A Study On Negotiation And Cooperation Of Boundary Affairs Between Qing And Choson

Since the period of Xuan'de in Ming Dynasty, Tumen River and Yalu River have been identified as the boundary between Ming and Choson. Both of the two countries agreed that the territory in the south of the rivers belonged to Choson, while the northern parts belonged to Ming. In1637, the ruler of Qing Dynasty launched the Bingzi War and established the conferee-tributary relation with Choson instead of Ming Dynasty. After that Qing admitted the boundaries between Ming and Choson as well. But there were still many transboundary cases happened which even caused serious disputes between Qing and Choson. The reasons were:first, the two countries didn't confirm the boundaries in the upper reaches areas of Tumen and Yalu River for a long time; second, the two countries were so closed to each other that people crossed the boundaries frequently in the past, and they didn't have any boundary awareness. In order to dissolve boundary disputes, as early as in1627, Late Jin and Choson reached an agreement to keep their border area respectively by signing <Jianghua island peace treaty>. In addition, after1637, the two countries formulated and implemented many severe boundary blockage policies and reached a consensus on how to issue aviso on transboundary cases and how to judge and execute the criminals after a long-time and complicated negotiation. The negotiation on transboundary offences was one of the most important issues between Qing and Choson besides the etiquette ones.Among the transboundary offences, murder cases were the worst ones and led to severe negotiation between Qing and Choson. For these reasons this paper's writer selected eleven Choson people's transboundary murder cases as research subject and did very detailed case studies. On this basis, the writer discussed the questions as follow:first, the basic negotiation procedures and patterns with which Qing and Choson handled the boundary affairs; second, how the transboundary offences trial systems evolved in different times; third, the legal analysis of negotiation results between Qing and Choson; fourth, concluded the factors which influenced the results of negotiation. At last, the writer also expressed her views on such questions such as the essence of conferee-tributary relation, how the legal systems worked under the conferee-tributary relation and the relationship between politics and law, etc. By discussing these questions, the writer hopes to promote relevant research in depth.This paper was divided into five chapters. The first chapter was "introduction".In this part the writer elaborated the motivation and significance why she selected this topic on the basis of analyzing existing researches, and made some explanations on research method, material and frame. In the past, the scholars in academic circles have done many researches on etiquette negotiations between Qing and Choson while paying less attention to negotiations about daily affairs between. For example, in terms of negotiations on legal affairs and boundary affairs, both were very important but lack of research in the past. In fact, the research that how the rulers of Qing Dynasty judged Choson transboundary criminals was a significant access to discussing above questions. Besides, this work was also helpful for us to understand many issues and details on conferee-tributary relation between Qing and Choson.Chapter two was entitled as "the national boundary,boundary blockage policy and boundary law of Qing Dynasty and Choson". During Qing Dynasty, Choson people crossed the borders so frequently that it was regarded as one of the important negotiation parts between the two countries. Especially during the reign of Emperor Huang Taiji (At that time, the conferee-tributary relation was just established), Choson people's transboundary offences even influenced the political relations between the two countries. As a result, both Qing and Choson established and implemented serious boundary blockage policies in order to restrict people's immigration and emigration. Specifically, Qing Dynasty implemented "prohibition policy" in northeast areas to restrict people going into; Choson implemented <the prohibition of transboundary offences in northern area> in1685, to stipulate that people who crossed the border would be punished severely. Besides, both of the two countries made legal provisions on transboundary offences in their codes. The frequency and pattern of transboundary offences always depended on the intensity of boundary blockage policy in different times. In addition, some scholars, especially Korean scholars declaimed that Choson people crossed the boundary frequently because there were not explicit boundaries. This paper's writer doubted that, so she made a research on the processes how the boundaries were defined in this chapter too.Chapter three was named as "the negotiation on Choson people's transboundary murder cases in early Qing dynasty". In this part the writer divided the eleven Choson people's transboundary cases into two periods——before and after the reign of Emperor of Qianlong, and did contrastive analyses separately with the same priciples. Before the reign of Emperor Qianlong, there was no specific trial system, so the process and results of trialing were subordinated to political needs of the two countries. And the criminals were often punished severely in this period. After the reign of Emperor Qianlong, Qing and Choson developed specific trial system which made the process and results of trial more tolerant and systematic. But there were still some other factors to have influence on the results of trial.Chapter four was entitled "The negotiation and cooperation on transboundary offences and trial issues between Qing and Choson". In this chapter the writer discussed the negotiation procedure and patterns between Qing and Choson once transboundary murder cases occurred.It included the procedures how the two countries inform and negotiate each other. Besides, legal issues under different trial systems were discussed in this chapter too. Since the establishment of conferee-tributary relation between Qing and Choson in1637, there had been a lot of Choson People's transboundary offences.But the attitude of Qing and Choson varied time to time, duing to political factors. During the process of negotiation on how to judge these transboundary offences, Qing developed emissary system, cooperative trial system and Choson's independent trial system, etc. Under different trial systems, Qing and Choson adopted different rights distribution systems, too. And these questions were very meaningful, so the writer did a very detailed research on them in this part of paper.Chapter five draws the conclusions on how Qing and Choson negotiating the trial affairs and transboundary murder cases.And also discussed the questions that how the trial systems were evaluated in different time and the constraints. At the end of this paper the issues on how the legal systems worked under the conferee-tributary relation and the relationship between politics and law were discussed.