Typescript of Book Review of "Korea and Japan in East Asian History: A Tripolar Approach to East Asian History" by Hong, Wontack, published in Korean Studies 31: 79-82 (2007)

Typescript for book review published in Korean Studies 31: 79-82 (2007) Hong, Wontack (2006) Korea and Japan in East Asian history: a tripolar approach to East Asian history. Seoul: Kudara International. Hong’s new book is a work of synthesis — albeit one with an agenda. Moreover, the 2006 publication is stated to be a “limited preview edition”, which means we may see subsequent editions telling a different story, revised in light of comments on the first. This is an unusual publication strategy, but then, this is an unusual book by an unusual author. Hong is a trained economist, retired from Seoul National University, who has applied his considerable research skills to the problem of Japan–Korea relations in the period of state formation. His previous works in English include The relationship between Korea and Japan in the early period: Paekche and Yamato Wa (Ilsimsa, 1988), and Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan (Kudara International, 1994); the core of this new book continues this dialog. Thus, although posing as a history of northeast Asia (the tripolar region consisting of northern China, northeastern China plus Korea and Japan, and northwestern desert and steppe regions) from the Neolithic through the Qing Dynasty, the real message is contained in chapters 5 to 11 (out of 15). I will comment on these middle chapters below, but as a sweeping historical work, it is difficult to find another publication that integrates so much material from across such broad swaths of time and space. Much of this is new to general English readers, precisely because the two northern regions and their effect on Chinese dynastic formation were long neglected in China scholarship — Hong’s main point. For this synthesis, we therefore have Hong to thank for bringing all these disparate data to our attention (though a less skeletal index would have helped readers explore the wealth of material more efficiently). I myself found Chapter 13 on the political relations of the northeast Asian states in the late 1st millennium AD most useful; this is an area and time period truly neglected, whereas the desert/steppe regions have been recently receiving much scrutiny in terms of the “Manchu-Mongol-Muslim triumvirate” (Atwill 2006: 605). The publication is unusual in its format, with each page divided into two columns: a wider outer column of text, and a narrow inner column which holds illustrations, footnotes and primary text excerpts. The last are useful in offering a direct means of double-checking Hong’s interpretations of the original sources without his filter, but one needs to read classical Chinese because they are given without translation (though discussed in the text). One of Hong’s most significant contributions is the integration of linguistic data into the history, but this raises many problems in my opinion. It is one thing to discuss the known languages of known groups, but when it comes to labeling Neolithic groups in terms of their linguistic affiliations, the data are exceeded by speculation. These assignments are then taken as fact in later discussions. In this book, Hong has overcome one objectionable stylistic strategy that marred his earlier works: that of stringing together numerous quotations from other authors without much independent assessment or analysis. Here, Hong relies more on paraphrasing. However, he still resorts much too often to argument by assertion to prove his points. This strategy becomes increasingly irritating as he pushes his main agenda: that Yamato was conquered by Paekche in the late 4th to early 5th centuries and that Paekche established the proto-historic Yamato state. This adherence to the Horserider Theory of Japanese state formation, promulgated by EGAMI Namio in 1948 and enhanced by Gari Ledyard in 1975, is simply flogging a dead horse. Hong offers no new data on this problem. Instead he relies entirely on known documentary sources, asserting such things as: Harima Fudoki includes so many anecdotes related to Homuda (Oujin) [whom Hong believes to be a Paekche prince] that one readily believes Homuda must have been the founder of the Yamato kingdom. (p. 111, my comment in brackets) There may be a logical reason for his belief, but it is not stated here, and faith is not proof. According to Leon Serafim (pers. comm. Nov. 06), the word homuda meant ‘prince’ in early Korean. It is not a personal name, so these entries in the Harima Fudoki could have meant any ‘prince’, not necessarily from Paekche even if the term was borrowed from Korean. But such arguments are unaired. Hong further uses the Samguk Sagi, Nihon Shoki and Kojiki texts in Chapter 8 to recreate the ‘Paekche conquest’ by weaving historical ‘fact’ and legend. He begins with the statements by the mid-4th century Korean King Keun Chogo written into the Jingū chronicles (already difficult because Jingū herself is thought to be a fictitious sovereign). Hong quotes several passages from Aston’s translation of the Nihon Shoki, adding his own comments in square brackets as “my efforts to correct the distortions” (sic, p. 149). For example, King Chogo is said to have heard that “in the Eastern quarter there is an honorable country [the Japanese islands]” to which he “wished to pay tribute” (p. 151, Hong’s comment in brackets). Having thus identified the ‘honorable country’ as Japan and presented the friendly intentions of King Chogo, Hong then assesses the situation as: At that time, the Paekche court was planning not only the conquest of the Japanese islands by sending an expeditionary force led by Homuda, but also the conquest of the Ma-han states in the southwestern part of the Korean peninsula by a force led by King Keun Chogo himself in collaboration with the expeditionary force on its way to the Japanese islands. (p. 152) Excuse me, but when and how did a tributary mission become an expeditionary force, and where are the Korean records that show expeditionary planning and state that Homuda was in charge? The ‘evidence’ Hong provides is legendary: he cites Jimmu’s trek from Kyushu to Yamato, equating Jimmu (the initial legendary sovereign) with both Sujin (the 10th and probably first historical sovereign) and Ōjin/Homuda (the 14th sovereign in the imperial list), thus ‘explaining’ his ‘Kudara-Yamato Theory’ of Japanese state formation. The Jimmu trek is an old story and sheds no new light on the situation. Moreover, it does not take into account the most radical of interpretations recently offered by Japanese archaeologists. TERASAWA Kaoru (2000) has constructed a hypothesis that Yamato was intruded upon by a group of polity rulers from the Seto region in the mid-3rd century, essentially suggesting that the Jimmu myth may reflect the beginning of the Sujin line of kings. I have recently reviewed Terasawa’s hypothesis and proposed that the Early Kofun political system depended upon a ritual system legitimized by the ideology of the Queen Mother of the West (Barnes 2007). With the dissolution of this ideology of rulership in the mid-4th century, I argued, the Kinai polities suffered from a crisis of leadership. The resulting change of dynasty has long been noted by historian MIZUNO Yū, but this did not occur because of invasion but, rather, due to the collapse of the previous system. It is my contention that it was the development of relations with Paekche that allowed a new faction, probably led by the Kazuraki clan, to take control and build a new polity, possibly integrating continental figures into the ruling structure (Barnes 1990). For the Yamato elite, the mid- to late 4th century was a time of dynastic change, economic expansion, the realignment of political alliances and sudden involvement in continental power struggles. It was a fascinating time and is worthy of much more detailed and nuanced research, rather than the reiteration of old ideas and insufficient explanations. Gina L. Barnes Professor Emeritus, Durham University & Professorial Research Associate, SOAS References: Atwill, David G. (2006) Book review of Empire at the margins: culture, ethnicity, and frontier in early modern China, edited by P.K. Crossley, H.F. Siu, and D.S. Sutton. Berkeley: University of California Press. Journal of Asian Studies 65.3: 604-6. Barnes, Gina L. (1990) “Ōbei kara mita Nihon” [“Ancient Japan from a Euro-American perspective”]. In Kodai Nihon no Kokusaika [The internationalization of ancient Japan], pp. 31-50. Tokyo: Asahi Newspaper Co. (in Japanese) Barnes, Gina L. (2007) State formation in Japan: emergence of a 4th-century ruling elite. London: Routledge. TERASAWA Kaoru (2000) Ōken tanjō [The birth of kingly power]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.