The term “Northeast Asia” is relatively new. It was introduced into academic discourse in the 1930s by the American historian and political scientist Robert Kerner, who taught at the University of California. Kerner’s “Northeast Asia” comprised the Korean Peninsula, the Manchurian Plain, the Mongolian Plateau, and the mountainous regions of Eastern Siberia, stretching from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean.¹ At the time Kerner was writing, the whole of this region was, or had recently been, contested by three great powers: China, Russia, and Japan.²

In identifying the northeastern part of the Asian continent as a region warranting attention in...

IN 1592, THE JAPANESE MILITARY RULER Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had recently brought peace to Japan after the Warring States period, ambitiously planned to conquer the Asian mainland and displace the Ming rulers of China. Japanese troops landed in Busan and soon overwhelmed the whole of Joseon, except for Jeolla. The Joseon rulers, influenced by Neo-Confucian emphasis on good governance, had allowed the army to deteriorate, and Joseon was poorly prepared to resist the Japanese. At sea, though, the Joseon admiral Yi Sunshin had ironclad “turtle ships” built, and he defeated Japanese forces in several battles off the southern coast, especially...

FROM ABOUT 1700, the Manchus began to establish closer control over Heilongjiang. They posted military garrisons to Ilan Hala, Alachuke, and Hulan and began to organize the local communities of the Nonni River valley into banners, known as Butha Banners, under the military governor of Cicigar. Each banner was responsible for delivering a specified tribute and for guarding specified territory. In this way, the northern Manchurian peoples came under a territorial system similar to that which had earlier been imposed on the Mongols.¹ In 1709, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1663–1722) sent three Jesuits on a surveying mission along the...

EARLY IN THE REIGN OF KING SUNJO (r. 1800–1834), Roman Catholic influence in Joseon was largely purged; the Namin faction was destroyed, and 300 converts were executed in 1801. During this purge, a Catholic convert wrote to a French bishop in Beijing, pleading for foreign intervention to protect freedom of religion. The letter was intercepted and read as a sign of Catholic disloyalty, leading to still harsher purges.¹

Although the Qing authorities maintained the general ban on Chinese cultivation of Mongol land, the rule was repeatedly relaxed on a local basis. In 1802, the Bowang Banner in Inner Mongolia...

SOME KOREAN INTELLECTUALS, pondering the prospects for reviving their country’s fortunes, imagined that it could achieve greatness by recovering the Manchurian lands that had been ruled by the Korean kingdom of Koguryo.¹ This ambition was encouraged by the fact that the Qing were no longer a great power. In 1900, officials of Daehan and Russia made a secret agreement to rule Gando together. According to the agreement, both Russians and Koreans could settle there, and the governor would be elected from among Korean residents and Russians who had lived there for more than two years. Russia and Daehan would guarantee...