Scientific Exchanges with Qing China and the Formation of a Local Science in Eighteenth-Century Korea

This chapter examines the politico-cultural dynamics of scientific exchange between the Qing and Korea in the early eighteenth century. The stabilization of the Qing imperial order at this time provided increased opportunities for astronomers and scholar-officials from both countries to exchange knowledge and techniques through government projects in geography and astronomy. In examining these projects through which the Qing’s Sino-European science was transferred to one of its tributary states, this chapter focuses on how Korean actors as the weaker party in the exchanges participated in these scientific exchanges. Their dual practice of crossing and constructing boundaries between different scientific communities was crucial to this knowledge transfer. While attempting to circumvent the restrictions imposed by Qing agents in order to safeguard their political and epistemic privileges, Korean actors also used the exchanges to establish a local ‘Eastern’ science with a distinctive cultural identity, but largely commensurable with Qing imperial science.