Gando Convention - Background

Background

Jiandao, or Gando as it is called in Korean, is part of northeast China. Many different states and tribes succeeded each other in ruling the area during ancient times, to include Korean states such as Buyeo, its successor Goguryeo, and the subsequent Balhae, followed later by the Jurchen Jin Dynasty and the Khitans.

Traditionally, the area was inhabited by nomadic tribes from the north and west, as well as Koreans and Chinese fleeing unrest, famine, or other sociopolitical conditions in their home countries. Eventually it, and much of the rest of Manchuria with it, came under the control of the Manchu and later the Qing Dynasty. Gando itself, as it shared a border with Korea, was a particularly high-frequency destination for Koreans fleeing worsening conditions in the late Joseon Dynasty after the early 1800s. By the middle and late 1800s, Koreans formed a majority of the population living in Gando, and when the Qing opened up Manchuria to Han Chinese migration in the 1870s and Gando in 1881, a large number of Koreans were already living there and this raised a boundary dispute issue that had been negotiated in 1712 but, due to an ambiguity in the characters used, was subject to some speculation which was deftly used by the Koreans living in Gando to claim that they were still on Korean soil. While punishments for cross-border movement into northeast China by Han Chinese and Koreans by their respective governments (the Qing and Joseon) were on the books and Koreans apprehended in Gando were repatriated to Korea by Qing authorities, it is evident that these regulations did not deter people fleeing poor conditions, and they were able to make this claim in an attempt to escape relocation and punishment. The ambiguity in the original 1712 treaty gradually became official Joseon policy, but the issue itself did not come to a head until this time, when the Joseon Dynasty itself was in much turmoil and in no position to re-negotiate the boundary.

By the early 20th century, with increasing Japanese intervention in Korea, more Koreans fled to Gando, where they were sometimes welcomed by local Qing authorities as a source of labor and agricultural skill. Additionally, as a result of this consolidation of Japanese control over Korea (which would culminate with the Japan-Korea treaty of 1910, with which Japan annexed Korea and began the Japanese occupation of Korea that ended in 1945), Korea was not able to re-negotiate the renewed boundary issues with the Qing, which was having problems of its own due to Western imperialism and pressures from Japan.