Choson-Centrism and Japan-Centrism in the Eighteenth Century: Han Won-chin vs. Motoori Norinaga

Abstract

The eighteenth century was a peaceful era for East Asia, ruled by the emperors of Ching. However, intellectuals who refused to accept the Great Ching order appeared in Choson and Japan. They developed homeland-centric ideologies. This article compares the Han Won-chin (???, 1682-1751)s Choson-centrism with the Motoori Norinaga (???, 1730-1801)'s Japan-centrism. There is a lot of research about the Norinaga's Japan-centrism in Japanese academia, which contains both aspects of the culture theory and order theory. In Korea, however, discourse about Choson-centrism is still ongoing argument under the concept of Choson's Sino-centrism (?????)'. I would like to pay attention to that, although homeland-centrism is constructed with two aspects, which are theories of international order and culture, the Choson's Sino-Centrism related discourse only discuss about culture theory aspect. Therefore, comparing Japan-centrism, which contains both culture and order parts, I will point out the problem of Choson's Sino-centrism discourse has, and assert that when Han Won-chin came up with the idea of a Choson-led world, Choson-centrism had born with both aspects of culture and order. In order to reveal the Choson-centrism, I will use a new concept called Zhonghua Community (????)'.