When Pre-Westphalian Europe Meets Sinocentric Order - World ...

Earlier Draft prepared for the 2 nd Global International Studies Conference, July 23-26, 2008
Theme: What Keeps Us Apart, What Keeps Us Together? International Order, Justice, Values
Place: University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Panel : “Inventing New IR Paradigm: East Asian Perspectives” on July 24th (Thur) at 11:30-13:00
When Pre-Westphalian Europe Meets Sinocentric Order:
The Jesuit Order, Christian Samurai, and the Imjin War (1592-1598)
Myongsob KIM
Yonsei University, bluesail@yonsei.ac.kr
1. Introduction
The concept of theory has been intricately correlated with the concept of theology in
Western context. Western theology is a reasoning (Logos, λόγος) about God (Theos, θεός).
Like theology dealing with what is not seen at the present, theory is dealing with some non-
empirical perspective on empirical things and “a model which provides some organizing
principles to compress and order poussières d'événements.” 1 Theorizing is a construction of
frame which enables its user “to locate, perceive, identify, and label a seemingly infinite
number of concrete occurrences.” 2
Even though the Scripture might not be the starting point of the Christian theology
than vice versa, Christian theology based itself on the history narrated by the Scripture.
International relations theory needs also International history, just as “change and continuity
cannot be understood apart.” 3 As Ruggie put it, “what we cannot describe, we cannot
explain.” 4 However, as criticized by English school, international or global theories are
“profoundly skewed by the historically unrepresentative, and rather brief, record of events in
1
Barry Buzan and Richard Little, “The Idea of ‘International System’: Theory Meets History,” Andrew
Linklater, ed. International Relations: Critical Concepts in Political Science (London: Routledge, 2000), IV:
1275.
2
Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1974), 21.
3
Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International
Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), vii.
4
John Gerard Ruggie, “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,”
Andrew Linklater, ed. International Relations: Critical Concepts in Political Science (London: Routledge,
2000), IV: 1422.
- 1 -

one corner of the planet.” 5 They are derived from “the narrow historical experience defined
by the period of European/Western domination.” 6 A comparative study of two regional
systems, Europe and Northeast Asia, might strengthen the imaginative faculty of international
historians and theorists.
Before asking “why there is no East Asian international relations theory,” we can raise
a question of “why should there be an East Asian international relations theory? To this
question, we might be able to answer that East Asian international relations theory is
necessary for complementing the lacunae of human wisdom accumulated by all human
beings across the West and the East. It could be also a meaningful step for enhancing the
relevance of international theory in this era of globalization. If we need a theory providing a
perspective on what are happening and what will happen in East Asia, why is there yet
anything that we can call East Asian international relations theory? A partial answer to this
question might be found in the deficit of East Asian international history or the East Asian
vacuum in international history. The deficit of East Asian international relations theory and
the deficit of East Asian international history are to be overcome as an integral part. Western-
oriented international history has been providing empirical data on which Western
international relations theories are based.
In Europe, the Westphalian system of 1648 has been considered as a “point of
criticality” for the development of international relations theory. 7 For ending Wars of
Religion by a new international consensus, two general peace congresses convened both at
Münster and at Osnabrück for producing the Acta Pacis Westphalicae (24 Oct 1648). The
negotiation with Holy Roman Empire (Heiliges Römisches Reich; Sacrum Romanum
Imperium) at Münster was assigned to France, and at Osnabrück the same task to Sweden.
The peace congress of Münster resulted in the Treaty of Münster (Instrumentum Pacis
Monasteriensis) between France and the Dutch on one hand and Holy Roman Emperor,
Espagnols, and most Catholics estates on the other hand by the mediation of the Papal and
Venetian envoys. However, the peace between Spain and France was not concluded until the
year of 1659 when the treaty of the Pyrenees was concluded. The peace congress of
Osnabrück resulted in the treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis) between
5
Buzan and Little, “The Idea of “International System,’” IV: 1275.
6
Buzan and Little, International Systems in World History, 369.
7
The “points of criticality” means those points where water begins to boil or freeze, sand piles begin to slide,
fault lines begin to fracture. John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 98.
- 2 -

Sweden and most protestant estates on one hand and Holy Roman Emperor on the other hand.
These two treaties gave birth to the Westphalian peace system based on the following
principles: Rex est imperator in regno suo(The King is emperor in his own realm), Cujus
regio, ejus religio (The ruler determines the religion of his realm), and the Equilibrium of
power. 8
Condensing international history since 1648, Philpott used two concepts: the
expansion of Pax Westphalia and the evolution of Pax Westphalia. If the first concept is in
the same line with the book title of Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (1984), the second with
the book title of Adam Watson (1992). 9 The Pax Westphalia has changed the international
relations of Europe and in turn affect globally in the following centuries. In the aftermath of
the Second World War, the Charter of the United Nations coming into effect on 24 October
1945 marked the threshold of the expansion of Westphalian system which had come into
effect on the same day of 1648. Our emphasis on the Charter of the United Nations in the
expansion of international history is slightly different with that of Philpott who put more
emphasis on “the revolution of colonial independence in 1960s.” 10 Yet we can agree more
easily with the position of Philpott who is emphasizing the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) proposed by Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 (Europe Day) as an
important threshold in the evolution of Pax Westphalia. 11
Before 1648, when Pax Westphalia was generating, what happened during the same
time period in other parts of the globe? The Westphalian frame which has dominated the
international theory was made by a thinking based solely on European historical data.
However, the European Westphalian system was not born in a region which is closed and
separated from other parts of the world. To complement the international relations theory
based mainly on the Western historical data, it would be a conditio sine qua non to see what
happened in non-Western space. Pax Westphalia was not an international system developed
from a region per se. Europe’s connectedness to the rest of the World including America and
Asia should be also taken into consideration for developing a genuine universal theory.
Instead of an international relations theory based on the Newtonian linear interpretation of
8 Andreas Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640-1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International
Stability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 14-17.
9 Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984);
Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (New York:
Routledge, 1992).
10 Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty, 33.
11 Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty, 39-40.
- 3 -

European history, this paper is trying to draw more academic concern to the interaction
between Europe and other parts of the world. This sort of comparative analysis might
contribute to take into account what is often bypassed in the separate on-going debate not
only in the West, but also in the East which is not only being westernized, but also searching
for its own identity.
When religious conflicts were escalating in Europe since the Reformation, Northeast
Asia was going into the Imjin War opened by the Japanese invasion of Chosŏn Korea in 1592,
four years after the defeat of Spanish Armada by the English Navy. 12 With the unification of
Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea by the expeditionary troops including 9 units and
about 158 000 men in total. 13 It dwarfed many other wars in Europe during the same century.
Throughout the latter part of the sixteenth century, the largest single-state armies in Europe
rarely topped 50,000. As a leading military state inheriting the tradition of the Reconquista,
Spain averaged 60,000-65,000 men, briefly peaking at 86,000 men in March of 1574. The
largest army the French could muster in the late sixteenth century was about 50,000 men. The
English army in Elizabethan times hovered around 20,000-30,000, while the Dutch had some
20,000 men under arms. 14 However, differently with European interstate wars, the Imjin War
did not lead to the birth of a Westphalia-like Peace in Northeast Asia, and this status quo
without peace treaty continued until the outbreak of the war between Ching Empire and Japan
(1894-1895) which was ended by the peace treaty of Simonoseki in 1895.
Western Europe and Northeast Asia cannot be compared as if they were totally
separated. Prior to the establishment of Westphalian system, while the Europeans were
replacing in America the Aztec Empire and Inca Empire with a spirit of in hoc signo vinces,
the Jesuit Order encountered with the Sinocentric Order in Northeast Asia. Portugal, Spain
12
So far there is no academic consensus on the appellation of this war in Northeast Asia. In Japan, this war is
known as Bunroku no eki (文禄の役;Bunroku referring to the Japanese era under the 107
- 4 -
th Emperor Go-Yozei
[後陽成天皇] from 1592 to 1596). In China, the war has been referred to as the "Wanli Korean
Campaign(Wanli Chaoxian Zhiyi, 萬曆朝鮮之役)" after then reigning Chinese emperor or "Imjin War to
Defend the Nation(壬辰卫国战争, Renchen Weiguo Zhanzheng)." In North Korea, the war is designated as
“Imjin Fatherland War.” In South Korea, this war has been overwhelmingly known as “Imjin
Waeran(임진왜란), which means “the Rebellion of Japanese bandit in the year Imjin (water dragon).” Imjin is
implying the year 1592 according to the Chinese sexagenary cycle (干支, ganzhi). As this traditional Chinese
calendrical system was used not only in China but also in Japan and Korea, the name of Imjin is more neutral
than other names designated after a name of emperor of Japan or China.
13
3 (大日本古文書本) no. 885, 886 cited in 박수철, “15-16 세기 일본의 전국시대와
토요토미 정권,” 역사학회, , (서울: 일조각, 2006), 196.
14
Bert Hall, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997),
207 and 209 as cited in Samuel Hawley, The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-century Invasion of Korea and
Attempt to Conquer China (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2005), 24, 588-89.

(Netherland) made their headways to Northeast Asia through merchants and missionaries.
The Reformation was not only the generating point of Westphalian system in Europe, but
also an initial point which had a long term butterfly effect in other part of the globe in such a
way of bringing forth a geopolitical revisionism in Japan. Without this change of geopolitical
perception, there would not have been the Hideyoshi’s plan of conquering China, leading to
ignite the grand war of Northeast Asia, i. e. the Imjin War (1592-1598). This paper pursuing
the origins of the Imjin War is neither a theory, nor a history, not yet an area study, but an
eclectic meandering among them with some keywords such as religion, war, and order.
2. The Jesuit Order Meets the Sinocentric Order in Northeast Asia
The Renaissance did not liberate human being from religion, even though it has been
often assumed as if. At the time when the secularization was not accomplished yet, Dr.
Martin Luther delivered to the public one of most influential writings in European intellectual
history, i.e. “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” in 1517. 15 It was the
beginning of the Reformation which was to change the ideational infra-structure of Western
Europe. The Reformation was, as Philpott points out, “a crucial spring” of modern
international system.” 16 In early modern Europe, it was the Protestant Reformation that
brought a century of war, culminating in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which in turn
brought about the international system of Westphalia: “no Reformation, no Westphalia.” 17
The Wars of Religion since the Reformation gradually assimilated the idea of raison d’Etat
as the Catholic and the Protestant undertook the task of building each own realm. 18 The idea
of Pax et libertas generated and gained against the idea of Pax et imperium. The former
15
Martin Luther, Works of Martin Luther, Edited and translated by Adolph Spaeth, L.D. Reed, Henry Eyster
Jacobs, et al. (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915), vol. 1: 29-38.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html
16
Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Severeignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton:
Princeton Unviersity Press, 2001), 4; Daniel Philpott, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations,”
World Politics 52 (January 2000), 206.
17
Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Severeignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton:
Princeton Unviersity Press, 2001), 4; Daniel Philpott, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations,”
World Politics 52 (January 2000), 206.
18
C. J. Friedrich, Constitutional Reason of State: The Survival of the Constitutional Order (Providence: Brown
University Press, 1957), 75; Carl Schmitt, Hamlet oder Hekuba. Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel, 1956 cited
in Olivier Christin, La paix de religion: l’autonomisation de la raison politique au XIVème siecle (Paris: Seuil,
1997), 11.
- 5 -

developed in France and encouraged by the edict of Nantes issued by Henri IV after la
Guerre des Trois Henri (1584-1589). 19
Faith in the 16 th century of Western Europe might have been stronger than what we
can see in any Christian fundamentalism today. It had not yet been undermined by the
scientific revolution of the 18 th century and modern atheist movement. 20 A devout Catholic
(Dévots) really believed the Catholicism as the only way to be saved, while a Protestant
(Huguenot or Calvinist) regarded the Protestantism in the same way. 21 In France, between
1562 and 1598, Calvinism spread, Huguenots revolted, a Catholic League formed in response,
and eight civil wars ensued. 22 In the Low Countries, future Netherlands, 80 Years War
(1568-1648) was commenced by Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury) inheriting the old tradition
of Byzantine Iconoclasm (the first surge from 730 to 787, and the second from 814 to 842). 23
Setting aside the whole Wars of Religions since the 16 th century, according to
Ferguson, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) before the peace of Westphalia is the third
large-scale war in Western history. 24 If we count from the Disputation of Martin Luther to
the beginning of the Thirty Years War, the casualties were more numerous. The Westphalia
system composed by sovereign states was born in the bloody womb of history. The midwives
helping the birth of Westphalia system were intellectuals who polished the concept of
sovereign state such as Jean Bodin (1530-1596) who wrote Les Six Livres de la République
(Paris, 1576), Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) 25 , Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), and Duc de Sully
(1559-1641), etc. 26
19
Claire Gantet, Guerre, paix et construction des Etats, 1618-1714 (Paris: Seuil, 2003), 200.
20
Robert J. Knecht, The French Religious Wars, 1562-1598 (Oxford: Osprey, 2002), 89.
21
In France, Dévots was the name given to a party following a Catholic policy of opposition to the Protestants
inside France, and alliance with the Catholic Austrian Empire abroad.
22
Daniel Philpott, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations,” World Politics 52 (January 2000),
236.
23
About the intellectual heritage of iconoclasm, see Alain Besançon, L'Image interdite : Une histoire
intellectuelle de l'iconoclasme (Paris : Fayard, 1994).
24
Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (New York:
The Penguin Press, 2006), xxxv. The Thirty Years War proceeded in five stages. First, The Bohemian Period,
Second, the Palatinate Period, third, the Danish Period, fourth, the Swedish Period, fifth, the Franco-Swedish
Period.
25
According to a recent research, Lipsius was highly influential in the birth of modern nation-states across
Europe. Lipsian neostoicism furthered ideals of discipline that were meant to order both the ruler and those that
he ruled. In a response to Machiavellianism, dignity, self-restraint and discipline were the recipes for the foreign
policy of the prince, while the individual was subordinated to the purposes of the state, and taught to control his
own life by mastering his emotions. See Halvard Leira, “Justus Lipsius, Neostoicism and the Disciplining of
17th Century Statecraft,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Town
& Country Resort and Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA, Mar 22, 2006.
26
The book Duc de Sully left us is Mémoires de Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (London: Printed for A.
Millar ..., MDCCLXIII [1763]. Sully wanted to weaken the Habsbourg monarchy, France’s powerful rival and
to unite the West European states with the view to expelling the Turks from the Balkans. He invented the
- 6 -

For containing the spread of the Protestants by reforming the Catholicism, the Counter
Reformation was begun within the Catholic. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), founder of the
Jesuit Order, often compared to Lenin of Russia, 27 was representing this new trend. Before
his conversion in 1521, he was a soldier of Basque, and wounded in the battle against French
intervention. The injury changed not only the life of Loyola but also the history of Europe.
Suffering in his treatment and recovery, he decided to be the soldier of God. On August 15 in
1534, Loyola founded Societas Iesu with six other friends of the University of Paris including
Francisco Xavier, Basque to the bone as Loyola, in the Chapel of St. Denis. 28
Loyola and his companions inherited and developed the tradition of various Orders
founded at the time of the Crusaders. 29 Ignatius is known to have written: “I will believe that
the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.” 30 Loyola and his six
friends vowed to “enter upon hospital and missionary work in Jerusalem, or to go without
questioning wherever the Pope might direct.” They called themselves the Company of Jesus.
As the word “company” comes ultimately from Latin, cum + pane (bread with or a group that
shares meals), the name had not only military echoes such as infantry company, but also
religious echoes such as the companion of Jesus who feel they were always together with
Christ. The founding document of the Jesuits as an official Catholic religious order was the
bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae (To the Government of the Church Militant) issued by Paul
III in 1540. 31
Even though the zeal of the Jesuits overcame the drift toward Protestantism in Poland-
Lithuania and southern Germany, the Protestantism spread like a wild fire in Europe. For
compensating ‘the loss of souls’ in Europe, the Jesuit Order developed and sent out
missionaries to non-European world for converting non-Christians to Catholicism. The Jesuit
Order’s venture into the unknown to the West was motivated by the belief in the posthumous
geopolitical concept of “natural frontiers” and designed a primordial form of the present EU by planning a
Christian Republic in Western Europe divided into 15 equally powerful states on the basis of corresponding
agreements.
27
James Brodrick, S.J. The Origins of the Jesuits (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1940), 1.
28
John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 1; John C. Olin, Catholic
Reform : From Cardinal Ximenes To the Council of Trent, 1495-1563 : An Essay with Illustrative Documents
and a Brief Study of St. Ignatius Loyola (New York : Fordham University Press, 1990), 129-42; John Olin, The
Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola (New York: Fordham University Press, 1993); James Brodrick, S.J. The
Origins of the Jesuits (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1940), 1-66.
29
See for example, Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
30
Colin Cheyne, Knowledge, Cause, and Abstract Objects: Causal Objections to Platonism (Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 2001), 214.
31
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_jesus
- 7 -

world. The belief enabled them to risk their earthly lives for their heavenly compensation and
provided them with an inexhaustible energy for active proselytism. 32 The real core of the
Jesuit Order was those who took the “fourth vow” in addition to three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. In reality, Jesuits who took the fourth vow were members of a small,
elite group within the Society. The fourth vow was one of special allegiance to the Pope,
promising to go, for missionary purposes, whenever and wherever ordered through the
General who was at the head of the Jesuit Order in Rome. 33 The Jesuit Order was eager to
make converts in Non-European World, because the Jesuit Order saw there a spiritual harvest
to offset the souls lost to Protestant ‘heresy’ in Europe. 34
In 1543, the valedictory opus vitae of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) had
launched modern astronomy into orbit, however the view of the Jesuit Order was still pre-
Copernican. When the Jesuits Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607, Italy) and Matteo Ricci (利瑪竇,
1552-1610) reached to China in 1582, Francis Xavier to Japan in 1549, and Gregorio de
Céspedes to Korea in 1593 or 1594, Northeast Asia was the world of politically non-distinct
states like Medieval Christendom. In the sphere of Ming’s influence, many small countries
respected the tribute system for maintaining their relationship with Ming China. According to
Hamashita, “a tributary trade system was functioning as a wider regional system with
combination between sovereignty and suzerainty in it.” 35 It was a suzerain-state system in
which “relations among political authorities were regulated by specific treaties as well as by
traditional codes of conduct, government such matters as the movement of envoys who came
and went, and the payment of tribute.” 36
As Medieval Christendom was based on the Christianity, the Sinocentric Order in
Northeast Asia was based on the Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism written and
communicated by Chinese ideographic characters was the civilizational cement binding Ming
China and other neighbor countries. One of main differences of Confucianism with the
Christianity was the non-existence of dichotomy between the earthly world and heavenly
32 One of the main tools used by the Jesuit Order for the propagation of Christian doctrine was the founding and
the running of educational institutions. About the superior educational technique of the Jesuits, see Charles
Ralph Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 72;
Judi Loach, “Revolutionary Pedagogues? How Jesuits Used Education to Change Society,” The Jesuits II:
Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 66-85.
33 Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, 47; O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 345-362.
34 James D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations, 1450-1650 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 287.
35 Takeshi Hamashita, “Tribute and Treaties: East Asian Treaty Ports Networks in the Era of Negotiation, 1834-
1894,” European Journal of East Asian Studies (March 2001), 82-85.
36 Watson, Evolution of International Society, 215.
- 8 -

world. In the eleventh century A.D., a group of scholars known as the Five Masters
reinterpreted and revitalized the ancient wisdom of Confucius and his successors and brought
it again to the fore, giving it a more rational theoretical base and identifying specific
“principles” to which the “superior person” should adhere. This reinterpretation which was
most succinctly stated by Chu Xi in his work Reflections on Things at Hand (1175)
developed into Neo-Confucianism as a frame of thought. 37 Neo-Confucian thought paved the
base of Sinocentric order as part of a cosmology that places China at the center of the
universe. With this ideational frame, China became a civilizational state rather than a nation-
state. 38
This frame of thought implied a hierarchical radiation of influence from an elevated
center to the lower peripheries, and China therefore expected deference from others. 39 Due to
the Weltanshauung based on Neo-Confucianism, there was no sufficient room for the
development of international cooperation breeding the concept of sovereignty so much as the
sovereignty is relationship, rather than substance. The Chinese empire represented East Asia,
and even Asia itself. The long-entrenched Deungkuo (中國), which can be translated into
“the Central State” or “the Core State” and which had long been attracting the near-consensus
of neighboring East Asian peoples, was for its “fringe states” to be an obstacle in their path
toward realizing a Westphalia-like ‘international’ relations. Under the Sinocentric regional
order in the name of Deungwha (中華), China dominated the Northeast Asian region. This
was a coherent geopolitical concept called T'ienhisa (天下), “all-under-Heaven,” including
both “civilized” and “barbarian,” presided over by T'ien-tzu (天子), “the Son of Heaven,”
possessing “the mandate of heaven (天命)” to rule the entire world including everything
around China. 40
37
Xinzhong Yao, Hsin-chung Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000); Hawley, Imjin War, 27.
38
Tu Wei-ming, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in Tu Wei-ming (ed.), The Living Tree: The
Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1-32; D. R. Howland,
Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End (London: Duke University Press,
1996), 11.
39
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New
York: Basic Books, 1997), 158.
40
The earlier version of this argument was introduced in Myongsob Kim and Horace Jeffrey Hodges, “Korea as
a Clashpoint of Civilizations,” Korea Observer 37, no. 3 (Autumn 2006): 521. About the concept of T’ienhisa,
see John K. Faribank, “A Preliminary Framework,” In The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign
Relations, ed. John King Fairbank, 1–2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); and Gerrit W. Gong,
“China’s Entry Into International Society,” In The Expansion of International Society, ed. Hedley Bull and
Adam Watson, 171–83 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
- 9 -

In Europe, the rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire and nation-states bred a
thriving international system through the eventual establishment of the Westphalian system.
Unlike this Westphalian international system based on the relationship among countries of
similar sizes and influences, China was the paramount hegemon in Northeast Asia. The
Chinese, with their view of China as self-sufficient, felt little necessity to travel and trade. As
Braudel explains, as far as China was concerned, it was already a sort of world system. 41 The
outsiders to this regional system who wished to deal with China were instructed to
kowtow(叩頭) to the T'ien-tzu, symbol of the Chinese world order. 42 China's monopoly bred
self-satisfaction and was accompanied by only a passing interest in international commerce
and even less interest in exploration and emigration. Trade with other countries was done in
the form of tribute(朝貢), a mere recognition of the greatness of the Chinese civilization.
With T'ien-tzu as the center of the universe in the Celestial Empire, China reinforced its
imperial unity through Confucianism with its stress on harmony, hierarchy, and discipline. To
be Chinese meant to be civilized. 43 The entire empire was demarcated into concentric zones,
radiating from this T'ien-tzu and delimiting areas that could be reached within different time-
spans by documents posted from the center. 44
When the Jesuit Order arrived in Northeast Asia, Chosŏn Korea was a strong adherent
to the Sinocentric Order centered around Ming China (1368-1644). When Yi Sŏng-gye
founded Chosŏn, after having toppled down Koryo dynasty with a nearly bloodless coup,
with his army back from the expedition to aid Yuan (Mongol empire) against the rising Ming,
he was supported by a group of Neo-Confucian literati opposing the Buddhist establishment
of Koryo on ideological grounds. 45 Buddhist temples were ordered closed, while their
buildings and images were destroyed and their property was appropriated. Monks were
forced to grow their hair and lead ‘productive’ lives. Chosŏn Korea’s suppression of
Buddhism went beyond anything seen in China. 46 In no other society did Confucianism take
so strong a hold on the culture as it did in Chosŏn Korea. Although Confucianism originated
41
Braudel, The Perspective of the World, cited in Segal, 1990: 23, 28.
42
Gong, “China’s Entry Into International Society,” 171-83; Gerald Segal, Rethinking the Pacific (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990), 29.
43
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, 13-14.
44
Segal, Rethinking the Pacific, 370.
45
Those who had participated in the founding of Choson dynasty, such as Chong To-chon and Kwon Kun,
legitimized the overthrow of the old regime, while those who fought the new dynasty, such as Chong Mong-chu
and Kil Chae, claimed their non-participation was based on integrity. Keum Jang-tae, Confucianism and Korean
Toughts (Seoul: Jimoondang, 2000). See also Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, translated by Edward W.
Wagner and Edward J. Shultz (Seoul: Ilchokak, 2008), 162-164.
46
Hawley, Imjin War, 64-65.
- 10 -

in China, it never had the overall impact on Chinese society that Neo-Confucianism had on
Chosŏn Korea. 47
Chosŏn Korea had based its national idealism on Confucianism, a philosophy of
relationships between people and within a society; and a form of Jujahag or Sungreehag,
related to the I-Ching, a philosophy of the nature of the universe. 48 Neo-Confucian doctrine
was so much seriously and rigidly respected that any deviation from the orthodox exegesis of
Zhu Xi was esteemed as heresy. 49 The Weltanschauung of the times reflected well on maps
called Chonhado (天下図, literally means world atlas, see fig. 2), some fanciful world maps
appeared in Korea in the 16th century. The authors of these maps were inspired by Neo-
Confucian world view similar to T-O Maps in Medieval Europe. 50 Such imagery of
Chonhado was a conceptual and cartographical privileging of China under the influence of
Sinocentrism. This map showed vividly the retrogression of the geopolitical perception of
Chosŏn Korea, being compared to the Honil-gangni-yeokdae-gukdo-jido
(混一彊理歴代国都之図, see fig. 1), a world atlas made in Korea in 1402, the second oldest
surviving world map from East Asia. In the depiction of this map of 1402, even Africa and
Europe were included. 51
When Chosŏn Korea was subject to the Imjin War, the first encounter between the
Jesuit Order and Korea happened. Gregorio de Céspedes (1550, Madrid-1611 ) accompanied
by Foucan Eion, a Japanese follower, was dispatched to Korea from Japan in late 1593 or in
early 1594 at the invitation of the vanguard general, Konishi Yukinaga(小西行長, 1555-
1600). Céspedes visited the different fortresses occupied by Japanese army. Kurota Yoshitaka,
along with his son Nagamasa, kept the missionary in his fort. Nagamasa profited by this
occasion to instruct himself a little better in the Christian religion, which he had already
47
James Huntley Grayson, Korea-A Religious History (Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 223.
48
Hawley, Imjin War, 64-65.
49
Koh Byong-ik, Essays on East Asian History and Cultural Traditions (Seoul: Sowha, 2004), 104.
50
See image at http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishlibrary-store/Components/707/70737_2.jpg. For more
images, see also http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/205.html. And a lot more here:
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/EML.html. In particular, see this map showing Christ
superimposed on the world http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/224c.html, with his head near the
Garden of Eden http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/224A.html, both of which are in Asia, which
is oriented at the privileged top.
51
Chang Bo Woong(張保雄), “李朝初期, 15 世紀において 製作された 地図に 関する研究 (A Study of
Some Maps which were made in the 15th Century in Korea, the Early Part of Yi Dynasty,” 16 (1972): 1-9.
- 11 -

embraced. During his sojourn in Korea, Céspedes baptized the eldest son of Tsukushi
Hirokado, Daimyo of Yamashita (Chikugo). 52
Céspedes was believed to be not only the first Jesuit missionary, but also the first
“identified” European to visit Korea. 53 However, his arrival was at the height of the Imjin
War, and he could only make contact with Koreans who had been captured and were about to
be dispatched to Japan. Only some Korean prisoners of war believed to be exposed to the
Jesuit Order’s proselytism. After a stay of two months in Korea, Céspedes had to leave all of
a sudden. Kato Kiyomasa, who had become more and more hostile to Konishi, had accused
him to Toyotomi Hideyoshi of having invited a Portuguese padre that Hideyoshi had already
banished by the edict of 1587. Konishi hastened to inform the Taiko that he had made the
Jesuits come to Korea, in order to learn from them news of the vessel from the Indies, that
had been promised by padre and long expected. At the same time, Konishi counseled
Céspedes to retreat to Tsushima, to the house of his daughter Mary, the wife of So
Yoshitomo. 54
It was natural that the passing visit of Céspedes did not give a significant impact on
the ideational structure of Chosŏn Korea. It was largely due to the fact that the encounter
happened during the Imjin War and the encounter did not engage sufficient Koreans. It was
only after the submission of Chosŏn Korea to Ching Empire that a significant encounter
between the Jesuit Order and Koreans happened. The Korean Crown Prince So-hyun and
Prince Bong-rim had an encounter with Adam Shall von Bell (湯若望, 1591-1666), a
German Jesuit missionary. The meeting happened at Shenyang, capital of Ching Empire,
where they were taken as hostages, Crown Prince So-hyun was befriended with this Jesuit
missionary.
3. The Jesuit Order and Japanese Christian Daimyos
When Japan had an encounter with the Jesuit Order before the outbreak of the Imjin
War, its impact on Japanese ideational structure was far different with its impact on China
and Korea. Against Sinocentric order, Japanese had already developed the concept of Tenno
52 M. Steichen, The Christian daimyos : A Century of Religious and Political History in Japan, 1549-1650
(Tokyo : The Rikkyo Gakuin Press, [19--?]), 191.
53 According to a letter of Padre Antonio Prenestino dated 1578, a Portuguese junk had drifted to the shore of
Korea several years earlier. Okamoto Ryochi(岡木良知), (東京, 1942),
222 cited in Koh Byong-ik, Essays on East Asian History and Cultural Traditions (Seoul: Sowha, 2004), 246.
54 Steichen, Christian daimyos, 192.
- 12 -

(天皇), literally “heavenly sovereign,” as their geopolitical center of the universe in almost
equal terms with Chinese T'ien-tzu. Even though it is commonly accepted that Japanese
Tennos from the same imperial family have reigned over Japan since long time ago, the
concept of Tenno seems to have been rediscovered and reinvented geopolitically.
The flexibility of Japanese thinking in the Sinocentric Order was largely due to the
Japanese geographical remoteness from China, which was far different with that of Chosŏn
Korea. The barrier posed by the Straits between Korean peninsula and Japan has kept Asian
powers from conquering Japan. Especially, this geographic characteristic was brought to light
when Yuan (Mongol Empire) invaded Korea and Japan in the 13 th century. The successors of
Genghis Khan forced Korea to have a servile relationship with the Mongol Empire. Koreans
were required to support, with three hundred ships, the Mongol’s first, unsuccessful, invasion
to Japan in 1274. In the second Mongol invasion of 1281, the Koreans were compelled to
contribute nine hundred ships. As the gargantuan Mongol-Korean armada approached the
Japanese coast, a typhoon blew. For the Japanese it was a miracle, a heaven-sent intervention
they would remember as the Kamikaze, the divine wind. 55 Japan was saved by a climatic
influence, but harbored the trauma of invasion from the North. Buddhist and Shinto religious
institutions had so more ideational power as they claim that it had been their prayers and
ceremonies that had produced the kamikaze. 56
As a stretch of the Counter Reformation, the Jesuit Order reached to Japan. From
Portugal to Goa in Western India, they passed the Carriera da India paved by Portuguese
explorers such as the Infante Henrique (1394-1460), Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450 – 1500), and
Vasco da Gama (c. either 1460 or 1469 – 1524, India). From Goa to Kyusyu, Japan's
southernmost main island, the way was explored by Antonio Galvao and Fernao Mendes
Pinto, via Malacca, Macao, and Formosa. 57 The Christian religious activities in Japan were
exclusively performed by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored mendicant
orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, gained access to Japan. Francis Xavier
(1506 - 1552), friend of Ignatius Loyola and co-founder of the Jesuit Order, arrived at the
port of Goa in 1541. In 1549, on August 15, the feast day of Assumption and the anniversary
55
Hawley, Imjin War, 57. In the closing stage of the Asia-Pacific War, U.S. translator erroneously used this
name Kamikaze for referring to the suicide attacks by Japanese military aviators.
56
Kyotsu Hori, "The Economic and Political Effects of the Mongol Wars,"
John W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass, ed. Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1974), 186-87.
57
James Murdoch argued that Antonio Galvao was the first European landing on Japan in 1542. James
Murdoch, History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542-1651). In collaboration with
Isoh Yamagata (Tokio and Kobe: Chronicle Office, 1903), 33.
- 13 -

of the founding of the Jesuit Order, Francisco Xavier arrived in Kagoshima(鹿児島), Kyushu,
with Cosme de Torres, and Father John Fernandez. Xavier was also accompanied by a
Japanese called Paul Yajiro (洋次郎) whom he met in 1547 during his stay in Malacca. 60
The landing of Xavier began to open the Christian century in Japan. 61
Stricto sensu, prior to the Jesuit spiritual companions, a company of merchants
brought muskets to Japan. The musket’s value as a killing machine was quickly recognized
among Japanese daimyos fighting one another. Muskets could be bought by selling prisoners
of war as slaves. Furthermore the skills necessary to handle a musket could be taught to
anyone in a relatively short period of time. Adding a corps of musketeers to one’s army was a
more rational choice than adding a corps of archers for strengthening its combat power. 62
The import of muskets to Japan had far-reaching implications for the dynamics of Japanese
geopolitics. However, thoughts matter more than technology. The proselytism of the Jesuit
Order rendered Japan fully aware of the existence of the West beyond the Sinocentric space,
enlarging the geopolitical vision of Japanese daimyos. Especially, the Spanish-Portuguese
worldwide empire supplied the Japanese with a nearby model for overseas expansion. 63
While China was landlocked with millennial cultural continuities, Japan was relatively well
prepared for the arrival of the Jesuit Order. 64
Due to the continuous efforts of the Jesuit Order, many Japanese daimyos became
Christian[Kirishitan] daimyos (吉利支丹 大名). Before the outbreak of the Imjin War in
1592, there were more than 150, 000 Christians under the care of the Jesuit Order in Japan. 65
How could the Jesuit Order come into the sudden vogue and attract so many Japanese into the
Catholic during such a short time? 66 Who became converted and what was the geopolitical
signification of this mass conversion happened in Japan?
60
According to Murdoch, Valignano writes that “This Japanese is commonly called Angero; his true name was
Yajiro.. at baptism he received the name of Paul of the Holy Faith.” Murdoch, History of Japan, 39. On Yajiro
and his meeting with Xavier, see particularly the Historia da Igreja do Japao of Joao Rodriguez Tcuzzu, trans.
& ed. Doi Tadao et al., Nihon kyokai shi, II, Dai Kokai Jidai Sosho X (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1970), pt. 3, chs. vi-vii,
295-314; Elison, Deus Destroyed, 32, 401.
61
Boxer, Christian Century in Japan.
62
Hawley, Imjin War, 8-9.
63
George Elison, “The Cross and the Sword; Patterns of Momoyama History,” in George Elison and Barwell L.
Smith, eds., Warlords, Artists and Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century (Honolulu: University Press of
Hawaii, 1981), 69.
64
Theodore H. Von Laue, The World Revolution of Westernization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 22.
65
The author’s estimation is based on Ellison, Deus Destroyed, 81.
66
In search of the answer to this question, we can also think about the following question: “Why did the Jesuit
Order disappear all of a sudden during the Tokukawa era without leaving a trace behind?”
- 14 -

First, the absolute independence which a Japanese daimyo enjoyed in the 16 th century
rendered the task of the Jesuit Order easier. As a complete master of his own domain, a
daimyo had not to fear the control of the Shogun, and still less that of the Emperor. 67 The
encounter between Japan and the Jesuit Order happened when Japan was in the era of
Sengoku (戰國, literally “warring states”). It was a state of war among daimyos from the
1460s to 1590, caused fundamentally by a lack of central authority. It was “a time of
usurpation age after age. … no title to authority was sacred a day longer than its holder
wielded sufficient power to defend it, …. the plotting and counter-plotting, the universal
distrust, the total disregard of principle, the neglect of learning … ” 68 The casus belli
extended back into the twelfth century, when the emperor in Kyoto began to slip his position
of undisputed power. By the early thirteenth century, the imperial throne had become so
powerless, and the Shogun’s capital in Kamakura became the real seat of government.
The Sengoku era of Japan was like a world of what Hobbes postulated as a “war of all
against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). 69 With neither the shogun nor the emperor able
to guarantee property rights or the rule of law, ambitious men began to take charge. The
sixteenth century opened with hundreds of regional lords and small groups all vying for one
another’s territory and all arming to protect their own. By the middle of the sixteenth century
the entire nation was in the hands of feuding daimyos, 70 each holding their own private
domain, none beholden to any central authority. 71 Under these circumstances, the Jesuit
priest was welcomed by a daimyo as an ally.
Second, as Boxer describes, “the desire for foreign trade was one of primary impulses
which drove the Kyushu daimyo to welcome the padres to their fiefs.” 72 Without central
control or protection described above in Sengoku era, local daimyos were anxious to
strengthen their power by a trade with the Portuguese through the mediation of the Jesuits. A
converted daimyo could easily lead his subjects to conversion as a whole. For Christian
daimyos, it was essential to maintain gunpowder supply from Portuguese ships to overspread
their fiefdoms with musketry. It was also useful to learn European fortification technology to
67
Steichen, Christian daimyos, 31.
68 rd
Walter Dening and Maberly Esler Dening, The Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. 3 ed. Kobe: J. L. Thompson &
Co. 1930 [1888, Hakubun-sa], 6-7.
69
Leviathan, xiii.
70
The daimyo (大名) were the most powerful feudal rulers from the 10th century to the early 19th century in
Japan. Though the term “daimyo” literally means “great name,” the Japanese word actually comes from the
words dai, meaning “large,” and myo (shortened from myoden) meaning “name-land” or “private land.”
71
Hawley, Imjin War, 8.
72 Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, 95.
- 15 -

protect their fiefdoms. Especially, Takayama Ukon (高山右近, 1552-1615, Philippines), who
was baptized as Dom Justo, designed Takaoka Castle, and became a maestro of European
fortification in Japan.
Expectation for profits of trade with Portuguese ships shuttling between China and
Japan might have also pushed some daimyos into the arms of the Jesuit Order. In this regard,
another important factor was the Buddhist priesthood in Japan. The most interesting branch
of this community was the Zen sect, which was particularly favored by the Ashikaga
shogunate. Buddhist priests are known to have drafted diplomatic dispatches to the Ming
court, and to have supervised the official commercial intercourse with China. The Jesuits
were not slower in utilizing the trade profit. Alessandro Valignano (范禮安, 1539 Italy-1606
Macau) complained more than once that European traders “were not always ready to comply
with ecclesiastical suggestions as had been Xavier’s friend, Duarte da Gama.” 73
The case of Omura Sumitada (大村純忠, Don Bartholomeo, 1533-1587) demonstrates
this motivation. From the time of his nomination [instead of Takaaki, born of a concubine of
low extraction] as feudal lord, Sumitada had kept asking himself by what means he could
attract the foreign merchants into his ports. He wrote a long letter to the Jesuit Torres, then in
Bungo (now Oita) 74 which Sumitada inherited. Torres baptized him together with twenty-
five of this leading Samurais at Yokoseura in 1563. 75 Sumitada undertook, moreover, to
offer, as much to the preachers as to the merchants, advantages surpassing all the privileges
that the other daimyos had accorded them. 76
Another case of Otomo Sorin (大友宗麟, 1530-1587) demonstrates also why a house
of daimyo involved with the Jesuit Order. 77 With the earlier name of Otomo Yoshishige
(大友義鎮), Otomo Sorin (大友宗麟) was born as the eldest son of Otomo Yoshiaki(大友嘉
明). He inherited the domain of Funai on Kyushu. Upon the inheritance, he had a chance to
meet the captain, Duarte da Gama (son of Admiral Dom Vasco da Gama, c. 1469 – 1524,
discoverer of the Carreira da India) and Francis Xavier. When Xavier arrived, he himself
73 Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, 97.
74 Bungo (豊後国, Bungo no kuni) was a province of Japan in eastern Kyushu. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi also
took the power in Kyūshū, 120 thousand koku of Buzen province was given to Kuroda Yoshitaka since 1587,
who made Kokura, current days a part of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka his site and built the castle.
75 Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 21.
76 Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 18-19. Sumitada handed over the feudal administration to his son Omura
Yoshiaki (大村喜前, Dom Sancho, 1568-1615) and retired, living in a mansion at Sakaguchi. He died there of
tuberculosis, on June 23, 1587, and was fortunate not to see the exile of the Jesuits that followed soon after. Ibid.,
18-19. 遠藤周作, (小学館ライブラリー).
77 Elison, Deus Destroyed, 21-23.
- 16 -

welcomed Xavier with respect and esteem, enhanced the friendship with Portugal and
allowed the missionary activities in his territories. But only 27 years later, in 1578, Otomo
Yoshishige received the faith and was baptized, with the name Francisco. 78 According to
many previous studies, Otomo Sorin's motivation for meeting with Xavier was to determine
of what assistance Xavier could be in helping him establish trading relationships with the
Portuguese. Sorin died at the age of fifty-eight years. At the time of his death, Bungo
contained 70,000 Christian. 79
Third, the top down way of proselytism was successful at least in the first stage. This
way of proselytism was different from that of Franciscans. 80 In Europe, the Jesuits could
maintain strong political influence because the Jesuits were willing to act confessors to the
monarchs in Europe. In Japan, the Jesuits directly targeted the leading class, and they had
more chance to influence the politics, as much as they were involved in local politics. The
preliminary success of the Jesuit Order in Japan owed much to the favorable regard of
powerful rulers.
However, a daimyo was not an invulnerable bulwark. It was essential for the Jesuit
Order to gain the protection of as many daimyos as possible or from the all-powerful ruler.
Among many kirishitan daimyos, the Jesuit Order might have expected a Japanese
Constantine the Great who proclaimed religious toleration by the Edict of Milan (313) after
his military victory that was gained, as he argued, by the intervention of God. 81
Fourth, as pointed out by Boxer, “part of the preliminary successes of the Jesuits in
Japan can be explained by a certain similarity of training between these soldiers of the Cross
and the samurai nurtured in the Spartan precepts of the warriors’ way.” 82 The naïve
simplicity sought by the Jesuit Order had a similarity with the single-minded fidelity of
samurai sacrificing everything for the sake of his feudal superior. The religious purity urged
by the Counter Reformation made the Jesuit Order a simple-minded company. The simplicity
was supported by a sophisticated military-like organization. Instead of translating Bible in
Japanese - albeit many Jesuit missionaries were familiar with the language at their tongue’s -,
78
Louis Frederic, Japan Encyclopedia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; 2002); George
Sansom, A History of Japan: 1334-1615 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1961); Stephen
Turnbull, The Samurai Sourcebook (London: Cassell & Co., 1998).
79
Lettera annale del Giappone scritta al Padre generale della Compagnia di Giesu (1588), 48 as cited in
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 127.
80
The first recorded visit of a Franciscan to Japan occurred in 1584 by a drift of ship. Even this accidental
passing visit of a Franciscan left the Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho somewhat ill at ease. Elison, Deus
Destroyed, 80.
81
Murdoch, History of Japan, 157.
82 Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, 48.
- 17 -

the Jesuit Order used ceremony and simple catechism and only one of four gospels was
translated. The claims of exclusive and uncompromising loyalty of the Jesuit Order were not
far from the demands of daimyos to their subjects. The military-style of the Jesuit Order may
serve to explain their power of attraction among Japanese samurais. For the Jesuit Order,
“Deus is the summum bonum, and the source of order in the universe. To adore and to serve
Him (with an eye to Paradise) is the highest good attainable to man, and the highest duty.” 83
The mass baptism led by a recently convert Christian daimyos might have been looked as a
military ceremony. While many Japanese became Kirishitan through individual conversion,
the great majority of followers received their baptisms following the orders of their
daimyos. 84
Fifth, the proselytism of Jesuit Order seems to have been politically allowed for
checking and balancing the power of Buddhism. While Buddhism was oppressed by Yi
dynasty in Chosŏn Korea in the 15 th and 16 th centuries, Buddhism had grown over the
primitive religion of the Japanese, i.e. Shintoism for more than six hundred years. 85 When
Francis Xavier arrived on the coast of Japan in 1549, the Buddhism in Japan was still
flourishing, and the Buddhist priests were assuming important roles, besides religious
activities, in diplomacy, education and military affairs. 86 Some daimyos placed the Jesuit
Order in a more privileged position than the native Buddhist organization for checking the
latter.
Against Buddhism, an Iconoclastic destruction of Buddhist temples was done by
Christian daimyos. Omura Sumitada who opened the port of Nagasaki to foreign trade was
baptized in 1563 to become the first Christian daimyo. Sumitada razed Buddhist temples and
Shinto shrines, defacing his ancestors' graves, forcing Christianity on his retainers and the
people of his domain. This hostility of Omura Sumitada to Buddhism was similar in the case
of Otomo Sorin. As being suggested by the name of Sorin(宗麟), he was surrounded by
Buddhist monks warriors. Welcoming the Jesuit orders, he checked Buddhist and Shintoist
monastic orders participating often in warfare with skillful martial arts. 87
83
Elison, Deus Destroyed, 47.
84
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 161.
85
George Schurhammer, S.J. Shin-Tō: The Way of The Gods in Japan (Bonn and Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder,
1923), 1.
86
Koh, Essays on East Asian History, 106.
87
A. Vagliano describes the Buddhist and Shinto hybrid ideational structure of Japan, in his “Historia del
Principio y Progresso de la Compania de Jesus en las Indias Orientales” completed in 1583. George
Schurhammer, S.J. Shin-Tō: The Way of The Gods in Japan (Bonn and Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1923), 97.
- 18 -

The hostility that Sumitada and Sorin shared against the Buddhism was in the same
line with the policy of Oda Nobunaga (織田信長, 1534-1582) who conquered a third of
Japanese daimyos until 1582 when he died. Oda Nobunaga was engaged in a merciless
campaign against Buddhists of the True Pure Land sect, its widespread religious monarchy,
and its headquarters, the temple-citadel Ishiyama Honganji in Osaka. 88 Oda Nobunaga
wanted to win over his opposition allied with strong Buddhist organization such as Nichiren
Syoshu. For checking his opposition, he allowed the activities of the Jesuit Order. Oda
Nobunaga allowed the first Catholic seminary established in Japan near Azuchi castle
(安土城). In 1576, a Nanbanji (南蠻寺, literally “temple of southern barbarian” i.e. Catholic
church) was also permitted by Oda Nobunaga to Gnecchi-Soldo Organtino. 89 However, Oda
Nobunaga died without becoming Christian. The top down way of proselytism had a big
lacunas when we consider that an anti-Christian ruler in a unified country could more easily
conduct a general persecution. In fact, it was the destiny of the Jesuit Order after the Imjin
War in Japan. 90
Sixth, the “adaptationism” of Alessandro Valignano, who succeeded the place of
Xavier, accelerated the proselytism of the Jesuit Order. 91 In total Valignano made three visits
to Japan from 1579-82, 1590-92 and again from 1598-1603. He famously wrote that the
Japanese “excel not only all the other Oriental peoples, they surpass the Europeans as well.” 92
As was ordered by the Superior General, he devoted efforts to nurturing Japanese priests,
Valignano forced Francisco Cabral (Portugal, 1529 – Goa, 1609) to resign as Superior of the
Jesuit mission in Japan because Cabral opposed his plans. Introducing the adaptationism of
proselytism, the Jesuit Order could avoid cultural frictions by making a compromise with
Japanese customs. According to Ikuo Higashibaba, it is clear that what the Jesuit Order
reproduced in Japan was not at all a “full-fledged European-style” Christianity. What
developed on the popular level was, “a Japanese Christianity that incorporated traits of the
popular religious culture of Japan and came to constitute a segment of Japanese religion.” 93
88
Elison, “The Cross and the Sword,” 69.
89
This first Christian church in Kyoto was destroyed eleven years later (1587) by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The
founder of Nanbanji, Gnecchi-Soldo Organtino (1530-1609) was a Portuguese Jesuit. After sent to Nagasaki, he
died there in 1609.
90
Elison, Deus Destroyed, 27.
91
In 1581, he wrote Il Cerimoniale per i Missionari del Giappone to set forth guidelines for Jesuits.
92
Alessandro Valignano, 1584, "Historia del Principo y Progresso de la Compania de Jesus en las Indias
Orientales (1542-64)".
93
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, xv-xvi.
- 19 -

Seventh, the character of the Japanese people offers one more explanation. The
openness of Japanese for everything new must have greatly contributed to favour the new
doctrine. Already in the Indies, Paul Yajiro, the first Japanese converted by Francis Xavier,
had predicted to the latter that his countrymen would welcome new doctrine. 94 There was
also a certain amount of exoticism in favor of the Jesuit Order. Even non-Kirishitans liked to
wear a pendant of the cross, while Hideyoshi wanted to give Christian names to his female
servants just because those European names sounded good to his ears. 95
4. Japanese Geopolitical Revisionism and the Imjin War
What impact did the proselytism of the Jesuit Order have on Northeast Asia? First of
all, some Jesuit priests actively supported Toyotomi Hideyoshi for implementing his plan of
Asian conquest. In May 1586 (Tensho 14), Gaspar Coelho, vice-provincial of the Jesuit
mission in Japan, paid visit to Hideyoshi at Osaka castle with Luís Fróis (1532-1597), other
Portuguese missionary. During this interview with Coelho, as Fróis wrote, Hideyoshi said
that “if he succeeded, and the Chinese rendered obedience to him… he would build churches
in all parts, commanding all to become Christians, and to embrace our Holy Law.” 96 In his
interview with Hideyoshi, Coelho promised that he would secure the help of the Christian
daimyo of Kyushu according to the plan of Hideyoshi. He also promised Hideyoshi that he
would provide two Portuguese ships. 97
In 1585, Gaspar Coelho had already requested a Spanish fleet to ‘evangelize’ East
Asia. He argued that when the 66 states of Japan had been converted to Christianity, “King
Philip could use the sharp and aggressive Japanese army to easily conquer China.” This Jesuit
missionary estimated China could be easily conquered for four reasons. “First, the people are
idle and effeminate, especially the aristocracy. Second, there is not a single musket in the
94
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 30.
95
Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 163.
96
Murdoch, A History of Japan, 305; Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 140.
97
Murdoch, A History of Japan, Vol. II, 214-18. Coelho’s interview with Hideyoshi is according to Valignano’s
letter dated Nagasaki, October 14, 1590, preserved in the Jesuit Archives at Rome (“Jaspin,” 11, fols, 233-236v).
Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 141, 469.
- 20 -

whole country. Third, the government has forbidden the people from arming themselves out
of a fear of revolts. Fourth, the conditions are ripe for revolts due to harsh rule.” 98
In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent 250,000 men armed with many thousands of
muskets to Kyushu where Christian daimyos were dominant. The subjection of the
Kwanto(関東) in 1590 made Hideyoshi undisputed master of Japan from one end of the
archipelago to the other. As the era of Sengoku was finishing, the Jesuit Order had less and
less power of attraction which the Jesuit Order could enjoy among daimyos. On the evening
of the 24 th of July in 1587, Hideyoshi signed an edict prohibiting the evangelistic activities of
the Jesuit Order saying that “Japan is a country of kami [神, deity in the Shinto sense)] . . . I
am resolved that the padres should not stay on Japanese soil.” It is still uncertain about what
had happened, and what the reasons of so sudden a change were. 99
What seems to have more impact than Coelho’s operation plan was the geopolitical
revisionism grown up by the entry of the Jesuit Order in Japan. With the sudden increase of
Christian daimyos, the thitherto accepted geopolitical notion of Sinocentric order was called
into question. The other part of the globe introduced by the Jesuit Order gave fresh impetus to
the development of new geopolitical vision of Japanese leading class. At the heart of the
geopolitical view of Japan nested what might be called an ethnocentric geopolitical notion
with herself at the center surrounded by Korea, the Chinese community in Nagasaki, and
Southeast Asia. 100
The Jesuit Order and their disciples, Christian daimyos, played a decisive role in the
gestation of Japanese geopolitical revisionism. Due to the encounter with the West, a new
geopolitical idea began to nestle in the mind of Japanese rulers, converted or non-converted.
In this way, spiritual companions of the Counter Reformation deeply influenced the
geopolitical mind of Japanese. The war plan of Toyotomi Hideyoshi could see the light only
when the Sinocentric geopolitical idée fixe came to an end. Due to the encounter with the
Jesuit Order, Japanese daimyos including Hideyoshi became aware of the new historical
chapter that would be called “the Age of Exploration” in Europe. The enlargement of
98
高瀬弘一郎 (Takase Koichiro), 『キリシタン時代の研究』 (東京: 岩波書店、1977), ch. 3 “キリシタ
ンの宣敎師の軍事計劃”事計劃”の 3 “oichiro),3. See also 高瀬弘一郎,『キリシタン時代の文化と諸相』.
東京: 八木書店、2001; 高瀬弘一郎,『キリシタン時代の貿易と外交』 東京:八木書店、2002.
99
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 128-130.
100
About the development of the Japanese ethnocentric concept of a regional system, see Hidemi Suganami,
“Japan’s Entry into International Society,” In The Expansion of International Society, Edited by Hedley Bull
and Adam Watson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 185-90.
- 21 -

geopolitical vision by the visit of the Jesuit Order accelerated Japanese geopolitical thinking
out of the boundary of Sinocentric Weltanschauung.
The year 1582 opened with an important event in the history of the relations of Japan
with the Occident. Three Kirishitan daimyos, Arima Harunobu, Otomo Sorin, and Omura
Sumitada collaborated to send Tensho delegation(天正遣歐使節) 101 of young people to the
Pope in Rome. This mission was escorted by Valignano who baptized several Kirishitan
daimyos including Ariman Harunobu. Tensho delegation met Philip II (1527-1598) in 1584
and met the Pope Gregorius XIII (1502-1585) in 1585. On the 30 th of April in 1586, they
embarked at Lisbon and arrived at Goa on the 29 th of May in 1587. Under the circumstances
which detained them for nearly a year, it was not until the 1 st of April, 1588, that they left the
port, accompanied by Father Valignano. 102 Valignano and his companions reached Nagasaki
in July, 1590. 103 Those ambassadors were the first Japanese to undertake officially the
diplomatic mission to European countries. 104
The Jesuit Order and the Tensho envoy seem to have reoriented Japanese geopolitical
thinking in two ways; geopolitical thinking beyond Sinocentric Order and geopolitical
thinking for world conquest including India. The Hideyoshi’s invasion to Korea was the
incarnation of this new geopolitical thinking. This new thinking served as the basis for
Japanese revisionist claims within the Sinocentric order. A conflict arises when a policy of
revision collides with the interests of a passive, status quo state. The revisionist state seeks to
take away from the passive status quo state a particular object or advantage. The latter,
seeking nothing new, tries to retain what it already has. 105
Before the clash between China as a status quo state and Japan as a revisionist state,
there was a clash of viewpoints between traditional Korean thinking of regional order and the
changed geopolitical view of Japan. Different geopolitical views lied behind the diplomatic
thinking and behavior of Korea and Japan. While Hideyoshi complained about the neglect of
the Koreans to send embassies to Japan, the Koreans were very much offended by
Hideyoshi’s using the character “朕 (we),” in addressing himself, which seemed to them an
101
Tensho was the name of years from 1573 to 1592. Ito Mancio (伊東マンショ, 1570–1612) represented
Otomo Sorin as his grand-nephew, Michael Chijiwa Seiyemon was Omura’s nephew and cousin-german of
Arima. Christian daimyos added two other of their relations, Julian Nakamura and Martin Hara. Steichen,
Christian Daimyos, 113-14.
102
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 118.
103
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 148
104
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 112.
105
Abdul Aziz Said, Charles O. Lerche, Jr. and Charles O. Lerche, III., Concepts of International Politics in
Global Perspective 4
- 22 -
th ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995), 122.

assumption of equality with the Emperor of China. 106 It has been often argued that the
Sinocentric model was not seriously challenged until the Opium War. However, the Imjin
war of Northeast Asia in 1590s had already challenged the Sinocentric order.
The enlarged Japanese geopolitical vision can be found also in a letter of Toyotomi
Hideyoshi sent to his nephew Toyotomi Hidetsugu on the 18 th of the fifth month in 1592,
after the sussessful launching of the invasion, Hideyoshi revealed his geopolitical plan as
follows: “We will move our emperor to the Chinese capital of Beijing and let him rule 10
states near the capital. [ … ] Hidetsugu will be the regent in China and rule 100 states near
the capital. I will reside in Ningbo, and Ukita Hideie or someone else will move to the
Korean capital. The Korean king will be arrested and escorted to Japan. The daimyo fighting
on the frontlines will be given states near India.” 107 In other letter sent to his generals
invading Korea, Hideyoshi revealed also similar geopolitical view: “conquering the virginal
China is like smashing an egg with a mountain. It will be the same with India and the
Southeast Asian countries.” 108
Why were the Christian Daimyos in the van of the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea in
1592, in spite of the 1587 edict of prohibiting the Jesuit Order’s activity in Japan ? Among
three most important commanders who were in charge of the troops dispatched by Toyotomi
Hideyoshi to Korea, two commanders were Christian daimyos, i.e. Konishi
Yukinaga(小西行長, 1555-1600) and Kuroda Nagamasa (黒田 長政, 1568-1623), while the
other commander Kato Kiyomasa (加藤清正, 1562-1611) was a devoted member of Nichiren
Shu Buddhism. Most of the other daimyos in Konishi contingent, such as So Yoshitoshi (宗
義智, 1568-1615), daimyo of the island Tsushima, Arima Harunobu (有馬晴信, 1567-1612),
Omura, Goto, Amakusa were all Christians as well, while Matsura Shigenobu was the only
daimyo under Konishi, who was not a Christian. 109 In addition to Konishi, Takayama Ukon
and Kuroda Josui were most trusted Christian daimyos of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whereas
others, such as Hosokawa Tadaoki and Gamo Ujisato were sympathetically inclined to the
new faith. 110
106
Dening, Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 245.
107
Hujiki Kuji(藤木久慈), History of Japan(日本の歷史) Vol. 15: The Oda and Toyotomi Regimes
(織田豊臣政權) (Shogakukan, 1977), 315-316.
108
Kitajima Manji(北島万次), The Toyotomi Regime’s Understanding of the World and Invasion of
Korea(豊臣政權の対外認識と朝鮮侵略) (東京: 校倉書房(Kyosho Shobo), 1990), 93-95.
109
Steichen, Christian Daimyos, 161.
110 Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, 139.
- 23 -

As Portuguese Infante Henri the navigator wanted to push out nobreza guerrier out of
Iberian Peninsula after the success of Reconquista, Toyotomi Hideyoshi might have adopted
a similar policy regarding Christian daimyos, especially in Kyushu near Korean peninsula. As
pointed out by James Murdoch, “the problem was how to maintain his rapidly acquired
supremacy. … To engage them to spend their resources and energies in an over-sea war was
the best and easiest solution of the problem; and as early as 1587, immediately after the
reduction of Kyushu and the subjugation of Shinadzu of Satusma, the Regent had taken the
preliminary steps to provoke the necessary quarrel.” 111
The destiny of Christian daimyos was sealed with the failure of the Hideyoshi
conquest. The Christian doctrine was revolutionary, because the “absolute allegiance” to a
temporal sovereign can be cancelled out by the great loyalty, the higher duty, by the other
absolute. The Christian Heaven’s Mandate implies the right to revolt. 112 While this
revolutionary worldview brought the idea of equal sovereignty in Westphalian Europe, it was
regarded as dangerous by Tokukawa Ieyasu so much as the chance of using it against the
Sinocentric order disappeared. Once he seized the power of Japan after his victory in the War
of Sekigahara (関ヶ原の戦い, 1600), Tokukawa Ieyashu desired the stability of his regime.
He began to support his governance by systematically planting the Neo-Confucianism in
Japanese ideational structure. The Neo-Confucian conception of legitimacy and hierarchy
was a suitable ideological backbone. In opposition to Buddhism, a firm adherence to
Confucian teaching and principle was officially declared. As an anti-Christian ruler, he
conducted a general persecution on Christian daimyos. 113
During the Imjin War, a peace negotiation was initiated by general Shen Weijing
(沈惟敬, ?- 1597) of Ming China and general Konishi Yukinaga of Japan. Konishi, always in
the van of the invasion, went to work to get the Japanese out of the Imjin War. While peace
talks were underway, the Japanese forces proceeded to withdraw all the way to the
southeastern littoral of Kyungsang province, where they sheltered themselves behind intricate,
castle-like fortifications. In the summer of 1593, a Chinese delegation visited Japan and
stayed at the court of Hideyoshi in Osaka for more than a month. In 1594, an envoy from
Hideyoshi reached Beijing. Satisfied with the Japanese overtures, the imperial court in
Beijing dispatched an envoy to allow retired Regent (Taiko, 太閤)) Hideyoshi to have the
111
Murdoch, A History of Japan, 306.
112
Elison, Deus Destroyed, 48.
113
Elison, Deus Destroyed, 27 ; Koh, Essays on East Asian History, 106.
- 24 -

title of “King of Japan” on condition of complete withdrawal of Japanese forces from Korea.
Actually, most of the Japanese army had left Korea by the autumn of 1596, albeit a small
garrison remained in Busan. The Ming government withdrew most of its expeditionary force,
but kept 16,000 men on the Korean peninsula to guard the truce.
The Ming ambassador paid a visit to Hideyoshi in October 1596 at Osaka(大阪), but
there was a great deal of misunderstanding about the terms of peace. On the one hand, the
Chinese sought to resolve the situation in their favor by accommodating Japan within the
Chinese tributary system – recognizing Hideyoshi as the king of Japan and granting him the
privilege of formal tribute trade relations with Ming China. Hideyoshi was enraged to learn
that China insulted the Emperor of Japan by offering to nominate Hideyoshi as a king of
Japan as if the Chinese emperor had the right of distributing monarchic sovereignties, instead
of recognizing Japanese Emperor's divine right to the throne. For showing the equality of
sovereignty, Hideyoshi, for his part, regarded himself as the victor. Hideyoshi demanded a
royal marriage between Chinese Wanli Emperor’s Princess and the emperor of Japan, the
division of Korea with the north as a self-governing Chinese satellite and the southern four
provinces (Kyungsang, Cholla, Chungchong and Kyunggi) in Japanese hands, and sending of
a prince of Korea and several of its high officials to Japan as hostages. However, the Chinese
would only treat the Japanese as their tributaries, and would not recognize their claims to
other treatment out of the traditional Sinocentric Order. Due to this cleavage of geopolitical
perception, the peace negotiations were broken eventually in 1596.
After the rupture of long peace talks, Hideyoshi launched a second campaign of
conquest in 1597. Hideyoshi sent 200 ships with approximately 141,100 men under the
overall command of Kobayakawa Hideaki(小早川秀秋, 1582-1602). When the Imjin War
ended in the twelfth month of 1598, China, Japan, and Korea were left with the status quo
ante bellum. However, there was a newly emerged Manchu empire, Ching. Without the
overwhelming rise of Ching Empire in the aftermath of the Imjin War, there might have been
more frequent diplomatic maneuvers among Ming, Ching, Korea and Japan. These frequent
diplomatic maneuvers could have contributed to a birth of Westphalia-like international
system as the idea of Pax et libertas could generate and gain against the idea of Pax et
imperium in Europe. 114
114 Claire Gantet, Guerre, paix et construction des Etats, 1618-1714 (Paris: Seuil, 2003), 200.
- 25 -

In the peace negotiations which took place during the Imjin War, Japan had wanted a
truce of Uti possidetis, while the was finally ended with status quo ante bellum. Peace
negotiations were kept secret from the Chosŏn Royal Court, which had no say in those
negotiations for ending hostilities on the Korean peninsula. For Chosŏn dynasty, the Peace
conference was taking place, as the proverb says, de vous, chez vous, sans vous. 115
The Imjin War was a watershed in Northeast Asia in the meaning that it marked the
gradual passing from the Ming Empire led by Han people to Ching Empire led by Manchu
people. In China, the strain of responding to the Imjin War heavily weakened the already
declining Ming Empire, undermining its ability to resist the Manchu forces that would
ultimately overwhelm it to establish a dynasty of their own, the Ching. 116 However, the end
of the Imjin War marked neither the end of war, nor the beginning of a new international
order in Northeast Asia, albeit the end of Sengoku period in Japan. In the aftermath of the
Imjin War, Japan entered in the longest unbroken period of peace in its history, the
Tokukawa era of 1601 to 1867.
After the Thirty Years War, the Westphalian international order emerged in Western
Europe as an institutional system of plural sovereign states recognizing each other. However,
after the Seven Years Imjin War of Northeast Asia, no corresponding dynastic change took
place by the signing of peace treaty or peace treaties. Why there was no Westphalia-like
[international] system in Northeast Asia after the Imjin War (1592-1598)?” Is this a too
localized question of East Asia fixed under the straightjacket of Westphalian concept? 117
However, the rationale for this question is grounded not only in the striking parallels between
Western Europe and Northeast Asia in the 16th and the 17th century, but also in the
interaction between Europe and Northeast Asia at the times. After a war in Europe, there had
been a peace system which contains the incessant burst of hostilities and redraws the
boundaries of the participants of the war. Europe had also America and Asia as an outlet of
internal hostilities. However, it was not the case for Northeast Asia in the aftermath of Imjin
War. While Ching Empire was expanding to inland Asia, Japan switched from mainland Asia
to maritime Asia. Japan led a southward advance to the southern part of Maritime East Asia.
115
This proverbial saying, meaning “about you, in your backyard, but without your consent,” originated from
the weak circumstances of the Dutch when the Treaty of Utrecht was signed after the War of Spanish
Succession in 1713.
116
Hawley, Imjin War, xiii.
117
As argued by some scholars, for example, Benno Teschke, “History as Resource in IR Theory: The Case of
‘East-Asia’,” Theorizing International Relations in East Asia, Proceedings of the International Conference
organized by the Korean Association of International Studies (26-27 October 2007, Yonsei University), 20.
- 26 -

To establish an outlet for its trade between 1604 and 1635, an estimated 100,000 Japanese
left their country, and between 7,000 and 10,000 of them took up permanent residence in the
numerous Japanese settlements then dotting the Southeast Asian fringes of the Western
Pacific. 118
In the aftermath of the Imjin War, Northeast Asian populations were more willing to
accede to sovereign authorities for the sake of protection. For consolidating sovereignty, not
only the control of hard power, but also the control of soft power was conditio sine qua non.
The ecclesiastical power based on the Reformation or the Counter Reformation was the
essential soft power in each nation-states of the Westphalian System. But after the Imjin War,
there was no such distinct ideational structure among Ming China, Korea, and Japan. Not
only Ming China and Korea shared the Neo-Confucian ideational structure, with the Jesuit
Order ousted by Tokukawa Ieyasu, Neo-Confucianism was imported in Japan. Tokukawa
Ieyasu wanted an ideological base not to protest but to stabilize. Korean prisoners who were
familiar with Neo-Confucianism facilitated the homogenization of ideational structure in
Northeast Asia.
The Westphalia-like road was not taken in Northeast Asia. In 1607, by the mediation
of Tsushima daimyo who was once the son-in-law of Konishi Yukinaka, Chosŏn Korea sent
the first mission to Tokukawa Bakufu in 1607. The mission was consisted of 467 members,
including circus riders and musicians. 119 While Korea and China remained in the boundary
of Northeast Asia, from 1613 to 1620, the Keicho European Envoys (慶長遣歐使節) led by
Hasekura[Faxikura] Tsunenaga(支倉常長, 1571–1622) who was under Date
Masamune(伊達政宗) succeeded the way opened by the Tensho Mission. Instead of using
the carrier da India as did by the Tensho Mission, Keicho European Envoys used the way
through the Pacific, Mexico, and the Atlantic. In 1689, about 40 years after the peace of
Westphalia, Ching Empire signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russian Empire. It was the
first ‘international’ agreement concluded between China and Western nations. Only the
Portuguese succeeded in 1557 in establishing at Macao a settlement. 120 Before the Treaty of
Nerchinsk, Ching Empire’s relations with all other foreign countries were based on the
118
About Japanese affinity to Southeast Asia, see Segal, Rethinking the Pacific, 32. About the origins of the
southward advance, see Frei, Japan’s Southward Advance and Australia, 5.
119
Suganami, “Japan’s Entry into International Society,” 187.
120
In the eyes of the Chinese the Macao settlement was based on merely their toleration; and they repeatedly
asserted their sovereignty and jurisdiction over Macao. A Chinese-Portuguese treaty was not concluded until the
19
- 27 -
th century. Joseph Sebes, S. J. The Jesuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) : The Diary of
Thomas Pereira, S.J. (Roma : Institutum Historicum S.I., 1961), 114.

Sinocentric hierarchical concept, even though it was partly desired by tribute paying partners
as an opportunity of trade. 121 In the world based on the Neo-Confucianist ideational
infrastruacture emphasizing hierarchical order among states, a tribute was hardly interpreted
as a mere trade. 122 It was a mechanism of preserving the hierarchical order.
5. Conclusion
According to many previous studies, the Westphalian system expanded to enter into
the Sinocentric sphere since the mid-nineteenth century between the Opium War ended by
the treaty of Nanjing (1842) and the Convention of Kanakawa (1854) resulted by the Gunboat
diplomacy of Commodore Perry. 123 Asia was described as more stable than Europe in the
period 1300-1900, defined as both the absence of major interstate war and the continuity of
fixed borders. 124 Yet it is noteworthy that pre-Westphalian Europe has already met
Sinocentric Northeast Asia just after the Reformation in Europe and there was a grand war in
Northeast Asia War, i.e. the Imjin War which was dwarfing many other European interstate
wars of the times.
So much as the establishment of the Westphalian system in Europe was primarily
religious in inspiration, the expansion of pre-Westphalian Europe was also based on the
proselytism of the Jesuit Order. While the Reformation contributed to the birth of the
Westphalian system in Europe, the Counter Reformation caused a perceptional revolution in
Sinocentric ideational structure in Northeast Asia. The Counter Reformation facilitated the
exportation of European thought to Non-European World. With the spirit of the Counter
Reformation, the impact of the Jesuit Order on East Asia seems to be far deeper than
estimated previously in academic community. The expansion of the pre-Westphalian Europe
to America and Asia was, as pointed out by Adam Watson, “a continuation of the expansion
of medieval Christendom, and spread the rules, institutions and values elaborated in Europe
121
About the role played by the Jesuit Order at Nerchinsk, see Sebes, Jesuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of
Nerchinsk, 103-22. For Russia they were the first Orientalists and Sinologists at a time when Sinology hardly
existed; for China they were the first Occidentalists at a time when Chinese knowledge of the West was
practically nonexistent. Ibid., 103.
122
For more debate on this topic, see Rosemary Foot, John Lewis Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell, Order and
Justice in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 208-211.
123
Gong, “China’s Entry Into International Society,” 175; Suganami, “Japan’s Entry into International Society,”
190-95.
124
David Kang, “Hierarchy and Stability in Asian International Relations,” In Ikenberry, G. John and Michael
Mastanduno, International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press,
2003), 169.
- 28 -

over the whole world.” 125 Thitherto there was no concept of equality among sovereign states
in Northeast Asia.
The propaganda of the Christian faith by the Jesuit Order involved the collapse of
Sinocentric ideational structure in Japan. The Jesuit Order helped Japanese to pit themselves
against the traditional world view. As the Wars of Religion including the Thirty Years’ War
was a product of the profound long-term changes of ideational structure of medieval Europe,
the Imjin War of Northeast Asia was due largely to the change of Sinocentric geopolitical
conception facilitated by the Jesuit Order and its disciples, Christian daimyos. Thus in the
history of 16 th globe, the Wars of Religion and the Imjin war were interrelated through a sort
of “butterfly effect” mediated both by militant and commercial companies and by spiritual
companions of Europe.
In spite of the initial success in Japan, Europeans failed to dismantle the Sinocentric
Order and to bring Northeast Asia into their system. While the Wars of Religion brought the
Westphalian Peace System in Europe, the Imjin War did not bring forth a Westphalia-like
peace system in Northeast Asia. Neither Ming China, nor Choson Korea considered Japan as
an entity having the status of contracting party of peace treaty. Ming China considered Japan
as one of states in the sphere of Sinocentric order. The leading class of Choson Korea
considered their country as a vassal state of Ming China. However, the leading class of Japan
could not accept any peace treaty based on the Sinocentric order, so much as they started the
Imjin War with a changed perception of geopolitical vision espoused by the activities of the
Jesuit Order. As there was no peace conference to its fullest meaning during or after the Imjin
War, there was no mapping of territory including the division of Korea as intended by
Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Until the treaty of Simonoseki was signed after the Ching-Japan War (淸日戰爭,
known as the 1 st Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895), there had been no Westphalia-like peace
treaty between China and Japan. Taking fully into consideration this retard of Westphalian
concept in Northeast Asia, it would be more understandable why the argument for getting out
of the Westphalian straightjacket is not so much attractive in Northeast Asia as it is in Europe
where was born the concept more than 350 years ago. For elaborating more relevant
theoretical perspective in international relations, what we have to take off might be the
125
Watson, Evolution of International Society, 150.
- 29 -

straightjacket of monocentric universality in estimating the spatiotemporal validity of the
Westphalian concept.
- 30 -

Fig 1. A map of the world made in Korea in 1402
混一疆理歷代國都之圖
Honil gangni yeokdae gukdo jido
(Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of Historical Countries and Capitals)
158.5 cm x 168.0 cm, painted on silk.
- 31 -

Fig. 2 A Sinocentric world map made in Korea in mid-eighteenth century
Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World).
Hand-copied manuscript map. Geography and Map Division (77.2a)
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/images/wt0077_2bs.jpg
- 32 -