Gyorin (lit. "neighborly relations") was a
neo-Confucian term developed in
JoseonKorea. The term was intended to identify and characterize a diplomatic policy which establishes and maintains amicable relations with neighboring states. It was construed and understood in tandem with a corollary term, which was the sadae or "serving the great" policy towards
Imperial China.[1]
Confucian learning contributed in the formation of gyorin and sadae as ritual, conceptual and normative frameworks for construing interactions and political decision-making.[2]
Multi-national foreign policy
The rationale expressed by gyorin was applied to a multi-national foreign policy.[3] Scholarly writing about the Joseon dynasty has tended to focus on diplomatic relations with China and
Japan, but the intermediary nature of gyorin contacts—for example, Joseon-Ryukyuan diplomatic and trading contacts—were important as well.[4] Envoys from the
Ryūkyū Kingdom were received by
Taejo of Joseon in 1392, 1394 and 1397.
Siam sent an envoy to Taejo's court in 1393.[5]
The long-term, strategic gyorin policy played out in
bilateral diplomacy and trade dealings with the
Jurchen tribes, Japan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Siam, and others.[6] Over time, diplomatic and trade policies were perceived by Joseon's partners as the traditional door through which trends in neo-Confucian philosophical principles were recognized.[7]
The Joseon kingdom made every effort to maintain a friendly bilateral relationship with China for reasons having to do with both realpolitik and a more idealist Confucian worldview wherein China was seen as the center of a Confucian moral universe.[8] Joseon diplomacy was no less aware and sensitive to realpolitik in the implementation of gyorin policy.
The unique nature of gyorin bilateral diplomatic exchanges evolved from a conceptual framework developed by the Chinese. Gradually, the theoretical models would be modified, mirroring the evolution of a unique relationship.[9]
Kang, Etsuko Hae-jin. (1997). Diplomacy and Ideology in Japanese-Korean Relations: from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Basingstoke, Hampshire; Macmillan.
ISBN978-0-312-17370-8;
OCLC243874305
Kang, Jae-eun and Suzanne Lee. (2006). The Land of Scholars : Two Thousand Years of Korean Confucianism. Paramus, New Jersey: Homa & Sekey Books.
ISBN978-1-931907-37-8;
OCLC 60931394