창작과 비평

In Relation to the Tradition of East Asia and the Modern World

Lim Hyoung-taek
Professor of Korean Chinese Classics, sungkyunkwan University

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2. The Concept of Civilization in the East Asian World

The East Asian world was comparable to the Western world's shared heritage of Latin culture and Christian civilization. We refer to this coherent East Asian world as the "Chinese character using world." Formerly characterized by the term shuton-gwen 書同文(to use the same written language). "Confucian civilization" is also a suitable name, based on the expression xingtonglun 行同倫(to act on the same morals)." [1]
As is well known, the terms wenming (civilization, 文明) and wenhua (culture, 文化), as used today, are from the West. They are not newly coined words, however, and have been in use since the ancient times. Moreover, the concept of "civilization" has deep roots in East Asian culture and is full of implications that require attention insofar as their significance for the history of Korean philosophy. Let us survey the East Asian idea of civilization.
In the word wenming consists of two characters. The subject is wen文, and it has meanings of diverse levels and scope. Here it refers to jingtianweidi經天緯地, meaning the establishing of institutions in human society and developing tools to carry on life within that society. Likewise, the wen is the public expression and talent of the saint, such as King Yao, King Shun, or Confucius. [2] When their wen achieved its cultural and political goals, it shined for all to see, a state of wenming.
In I-ching周易 ("Book of Changes"), wenming takes on particular importance in explaining the ebb and flow of human life. Gangua乾卦, the first trigram of I-ching, is followed by the description "The dragon has emerged on earth; thus the world becomes civilized." In the second section, Bengua賁卦, the name of the gua卦 (trigram), ben, refers to the state of "illumination" through man's elaboration, namely, the manifestation of wenming. The concept of renwen人文 (the Eastern conception of humanity) is conferred to the manifestation of wenming. "Through renwen, one can harmonize the world;" so wenming is the materialization of the human ideal. This infers to what is meant in the passage, "The dragon has emerged on earth; thus the world becomes civilized." Implicitly, the symbol of the dragon signifies the saint; explicitly, positive energy. We can deduce that energy was considered to be the seed of civilization; accordingly, the retreat of darkness and the break of dawn during sunrise was also termed wenming.
This is what the Goryeo poet Jinhwa陳 had in mind when he wrote, "Waiting for the morning of civilization, the sun wants to rise red in the eastern sky." On the surface, the primary meaning of wenming indicates the natural phenomenon of the morning sun lighting the world. He of course is not thinking only of the natural phenomenon here, but attaches insightful meaning to it. The line that precedes the one above reads "The northern frontier still lies in a hazy dream." We can surmise that "the morning of wenming" is in contrast to a state that is obscure and uncivilized. Though expressed in poetic terms, civilization is described by Jinhwa as a contrasting concept to barbarity. The scholars of the Silhak School would establish a more permanent concept of wenming. Jeong Yak-yong states that in China even the provinces are influenced by civilization, while in Joseon, just a few miles from the capital would bring us to a world that was barbaric. [3] He likely saw China as the center of civilization, and in the case of Joseon, saw Seoul as being as civilized as it gets.
The inevitable consequence was that wen became the basis on which an Eastern (Chinese) concept of civilization emerged and developed. Our next task should be to engage in a concise survey of the status of the Chinese civilization within the East Asian world and the relations with peoples in the cultural margins.
The importance of China in this region is immense, historically and geographically. Though China witnessed the rise and fall of its states and numerous transitions of power, it managed to establish itself as the central power in the region and expand its territory to embrace various races. It would become a uniqe aspect of develoopment for East Asia, distinct from the history of Europe or any other region.
Moreover, the concept of wenming is hard to define without taking China into consideration. Historically, in this region at least, the cultural tradition that began with Shang and Zhou and continued through Han, Tang, and Song has been commonly conceived as universal. This tradition is refered to as huaxia wenming華夏文明. Meanwhile, the surrounding regions consisting of different races with China as their cultural center. They were regarded as barbarians, just as the Persians were called "barbar" with distain by the ancient Greeks. The term huayi華夷(Chinese and barbarians), was the standard for distinguishing peoples, for distinguishing between civilization and barbarity. The spread of civilization from center to the margins was considered to be as natural as the flow of water from top to bottom. This is suggested in the term yongxia bianyi用夏變夷 which speaks of the need to enlighten the primitive races of the frontier by disseminating the high culture of China.
Thus culture based on Chinese characters maintained the international order through the diplomatic practice of jogong朝貢 (paying tribute to China). Jogong indisputably reflects the Sino-centric mediaeval world order. Not only did the Korean peninsula, though a peripheral nation, take pride in being "little China," it was also recognized as such internationally.
On the other hand, Japan was written off as being as marginal as they come. Mainly due to the geographical distance, Japan had a self-contradictory view of itself. On one hand, the Japanese claimed to be the pivot of the world, boasting of their territory as "god's land" (神州); but in the meantime they longed for the center like someone pining for their lover in a dream. For instance, the Japanese of the 17th century are said to have greeted the Joseon emissaries by calling them Dangin.
[4] With its formal ties to China severed, Japan relieved the anxiety it felt for unreciprocated love toward Chinese culture through its relations with Joseon and the vicarious satisfaction attained by encountering the people of Sojunghwa小中華 ("Little China"). While for Korea "Little China" is demeaning by today's standards, Japan's relatively distant relationship with China actually worked to its advantage, instilling self-respect.
China, however, has not always played the role of master of its own domain. A look at recent history tells us that even after Ming was taken over by the Mongols (Yuan), the Manchurians (Qing) once again ousted the Chinese, who only managed to take full charge of their land again in the 20th century. How did the conceptualization of huayi change in these circumstances? With the advent of the Qing regime in the 17th century, the ruling power of Joseon made "conqering the north" part of national policy, based on the ideology of zunhua rangyi ("respecting China and despising the barbarians").
The Qing regime justified its dominance over China by invoking the logic of tianxia yitong天下一統 ("unification of all that is under heaven") and huayi yijia華夷一家 ("China and the barbarians are one family"). According to the words of the Qing Emperor Yongzheng (who ruled between 1723 and 1735) in a royal edict, even during the flourishing years of the Han, Tang, and Song, the barbarians of the north and south would not submit to the ruling power; but ever since the Qing, the Manchurians, came into power, they completed the task of unification on a broader scale, thus achieving unity and erasing the distinction between China and its surrounding realms. In other words, the emperor is asserting that the China-oriented world has been elevated to the state of huayi yijia. The Han Chinese aimed to integrate China and the others. This in fact is evidenced by the summer resorts in Rexia, the alternative capital built by the Qing emperors. The inscriptions found in the palace and the shrine there demonstrate are a mixture of Chinese, Manchurian, and Mongolian characters, and even today you can see how the cultural and religious modes of Mongolia and Tibet influence Chinese tradition.
The cultural logic of world unification, i.e. huayi yijia, is undoubtedly aimed at justifying dominance by one who advanced from the margins to the center. Nevertheless, we should acknowledge that the logic of huayi, at the center of which was China, did essentially dominate, in reality and theory. Of course, there is no denying that huayi is the ideology of the powerful; it may not be a legitimate Sino-centric approach, but it evidently is a more inclusive approach to Chinese dominance.
Sino-centric logic (be it the orthodox form or the inclusive form) was not only a real threat to the surrounding nations; it also functioned as a mental yoke. Only when the nations had broken free from these shackles could they seek their own national identities. The massive entity that was China, however, was the sole "enlightened country" as far as could be conceived at the time. Joseon, geographically close to China, joined the mainstream at an early stage and adopted Chinese characters. It maintained an intimate relationship with the Middle Kingdom, learning and adopting its advanced culture. Joseon made every effort to carry on an aggressive cultural exchange with China even during Yuan, when the Mongolians were in power, not to mention during Han, Tang, and Song when the Chinese were back in charge.
Joseon's attitude towards Qing was unique. Though powerless to avoid maintaining submissive relations with Qing, Joseon considered Qing to be nonexistent, at least theoretically. It is well known that this attitude only resulted in shutting out and isolating ourselves the advanced culture and the general flow of international affairs. We often prided ourselves on being the descendents of the huaxia wenming華夏文明; but this is simply the result of being obsessed by the ideology of zunhua rangyi尊華攘夷. In contrast, Goryeo resisted the Mongolians for over forty years. Once Goryeo entered into friendly relations with Yuan, however, it acknowledged Yuan's presence and took active part in the newly unfolding world. Yi Seonghyu, in Jewang Un'gi帝王韻紀 (Songs of Emperors and Kings), glorifies Yuan by saving that its "extensive territory and great number of people are second to none from the beginning of time." In the preface to a collection of Yi Jehyeon's works, Yi Saek likens the coming of the unified world of Yuan to something that sounds like it comes right out of Genesis when he asserts that the "stir of creation in the vortex of chaos is the same everywhere, be it at the center or the margins."
How are we to interpret the attitude assumed by Goryeo's intellectuals toward Yuan? I myself would like to call it "civilization consciousness." We can trace some early signs of this consciousness in Jinhwa's poem. Also, an increasing number of intellectuals extended their knowledge by attaining firsthand experience through study in Yuan and by entering government service there, thereby heightening their civilization consciousness and gainingself-awareness as Dongin ("Easterners"). Thus, intellectuals were able to increase their influence, taking on a leading role during the transitional from Ming to Yuan. Jeong Dojeon, one of the most prominent political and intellectual leaders of the time, declared, "Now is the time to establish order in the world by setting up customs and arts, and by cultivating renwen人文." His words reveal his sense of mission in regard to "the building of civilization" on earth in the East Asian sense of the concept.
Although the conservative ruling forces of late Joseon would adhere to the logic of zunhua rangyi, this whole idea was already a forsaken idea in East Asia, just as was the idea of subjugating the north, borne of zunhua rangyi, was renounced as infeasible and groundless. Nevertheless, zunhua rangyi was the prevalent counter-theory, until the 19th century, in facing the threat of Western imperialism. To be fair, we should not overlook the criticism of some enlightened scholars directed against the anachronistic idea of zunhua rangyi. Pukhangnon (Support for Northern Learning (practical learning)) was one of the principle doctrines of the Silhak scholars. Bak Jiwon, the leading theorist of pukhangnon, insisted that it is actually the book-reading Confucian scholar that is inferred in the above-quoted passage, "The dragon has emerged on earth; thus the world becomes civilized." Bak has redefined the task of cheonha wenming (making the world civilized), traditionally regarded as the mission of the ancient saint, as the practical and present duty of the Confucian scholar. [5] Here we not ice the emergence of an independent mind with a will to build a new civilization in response to changing times. However, the actual authority exercised by independent scholars, with their ability to formulate an opportune national policy, was not great. This may be one of the reasons why our nation had to experience many trials in the course of modernization, unlike during the period of transition from Silla to Goryeo.

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[1] Jintianxia chedonggui shudongwen xingtonglun (the whole world now uses standardized carts, writes with the same letters, acts upon the same morals. (Zhong-yong (The Doctrine of the Mean)). This line of thought brought forth the term tongwen-shijie (a world with same letters), which refers to the cultural sphere that shared the use of Chinese characters.
[2] In Yaodian堯典, the first part of Shujing詩經, the expression quinming wensi (the flamboyancy of saint's virtue) is used to praise the royal virtues of King Yao. Likewise, Shundain (Book of King Shun), which was later separated from Yaodian, extols the virtues of King Shun with the phrase "junzhe wenming"〔the brightness of saint's virtu e〕Although this passage in "Shundian" has proved to be a fabrication of posterity, it nevertheless shows the Eastern concept of civilization in use to express the royal virtues of the kings. After about 1400 years Confucius was honored with the title Wenxuanwang 〔the King of Civilization〕during the Tang Dynasty, and the shrine of Confucius has come to be called "Wenmiao"
[3] Siagagye示二兒家誡
[4] In Haeyurok海遊錄 (Record of a Sea Journey), Sin Yuhan's申維翰 quotes the words of Amenomori Ho'oshu'u, Japan's most prominent intellectual at the time, on how the Japanese came to call Joseon people Dangin, "people of Tang."
[5] "When a single sa士 reads, from his benefit extend to all corners of the world through his reading and merits transmit through all ages. As it says in I-ching, 'The dragon has emerged on earth; thus the world becomes civilized.' Such is the taks of the sa." Bak Jiwon朴趾源, Vol. 10, Wonsa原士, in Yeonamjip燕巖集.