. |
[39]
But in the process of transformation, there were numerous inconsistencies in claiming historical continuity and cultural superiority of the Han and in downplaying the differences among the ethnicities. Accordingly, as an ingenious remedy to it, Liang went on to totally overhaul the meaning of the traditional term
chung-kuk as for the name of the new nation-state.
Figure 2. Yun Bong Kil taking his oath (Source: National Institute of Korean History, https://db.history.go.kr/modern/level.do?levelId=ij_ 044_0060_00070).
During the Republican period between 1912 and 1949, the newly instated polity in the East Asian continent was dubbed as
minkuk/
min-
kuo 民國. Although
chung-
kuo 中國 was promoted by Liang Ch'i-chao for the name of the new nation-state in his scheme, it did not take root to the same extent among the population. In a seemingly surprising turn of events, the term
chung-
kuk appears in an oath made by Chosŏn/Korean independence activist in April 1932. Three days before throwing the bomb at Hongkew Park (虹口公園), Shanghai, towards the Japanese personages who gathered for the birthday celebration of the Emperor of Japan, Yun Bong Kil 尹奉吉 (1908-1932), then as a member of
Han-
in ae-
kuk-
tan 韓人愛國團 (Han Patriotic Corps), vowed in earnest that, in order to restore the independence and freedom of the homeland, he would go on to kill the enemy officers invading
chung-
kuk 中國 (
Figures 2, 3, 4).
Figure 3. Oath by Yun Bong Kil (April 26, 1932) [highlighting by the author] (Source: National Museum of Korea, https://www.mseum.go.kr/site/main/relic/treaure/view?relicId=2090).
Figure 4. Yun Bong Kil. “The Alleged True Story of the Hongkew Park Bombing” [highlighting by the author] (Source: The China Weekly Review (1923-1950), Shanghai: Millard Publishing Co., May 14, 1932, pp. 351-352. https://www.proquest.com/historical -newspapers/alleged-true-story-hongkew-park-bombing/docview/13248957 38/se-2).
The entry on Yun in
The China Weekly Review of May 14, 1932, translates
chung-
kuk as ‘China’ (
Figure 4) but this should be an incorrect rendition. If we think of the current territorial state named in English as ‘China’ (as short for the “People’s Republic of China”) for the phrase "the enemy officers invading
chung-
kuk 中國" (中國을侵略하는敵의 將校), it would be an unintelligible explanation if
chung-
kuk were a stand-alone nation-state called ‘China’ because there would be no reason why Yun, fully expecting arrest and execution, would want to remove such Japanese officers invading ‘China’ which he, as a
Han-
in 韓人 (or a ‘Korean’), did not belong to. If he meant that
chung-
kuk was a nation state and that his home country and such a
chung-
kuk shared the common fate against the (Japanese) enemy, it might make sense. But the latter scenario seems unlikely.
Chung-
kuk in Yun Bong Kil’s oath would have to be construed in a similar context in which the term was used in Ch'oe Che-u’s 崔濟愚 (1824-1864) vernacular-language text of
Tonghak 東學. In a part of exhortative verse written by Ch'oe, it speaks of "treacherous enemy of the West encroaching upon
chung-
kuk 中國 as had been said of them in 1860" [ᄒᆞ원갑경신년의젼ᄒᆡ오ᄂᆞᆫ세상말이요망ᄒᆞᆫ 셔양젹이듕국을침범ᄒᆞ셔].
| [40] | Su-un-sŏn-chip 수운선집 [Selected Works of Su-un (Ch'oe Che-u 崔濟愚)], annotated by Kim, In-hwan (金仁煥), Korea University Press, 2019, p. 109 (권학가(勸學歌) (1862), 셋째 마디). |
[40]
The year 1860 was when the British-French forces defeated the Ch'ing army in their joint expedition into Peking. Then
chung-
kuk in Ch'oe’s wording should be taken to represent the central government authority of the Ch'ing dynasty as “the protector of the Confucian civilization”
in the East Asian world. Seventy-two years later, with the Ch'ing dynasty long gone, Confucian civilizational identity or perspectives may have been weakened, but
chung-
kuk might still signify the authority of Central Government in the East Asian world by which Chosŏn, though now under Japanese colonial control, should be entitled to maintain its autonomous political existence.
4. Putting It All in Perspective
Since the pre-Ch'in era,
chung-
kuk had signified the combined sphere of various polities that constituted
Ha/
Hsia 夏, the capital district of the imperial court, or the location of the central government of the polity in question. The term underwent an expansion in its connotation over time. In mid-fifteenth century Chosŏn, just a few months after the new script
Chŏng'ŭm 正音 was devised, a group of officials opposed its possible widespread use supposedly because that would be like renouncing
chung-
kuk and assimilating with uncivilized outlying tribes. Here
chung-
kuk meant the locus of civilization in which the original written language,
mun(
cha) 文(字), as the common written language system of the East Asian world, had been used as it is, without any phonetic characters with which to pronounce it, as in the case of Chosŏn
Chŏng'ŭm, or any subsidiary phonetic symbols taken from parts of
hancha 漢字 characters as ideograms, as in the case of Japanese
kana (仮名). Furthermore, King Sejong speaking of
muncha 文字 in the phrase 與
영文
문字
ᄍᆞᆼ로不
부ᇙ相
샤ᇰ流
류ᇢ通
토ᇰᄒᆞᆯᄊᆡ (language sounds of each
kuk 國 are not congruent with the written language,
muncha 文字), which refers to the characters (
cha 字) of the original written language (
mun 文)
, does not specify the source of
muncha.
If the king did not feel the need to specify the source of the prototypical written language,
muncha 文字, because it was inherently endogenous to Chosŏn and its predecessor dynasties, then this may suggest that the ancient ancestors of the Chosŏn people had created the primordial script that later came to be called
hancha 漢字, which are now often erroneously called ‘Chinese characters’. The fact that spoken language sounds in each locality, labelled as
kuk 國, were neither unified nor compatible with those in
chung-
kuk (to the degree that it would hurt the administrative efficiency in Chosŏn) was the rationale why the king and like-minded scholar-officials came up with
Chŏng'ŭm. The Vernacular Annotation of Correct Sounds tells us that
chung-
kuk denotes the seat of government of the Emperor (中듕國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽겨신나라). This in turn implies that
chung-
kuk, at least at the time of King Sejong and during immediately preceding period to which such reference applies, was the region where Chosŏn emperors would reside and their courts would be located.
After the Chosŏn court was subjugated in 1637 by the Jurchen Chin 女眞金 forces led by the Ch'ing founding emperor Huang T'ai-chi 皇太極, chung-kuk would no longer be designated as the seat of Chosŏn rulers’ authority. The status of chung-kuk, Central Government authority over the East Asian world, would now be assumed by the Imperial Ch'ing (皇淸) court. Meanwhile, as seen in the petition to King Chŏngjo 正祖 in 1778 demanding the abolishment of a strict separation between legitimate and illegitimate lines of descent, chung-kuk was still used as an encompassing representation of the imperial governments’ jurisdictional overreach, taking on a more culturally-charged connotation than Ta Ch'ing Kuo 大淸國 – which was sometimes referred to by chung-kuk 中國 in nineteen-century official documents – would do. Through the ascent and fall of the Ch'ing dynasty, chung-kuk seems to have somehow retained, until the early twentieth century, the implication of the Central Government that would guarantee the political autonomy of Chosŏn against any hostile foreign powers. Yun Bong Kil’s oath with chung-kuk marked as an entity, either tangible or intangible, to be safeguarded in the face of Japanese invasion can be one such example unless this is a defective interpretation to be refuted by counterarguments.
The prominent intellectual in exile, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, in his perceived need to evoke continuity over discontinuity in the public’s conception of history, prescribed the name Chung-kuo 中國, not as recycling an existing concept but as taking a frequent signifier of the premodern dynastic state’s political hegemony and redefining it into an unprecedented modern nation-state – thus an intentional invention in his nationalist historiography. Although Liang’s ideas about the nation, kuomin 國民, and the new state that would have to belong to the "new people" would go on to greatly influence his successors, his feat cannot gloss over the historical fact that chung-kuk 中國 before and except his redefinition had been employed in totally different ways – to signify the location where the Chosŏn emperors would have their courts, as shown in Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae, among other meanings.
5. Conclusion
Highlighting the evolution of the usage of
chung-
kuk from its political-cultural symbolism for the civilizational core in the traditional East Asian world to contemporary reinterpretations centered around the new nation-state imagined in the early twentieth century, this article provides a nuanced exploration of the term’s significantly different shades in meaning in order for it not to be misappropriated or misconstrued in historiographical interpretations and other accounts. In so doing, this study calls for and facilitates both a broadening of perspective in critically re-examining the historically conditioned macro-political configurations in East Asia and enhanced sensitivity to the historicity of the term and related ones such as
ch'ŏn-
ha/
t'ien-
hsia 天下,
kuk/
kuo 國, and
kukka/
kuo-
chia 國家, the roots of the latter “stretched back to the Confucian classics” to refer to “the dynastic government, even to the monarchy itself.”
| [43] | Hwang, Kyung Moon. Rationalizing Korea: The Rise of the Modern State, 1894–1945, University of California Press, 2016, p. 93. |
[43]
This can inform relevant debates on nationalism as present-day East Asian countries try to manipulate their past to suit their current agendas.
John K. Fairbank, in his article “A Preliminary Framework,” observed that “in strategic terms” in “the great continental "Empire of East Asia," stretching from the Pamirs to Pusan,” the “tribesmen of Inner Asia came more and more to supply the striking force that constituted the decisive military component of government.”
This may apply to the Ch'ing imperial state as well, in terms of Chosŏn’s relations to
chung-
kuk, whose status was transferred to the Ch'ing court in the first half of the seventeenth century. Before it happened, the supreme rulers of the Chosŏn dynasty seem to have been associated with
chung-
kuk, as made clear in the Vernacular Annotation of Correct Sounds for Instructing the People.
Before the twentieth century,
chung-
kuk had mostly indicated a central civilizational/cultural realm, and in cases where it had a geographical connotation it was of secondary meaning stemming from the cultural signification and not of a primary or original one. From the early years of the twentieth century, reformist/revolutionary thinkers like Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Chang Ping-lin put forward
chung-
kuo as if it were a unique name befitting a nation-state potentially embracing different ethnicities, with the amorphous Han 漢 people at the center, in their fervently nationalist orientation when it is not. On the other hand, such exogenous terms as
Sina,
Chine, or
China had not been used by the rulers or subjects in the East Asian world. As a result, the English word ‘China’ has no precise endogenous counterpart at all.
| [44] | Holcombe, Charles. The Genesis of East Asia: 221 B.C.–A.D. 907, University of Hawai'i Press, 2001, p. 8. |
[44]
For the ‘modern China’, the semantic correspondence between it and
chung-
kuo seems uneasy, at best. Yet, many historians and commentators, no matter where they are from, still end up relying on the term ‘China’ discussing it as if it were a single continuous entity with some thousand years of history, for the sake of expediency or whatever, resulting in various ahistorical interpretations. This leads not just to slipping into the nationalistic teleology, but also to letting the authors themselves and their readers distort historicity and damage the relevant historiography as a whole.
Jettisoning the term ‘China’ altogether and using the name of the dynastic state when speaking of a political entity or employing specific natural features when talking about geographic spaces can be one solution.
| [45] | Felt, D. Jonathan. Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China, Harvard University Asia Center, 2021, p. 9. |
[45]
In the meantime, reminding ourselves of 中듀ᇰ國귁ᄋᆞᆫ皇ᅘᅪᇰ帝뎽겨신나라 히니우리나랏常쌰ᇰ談땀애江강南남이라ᄒᆞᄂᆞ니라 as in
Hunmin chŏng'ŭm ŏn-hae may serve as an antidote to chronic poisoning of East Asian historiography with the onslaught of both the so-called ‘China’ as an appellation and the People’s Republic of China government’s history manipulation of various kinds.
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