It may not be too much to argue that spurred by the increasing influence of the viewpoint of maritime history, topics related to the history of international relations observed through the maritime area surrounding the continent, are drawing an increasing interest of the academic community in East Asia. In particular, in Korea, when the effectiveness and limitations of ‘maritime/ continental’ in the discussion about East Asian Community have been proved, it is being confirmed that the identity of Korea, which was found in East Asian Sea in history with ‘maritime/continental’, was not depending on the policy of maritime trade prohibition(
Research on shipwrecks or the drifter in East Asia focusing on China, Japan, Korea, Ryukyu and so on, has produced a wealth of papers. And most of their topics tend to focus on the salvage activities or individual events in a country or between two regions.
This paper focuses on the historical materials on the shipwrecks in China, which have not been compiled separately. These materials, including information on shipwrecks rescue among China, Chosǒn, Japan, Ryukyu and other Southeast Asian countries, are basically scattered in different literature collections or massive archives. This paper aims at introducing the one rescue between Ch’ing Dynasty and Chosǒn among these materials to Korean academics. Certainly, other scholars have begun this work before. Since 1999, Liu Shiuh-feng(劉序楓), Tang Shi-yeoung(湯熙勇) from Taiwan and Matsuura Akira(松浦章) from Japan had begun collating the materials on the shipwrecks around the China coast.
The Korean Peninsula’s geographical location, surrounded by sea on three sides, determines its inseparable relationship with the sea. The people, then, born on this land, are by nature carrying a ‘maritime intentionality’. Although Chosǒn Korea implemented the relatively strict policy of maritime trade prohibition, in effect the coastal people’s maritime activities—situations of putting out to sea without authorization—are not completely cut off, which give rise to the increase in the frequency of shipwrecks. The definition of the shipwreck involved in this paper is mainly for the drifters, namely the experiences of the ship’s personnel who managed to survive by drifting to other countries or regions and the cargo carried on board after maritime casualty. This reference scope differs from the relevant connotations in modern law, which has also been clearly pointed out in previous studies.
In Ch’ing Dynasty, shipwreck salvage and survivor’s repatriation between Chosǒn and China were an important part of the diplomatic relations between two countries. In particular, Chosǒn, as the tributary state of the Ch’ing, was an important vassal state in Ch’ing Dynasty’s foreign policy called “chershing men from afar(
It should be noted that, although such a batch of historical materials on shipwrecks mentioned above in China can be used for the research, there are still some limitations if only focusing on them. The historical materials on shipwrecks, especially those related to drifting, are characterized by one-sidedness from the perspective of ‘the other’ since they were generally recorded by other countries. Consequently, in order to grasp the historical facts from a broader perspective, it is needed to cooperate with the relevant records of the drifter’s homeland as well, besides the information of the salvation country. On the contrary, Korean academics, as so far, have gained lots of researches about the maritime history, especially in the case study of Chinese and Korean drifters, in which has made considerable progress. But there still have considerable room for the use of the archives in China. The fact that the Korean academics themselves only rely on their own archives to carry out the study of the history of shipwrecks between Korea and China, is really a question needed to be reflected.
As we all know, the shipwreck survivors’ repatriation networks, which gradually institutionalized in the tribute trade system and became a reference for dealing with similar problems later, had existed in the pre-modern East Asian Sea. To be specific, the Asian countries had been treating each other’s shipwreck survivors in a reciprocal manner by rescuing them and offering them assistance to return home from the middle of 18th century, regardless of whether there are diplomatic or trade relations between two countries
The record of a Jeju drifting incident in 1741 in
Even though studies of history were mainly centering on the continent in the past, recently the increasing interest itself of the maritime history may be regarded as a reflection on the paradigm of their own research. The sea, however, can be no more a geographic space but not a historical field in the studies of maritime history currently. But if we take into account the fact that human beings are by nature social creatures at the end of the day, it is no doubt that the “maritime society”, relative to the continent, could be constituted by all ships sailing on there. Further, even the ship itself can also be seen as a concentrated social space. Michel Foucault remarked that “the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea.”
In a word, it is hoped that the materials on the shipwrecks of Chosǒn Korea in the Ch’ing Dynasty archives mentioned above could provide new ideas for Korean academics. But the analysis of them should not only stay at the diplomatic level of the two countries but also, from the perspective of maritime history, give attention to the different maritime peoples themselves. Because the sea was a historical field separated from the land symbolically, socially and practically. Just like John Mack remarked, “It is only when we fully comprehend the extent to which the sea is constituted as a domain in its own right that the fuller significance of any such reconciliation of the sea to the land emerges.”