The Social Construction of Geography: Identity and Military Intervention in China-Korea Relations

The Moynihan Institute’s East Asia Program presents Ji-Young Lee, associate professor from the American University’s School of International Service.

There is a popular belief that expansionist great powers invaded Korea on numerous occasions—some 900 invasions throughout history—due to its geostrategic location. The idea that Korea is “a shrimp among whales” is pervasive in policy circles, academia, and popular dialogue, portraying its history of international relations as a victim of geography. I argue that the discourse on Korea that simply repeats the “curse of geography” warrants a careful rethinking, especially when one makes a more rigorous investigation of historical records on the role of geography in military interventions from the viewpoint of Korea’s great power next door—China.

Throughout their history as neighbors over 2,000 years, China has rarely intervened militarily in Korea—and existing interventions were at the request of Korea, not against it. What does this history tell us about the relationship between geography and great power military intervention and about China’s strategy toward the Korean Peninsula? I draw theoretical insights from critical geopolitics and suggest that international relations scholars embrace a more nuanced approach to geography as a social, political space constituted through discursive practices that demarcate a Self from an Other.