Political and Cultural Particularities of Japan, Korea and China as Observed by Korean Envoys to Japan and Beijing

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Hong Tae-Yong (1731-83), an eighteenth-century Korean scholar, is a key figure in assessing the pre-Modern political and cultural particularities of Japan, Korea and China. Hong’s record of his written “conversations” with Beijing-based Chinese scholars, entitled Brush Talks in Ganjing Alley, has been translated into Japanese by me. In addition, since 2010, I has published a number of research reports and papers on Hong’s evaluation of the historical position of these three East Asian countries in Japan, Korea and China. Although Korea and the Kingdom of Ryukyu did not have an adversarial relationship in Hong’s day, the present research makes it clear that they also failed to develop diplomatic relations. This fact has considerable bearing on the peculiar international relations subsequently developed by Japan, Korea and China, as this research also makes clear.