Remaking the Chinese Empire: Manchu-Korean Relations, 1616-1911

Remaking the Chinese Empire explores how Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period established, legitimized, and consolidated the Manchu regime's identity as a modern sovereign state. Yuanchong Wang's work reveals new insights on the clashes between China's foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 302 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2023
Publisher: Cornell University Press

Remaking the Chinese Empire delves into the intricate transformation of China from an empire to a modern state, focusing on the Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period. By incorporating Korea into the historical narrative of the Chinese empire, the book demonstrates how the Manchu regime utilized its relations with Chosŏn Korea to establish, legitimize, and consolidate its identity as the civilized center of the world, a cosmopolitan empire, and a modern sovereign state. The relationship between the Manchu regime and the Chosŏn Dynasty was characterized by mutual dependence, serving as a crucial foundation for building and maintaining political legitimacy. Yuanchong Wang's insightful analysis highlights how this relationship served as a model for China's foreign relations, ultimately leading to contests, conflicts, and compromises among empires and states in East Asia, Inner Asia, and Southeast Asia, particularly in the nineteenth century when international law reached the Chinese world. By adopting a long-term and cross-border perspective on high politics at the empire's core and periphery, Wang challenges our understanding of the rise and transformation of China's last imperial dynasty. His work offers fresh insights into the clashes between China's foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism in the Chinese world, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia. Most significantly, Remaking the Chinese Empire breaks free from the established national history-oriented paradigm, establishing a new framework for observing and analyzing the profound Korean impact on the Qing Dynasty.

Weight: 464g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501770142