Making peace with the barbarians: Neo-Confucianism and the pro-peace argument in 17th-century Korea

The classical paradigm

Throughout Chinese and Korean history, especially after Confucianism became the state ideology, the term zheng 征 was casually employed when describing, as well as justifying, military expedition against the non-Chinese/Korean “barbarians” (yi). In the Chinese and Korean moral and political discourses, yi referred to the peoples outside China or the China-centered tributary system whose ways of life were not regulated by Chinese Confucian especially ritual-based civilization, which was generally considered the most advanced culture of the East Asian region, until the collapse of the Confucian world order in the late 19th century upon the “encounter with the West.” ²

Interestingly, however, Confucian just war theory, as advanced by the Warring States Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi, was not developed primarily with reference to the hua 華-yi 夷 (Chinese/barbarian) distinction, which initially delineated the realm controlled by the house of Zhou by means of the Mandate of Heaven (tianming 天命) from the outer realm populated by the “barbarians.” As Twiss and Chan note, the classical Confucian theory of just war revolves around “the moral and political authority for undertaking punitive expeditions against usurpers, tyrants, and aggressors” (Twiss and Chan, 2012a: 452). This is not to say that the hua-yi distinction was insignificant to the classical Confucians or to the people of Zhou for that matter. In fact, it was the hua-yi distinction, on top of military aggression, that propelled the defenders of the waning Zhou during the Spring and Autumn period such as the Duke of Huan as the “leader” (ba 覇) of the feudal lords to embark upon the military expeditions against the foreign peoples threatening the integrity of the Zhou realm (Yi, 2002: 141). ³ As the two greatest classical Confucian masters after Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi developed Confucius’s seminal insight on the ideal domestic and interstate order into a coherent just war theory under the new political circumstances of the Warring States period ushered in by the complete disintegration of the Zhou political order, which morally justified the political hierarchy between the suzerain and the feudal lords governing the political entity called guo 國, commonly translated as “the state.”

For Mencius and Xunzi, therefore, just war in principle referred to war conducted by the Heaven-appointed officer (tianli 天吏), in principle the Zhou king as the Son of Heaven or his delegate, against the feudal lords who operate a tyrannical government or have seized power illegitimately, or have critically transgressed Zhou political ritualism, the most serious of which was challenging the authority of the Zhou house either through aggression directly toward the Zhou king or against other feudal states. According to Mencius (and Xunzi), what was central to the Confucian theory of just war was interstate moral hierarchy between the (suzerain) state possessing the ritually sanctioned right to punish and the (feudal) state which has violated the norms that buttress interstate moral and political order.

Though the Warring States saw the complete breakdown of the Zhou dynasty, which resulted in the collapse of the political institution representing the Mandate of Heaven, classical Confucians redefined the interstate order in terms of virtue, thereby reformulating just war as a righteous action by any benevolent ruler to punish or “rectify” (zheng 正) a tyrant, a usurper, an aggressor, or anyone who has critically undermined the well-being of the people, the telos of Confucian politics, under several important limiting conditions (Twiss and Chan, 2012b; Stalnaker, 2012).

Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian reformulation

Neo-Confucianism refers to a new trend of Confucianism which emerged during the Northern Song period in the course of the struggle with Buddhism and Daoism. Its most dominant version, commonly known as Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, was developed by a group of scholars who claimed to have revivified the Way, interrupted for a millennium, after the demise of Mencius. Among others, Zhu Xi created the most sophisticated philosophical system of Neo-Confucianism in which the natural world and the human world, human nature and cosmos, ethics and politics, are seamlessly interconnected by an all-encompassing moral principle called li 理. ⁴

Zhu Xi’s interpretation is different from that of the classical Confucians in a philosophically important way in that he reinterpreted “righteousness” (yi), which concerns the morality of war, in terms of li, a moral principle or standard that prescribes the morally justified and coherent course of action. For instance, commenting on Analects 14.21 where Confucius asks Duke Ai of Lu to launch a punitive expedition against Chen Chengzi, one of the ministers of the neighboring state Qi, for having assassinated his lord and usurped the throne, Zhu justified Confucius’s decision not in terms of Chen’s violation of Zhou’s ritual order but in terms of the unacceptability of Chen’s action in light of the Heavenly Principle (tianli 天理) (Zhu, 1983: 154). ⁵ Similarly, in interpreting Analects 16.1, which presents Confucius’s objection to an attack on Zhuanyu, a small vassal state attached to Lu by King Cheng of Zhou, by the Ji family who at that point seized the power of Lu, Zhu noted that “since Zhuanyu was a state enfeoffed by the former king [of the Zhou], no one may attack it. … This is the ultimate standard of the principle of the matter, a settled substance which cannot be changed [此事理之至當, 不易之定體]” (Zhu, 1983: 169). ⁶ It is crucially important to note that in Zhu Xi’s philosophical system, the ritual practices that previously undergirded Zhou’s political order and social custom have attained a new normative meaning as an all-penetrating moral principle, although he never denied the possibility that ritual itself can change in a way that responds more effectively to changing social and political circumstances.

Zhu Xi understands li not only as human nature but as the inborn nature of all things and beings in the universe (“the myriad things,” as he calls them) that are otherwise formed by qi 氣, commonly translated as “vital energy” or “psychophysical stuff.” For Zhu, however, li does not exist merely as the organizing principle of human nature and the natural world. It is simultaneously and significantly a moral principle because as human nature (xing ji li 性卽理) it is constituted by what Mencius called the four virtues, namely benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, and the ability to tell right from wrong (Zhu, 1983: 237–238). Therefore, while for Mencius benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, and the ability to tell right from wrong are understood as character traits that are to be developed through the arduous process of moral self-cultivation, for Zhu they are believed to be innate and the gist of moral self-cultivation lies in recovering this nature as decreed by moral principles. As Zhu puts it, “moral principle [daoli 道理] is the same as Heavenly Principle. Even if sages don’t appear, this Heavenly Principle exists of its own” (Zhu, 1986: 156, reprinted in Gardner, 1990: 125).

Zhu explains the difference between humans in terms of different endowments of qi, which is concerned with the material and physical aspect of all beings, things, and affairs. According to him, insomuch as humans are all equally born with the original nature (benran zhi xing 本然之性), they are innately sages. The problem is that when humans are born, they are also endowed with qi, which prevents the original nature from manifesting itself in its perfect form. Following his Song processors such as Zhang Zai (1020–1077) and Cheng Yi (1033–1107), Zhu called the human nature that has been obscured by qi “the physical nature” (qizhi zhi xing 氣質之性). Since, as Zhu believed, qi (and accordingly the physical nature) has different qualities, clear/pure or turbid/impure, and it is distributed to each being and thing differently causing each to possess a distinctive individual characteristic, humans are born with varying degrees of moral ability to become good. In Zhu’s metaphysical scheme, those who are born with the clearest and purest qi become sages while those who possess impure and turbid qi become petty people (xiaoren 小人) who require much more effort to become noble (junzi 君子). Animals also share this original nature with humans but their qi is too impure and turbid for them to possess any (more than rudimentary) moral sensibilities (Gardner, 1990: 98; Zhu, 1986: 73).

Two important points can be gleaned from the discussion thus far. First, after the reformulation of the institutions and practices buttressing Zhou’s social and political order into one of the cardinal moral virtues in Mencius’s moral philosophy, ritual propriety was then transformed into one of the cosmic-moral principles that are innate in humans in Zhu Xi’s philosophical system. For Zhu, violation of ritual propriety does not signal a mere aberration from Zhou political practice. It further and more importantly signifies going against nature; violation of a moral principle that ought to be observed. Second, violation of ritual propriety as moral principle implies the denial of humanity, relegating oneself to the state of an animal. The belief that only humans can be (fully) cognizant of and can practice moral principles (of benevolence, righteousness, and ritual propriety) entails that only humans can engage in moral self-cultivation and they alone can be morally corrected and improved. Animals, even those species who possess rudimentary moral sensibilities, are thought to be unable to carry out moral action. In this understanding, ritual practices, whose normative force is grounded in the innate principle of ritual propriety, are unique to human beings, and relationships and transactions formulated and conducted in mediation of ritual make them authentically “human” practices.

Just war and the “barbarians”

If Zhu’s commentaries demonstrate his theoretical account of just war, his practical idea of war is expressed most explicitly in his pro-war argument against the Jin 金 (1115–1234), a state created by the Jurchen “barbarians,” who, after ceaselessly invading the Central Plain controlled by Song, finally forced Song to relocate its capital to the south. The Song people called the incident of 1127, which cost them the heartland of Chinese civilization and caused the incumbent emperor and his father to be captured by the Jin, “the Humiliation of Jingkang” (Jingkang zhi chi 靖康之). Zhu’s pro-war argument is best articulated in his memorial of 1162, presented to Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189), who had just succeeded Gaozong (r. 1127–1162), the first ruler of the Southern Song.

Developed in the context of the Jin-Song conflict, Zhu Xi’s practical idea of just war is ethnocentric, appealing to and reinforcing the traditional hua-yi binary. ⁷ In the memorial of 1162, Zhu claimed that:

the plan that is [most urgent] today is only to practice good government and repel the barbarians [yidi 夷狄] and this is not something that is esoteric or difficult to understand. The reason that this plan is not yet settled is because the pro-peace argument doubts it. Yet, to us the Jin caitiffs [jinlu 金虜] are the enemy with whom we cannot share the sky, and so it is clear in light of the principle of righteousness [yili 義理] that we cannot make peace with them. (Zhu, 2002: 573)

As we have seen, in his commentaries to the ancient classics Zhu Xi appealed to (cosmic-moral) principle as a new normative standard, based on which a military action is judged to be unjust if it is determined to have violated (Zhou-prescribed) ritual order. Interestingly, in his pro-war argument against the Jin, Zhu appealed to the same principle (the moral principle of righteousness more precisely) and in this way he made his otherwise practical argument normatively binding. For Zhu, the right course of action for the Song government to take was to avenge their emperors and to recover the fatherland taken by the Jin. That way, the moral relationships between the ruler and minister and between father and son could be restored, as stipulated by the principle of righteousness, putting the (once displaced) Heavenly Principle back on the right track. Zhu explicates why war with the Jin is a matter of principle in the following way:

Without benevolence and righteousness there can be no [ground upon which] the Way of humans can stand. Yet, as for benevolence nothing is greater than [the relationship between] father and son and as for righteousness nothing is greater than [the relationship between] ruler and minister. This is called the essence of the Three Bonds and the foundation of the Five Relationships. It is why moral relationship [renlun 人倫] is the culmination of the Heavenly Principle. … Therefore, what is meant by the saying [of the Book of Rites] “One cannot live under the same sky with the murderers of one’s father” is [to speak of] … the inborn nature [which embodies the principles of benevolence and righteousness that govern the relationships between] ruler and minister and father and son. [This inborn nature] is aroused upon extreme pain and it is the natural sentiment shared by all human beings, not something that is only motivated by private sentiments. … Now, if we dissolve our enmity and make peace [with our enemies], this is not merely to humiliate ourselves but to go against principle. The self may be humiliated, but is it permissible to violate principle? (Zhu, 2002: 633–634, the second memorial of 1163)

Capturing Zhu’s passion for irredentism and revanchism in terms of “patriotic sentiments,” Tillman observes that Zhu’s patriotic sentiments have “a confining effect on the universality of his values” (Tillman, 1982: 171). However, Zhu’s patriotism is not a mere “love of one’s country,” which George Kateb understands as nothing more than “a readiness to die and to kill for an abstraction … for a figment of imagination” (Kateb, 2006: 8). It should be remembered that for Zhu, the war with the Jin was a matter of universal righteousness, which he understood as “a constant, unwavering standard” (Tillman, 1982: 176). Seen this way, for Zhu, patriotic sentiments do not exert a mere “confining effect” on the universality of the moral values, as Tillman claims; more often, patriotic sentiments express the universality of moral values as mediated by Zhu’s philosophical ethnocentrism. His case for patriotism was principled, supported by the moral reasoning that the Jin barbarians’ (collective) endowment of qi (or their physical nature) places them between humans and beasts, nearly incapable of recovering their original nature and thus reforming themselves. ⁸

In Zhu Xi’s view, therefore, even the classic ideal of punitive expedition would be ineffective in dealing with the Jin “barbarians” because no (or only a very limited) moral effect could be expected from “the war of punishment,” the ultimate aim of which lies in the moral rectification of the wrongdoer(s). This significantly differentiates Zhu Xi from Chen Liang 陳亮 (1143–1194), one of the most famous “utilitarian Confucians” of his time, their shared pro-war stance notwithstanding, because Chen’s patriotism was motivated not so much by the universal principle of righteousness, but by traditional ritual norms (Tillman, 1982: 176). Thus understood, for Zhu Xi, war against “the barbarians” must be limited, aimed at restoring the traditional balance between the Han people and “the barbarians” by keeping the latter away from the Chinese realm. This, in part, explains why Zhu, in his later days, became increasingly persuaded by an accommodationist strategy, which focuses on defensive self-strengthening rather than an all-embracing war with the Jin, ⁹ on top of his realistic recognition of the Jin’s military strength and political order. ¹⁰

From Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian perspective, making peace with “the barbarians” was nonsensical, not only because it had proven to be practically ineffective, only giving them an opportunity to take advantage of Song’s relaxed guard against them (Zhu, 2002: 574–575). The real problem with the pro-peace argument was that it recommended what was unthinkable and unreasonable—that the civilized Chinese people should treat the barbarians as moral peers, as if they were full-blown humans capable of keeping the treaty, which is a kind of ritual obligation. For Zhu, treating those who are essentially less than humans as humans was itself to go against the moral principle of righteousness and this, along with the reasons of irredentism and revanchism, in turn provided him with full moral justification for his pro-war argument prior to his later turn to an accommodationist strategy.

The ideal of “small China” and the pro-war argument

The Jin’s nearly hundred years’ struggle with the Song ended in 1234 when they succumbed to the Mongols, who later created the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), forcing the Jurchens into a long period of decentralized tribal competition. The Jurchens were finally reunited by Nurhaci who founded the “Later Jin” in 1616 with an ambition to restore the glory of his ancestors of the 12th century. Hong Taiji, Nurhaci’s eighth son, then successfully united and conquered other Jurchen tribes and the Mongols, and after driving the Ming forces out of the Liaodong Peninsula, he created the Qing, a new multiethnic empire in 1636, encompassing the Jurchens, the Mongols, and the Han Chinese of Liaodong. Qing finally replaced the Ming dynasty in the Central Plain in 1644, which practically had lost its control after the decades-long peasant rebellion, although Hong Taiji, now the first emperor of the Qing, had died before this happened. As part of his endeavor to conquer the Central Plain of China and become a universal ruler, Hong Taiji invaded Chosŏn twice in 1627 and 1636, first for the strategic purpose of making its military expedition against the Ming easier by subduing the Ming’s most loyal vassal state, and then in 1636 to formally make Chosŏn its own vassal state (Han, 2009). Chosŏn’s submission to the Qing in 1637 was followed by the establishment of the lord–subject relationship, which had marked the Sino–Korean relationship in the past.

This brief description of the 17th-century interstate political environment surrounding Chosŏn should be sufficient to inform us of the striking similarity between Chosŏn and Song, both Confucian countries, in their confrontation with the Jurchen “barbarians.” One critical difference, of course, is the status Chosŏn occupied in the Sinocentric world order—whereas Song entertained the superior moral-political status as the Heavenly dynasty (tianchao 天朝), around which the lord–subject relationship and the tributary system were formed, Chosŏn, though located outside the Chinese realm, was considered its foreign vassal state (waifu zhuhou guo 外服諸侯國), which had been completely integrated into the Sinocentric Confucian ritual order and global system. In the 17th-century context, it was the Ming of the Han people that inherited the Heavenly dynasty status from the Song after the two-century hiatus caused by the Yuan intervention, and Ming regarded Chosŏn as “the obedient barbarians” (shunyi 順夷) and distinguished them from “the disobedient barbarians” (niyi 逆夷) such as the Jurchens controlled by Nurhaci (Han, 2000: 197). On Chosŏn’s side, though, it was firmly believed that Chosŏn occupied a special moral and political status, given its full and long immersion in Confucian culture, making it a “small China,” thus fundamentally distinguished from other non-Han ethnic groups, who they also, following the Chinese, regarded as “barbarians.”

Given the dominant mindset shared by the Chosŏn intellectuals of the time, in which they were culturally identified with the Ming as fellow Confucians though occupying a lower status in the Confucian ritual order, their strong sense of cultural superiority over the Jurchen “barbarians” was naturally and deeply inscribed in their self-identity (Haboush, 1999: 46–90). For the Chosŏn Confucians, Ming was not merely a historical dynasty of the Chinese people. Rather, it symbolized the Confucian civilization as such, and these dual dimensions of the Ming occasionally encouraged the Chosŏn intellectuals and scholar-officials to criticize Ming’s mundane cultural and social practices in light of the Confucian ritual norms and principles, which the Ming was supposed to embody and represent (Wu, 2013: 92–103).

In fact, from the founding of the dynasty, which was spearheaded by a group of radical Neo-Confucians who rescinded their forced allegiance toward the Yuan and declared the Ming as the only legitimate moral, cultural, and political authority of the whole world (Kŭm, 1997: 72–79), Korea’s Confucian monarch and scholar-bureaucrats regarded the Jurchens as “barbarians” (“orangkye” or “yain” as the Koreans called them). Whenever the Chosŏn government launched a military campaign against the Jurchens, who, mainly living on hunting and stock-farming, frequently plundered the Korean villages near the border, it employed the term zheng or tao 討 (punishment), revealing its moral and cultural superiority over the Jurchens (Yi, 2006: 216–228). By the time the Qing invaded Chosŏn in the 17th century, this sense of superiority had become thoroughly consolidated. For Chosŏn intellectuals and policy makers, irrespective of the Qing’s military strength and threat, of which they were clearly aware, the Heavenly lord status was thought to be an exclusive asset of the Ming emperor because it was the moral and cultural symbolism that the Ming represented in the world, not its military power, nor mutual economic interest, that underscored the Sino–Korean relation in the first place.

Following Zhu Xi and other Song Neo-Confucians, the predominant majority of the Chosŏn Neo-Confucians of the 17th century—let us call them “orthodox Neo-Confucians”—were unwaveringly convinced that Chosŏn’s allegiance to the Ming and its pro-war stance against the Qing was essentially a matter of principle. An example might be helpful here. After the Jurchens’ first invasion, one of the important outcomes was to formalize the Later Jin–Chosŏn relationship as one of brothers, which was itself a colossal blow to the self-identity of the Chosŏn intellectuals who had maintained moral, cultural, and political superiority over the Jurchens. When the Later Jin received an official letter from King Injo, Chosŏn’s monarch at the time, it was discovered that the word “tianqi 天啓,” the era name of the Ming emperor Xizong, was used in the letter, and, accordingly, the Jurchens demanded that the word be deleted because they were not subject to the Ming’s political authority. The Chosŏn government could never accept this demand, however, even if it was only concerned with ritual formality, thus having nothing directly to do with “national interest” as commonly understood in modern international politics. The members of the Censorate presented King Injo with the following statement:

The crux of the statement of the envoy from the enemy state [i.e., the Later Jin] was … to demand that the two words tian and qi be deleted. Accepting this, if we [lower the grade of the king’s letter and] make it a kyech’ŏp 揭帖 [read: a less formal version of the foreign document, which does not require the era name of the Ming], this is also to delete the Ming’s calendar [k. chŏngsak 正朔]. The allotments of the lord and the subject are in accordance with the absolute and unchanging [principle of] righteousness of Heaven and earth [tian jing di yi 天經地義], which can never be violated. Even if it may cause the ruining of the state, how can we tolerate something like this? (Chosŏn Wangjo Sillok 朝鮮王朝實錄 15:43a)

The pro-peace argument as “the expedient”

The Great Learning (Daxue 大學), one of the “four books” established by Zhu Xi as a new set of the Confucian canon, begins with the following famous statement:

The extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. For only when things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified; only when minds are rectified are our persons cultivated; only when our persons are cultivated are our families regulated; only when families are regulated are states well governed; and only when states are well governed is there peace in the world. (De Bary et al., 1960: 115)

Our discussion thus far implies that the 17th-century Chosŏn’s worldview and intellectual terrain are such that the pro-peace argument was extremely difficult to make. That is, since virtually all decision-makers including the king acknowledged the pro-war argument as “the orthodox view” (zhenglun 正論) that is in accordance with the moral principle of righteousness (Chosŏn Wangjo Sillok 15:20b; 33:23b; 33:42b), making the contrary argument was nearly unthinkable. In the 17th-century context, therefore, there was much more involved in proposing peace with “the barbarians” than merely making a pro-peace argument. In making a pro-peace argument, what was at stake was the awareness that one is thereby going against “the orthodox view” or (potentially) violating the principle of righteousness. If one were to make a pro-peace argument while avoiding moral violation and thus to keep one’s hands clean, one ought to come up with a novel moral reasoning. And this is exactly what Ch’oe Myŏng-kil did.

Ch’oe Myŏng-kil was one of the most prominent Neo-Confucian scholar-officials during the 17th century who went through virtually all key public posts including the Chief State Councilor, the highest position of the Chosŏn bureaucracy. After some minor tribulations in his early political career, Ch’oe finally emerged as a major political figure when he took part in the coup of 1623—though it was then justified as the “restoration [of the right path of the government]” (k. panchŏng 反正)—which successfully enthroned King Injo in replacement of Kwanghaegun (r. 1608–1623), the fifteenth monarch of Chosŏn. Ch’oe and company justified their otherwise controversial political action on two Neo-Confucian grounds. First, they found fault with the former king’s critical violations of the core Confucian moral principles of filial piety and brotherly love (xiaoti 孝悌) as evidenced by the divestiture of his step mother’s official title as the legal wife of the late king (Kwanghaegun’s father) and the executions of his two brothers. The second justification that Ch’oe and other “meritorious subjects” of King Injo mustered for the “restoration” was that Kwanghaegun had not been loyal to the Ming emperor as his “subject” in his effort to maintain what some Korean historians now call a “pragmatic” and “neutral” foreign policy stance between the waning Ming and the rising Later Jin of the Jurchens (Han, 2000). The fact that Ch’oe was venerated by King Injo as a first-rate meritorious subject for having successfully restored the right path of the government vindicates his unswerving commitment to the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy regarding both ethics and foreign relations. Though it is hard to know exactly what was going through Ch’oe’s mind as a political actor when he decided to join the coup (or the restoration), he never departed from these formal Neo-Confucian justifications. In any event, he was one of the proud members of the orthodox Neo-Confucian faction called “the Westerners” (sŏin 西人), then the most dominant political faction, who regarded themselves as the most ardent followers of Zhu Xi.

Given the official reasons on the basis of which he participated in the restoration as well as his overall Neo-Confucian background and political pedigree, it is surprising that Ch’oe parted company with the rest of his own political faction and advocated making peace with those whom he, too, deemed as “barbarians.” To make sense of this radical turn in Ch’oe’s political stance as someone who earlier excoriated Kwanghaegun for his pro-Later Jin policy, some contemporary scholars draw attention to his interest in Wang Yangming’s “Learning of the Heart/Mind” (xinxue 心學) in his youth (Chŏng, 2011; Song, 2004). In the following, however, I show that Ch’oe’s remarkable political realism can be better explained by his creative re-appropriation of the Confucian notion of “the expedient.” ¹¹

Apparently, one of the greatest challenges posed to Ch’oe was to make a pro-peace argument without challenging the Zhu Xi orthodoxy prevalent in the Chosŏn intellectual and political world. In fact, Ch’oe attempted to defend his pro-peace argument by enlisting the authority of Zhu Xi as well as those whose authority would be difficult for the orthodox Neo-Confucians to question. First, Ch’oe drew attention to Zhu’s following statement:

In the letter I received, it says, “One must rather die while protecting righteousness, than try to preserve oneself by seeking peace [with the barbarian enemies].” This, however, only refers to how a minister can preserve his moral integrity [jie 節]. The question of whether the state [zongshe 宗社] can be preserved or ruined is different from the matter concerning [the moral integrity] of an ordinary man. (Ch’oe, 1999: 370)

Furthermore, Ch’oe appealed to the authority of Sŏng Hon 成渾 (1535–1598), one of the most respected Korean Neo-Confucian scholars from the 16th century, from whose scholar faction orthodox Neo-Confucianism sprang a centry later. In particular, Ch’oe paid attention to Sŏng’s argument that:

[though it is true that] in human affairs there is always right and wrong and profit and harm, if one focuses on right and wrong, one can see [the underlying] principle but cannot see the [concrete reality of] affair [as it manifests itself] whereas if one focuses on profit and harm, one can see the [concrete reality of an] affair but cannot see [its underlying] principle. (Ch’oe, 1999: 369) ¹²

In the Confucian tradition, quan 權 or quandao 權道 refers to “exigency” or “the expedient,” required in the exceptional circumstances in which the constant norm or the standard (jing 經) does not seem to help one out of a moral quandary. As Vankeerberghen puts it, central to quan (of the sense relevant in the present context) is not breaking the rules as such but its function “as a [balancing] mechanism that can help maintain [the] constant rules as the agent applies them to his own unique circumstances,” allowing “the agent … to act at his own discretion without necessarily being guilty of transgressing the norm” (Vankeerberghen, 2006: 77). After the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Cheng Yi interpreted quan as an act of weighing or balancing and argued that quan is the standard itself as it, like the standard, also converges on righteousness, which he understood as a moral principle. Though generally agreeing with Cheng Yi’s interpretation, focused on quan’s ultimate convergence on (the principle of) righteousness, Zhu Xi, nevertheless, cautioned against the reckless confounding between quan and the standard for fear of possible moral indulgence of those who might mistake quan for allowing any means for good consequences (Wei, 1986: 255–272).

Following the leads of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, thus placing himself firmly on the orthodox Neo-Confucian ground, Ch’oe Myŏng-kil presented his understanding of quan as follows:

Generally speaking, the Way encompasses both the standard and quan and [human] affair encompasses both light and serious matters. Thus, [whether one’s action is] righteousness depends on a specific time. And it is for this reason that in creating the Book of Change (Yijing 易經), the sage [read: Confucius] placed more emphasis on the mean [zhong 中] than the correct [standard] [zheng 正]. However, except for a noble man who can perceive the principle without doubt and stick to virtue without deviating from it, who would be able to manage to capture what is appropriate and firmly maintain what he has seen, thereby bringing to completion the work of the world? (Ch’oe, 1999: 373)

Seen in this way, the orthodox Neo-Confucians were deeply mistaken in claiming that King Injo should have committed suicide after his disgraceful surrender to the ruler of the “barbarian” Qing because in doing so he critically violated the principle of righteousness and the ritual norms undergirded by it. In Ch’oe’s view, this was something a king cannot afford to do because he has a responsibility for sustaining the state and protecting the people (Wŏn, 2007). For Ch’oe, quan was a political virtue precisely in this sense.

Three important points are worth mentioning here. First, Ch’oe Myŏng-kil proposed the pro-peace argument not because he envisioned the moral worth of the Jurchens differently from the orthodox Neo-Confucians. ¹⁵ Like the orthodox Neo-Confucians, Ch’oe, too, was convinced that the Jurchens were “barbarians” who were incapable of moral improvement and moral reasoning in view of the principle of righteousness. What enabled him to propose peace with the Qing was rather his re-appropriation of the (Neo-)Confucian conception of quan with a view to protecting the state and the people. Second, unlike the Han Confucians, however, Ch’oe did not think that exercise of quan necessarily involves going against the standard, which is a genuine moral violation. For him, quan was a different way to achieve the Way, rather than its violation, in the sense that its adoption is required by righteousness, a virtue and moral principle that is sensitive to time and context. And third, being sensitive to time and context, righteousness, and by extension quan allows one to find a balance between conventional ritual norms and formalities, which the orthodox Korean Neo-Confucians of the time approached in terms of an unchanging moral principle, and the well-being of the people, the telos of Confucian virtue politics (Kim S, 2020).

For Ch’oe, however, it was not the Qing’s indomitable military force per se that influenced the time and context in which Chosŏn found itself, impelling it to make peace with “the barbarians” as a matter of quan. What is truly interesting is his renewed understanding of the Sino–Korean relationship, or Chosŏn’s statehood in it, despite his continued subscription to the moral-political hierarchy between Ming and Chosŏn (Han, 2009: 202–203; Hŏ, 2019: 289–296). Consider the following statement by Ch’oe:

Our country has benefited from the Ming’s protection for the past three centuries and we are exceptionally owed to Emperor Wanli (r. 1572–1620) in particular who helped reconstitute our country [during the Japanese Invasion of 1592–1598]. This we cannot ever forget. Speaking from the perspective of geopolitics, however, not only is our country located on the edge of the east, hence far from the Central Plain, but we are also not [the Ming’s] subject enfeoffed within direct control of the Ming Emperor. Nor are we [a vassal state] located within the Central Plain. Originally, our country began as the foreign vassal state [waifan 外藩] when our Founder voluntarily submitted himself [to the Ming emperor as his subject], and [he did so] with a sense of responsibility for our people and state. Seen in this way, the argument that a ruler of the [vassal] state must possess [unflinching] moral integrity and commit himself to loyalty toward the Ming by putting behind the concern about protecting [his own] state concerns a layman’s moral decision who is drowning in a small stream or in a ditch. This in no case refers to the great righteousness [dayi 大義] conveyed in the saying of the Spring and Autumn Annals that “each [person] ought to devote oneself to [one’s] ruler.” … Furthermore, the moral requirement [mingfen 名分] that the ruler die with the state is limited to an exceptional circumstance in which the state cannot but be ruined. Thus understood, the original spirit of the Spring and Autumn Annals must be understood as implying that if there is a way by which the state can avoid its destruction, the ruler does not have to kill himself. This is why I made the pro-peace argument with such vigor [during the Qing’s invasion of 1636] and struggled to preserve our country. (Ch’oe, 2008: 678)

Thus understood, it was in significant part Ch’oe’s “patriotic sentiments” that propelled him to propose the pro-peace argument. Or, otherwise stated, it was by resorting to “patriotic sentiments” that Ch’oe was able to overcome the orthodox Neo-Confucians’ rigidly universalist understanding of Chosŏn’s principled moral allegiance toward the Ming. In turn, Ch’oe’s “patriotic sentiments” were generated by the sense of reality obtained in the course of exercising quan, which helped shift his attention from loyalty to the Ming to good political consequences for the state and the people.

Recently, some Korean scholars have argued that in reevaluating Chosŏn’s statehood, Ch’oe thereby revealed his belief in the absolute normative value of the state over the universal principle of righteousness (Son, 2011: 63) or that he advocated Chosŏn statehood in separation from the foreign vassal status envisioned by the traditional hua-yi ideology (Kim, 2006: 129). Our discussion thus far provides an alternative and more compelling interpretation, demonstrating that Ch’oe did not completely break with the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. At the core of my alternative argument is that Ch’oe’s “patriotic sentiments,” supplemented by his reinterpretation of the moral message of the Spring and Autumn Annals through the exercise of quan, enabled him to present making peace with the “barbarians,” a choice which was totally unreasonable and unthinkable for the orthodox Neo-Confucians, as a viable political option to be pursued for the sake of the continuation of the state as well as for the well-being of the people. For Ch’oe, the very moral value of righteousness must be grounded in these concrete goods.

Conclusion

The 17th-century Chosŏn’s intellectual terrain shows the deep entrenchment of the Zhu Xi orthodoxy in Korea. Therefore, it is deeply misleading to approach the debates between the Chosŏn scholar-officials regarding the war with the Jurchens purely from the standpoint of national interest because neither the idea of “nation” nor the concern of “interest,” narrowly conceived, were the dominant concern for those engaged in the debates, regardless of their political stance in dealing with the Jurchens. Virtually all participants in the debate, all of whom were immersed in the Neo-Confucian worldview, were strongly convinced of the existence of the universal moral principle, which objectively undergirds the hierarchical, ritually-ordered relationship between the Ming China and the Chosŏn Korea as the lord and the subject, and they all regarded the Jurchens as “barbarians” incapable of understanding and practicing such a moral principle (or moral principles) that defines humans as humans.

What is remarkable about Ch’oe Myŏng-kil is that he justified the pro-peace argument, unreasonable and unthinkable for the orthodox Neo-Confucians at the time, without developing “nationalism,” which requires a full rejection or deconstruction of the traditional hua-yi worldview, or overcoming the Neo-Confucian moral framework buttressing interstate moral hierarchy. While dexterously maneuvering within the familiar Neo-Confucian philosophical terrain and without overtly violating the universal moral principle, Ch’oe found a way to espouse the pro-peace argument by developing a sense of reality through the creative re-appropriation of quan, which helped him justify moderate political consequentialism and patriotism tempered by his principled subscription to moral and cultural universalism. Ch’oe’s political thought shows that in 17th-century Korea the question of war and peace was not merely a matter of military ethics or that of geopolitical advantage. It was profoundly nested in the Neo-Confucian worldview, which determined Korea’s moral and political relation with China, Korean statehood, the Korean intellectual culture, and Korea’s national interest. Ch’oe’s pro-peace argument was activated only by making some significant alterations to the Neo-Confucian worldview.