Introduction

This chapter introduces the historiography of Qing Manchuria and tributary relations, and it explains the historical significance of the China-Korean boundary. It stresses the particular characteristics of the Qing and Chosŏn conceptions and practice of boundary and sovereignty by differentiating the Qing-Chosŏn borderland from the Jurchen-Chosŏn frontier as well as from the modern Chinese-Korean border. The Qing-Chosŏn borderland was managed under the dual principles of the Qing’s restrictive Manchuria policy and the Qing-Chosŏn tributary relationship. The two defining features of the Qing-Chosŏn borderland, an uninhabited stretch of land at the Yalu River and unclear territorial claims on the upper Tumen River, were the source of disagreement regarding the two neighbors’ territorial sovereignty.