The pre-modern East Asian diplomatic order, from the rise of the Ming in the 14^th Century to the Imjin War in the 16^th Century, was primarily dominated by realist interests and rational diplomatic actors. By the late 14^th Century, the once formidable Yuan Dynasty was in steep decline, damaged by constant infighting and instability. The eventual Red Turban Rebellions from 1351-1368 finally broke Yuan power in China, resulting in the rise of the Ming Dynasty. Even so, the Mongol Empire could not have been defeated through sheer luck. Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming Emperor, needed significant strategic acumen to consistently defeat a militarily experienced foe across the vast expanse of China. His chosen imperial name, the

Hongwu Emperor (meaning “vastly martial”), permanently imprinted his sense of pride in excelling in matters of state security; after defeating the Yuan, he would boast to kingdoms far and wide that “I established myself to the east of the [Yangtze] river, swept away the competing chieftains and settled the relations between the yi and the Chinese [...] now our relations with all both near and far are those of security and freedom from concerns, as we all enjoy the blessings of an era of Great Peace.”^[1]

It is logical that maintaining the diplomatic balance of power of this new order would also require a keen sense of diplomatic and strategic judgment. After all, the Ming Dynasty held a large population, landmass, and most importantly, an abundance of wealth and power for over 276 years. The people at China’s periphery, particularly the wokou pirates of Japan and the nomads of the Steppe, desired this wealth, and often resorted to violent means to steal a share of it. Beijing needed to take its national security seriously––a hegemon of the world’s largest continent required a realist diplomatic sense to earn and retain this status.

Despite this, historiography often instead presents the Ming diplomatic sphere in vastly simplified terms. A common assumption holds that pre-modern East Asian diplomacy was one generally dominated by the cultural and socioeconomic hegemony of the Chinese Empire, which itself viewed diplomacy through a cultural lens, focusing excessively on maintaining ceremony and prestige within a hierarchy of nations to prove an inherent superiority based on Confucian ideas. This was a view solidified in Western academic discourse during the 1960s and 70s, after the consequential publication of the book The Chinese World Order in 1968 by historian John King Fairbank.^[2] The implicit assumption of dynastic diplomacy has thus always been that pre-modern Chinese dynasties were not fully rational powers, but ones partially (if not primarily) motivated by Sino-centric cultural biases, consequentially holding that the East Asian order revolving around China’s hegemony was fundamentally irrational.

This paper challenges this overarching view of pre-modern East Asian diplomacy, particularly surrounding the states of Ming China, Joseon Korea, and Japan.^[3] It argues that the Ming Dynasty managed to maintain its hegemony for such a long time through its realistic understanding of diplomacy. Furthermore, this paper argues that Korea and Japan responded to the pressures of the Ming with a similarly keen diplomatic sense. Thus, it contends that East Asian diplomacy between the 14th and 16th centuries should be viewed through a realist geopolitical lens: East Asian rulers generally acted in relation to each other according to realist diplomatic theory first and domestic political interests second. Rhetoric and ceremony were only symptoms of larger shifts in these two historical circumstances. This paper will prove this argument by pointing toward the concrete commitments of East Asian rulers as historical events transpired between China, Korea, and Japan during the Ming Era. Furthermore, it will point to the language used in the Ming Shi Liu (Ming Veritable Records), Wangjo Sillok (Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty), and various primary sources in Japan, all of which demonstrate their respective country’s realist perspectives.

Historiography: Older Annals, Modern Academia

Since the publication of The Chinese World Order by John Fairbank,^[4] the prevailing view of imperial China’s diplomacy as one primarily intent on maintaining the ceremony of the Chinese court has been dubbed as the ‘Fairbank Model.’ It holds a large sway over modern historiography both in the United States and in China.^[5] According to the Fairbank Model, the Chinese Empire, alongside the Asian powers within its diplomatic sphere, engaged in a “‘language game’ that is opposed to the idea of a system which presupposes stabilities, repetition, rules, abstract principles, and essences [... where] rules, norms, and codes (which are learned) are provisional, capacious, and flexible.”^[6] Modern public perception is also shaped by the ‘Fairbank Model:’ for example, the Council of Foreign Relations states “imperial rulers of China favored diplomatic rituals that bolstered their ideal of global centrality. Given this they had territories and kingdoms in China’s orbit dispatch envoys to perform ritualistic submissions.”^[7]

There are also very specific narratives about the roles Korea and Japan played within the Ming tributary system. Joseon Korea is often characterized as a ‘model’ tributary state of the Ming, with some sources even going so far as to dub the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ as a “colony.”^[8] The circumstances behind the Joseon Dynasty’s general investment in the Ming Tributary system are usually explained in cultural and domestic terms. Historiography often depicts Korea as a state that whole-heartedly bought into Ming cultural beliefs about Chinese centrality: “In its relations with Korea the Ming leadership had a much more powerful arrow in its foreign policy quiver: its cultural attractiveness.”^[9] Other scholars have assumed that Korea sought official titles from the Ming Emperor to secure its domestic legitimacy, which assumes Chinese titles held considerable domestic sway in Korea.^[10] Because Japan was largely uninvolved in the Ming tributary system, there seems to be fewer academic trends categorizing Japan’s diplomatic instincts during this period. Given the country’s internal instability from the 14th to the early 16th century, this isolationist portrayal has some merit.^[11] However, this means generalizations of Japanese-Asian diplomacy overemphasize the Fairbank Model’s view on how China and Korea are thought to have perceived the Japanese. Many assert the main diplomatic issue between Japan and East Asia was Japan’s non-participation in tributary systems, rather than practical security threats such as the wokou pirates.^[12]

Recognizing some of the inconsistencies between the Fairbank Model and the historical actions of Ming China, many contemporary scholars have tried to reform the theory: words such as ‘re-thinking,’ ‘reassessment,’ and ‘reconsidering’ are popular within this academic discourse.^[13] However, these re-examinations often still fall under cultural lines. Contemporary Chinese scholars often reconcile the Fairbank Model’s extensive focus on tributary system rhetoric with the civil service-driven empire’s desire to have a “bureaucratic management of foreign relations;” English-language scholarship has increasingly presented the ‘tributary system’ as an institution, with the ceremonies and symbolism involved acting as a set of diplomatic norms that enforced the ‘rules’ of China’s international order.^[14] Still, longer, in-depth books focusing on East Asian diplomacy end up either liberally redefining the original Fairbank Model’s tenets or refuting it altogether. In these studies, ceremonial Ming language is more critically examined under the context of the country’s specific goals each year, the balance of power between China and its constituents, or even the currently dominant strategic manuals of the Ming military.^[15] These longer, contemporary publications have been extraordinarily useful in re-contextualizing older assumptions, and this paper will attempt to combine their efforts in moving a step further: it will assert that geopolitical realism was the primary motivator of China, Japan, and Korea from the 14th to 16th century.

Methodology: Practical Organizations

To make the case that the Ming-led diplomatic order was one primarily conducted through realpolitik, this paper seeks to conduct a primary-source analysis of Ming and Joseon annals, comparing common narratives about the role of different powers in the ‘tributary system’ to the official state sources. Specifically, the Ming Shi Liu, the official annals of the Ming Dynasty, and the Wangjo Sillok, the records of the Joseon Dynasty, will primarily be examined, as the histories penned in real-time by the Ming and Joseon Dynasties in Asia. Most of the sources will focus on state diplomacy by China and Korea, as decentralization of Japan since the Onin War crippled the Ashikaga Shogunate’s abilities to negotiate on behalf of a state. Towards the end of the paper, this focus will shift, as the re-emergence of a unified Japan created a tripartite system of state-diplomacy in East Asia. Comparing the assumptions made in the Fairbank Model to the most direct state sources of the era provides the most practical building block to recenter the academic discourse around the more rational considerations of the Ming order.

Of course, state annals have plenty of potential biases, inaccuracies, and potential editorializing. Especially in case-specific studies, annals cannot be taken as face-value without the scholarship that gives context to the various economic, military, and social realities on the ground. Still, for the thesis presented in the paper, the way that the annals tell their stories is as important as the veracity of the events itself. This paper defines rational actors in diplomacy as those that make policy decisions through a coherent logic. For example, the paper might cite a page in the Ming annals where the wokou are described ‘Japanese,’ which modern histories now know is not fully accurate to wokou demographic data. If the annals note a coherent reasoning for why Beijing saw the wokou as a ‘Japanese ‘problem, such as a recent Shogun’s refusal to comply with Ming trade regulations, the paper will cite this page as an example of the Ming court acting rationally given the information their rulers had available. Meanwhile, if the annals explain away the wokou through the lens of an inherent Japanese barbarism, it would be considered an example of the top minds in China not seeing the world through Sino-centric cultural beliefs, and not a rational realpolitik lens. In either case, this would not mean that the paper is accepting the Ming account as fact.

As one last note, the paper organizes itself along polity lines in the 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th centuries––it talks first about Sino-Japanese relationship from Beijing’s lens, then it looks at the Sino-Korean relationship (first from China’s perspective, then Korea’s), and after, it analyzes the Korean-Japanese relationship from the Korean perspective. Finally, it covers how the reunification of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi fundamentally changed the basis of these three relationships by altering the Asian balance of power. Within each section, the paper will largely organize itself based around the most relevant themes and dilemma each actor faced. Whenever there is a conflict between organizing based on chronologies or based on themes, the thematic organization will be prioritized, because this allows more coherency within the paper. The paper organizes itself based on perspectives of each polity because it argues that East Asian diplomacy conducted itself through a balanced, state-based rationality. Systems are composed of actors, and organizing the paper based on examining the perspectives of each state helps portray the most holistic view for each piece of the larger diplomatic puzzle. Diplomatic calculations were held with the state in mind, so this creates the most comprehensible narrative for a historical review. Chronologically, states were dealing with multiple dilemmas in relation to each other all at once. Thematically, the paper is already arguing that each polity put the needs of the state over any singular issue, perspective, or culture, so organizing the argument based on each state perspective creates the least confusing retelling of the complicated decisions that the statesmen of the Ming-era had to take.

China and Japan: The Myth of Ming Arrogance

Typically, Fairbank Model historians portray the feuds between Chinese Emperors and their Japanese counterparts through the lens of a fundamental cultural arrogance: an endless dispute between the Chinese Emperors, who viewed their polity as one that both physically and spiritually dwarfed its neighbors, and the Japanese, who often made bold claims of superiority to^[16] the Chinese Emperors. However, the Ming records reveal a far more realistic Chinese view of the balance of power in Asia. Firstly, the wokou pirate raids during the Early Ming period and Japan’s invasion of Korea during the Ming Empire’s twilight years, both serious security concerns for China, are appropriately rated as such by the annals. Indeed, the annals explicitly couch Japan as a very formidable adversary in these episodes. Secondly, the primary records of the Ming, the Ming Shi Liu, shifts its overall tone toward Japan in close accordance with the shifting balances of power in the region.

A Serious Threat, a Serious Strategy

The Ming Shi Liu often depicts the Ming Emperors worrying about the security threat Japan represented from the east. In fact, it goes as far as to explicitly admit fear of Japan (sometimes dubbed the ‘Wo’ or ‘Wa’) in multiple instances: in 1378, it recorded, “The Emperor [...] became exceedingly afraid of Japan and made up his mind to sever all relations and to devote his attention to maritime defense.”^[17] A record from 1555 states, “They [the Japanese] also numbered not more than several tens of men and yet they wrought havoc for a thousand li and killed more than a thousand people. They were fierce indeed!”^[18] And in 1586, it noted “He [Toyotomi Hideyoshi] learned that the Chinese were afraid of the Japanese as if they were tigers.”^[19] The Ming then did not perceive Japan arrogantly across history. Instead, the Ming approached its relations to Japan through a careful strategy of diplomatic appeasement, economic pressure, and direct overtures to Japan itself––all strategies that would involve the Ming compromising ceremonial ideals for practical policies.

The Ming saw Japan not as a culturally inferior backwater, but as a serious threat to its dynastic stability due to the wokou pirates. Here, it is important to characterize what the ‘wokou’ meant to the Ming. The word ‘Wokou,’ as written in the Chinese annals translates to ‘dwarf raiders.’ The Zhongguo lishi da cidian (‘Chinese History’s Great Dictionary’), perhaps the most authoritative Chinese historical dictionary, defines wokou as “Japanese pirates who harassed the coastal areas of China during the Ming dynasty.”^[20] These pirates primarily attacked merchant ships and engaged in coastal raids against the Chinese coast since the late Yuan period. However, the wokou were not necessarily Japanese––many wokou, especially during the 15th and 16th centuries, were Chinese smugglers dissatisfied with their socioeconomic livelihoods in the Ming Empire (in which the merchant class did not hold a high social position).^[21] Nevertheless, many wokou operated from Japan, a realm that was besieged by internal instability ever since the Onin War in 1467.^[22]

The Ming did not focus heavily on having Japan recognize Ming cultural supremacy, or even pay tribute to the Emperor–– rather, the focuses of the Ming Shi Liu show that wokou pirates overwhelmingly dominated the Ming perception of Japan and thus its foreign policies. The Ming feared the security threat the wokou represented and believed that ‘the King of Japan’ had a significant control over these pirates that it was simply not exercising. China’s foreign policy instruments reflected a desire to address this realist concern through pragmatic means.

If one subscribes to the idea of Ming cultural arrogance, the eagerness of the Ming to point to Japan as the source of this problem could indicate a that it was too proud to admit its faults. However, primary sources show that the Ming were aware of the general wokou demographics. The Ming Shi Liu writes “Generally speaking, about thirty percent were genuine Wo (Japanese) and seventy percent were Wo-followers.”^[23] Furthermore, the Ming Shi Liu sometimes assigns blame on the character of Chinese officials for the wokou, rather than Japan, writing that “after a long period of peace, treacherous people took liberty in going out and coming in and induced the Wo people […] and people of other nationalities to come and trade.”^[24] The annals even sometimes look at wokou as an anti-Ming rebellion by Chinese merchants, who simply “hired the Japanese to build themselves up as a powerful force.”^[25]

Still, the Ming seemed to primarily diagnose wokou as a Japanese issue despite this knowledge.^[26] This paper argues that the reasoning behind the Ming’s eagerness to attribute the blame on wokou to Japan came not from cultural arrogance, but rather because the Ming saw East Asian diplomacy through a fundamentally ‘rational’ lens and expected others to do the same. However, Japan could not abide by these same ‘rational’ considerations due to its internal political considerations, and often unintentionally went back on its commitments to the Ming on the wokou issue.^[27] For the Ming, which did not have complete information on all the internal political factions of Japan,^[28] this made it seem as though Japanese authorities were intentionally neglecting to curb the wokou for a geopolitical objective.

Ming fears of wokou piracy were based on coherent understanding of how they had amassed power in the first place. The Ming had funded their Red Turban Rebellion through sea trade, and thus believed non-tributary private trade “threatened the new dynasty’s regime security.”^[29] Consequently, upon establishing the Ming Dynasty in 1369, the Hongwu Emperor feared that the wokou pirates of Japan could be a similar source of funding for his enemies. Scholars Buzan and Goh argue the Hongu Emperor made it a point to try integrating Japan into the Ming tributary system alongside Korea, Vietnam, and Champa, even though Japan uniquely did not pay regular tribute to the previous Yuan Dynasty, because of this reason.^[30] In the Ming’s eyes, piracy and smuggling was an existential threat to the new regime, because these same strategies were used by the Ming to overthrow the former Yuan Dynasty.

Including Japan in the tributary system was a subtle diplomatic compromise as much as it was a bid for East Asian dominance. For Japan, it meant that the newly (and briefly) absolutist Ashikaga Shogunate could receive wealth from Ming trade in its increasingly commercial society. For the Ming, the tributary system at least introduced a degree of regulation on foreign trade.^[31] The Ming saw “trade as a somewhat inconvenient collateral outcome,”^[32] but it compromised for a nominal agreement with Japan to curb wokou piracy. The implementation of this agreement in practice also favors this reading. Japan became a tributary state under the Hongwu Emperor’s proposal, but even under the centralized rule of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1368-1394), it never followed all of China’s provisions.^[33] Although there was a concrete agreement on how many official trade missions could go from Japan to China and how much tribute needed to be provided, Japan did not abide by these specifics.

If demanding Japanese inclusion in the Ming tributary system was about imposing China’s cultural views on the diplomatic order, these defiant actions by a ‘tributary state’ would have proved problematic, as the bureaucracy of the Ming typically had little tolerance for the violation of court ceremonies. Yet, the Ming chose a practical approach of overlooking these transgressions. The “Ming court’s tolerance of these deviations indicated its desire to retain the tributary relations with Japan;”^[34] the Ming prioritized the rational world order over the cultural one to address a properly evaluated security threat. Then, the tributary system––the basis of supposed ‘Sino-centrism’ as a Ming foreign policy––had a foundation in compromise and practical realpolitik.

Indeed, the Ming practically continued to use the tributary system as one of its tools to influence Japan’s actions, rather than as an end goal for Sino-Japanese relations. Notably, the Ming cut Japan out of the tributary system by refusing Japanese tributary missions from 1374 and especially after 1381.^[35] Tributary status would nominally favor China’s court on cultural manners. Consequently, a more-pressing matter motivated the Ming court to sever these ties with. The Hongwu Emperor was displeased that the ‘King of Japan’ did not suppress the wokou. The Hongwu Emperor explicitly wrote to Kyoto that he believed this perceived inaction was motivated by questions of state power: “You stupid Eastern Barbarians! […] this year your people come and deny the truth and verify the false. Suspecting what they said we questioned them and found out that you want to determine which of us is the stronger.”^[36] Since the emperor rejected tributary missions that would have increased the Ming Emperor’s prestige, it follows that attaining in tribute was not the main goal of Ming foreign policy. Instead, his penning of a letter so paranoid of potential power plays against China shows the Ming considered geopolitical security concerns more significantly than the logic of the Fairbank Model implies.

The Ming Shi Liu even records that Ming officials were carefully using economic pressures to try to influence Japanese decision-making, while prioritizing the practical goal of curbing the wokou over any desire to simply punish Kyoto over wounded pride. For example, the Ming experimented with nuanced strategies like targeted sanctions. In 1593, Ming officials argued that fully closing trade was inadvisable because “if workers and merchants are not permitted to go abroad, they will go to sea as pirate gang members,” and instead advised “it would be appropriate to allow trade with the Eastern and Western Oceans, but that trade with Japan should continue to be prohibited.”^[37] Indeed, this paper will now argue that the Chinese not only used their economic leverage to create a basic carrot-and-stick system for foreign powers, but also saw economic interactions through a larger lens of comparative power. In most cases, foreign states acted predictably within this strategy, with Japan acting as an exception due to its internal politics.

The Ming used its economic influence with other foreign powers to help deal with the wokou. The two most privileged states under the Ming tributary system, Korea and the Ryukyu Islands, have their geographic proximity to the Ming’s Southeast Seas in common. That these geographic locations were the most relevant for the Ming’s maritime security was no simple mistake. Scholar Felix Kuhn has argued “While the Ryukyuans would come to be seen as one of the few vassals that truly behaved according to Chinese ideals, the reason for this early preferential treatment probably lay elsewhere, in Ming China's state security. It is likely that the Ming Empire wanted to use Ryukyu as a trade link between Japanese pirates and China, thus keeping the pirates at bay while lessening their need for marauding.”^[38] This explanation is compelling; Korea and Ryuku acted more cooperatively with Ming interests than most East Asian polities, but other states that also openly favored Ming influence, such as Siam or Champa, did not achieve the same ranwking. In other words, the tributary system’s rankings depended on the Ming’s conscious geopolitical choices much more than it hinged upon accepting the Ming’s cultural norms.

This policy produced mixed results, as other powers within the East Asian order were also self-interested in their security. By 1625, even the Ming Shi Liu candidly evaluated this instrument of Ming diplomacy as a failure. In a discussion between a high-ranking governor and a general, there is a confession that the governor “I secretly asked the grand defender: ‘If we could get the yi [foreigners] and the Japanese to destroy each other, we could reap the benefits.’ The grand defender said: `Yes, yes. We will try that. However, the people of the seas are talkative, and we did not achieve our goal of using yi to attack yi.”^[39] The tenets of realism thus rang truer for all East Asian states than a conformism to Confucian relationships. Even Korea, a state that was also given privileges in the tributary system for its supposed loyalty to Ming values, would often take advantage of its position as a designated intermediary between China and Japan by selectively engaging in secret negotiations.^[40] This paper will expand upon this further in the section about Ming-Joseon relations.

The wokou were perceived as a serious security threat to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty’s immediate options––direct compromises, the tributary system, economic leverages, and appeals to allies––could not fully solve the wokou problem. China required Japan’s cooperation to ensure its economic and maritime stability. Consequently, the Ming finally appealed to the Japanese Court to stop the wokou raids into China. The tone of these appeals, and the various threats or incentives issued alongside them, would change vastly according to the overall balance of power between China and Japan throughout historical eras.

Rhetoric Mirroring Reality

The depiction of Japan in the Ming Shi Liu, alongside the tone of official Sino-Japanese discourse, undergoes noticeable shifts amidst the relative balance of power between China and Japan. Specifically, there is a major change in the way it depicts early-Muromachi Japan and Japan during the Sengoku and Tokugawa periods, which aligns with the respective ascendancy and decline of the Ming vis-à-vis Japan’s militarization. Earlier on, the Ming held a lesser view of Japan and more liberally threatened the use of force. However, fear and caution became more prominent during later centuries. In both cases, the Ming Shi Liu grounds its perception of the expenditures required to act against Japan in strategic terms.

Of the early Ming reprimands to Japan, one in 1381 that the Ming Shi Liu recorded was when the Ming presented an ultimatum to Japan over piracy concerns. It depiction of Japan shows it advocating for itself while also presenting it as a significantly weaker country:

Your subject^[41] lives in the remote and weak country of Wo. It is a small land with less than sixty cities and your subject's domain is not even three thousand square li in area and Your subject is contented. Your Majesty is the ruler of the Middle Kingdom, a ruler with ten thousand chariots, have several thousand cities and a domain of one million square li. Still, you are discontented and often entertain the thought of subjugating us [...]

Your subject has heard that the Celestial Court is planning a military campaign against us. Our small nation also has its strategy of warding off the enemy [...] In the art of war we have treatises by Sun Tzu and Wu Ch'i on the strategy of war [...] In our marsh lands and on our islands we have already established our defense. How can we kneel on the wayside to offer our nation? Should we obey, there is no certainty for our life; should we disobey, there is no certainty for our death. Let us then meet at Mt. Ho-lan and play our betting game. Why should Your subject be afraid? Should Your Majesty win and Your subject lose, the great nation would feel gratified. Provided that Your subject wins and Your Majesty lose, you would feel humiliated by a small country. Since antiquity, making peace has been the best policy and it has been better to stop fighting to avoid the loss of life or to extricate the people from hardship.”^[42]

This argument was apparently convincing to the Hongwu Emperor, even as it displeased him:

“Having read the memorial, the Emperor became very indignant. Still considering the lessons of the Mongols, he refrained from the use of force.”^[43]

This exchange of letters between the Hongwu Emperor and an Ashikaga Prince can be the basis of many arguments. For one, there’s some cause to doubt its total veracity: the estimation of Japan’s landmass is off by several hundreds of li,^[44] and the depiction of marshlands as the archipelago's main terrain is odd, making it more likely the Chinese invented this narrative. Yet by taking the account at face value, the Ming Shi Liu reveals a Ming ability to depict a sophisticated strategic calculus. The Japanese speak from a position of weakness but also provide a rational reason that resistance is the better strategic choice for them. Furthermore, their suggestion to negotiate is also informed by normative beliefs in Chinese history. Meanwhile, the account implicitly admits that a humiliating military defeat may have been possible for the Ming, similarly analyzing the failed Mongol invasions of Japan. Ultimately, while accounts slights Japan by relegating it as the junior partner, neither party leaves the negotiation looking overly arrogant. Japan is shown to understand its lesser geopolitical position and forgoes its pride to couch diplomacy on rhetoric that favors the Ming, while the Ming make a historically-informed and complex strategic decision to avoid war.

The Ming depiction of Japan changed with the balance of power in East Asia. As the wokou raids intensified into a serious military threat against China, the Ming Shi Liu similarly reformulated its tone towards Japan. By 1453, the record takes a more careful diplomatic tone: “In the fourth year of Ching-t'ai the Wa came to with tribute; arriving at Lin-ch'ing, they robbed the inhabitants of their goods. When a spokesman went to accuse them, he was beaten nearly to death. The local official then made an appeal for their punishment. This was denied, as the Emperor was afraid of losing the good-will of the foreigners.”^[45] If the Ming tributary system was solely based on prestige and ceremony, allowing such an insult to go unpunished would have been fundamentally incompatible. Similarly, if the Ming were arrogant about their power over Japan, they would not have feared the good-will of Japan. Instead, the Ming Emperor avoided a potential diplomatic crisis by acquiescing. Already, Japanese military advancements had made China more hesitant than it was when the Hongwu Emperor so brazenly threatened Japan with ultimatums.

The Ming Shi Liu’s tone on Japan continues to change into the 16^th and 17^th centuries. In 1555, the annals admit that “the Wo were still very powerful” after several campaigns dedicated to fending off the pirates, praising the them as “fierce indeed!”^[46] By then, Ming sources frequently complained that “wherever the pirates sailed, there was nothing but defeat and desolation in their wake.”^[47] They even claim that Japanese wokou often outnumbered the Chinese, describing, “Craft after craft, many hundreds in number, arrived like clouds over the water.”^[48] While the annals were prone to some exaggeration, the reasoning behind why China met these difficulties are still coherent and rational. The Ming Shi Liu writes that the wokou were dangerous as “because of the protracted peace that followed [after the rise of the Ming], ships fell into decay and guard-posts were deserted.”^[49] However, the annals note that Ming ministers quickly gave the Emperor sober solutions to start increasing coastal protection expenses again,^[50] and records that once “the government forces of China were quite well prepared […] the pirates, ruthless though they were, were killed in great numbers.”^[51] Just as the Ming were not overly arrogant about their abilities to beat Japan, their admissions of fear were founded upon a shifting balance of power, rather than exaggerated phobias of foreign marauders. The Ming Shi Liu constantly shifts its tone to accurately reflect both the rise of Japan’s military capabilities and the revival of the Ming’s security forces. By extension, the annals’ analysis of the Ming-Japan-Wokou balance of power is fundamentally rational.

Finally, it’s interesting to look at the way that the Ming Shi Liu concludes its narration of the Imjin War. It states, “Though China and Korea fought hand in hand, they had no chance of victory. Only the death of the kwampaku [Hideyoshi] brought the calamities of warfare to an end and sent the Japanese forces back to their insular retreat.”^[52] The Imjin War was certainly costly for all parties involved, but the Ming seemed to believe the death Hideyoshi was a reason for the end of the conflict––all this, when Japan suffered major naval losses and the Ming held key diplomatic, demographic, and economic advantages over Japan. Once more, these attributions call arguments of ‘Chinese arrogance’ into serious question: if anything, the annals overwhelmingly seem to make their risk-reward calculations from a slightly pessimistic standpoint.

Korea and China: The Myth of the Korean Colony

Within the diplomatic triangle between Ming China, Japan, and Joseon Korea, the Sino-Korean relationship was the strongest, largely attributed to the general lack of hostilities between the two powers. The Ming even enjoyed certain cultural leverage over Korea, and it is likely that Joseon Korea sought the legitimacy of Ming titles. Nevertheless, Korea’s primary diplomatic motivation was security, particularly when maneuvering between its larger Ming neighbor and its unstable Japanese counterpart––an objective that required a delicate and rational foreign policy. Ultimately, Korea accomplished this goal through two balancing acts: it made itself generally useful within Ming China’s tributary system, but it also selectively rebelled and protested against the Ming during certain times, knowing that the Ming would generally seek to appease Korea. Secondly, Korea played a balancing act between China and Japan which entailed cooperating with both neighbors despite pressures from both to take a side. The Joseon Dynasty’s primary records, the Wangjo Sillok (“The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty”), will reveal these realist policies, and the receptiveness of the larger East Asian diplomatic order to this diplomatic realism.

A Tributary State with Leverage

Some scholars have argued that Joseon Korea initially desired inclusion in the Ming’s tributary system, which the Ming agreed after being convinced by Korea.^[53] One can see this as Korean eagerness to join the Ming sphere of influence. Still, alternatively, this can be a sign of Korean agency to act within the Ming Order––Korea joined and acted within the Ming diplomatic sphere on its own terms, pragmatically supporting close relations with the Ming while establishing clear lines of interest.

Indeed, while the official annals of both dynasties primarily depict cooperation between the Ming and Joseon states, there are several notable recorded instances of Joseon lodging protests against the Ming, with the Ming response almost always taking a conciliatory stance. Ming China was the senior partner in the tributary system, but this did not necessarily mean that Korea lacked leverage.

The tributary relationship between the Ming Dynasty and Joseon was not always frictionless, but the official annals of both parties generally depict the Ming acquiescing to Korean protests, instead of remaining aloof or even becoming offended. For example, Ming diplomatic ceremonies emphasized the exceptional status of Korea within the tributary system. This status was perhaps most explicitly penned in the Ming Shi Liu in 1521:

“Korea is, far more than these various countries, a state which upholds propriety. Yet solely in its case are eunuchs sent as envoys. This brings great disgrace to our country and harms its majesty. It has been heard that the king of the country of Korea had long wanted to request enfeoffment but was afraid of the greedy extortion of the envoys […] it is requested that in future when envoys are to be sent to Korea, only those who have been selected from the civilian official metropolitan graduates be approved.”^[54]

Two central motifs of Korean-Ming relations emerge from this passage. Firstly, Korean exceptionalism within the tributary system did not emerge from a throw-away title or a unilateral cultural claim by the Joseon but was a central element of the Korean-Ming relationship that Chinese diplomacy equally stressed. Secondly, the Ming were amenable to changing their policies based on the protests of the Korean king. Consequently, it is clear that the Ming did not take Korea for granted, but saw the significant strategic value of Seoul.

Indeed, the Ming Shi Liu also explicitly depicts changes in Ming Policy due to Korean protests. In 1534, it notes how the Ming implemented newer restrictions on how long foreign merchants could stay and trade in Beijing, which impacted Korean envoys and merchants. This policy was quickly rectified at Korea’s request: “Li Yi, the king of the country of Korea, noted that the five-day restriction was used in the Court's treatment of the lu envoys and that it was shameful for a country where headwear and robes are worn to be treated in the same way as the lu. The Ministry of Rites thus submitted a request, and it was proclaimed that the restrictions be relaxed.”^[55] The Ming’s decision to reverse a high-impact trade policy in response to Korean objections shows that Joseon’s ‘special status’ held more sway than just as a symbolic role. Once again, practical importances outweighed the ‘ceremony’ of hierarchy.

Of course, one may question that Ming annals would portray China’s tributary system in a benevolent light. Yet, the Wangjo Sillok shares a very similar characterization of the Ming court to the Ming Shi Liu. For example, the Wangjo Sillok depicts Korean envoys successfully convincing the Ming to lower its tributary requirements solely for them in 1420. As the annals write, “Huang Yan [a Ming official] privately said to Won Minsaeng, ‘If you come next year together with Han Hwak and beg for the reduction of gold and silver, the request can be granted.’ After [Huang] returned, Minsaeng went as the envoy to report to the Emperor. Yan repeated the words [he] had previously said.”^[56] The record further notes that Korea’s king apparently had complete faith in this guarantee: “When Yeon [Korean envoy dispatched] was about to depart, he asked ‘If the Great Country [China] asks which product will replace gold and silver, how should I answer?’ The King said, ‘The Ming Court will certainly not ask.’”^[57] This reveals that Korea commanded a certain level of respectability amongst the Ming Court. Moreover, it once again shows how the Ming were willing negotiate the ‘conditions’ and requirements of the official tributary relationships in pursuit of broader geopolitical goals.

Of course, there are also differences between Ming and Korean annals. The Ming records depict Korean envoys making independent protests, while the Korean records take it a step further by asserting Korea’s cultural distinctiveness from China: “A number of [current] Chinese proprieties do not accord with ancient custom […] Though these may be the affairs of China, they should not be emulated.”^[58] While both China and Korea agreed upon Korea’s special status amongst the Ming tributaries, their reasoning behind this status slightly varied. The Ming considered that “Korea is very close to China and its people are familiar with the classics, histories, and cultured things. Their music and ritual are much like those of China and it cannot be considered together with other foreign countries.”^[59] As discussed, this did not mean that China simply took Korean subservience for granted, but there was a certain expectation that Korea would better understand (and comply with) the norms of Ming bureaucracy and culture. Still, the Joseon annals sometimes question “how could we possibly follow the Chinese system in every way?”^[60] General Korean loyalty to the Ming system offered it a place of privilege in the world order, but these implicit and explicit signals that Joseon could forge its path are what maintained this position from the Ming. Rhetorically, the Ming were interested in emphasizing the cultural similarities between itself and its junior partner, but this did not mean that Korean primary sources fully subscribed to all Chinese norms.

These differences point out a flaw within the traditional understanding of Korea in the Fairbank model. Fairbank claims that “China’s superior intellectual and material culture attracted Joseon” into the tribute system.^[61] However, as this paper has demonstrated, this perspective simply does not appear within Korean primary sources. Of course, this is not to say that the Sino-Korean relationship was completely based upon quid-pro-quo exchanges, as Korean records also nominally validate Ming Confucian rhetoric. Historians Sulsoo Park and Hongkyu Park have suggested that Joseon Korea wished to position “itself as the most civilized barbarian state”^[62] by currying favor with the Ming. They argue Joseon Korea adhered to Ming rhetoric of applying Confucian principles to foreign policy in thinking that the ideal of a Confucian world order would have been beneficial for making peace last, quite similarly to the ideal of stability distilled from Neo-Confucianism in domestic affairs. Other scholars reconcile these differences by arguing that the Ming and Joseon imposed strict Confucian ceremonies upon each other to monitor the other’s intentions of preserving the current balance of power. For example, Cha Hyewon argues that Ming tributary restrictions were “decided in accordance with the principle of realizing rites but were usually imposed in a manner dictated by the prevailing political and military situations and practical necessity.”^[63] He further asserts that “Joseon’s exemplary attitude was based on concern for its national security by avoiding possible conflict with China by any means necessary,”^[64] especially since early Ming China was prone to issuing military threats to even Joseon Korea.^[65] If both states were sharing the same long-established diplomatic language, this would also signal a larger intent to keep the geopolitical status quo. Finally, there exists the explanation that Korea subscribed toMing rhetoric because it had tributaries itself. Creating a smaller tributary system with Korea’s northern tribes, Tsushima Island, and Ryukyu was a major foreign policy goal for the Joseon.^[66] The Wangjo Sillok points towards the latter two explanations as the most feasible––Korea’s annals demonstrably think in terms of self-interest.

Korea’s Information Strategy: The Real Rhetorical Struggle

Korea’s self-interest is most clearly seen in how Seoul often deviated from Beijing’s interests and wishes surrounding its policy against the Japanese wokou. Pirates from Japan often troubled both Ming and Korean shores, and the Ming often assigned blame on the decentralized Ashikaga Shogunate, as previously explained. Due to close ties between the Joseon court and several Japanese powers such as the Ouchi, Korean records seem to have a more precise knowledge of internal Japanese affairs.^[67] This knowledge was crucial because it meant that Korea was able to negotiate and cooperate with certain powers in Japan to bolster its security against the wokou. However, because the Ming often held Japan responsible for the piracy, this policy of cooperation had to be either hidden or justified to the Ming, who perceived Korean-Japanese diplomacy as negotiation with the enemy. Consequently, Korea chose to use its asymmetries in information to adopt a strategy of hiding information from Japan and China.

Korea’s national annals are frank about this balancing act between Japan and China: “We cannot anger the Japanese and cause trouble […] but this state serves China with great sincerity.”^[68] On balance, Korea was willing to negotiate with their Japanese counterparts surrounding the wokou issue, viewing the problem with a mixture of frustration and understanding. Korean records, unlike Chinese ones, explicitly mention that the Sengoku Jidai was ongoing and attribute the breakdown in peaceful trade to this instability.^[69] Due to China’s negative view of Japan arising from a lack of this in-depth understanding, Korea sought to keep its relations with Japan a secret from China for a long time. This issue primarily arises in the Korean annals because the Korean policymakers were often hesitant to repatriate Chinese captives on Japanese wokou boats captured in their realm. Korean officials reasoned that “if we repatriate them [the wokou], the great state [China] shall certainly think that our country is on friendly terms with Japan.”^[70] That “diplomatic exchange with Japan should not be heard by the Chinese court”^[71] was an official policy constantly brought up in the annals. In effect, Korea developed pragmatic strategy around carefully exploiting the gaps in knowledge between Ming and Japanese powers to secure the best possible diplomatic solution.

Nevertheless, the overall policy of maintaining secret relations with the Japanese was often debated within the Korean court. This was universally done through the lens of whether the policy was practical and never once on cultural or moral grounds––even as the Korean annals freely passed moral judgement on Japan as a country in the “former wrong” that “submits one moment and rebels the next”.^[72] The myriad of objections amongst the Korean court surrounding the secret relations primarily centered around Korea’s ability to truly hide this information from China: “concerning our country establishing amicable relations with Japan, how could the great state not be aware of it?”^[73] Some even suspected that “China already knows our state has intercourse with Japan,” and argued “if we kept even this small matter secret and it later came to light, we would be thought highly dishonest.”^[74] Korea’s policy of concealing information from the Ming was informed on realism, and not from an idea they inherently needed to be a Confucian vassal.

It should also be noted that the Korean annals positioned China as a rational actor simply acting on limited information, rather than a vain hegemon. Korean ministers were optimistic that the Ming would understand their perspective because of a mutual understanding of international security. One official went as far as to argue that “even if China learns about this, China will say that we inevitably became at peace with Japan, rather than entering into true friendly relations.”^[75] Furthermore, the Wangjo Sillok remains grounded that Korea’s information advantage comes through sheer geography, instead of some sort of greater diplomatic understanding on the part of Korea. It even goes further to acknowledge Korea’s own informational limitations––a Korean minister court tells off a Japanese envoy for trying to use Seoul as an intermediary between Japan and China, admonishing, “Both the letter from Taira Mitsukage and the letter you presented inquired about the matter of whether the Great Ming intend to attack Japan. How can Joseon know when Joseon is a great distance away from the Great Ming? Return to your state and tell this to the deputy.”^[76] Realist theory is almost as implicit of an idea reflected in the annals as any Confucian idea about nations.

Korea and Japan: History and Strategy

Finally, the Korean-Japanese relationship is notable for its volatile, dynamist trends, particularly as Korea’s troubles shifted from a Japan that was too decentralized to keep the wokou in check to one that was unified enough to pose a serious security risk, a threat that ultimately culminated in the Imjin War (1592 - 1598). Once again, Korea dealt with the increasing threat level coming from the East through a balancing act. As mentioned, it sought to enlist security guarantees from the Ming, while holding somewhat clandestine relations with Japan in an attempt at appeasement. Meanwhile, Korea further sought to shift the balance of power back in its favor by increasingly adopting technology from China and Japan and by militarily strengthening itself. It also attacked wokou bases, specifically towards the direction of the potential attack from Japanwhile not arousing suspicion and fear from Japan itself. Finally, Korea interestingly had a clearer picture of domestic Japanese politics than the Ming, which it used as part of its larger ‘information strategy.’ Even before the defense of Korea in the Imjin War, the astute diplomacy of statesmen kept the independence of the Joseon Dynasty.

Korea’s perspective of Japan is best analyzed through the following elements: one, Japan was rhetorically portrayed as an equal peer to Korea, despite their differences in the Ming tributary hierarchy and the balance of power between the two countries; two, the Joseon court understood that the wokou held a complicated position within Japanese domestic politics; and three, Japan was seen as a constant security threat to Korea, which encouraged Korean innovation and Ming protection. Combined, this created a dynamic and often chaotic diplomacy underneath a larger, more rational strategy, where records celebrating lofty visits from Japanese dignitaries sometimes come right after even threats of military action. Each of these elements in the dynamic relationship can be found in the writing of the Wangjo Silok.

Questions of cultural pride can bias a source towards certain ideas about their superiority relative to their peers, but during the Ashikaga period, Seoul seems to have reached a compromise solution of officially depicting Japan as a peer. In warmly dubbed ‘reciprocation visits’ to Japan, Korean rhetoric pushed an idea of equality and neighborly benefit. An official letter in 1420, before the peak of the wokou raids, reads “our country and your esteemed state have, throughout generations, maintained neighborly relations, the significance of which is very profound.”^[77] The rhetoric in this letter is cordial, and its purpose of outlining the reciprocal gifts exchanged between Japanese and Korean monarchs further highlights the Joseon’s goals. This equality of status is officially documented by the Korean bureaucracy’s titling of Japanese-Korean economic activity as well: in an international order where tributary systems were synonymous with leverage in trade rights, the Korean annals mention that “the Japanese currently staying here all desire for trade but not to offer precious goods as tribute.”^[78] Since the Japanese are said to have expressed this desire to the Koreans, it must also mean that Japan reciprocated Korea’s ideas about equity in status.^[79] In any case, ceremonial questions did not lead to more conflict between the two powers, which shows that it was not the central driver of international relations.

The equity in status from the Koreans was largely informed on geopolitical grounds. It is worth noting that the Wangjo Sillok does not solely praise Japan; it often dismisses Japan’s culture as uncultured^[80], unreliable,^[81] and arrogant.^[82] Some officials in Korea even openly tell the King “Japanese possess the wild hearts of wolves,”^[83] referring to the people themselves rather than just the country. Compared to the Ming, or even polities such as the Ryukyu Kingdom, Korea did not grant Japan a reciprocal relationship based on cultural affinity, especially as the wokou raids increasingly targeted the peninsula. Instead, the annals note that Korea heavily considered the geopolitical balance of power in categorizing its relations. For example, geopolitics determined where certain envoys were placed on court ceremonies in 1431, which ruled, “The present envoy of Ryūkyū is an envoy of a state equal to us in status […] Ryūkyū is smaller than Japan. As we already had the envoy of the Japanese King stand among the third-rank group, it is not appropriate to have the present envoy stand among the second-rank group.”^[84] This realist consideration, which drove how a ceremonial Buddist celebration was conducted, further emphasizes the rational nature of the 15^th Century East Asian order over arbitrary titles and Chinese ceremonies.

Indeed, one of Korea’s chief concerns about the wokou was that they defied the traditionally rational diplomatic customs between Korea and Japan that the Joseon Court had grown accustomed to. Initially, Korea, like the Ming Dynasty, blamed the Japanese government itself for the wokou. In 1419, the court advised King Sejong the Great that “our State has treated [the] Japanese extremely well, but now they are raiding our border areas. They are as untrustworthy as this,” clearly correlating the official state relations with the actions of pirates.^[85] Yet, Korea seemed to have quickly made the distinction between the Japanese State and the pirates. In 1420, King Sejong took a more nuanced view on solving the wokou problem with Kyoto’s support, calling his court to discuss “measures to pacify the pirates on Tsushima Island.”^[86] He declared, “If we first admonish the government of Japan for Tsushima’s wrongdoings, then they will also consider Tsushima Island in the wrong and censure them, and the force of the circumstances will inevitably isolate Tsushima Island.”^[87] Due to geographic proximity, Korea could conduct a more in-depth diplomacy with various Japanese factions.

Indeed, most of Korea’s frustrations with the Ashikaga Shogunate surrounded the perceived seriousness with which the shogunate approached the issue. In 1419, Korea’s initial strategy was to appeal to the central Ashikaga Shogunate to act upon the raids. As the Korean Ministry of Rites wrote to an Ashikaga deputy:

Recently, the pirates in Tsushima Island, forgetful of the grace they received, contrived a dispute and raided our border areas, murdering people and robbing property. They are calling themselves the pirates of Japan, thus disgracing your country’s name. No crime could be greater than this. If you could take judicious action for your country and have these pirates and their associates severely punished and rebuked as a warning for the future, and find all the Korean captives and send them back where they can be reunited with their families, thereby reinforcing the good relations between the two countries, how fortunate would it be?^[88]

The letter distinguishes between Ashikaga authority and the wokou and also offers an incentive for Kyoto to act against the pirates, claiming that unofficial wokou actors in Japan would damage relations between Korea and Japan. While there was a clear understanding that the pirates acted autonomously, the Korean court seemed to have calculated that it was within the shogunate’s capability to suppress the pirates.

Yet, with the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate, Korea had to switch strategies. The Joseon Court seems to have either become aware of the brewing instability in the Japanese islands much earlier than the Ming or simply taken a greater interest in the civil war. In 1428, the same year that the Ashikaga Shogunate destabilized considerably due to the illness of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi’s illness considerably destabilized the shogunate,^[89] Daimyos were already warned the Korean court that their “country has been embroiled in war.”^[90] Korean envoys also ceased traveling to Japan the same year out of concerns that “in this country [Japan], battles never cease and travelling is difficult due to blocked roads.”^[91] This evidences that Korea was informed about Japanese internal instability and able to take a diplomacy-in-depth strategy as a result. The Ming Shi Liu, by contrast, omits these Japanese episodes entirely.

Consequently, after 1428, Korea produced a logical solution to these potential threats posed by Japan: trying to increase its power and making alliances against the wokou. Firstly, the generally conservative Joseon court adopted certain technologies into Korean society to not fall behind Japan. In 1431, the Joseon King admitted, “Even Japan, which is a country without proprieties and principles, have the people widely use money. The country must have taken an effective measure. I have not been able to acquire such an effective measure.”^[92] The king continued this sentiment in an account written a month after stating, “From China down to Japan, all countries reap the benefit of waterwheels. Then, why would our country alone not use it?”^[93] Most notably, this logic was applied to the military balance of power. In 1431, Supreme General Choe Yundeok convinced a skeptical King Sejong to make more expensive, but effective, arrows for the Korean army by arguing, “Your subject saw the Chinese […] not only tie feathers to the heel with cow tendon but also lacquer the feathers.”^[94] Meanwhile, he pointed out “In our country, when we attach feathers, we neither tie them to the heel of an arrow nor finish them in lacquer. For this reason, such feathers will fall off from the arrow when it rains or snows.”^[95] After justifying that this was problematic because the “Japanese tend[ed] to battle on humid or rainy days,”^[96] he managed to convince King Sejong to produce these Chinese arrows despite the hefty economic cost. The East Asian diplomatic order constantly incentivized players like Korea to evaluate the balance of power between themselves and their peers.

Of course, the mutual threat of the wokou and later the emergence of the Tokugawa Shogunate also kept Korea more willing to remain with the Chinese-dominated East Asian order. King Sejong the Great, most widely known for inventing a Korean alphabet distinct from Chinese characters, remained loyal to the Ming system because of rational, realist considerations. In 1431 he noted, “Because the eastern parts of our country are adjacent to the Japanese pirates, it was inevitable that we build warships,” further adding, “Our warships decayed and fell into ruin within just a few months, largely because our shipbuilders were not skilled enough to construct proper warships,”^[97] These statements shows his awareness and frankness about Korea’s military capabilities. This calculation informed his decision next year to “make a request for skilled shipbuilders so as to prepare for the defense against the Japanese pirates” to the “Exalted Emperor” of the Ming.^[98] From adopting reforms due to outside pressures to choosing one senior ally over a less preferable potential security threat, Joseon annals consistently depict the kingdom taking rational actions based on what would be considered realpolitik in Western diplomatic systems.

The Collapse of the Order

If the diplomatic order between the Ming, Joseon Korea, and Japan was dictated by the rational politics of realism, it was vulnerable to the trappings of that international system. As long as the Ming was a hegemon over Northeast Asia––though not one so overwhelming Japan and Korea could not credibly negotiate with the Ming––the order could hold. The Ming generally believed that “intimidation by punishment was less desirable than befriending with virtue”^[99] and rarely acted upon even their military threats, so abiding by the Chinese order was not intolerable for Asian states. However, this peace hinged upon the Ming maintaining their favorable balance of power in East Asia.

Due to the decentralization of Japan, this balance of power was held for the 14th to 16th centuries, even during the peak of the wokou era, where most of the pirates were of Chinese origin and Korean-Japanese skirmishes could not escalate into state conflicts. Ironically, general peace in Asia was then threatened by the unification of Japan away from the feuding warlords of the Sengoku Jidai. Oda Nobunaga’s unification of a militarily advanced, large entity in the Northeast, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s stable grasp on that new emerging power in East Asia, drastically heightened the likelihood of conflict between the ambitious, unpredictable Japan and China, the status quo power.

The Ming Shi Liu even depicts a Thucydidean trap in East Asia after the unification of the country by Hideyoshi. According to the Ming’s narration of events, Hideyoshi “learned that the Chinese were as afraid of the Japanese as of tigers,” which made him “all the more arrogant” and hold “conferences with his subordinates in order to map out an invasion of China.”^[100] The annals note that by this point, Hideyoshi had already challenged the Ming-led order by demanding tribute from the Ryukyu, Spanish Luzon, Portugal, and Siam. This passage reveals the breakdown of the realist order from the Ming’s eyes––the rise of Japan, and Japan’s perception of the fear this caused in China, made war more likely to break out.

Of course, the Ming annals cannot be taken at face value here, as it was not within the Ming’s interest to depict itself as a warmonger. Rhetorically, Hideyoshi did not deny that he was the aggressor in the Imjin War, but it is more contested today if he truly intended to conquer all of China (or believed he could). Furthermore, the Ming leadership at the time had the incentive to justify a massive military expedition to Korea, and would have penned the most feasible dramatic account.^[101] Nevertheless, there is more modern scholarship that asserts Ming apprehension clouded Hideyoshi’s judgment about the rationality of the war. For one, Ming hegemony had always been maintained by posturing and the mere information that China was powerful; the seven military classics of China favored “compellence, deterrence, and accommodation,” where the foreign powers were pressured into favorable diplomatic solutions to the Ming through the implicit threat of Ming power more so than a real expenditure of force.^[102] As this paper has noted, the Ming generally softened their tone toward Japan as the balance of power shifted, and the lack of a strong Ming reaction against its reunifications further evidences this. Eventually, these light-handed actions signaled weakness to those who had gotten used to Sengoku-style warfare. Furthermore, Toyotomi Hideyoshi also acted with limited knowledge of the Ming. More scholarship exists about the strategic calculations of the Imjin War than of the East Asian order years before the war, but there is a much more compelling case that Hideyoshi was increasingly irrational by the time of the Imjin War: as Kenneth M. Swope notes, “On the one hand this event can be viewed as a failure to deter on the part of the Ming, but it can also been seen as a failure of deterrence itself, as the Japanese challenger, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), willfully ignored the warnings of the Koreans prior to the war and based his assessments of Ming military capabilities upon misreadings of scattered pirate campaigns conducted some thirty years earlier.”^[103] Given the intimate relationship (and distance) between Korea and China, it should have been obvious to Hideyoshi that the Ming would see an invasion of Korea as a direct challenge, while the demographic differences alone made any prospect of a land war against the Ming highly unfavorable for the Japanese. Consequently, Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s actions did not represent a failure in the security-based, realist geopolitical arena––instead, its sheer irrationality collapsed the rational diplomatic order of pre-modern East Asia.

The Imjin War ended with the Japanese eventually retreating upon Hideyoshi’s death, nominally preserving the Ming hegemony and even reaffirming the Ming as a viable military protector of its tributary states. After the war, Hideyoshi’s eventual successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, even tried to normalize relations with the Ming, placing Japan back into the Chinese fold.^[104] However, the damage had already been done to the old diplomatic order. Massive military expenditures left the Ming vulnerable to northern invasions and invaders. Perhaps equally important, the war had hardened Ming sentiment of severing all dialogue between China and Japan, which contradicted the dynasty’s previous more nuanced and rational foreign policies. As the Ming Shi-liu concludes ‘the story of Japan,’ it writes that “to the end of the Ming dynasty […] the regulation forbidding intercourse with the Japanese was strictly enforced. At the very mention of Japanese, the people in the street became so excited that women and children held their breath in alarm.”^[105] Without the belief to sustain the rational foreign policy of the antebellum world order, the Ming Empire, too, could not sustain itself, and it would make a series of internal and external blunders that led to the end of the premier power not just in East Asia, but the world.

Conclusion

It is flawed to assume that the politics of the past would reflect modern understandings and ideologies––but one also cannot underestimate the intelligence of historical actors. A primary source analysis reveals that the primary state actors of East Asia during the Ming era had a relatively robust understanding of the state system, in which ideas about ‘national’ interest and a distinction between entities such as ‘China,’ ‘Korea,’ and ‘Japan’ were prevalent. Moreover, each actor imagined themselves as national entities competing under a realist system, dictated by rational politics––the perception of the balance of power was the most important determining factor behind the tone, actions, and attitudes that Korea, China, and Japan took with and against each other. The primary sources that this paper has analyzed disagree with the decades-long historical consensus of a ceremony-based Ming diplomatic system.

Of course, any power that enjoyed hegemonic status warped some of the norms and diplomatic vocabulary used by all the players in its system. Consequently, Chinese culture, ceremony, and domestic politics certainly held an outsized impact on state behavior during this era, at least when informing the way that the Ming made their decisions. Still, the Ming were able to enjoy this hegemony for a reason; a baseline level of diplomatic competence was necessary to operate the world’s most populous empire, which held an extensive tributary system from Korea to Southeast Asia, for centuries. Far from remaining aloof in its ideas of centrality or overly demanding of other actors, the Ming were willing to negotiate, concede, and appease powers such as Joseon Korea and Japan, giving them incentives to remain within the Ming-led world order while carefully asserting the supremacy of Ming power throughout the region. Pre-modern East Asian diplomacy was not perfectly rational and calculated––but at its core, it was rational and based on the best information each state had access to.

Thus, this paper calls for a new understanding of East Asian diplomatic history based on more universal values of rationality and reasoning. This paper has contrasted the overwhelming academic consensus of East Asian diplomacy with an analysis of state annals and other primary sources, but the topic still has more areas of inquiry in the future. For one, there can be a deeper analysis of the court politics behind the scenes; this paper has shown that the Ming and Joseon, at least, had a surprisingly clear-cut definition of the state in their respective primary sources. However, the 14th to 16th centuries in East Asia had its share of court intrigue and internal instability. The Sengoku period saw competing factions in Japan, palace coups were also common in Korea, and Ming court politics were growing increasingly polarized by the end of the Dynasty. Different leaders could have evaluated risks in different manners and while this paper has shown that East Asian leaders generally chose rational foreign policy over domestic concerns, certain decisions were likely made with internal political considerations in mind.

Nevertheless, this paper finds value in encouraging a reimagination of pre-modern East Asian diplomacy away from the dated conceptions of the Fairbank Model. It provides a deeper reading of the original primary sources in the Ming Shi Liu and the Wangjo Sillok, highlighting how their recordings of foreign policy issues that spanned the hundreds of years these annals were compiled throughout showed rational, realism-based dilemmas. These sources depict a picture of Ming, Korean, and Japanese statesmen competing in the pre-modern East Asian order through superior strategy and the pursuit of peace through strength. Relative capabilities, and not ceremonies, held together the stable, but ever-evolving, international order in East Asia from 1328 to 1598.

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Footnotes

^[1] Andrea Nanetti, ed. Ming Shi Liu, Entry 1369.02.03, Geoffrey Wade trans., retrieved from Engineering Historical Memory.

^[2] Paul A. Cohen and Merle Goldman eds., Fairbank Remembered (Harvard University Asia Center, 1992).

^[3] Japan had significant changes in its central political authority between the Ashikaga period, the Sengoku period, and the Tokugawa period during the covered timeframe. This paper will cover all three of these periods, as well as any significant changes in diplomacy between them, as it brings forth an argument that Chinese and Korean foreign policy surrounding Japan changed with the overall balance of power in Asia.

^[4] Albert Criag et al., “The Life of John King Fairbank,” Harvard University Gazette, January 8, 1992.

^[5] Zhang Feng, “Rethinking the ‘Tribute System’: Broadening the Conceptual Horizon of Historical East Asian Politics,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 2, no. 4 (2009): 545-74.

^[6] Prasenjit Duara, “The Chinese World Order in Historical Perspective,” China and the World 2, no. 4 (2019): 1-33.

^[7] “China’s Approach to Global Governance,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2020.

^[8] Cha Hyewon, “Was Joseon a Model or an Exception? Reconsidering the Tributary Relations during Ming China,” Korea Journal 51, no. 4 (2011): 33–58.

^[9] Felix Kuhn, “Much More Than Tribute: The Foreign Policy Instruments of the Ming Empire,” Journal of Chinese History 5, no. 1 (2021): 59–82.

^[10] Chen Shangsheng, “The Chinese Tributary System and Traditional International Order in East Asia during the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Chinese Humanities 5, no. 2 (2020): 171-99.

^[11] Though the nuances of this ‘isolationism’ shall be further discussed in the paper.

^[12] Ma Guang, “Tributary Ceremony and National Security: A Reassessment of Wokou Diplomacy between China and Japan during the Early Ming Dynasty,” Journal of Asian History 51, no. 1 (2017): 27–54.

^[13] Barry Buzan and Evelyn Goh, Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities (Oxford: Oxford Academic, 2020).

^[14] Feng, “Rethinking the ‘Tribute System” 545–74.

^[15] David M. Robinson, Ming China and Its Allies. Imperial Rule in Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Buzan and Goh, Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation.

^[16] Or, at least geopolitical and ceremonial parity with.

^[17] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 112, translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.

^[18] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 188, translated by Kwan-Wai So.

^[19] “The Story of Japan,” 188.

^[20] Ma Guang, Rupture, Evolution, and Continuity: The Shandong Peninsula in East Asian Maritime History during the Yuan-Ming Transition (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2021), 53.

^[21]Guang, Rupture,Evolution, and Continuity, pg 51.

^[22] Thomas D. Conlan, “The ‘Ōnin War’ as the Fulfillment of Prophecy,” The Journal of Japanese Studies 46, no. 1 (2020): 31-60.

^[23] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 180, translated by Kwan-Wai So.

^[24] Ming Shi Liu, “Biography of Zhu Wan,” 52, translated by Kwan-Wai So.

^[25] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 184, translated by Kwan-Wai So

^[26] Ma, Rupture, Evolution, and Continuity, 65.

^[27] During the early Ashikaga era, different shoguns were divided between those who sought absolutist rule, such as the first shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and those who retained the rights of the shugo land-owning class in Japan, such as Ashikaga Yoshimochi, Yoshimitsu’s heir. Yoshimitsu sought the title ‘the king of Japan’ from the Ming so he could afford his lavish construction projects and gain more titles over the shugo, and Yoshimochi cut off relations with the Ming as part of his broader reversals from Yoshimitsu’s absolutist brand of politics. Of course, the Ming, who reasoned Yoshimochi would continue the Ming-friendly policies of his predecessor, did not have this level of knowledge about Ashikaga politics; consequently, an off-shoot of Ashikaga internal politics looked like inconsistency and insincerity on the part of Kyoto from China’s perspective. 
For more information, see Yi-T’ung Wan, Official Relations Between China and Japan 1368-1549 and Donald Keen. Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (New York ; Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2006).

^[28] Wang Yi-T’ung, Official Relations Between China and Japan 1368-1549 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), 45-7.

^[29] Buzan and Goh, Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation, 202.

^[30] Buzan and Goh.

^[31] Keene, Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion, 75-6.

^[32] Keene.

^[33] Keene, 74.

^[34] Buzan and Goh, Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation, 202.

^[35] Guang, “Tributary Ceremony and National Security,” 44.

^[36] Guang.

^[37] Ming Shi Liu, ‘Entry '1593.08.19,’ translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[38] Kuhn, “Much More Than Tribute.”

^[39] Ming Shi Liu, Entry '1625.05.06’ Ming Shi Liu,” translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[40] This unique information strategy will be discussed in more exhaustive detail later in the paper, from Korea’s perspective.

^[41] Here, the Ming Shi Liu is referring to Prince Ryokai (named in Japanese as Prince Kanenaga the military governor of Kyushu from 1330-1380), who was the tributary delegation the records are crediting this exchange to. Of course, there is something to be said about the rhetoric of Japanese delegates referring to themselves as Ming ‘subjects,’ which does not happen later on in the annals.

^[42] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 165, translated by Kwan-Wai So.

^[43] “The Story of Japan.”

^[44] The ‘Li’ is a traditional Chinese measurement system for area.

^[45] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 112, translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.

^[46] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 182, translated by Kwan-Wai So.

^[47] “The Story of Japan,” 129.

^[48] “The Story of Japan.”

^[49] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 129, translated by Kwan-Wai So

^[50] Ming Shi Liu, ‘Entry 1610.08.14,’ translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[51] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 136, translated by Kwan-Wai So

^[52] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 143, translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.

^[53] Kuhn, “Much More Than Tribute.”

^[54] Ming Shi Liu, ‘Entry 1521.09.02,’ translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[55] Ming Shi Liu, ‘Entry 1534.12.11,’ translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[56] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 2 (1420), Month 1, Day 25, Entry 1.

^[57] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Entry 1.

^[58] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 7 (1425), Month 10, Day 9, Entry 8.

^[59] Ming Shi Liu, ‘Entry 1372.11.16,’ translated by Geoffrey Wade.

^[60] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 3 (1423), Month 7, Day 3, Entry 2.

^[61] Park Hongkyu and Park Sulsoo, “The Zhonghua Community Strategy in the Early Joseon Dynasty: The Establishment of Rituals and the Change in Ming’s Attitude toward Joseon,” Korea Journal 63, no. 4 (2023): 175-6.

^[62] Park and Park,“The Zhonghua Community Strategy in the Early Joseon Dynasty,” 179.

^[63] Cha, “Was Joseon a Model or an Exception?”, 33-58.

^[64] Cha, “Was Joseon a Model or an Exception?”

^[65] Felix Kuhn, “Much More Than Tribute.”

^[66] Kenneth R. Robinson, “Centering the King Chosōn: Aspects of Korean Maritime Diplomacy,” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 1 (February 2000).

^[67] Thomas D. Conlan, Kings in All but Name: The Lost History of Ouchi Rule in Japan, 1350-1569 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024), 292-343.

^[68] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Accession Year (1418), Month 12, Day 27, Entry 7.

^[69] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 15 (1433), Month 7, Day 22, Entry 1.

^[70] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 11 (1429), Month 2, Day 10, Entry 1.

^[71] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 14 (1432), Month 6, Day 11, Entry 2.

^[72] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 11 (1429), Month 12, Day 9, Entry 1.

^[73] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 11 (1429), Month 2, Day 10, Entry 1.

^[74] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 11, Day 18, Entry 1.

^[75] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 1, Day 21, Entry 2.

^[76] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 2 (1420), Month 11, Day 11, Entry 2.

^[77] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 2 (1420), Intercalary Month 1, Day 15, Entry 6.

^[78] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 11, Day 18, Entry 1

^[79] Tanaka Takeo, “Japan’s Relations With Overseas Countries,” in Japan in the Muromachi Age. edited by John Whitney Hall and Toyoda Takeshi (University of California Press, 1977) 159-81.

^[80] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 4, Day 9, Entry 2

^[81] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 11 (1429), Month 12, Day 9, Entry 1

^[82] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 5 (1423), Month 12, Day 25, Entry 4

^[83] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 16 (1434), Month 3, Day 7, Entry 3

^[84] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 11, Day 9, Entry 3. The Chinese envoy was on the first-rank group of this ceremony.

^[85] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 1 (1419), Month 5, Day 7, Entry 1.

^[86] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 1 (1419), Month 5, Day 7, Entry 1.

^[87] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 2 (1420), Month 11, Day 1, Entry 2

^[88] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 1 (1419), Month 6, Day 1, Entry 4

^[89] Hiiro Ishihara, “Ashikaga Yoshimochi to Gokumatsu ‘Ōke’” [Ashikaga Yoshimoch and the Gokomatsu Royal House], Shigaku Zasshi 116, no. 6 (2007): 1033-1063.

^[90] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 10 (1428), Month 1, Day 12, Entry 5.

^[91] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 10 (1428), Month 8, Day 6, Entry 4.

^[92] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 4, Day 9, Entry.

^[93] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 5, Day 17, Entry 6.

^[94] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 13 (1431), Month 7, Day 30, Entry 1.

^[95] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Entry 1.

^[96] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Entry 1.

^[97] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Year 14 (1432), Month 5, Day 16, Entry 3

^[98] The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, Entry 3.

^[99] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 115, translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.

^[100] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 140, translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.

^[101] Nam-lin, “Hideyoshi’s Goal of Conquering Ming China?”.

^[102] Johnston, Cultural Realism, 112.

^[103] Kenneth M. Swope, “Ming Grand Strategy during the Great East Asian War, 1592–1598,” in East Asia in the World: Twelve Events That Shaped the Modern International Order, eds. Stephan Haggard and David C. Kang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 108.

^[104] Buzan and Goh, Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation.

^[105] Ming Shi Liu, “The Story of Japan,” 143. Translated by Ryusaku Tsunoda.