근대 이전 한국과 동남아시아간 접촉에 대한 역사적 고찰

Abstract

Compared with the commercial and diplomatic relations between China and Southeast Asia, or Japan and Southeast Asia on which much has been written, historical contacts between Korea and Southeast Asia have attracted little attention of historians. It is thus found necessary to view early interaction between Korea and Southeast Asia in its own light, particularly now that contacts between Korea and Southeast Asian countries have recently diversified and greatly increased. This study has been focused on the possibility of commercial interaction between the kingdom of Baekje and Southeast Asia in the sixth century and historical contacts between Korea, Thailand, Java and Vietnam from the end of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The reason for these temporal and thematic limitations is mostly related to the problem of availability of relevant primary sources. Relations between the kingdom of Baekje and Southeast Asia, which are analysed mainly on the basis of some records in the Japanese Nihon Shoki, remain an assumption not supported by sufficient historical documentation. Historical contacts between Korea, Thailand, Java and Vietnam from the end of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century are, on the contrary, reconstructed on the basis of concrete records from various sources such as Kory？se, Chos？n wangjo shillok, Ming shi, Chibong jip of Yi Su-kwang, and Chuy？ng phy？n of Ch？ng Tong-yu. This study, which attempts to subject the relevant historical sources to a philological analysis, does not interpret contacts between Korea, Thailand and Java from the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth century (recorded in the Kory？se and the Chohs？n wangjo shillk) as having developed into diplomatic relations. Rather, it examines the possibility of the "envoys," who came to Koryo and Chosun from the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth century, having been not diplomatic delegates dispatched by the Thai court and the Java court but Ayutthaya - and Java - based overseas Chinese merchants who passed themselves as such, and the possibility of the party of envoys sent to Thailand by the Chosun government having not been given audience by the Thai court. Two reasons are suggested to explain why the contacts did not develop into a long-lasting commercial or diplomatic relations. Firstly, there was the danger of Japanese pirates on the sea route from Nanyang to Korea. Secondly, Chinese merchants may not have found any profitability in a trade venture to Korea. This study also analyzes the suggestion of the Ayutthaya government to the Ming court that the Thai should attack from behind with naval forces the Japanese, who invaded Chosun and threatened China in the late sixteenth century, and attributes it to the commercial interest of Thailand in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Finally, contacts between Korea and Vietnam during the seventeenth century are examined. In particular, it compares the stories of the Vietnamese merchants who were deprived of their cargoes and killed by Chosun officials after they had drifted to Cheju Island in the early seventeenth century with those of over 20 people from Cheju Island who came back to their home through the courtesy of the Vietnamese after they had drifted to Vietnam because of a storm.