East Asia Program presents: Wayne Patterson - A New Look at Korea's 'Chinese Decade' of the 1880s

In the 1880s and 1890s, China intervened heavily in Korean affairs because of its growing rivalry with Japan. This talk examines the period by looking at newly discovered correspondence of Korea’s Maritime Customs Service. This customs house, and China’s absorption of it, represented one facet of Chinese policy to deal with the growing threat of Japanese power over Chosŏn dynasty Korea and Northeast Asia.

Wayne Patterson is Professor of History at St. Norbert College. He has written and edited a dozen books on modern Korea, his most recent, In the Service of His Korean Majesty: William Nelson Lovatt, the Pusan Customs, and Sino-Korean Relations, 1876-1888. He received his PhD in History and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.