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다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article aims to understand eighteenth century China in a comparative perspective with contemporary Western Europe and Joseon Korea. Recent scholarship has seen the rise of a number of studies that compare late imperial China and early modern Western Europe. These new efforts, represented by the emergence of the “California School,” challenge the stereotypical images of the early modern world in which Western Europe plays a pivotal role in both global commerce and geographic discovery. The “California School” historians emphasize the active roles of non-Europeans in the vibrant commercial networks spanning Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, which predated the European commercial expansion in the sixteenth century. These historians also highlight the level of commercial and proto-industrial development achieved in the Jiangnan region, and argue that the high living standard of Jiangnan inhabitants was comparable to, if not higher than, that of Western Europe, until about 1800.
So far scholars do not seem have reached an agreement regarding the economic conditions of Joseon in the eighteenth century. Leaving socioeconomic comparison aside, this article first draws our attention to the similarities that appeared in the political realm of China and Korea in the 18th century. Both China and Korea experienced a similar phase of constructing strong rulership, and in the process, the rulers in both countries adopted surprisingly similar strategies to augment the aura of the throne and to shape the authority of kingly power. The evidence of analogous political initiatives suggests the necessity of placing Korean history more firmly in the larger East Asian context.

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