Why Early Modern East Asia Was Surprisingly Peaceful: New Chinese–Korean War Dataset

Why This Question Matters

This article asks a longstanding puzzle in the history of international politics: how much interstate violence occurred in early modern East Asia, and why did relations among Sinic polities often appear unusually stable? David C. Kang, Meredith Shaw, and Ronan Tse-min Fu test claims that regional order in this period rested on a shared Confucian hierarchy and cultural consensus rather than on material-power imbalances alone.

New Data from Chinese and Korean Sources

The authors introduce an original dataset of more than 1,100 entries recording incidents of war and other organized violence across early modern East Asia, covering 1368–1841. The dataset is drawn principally from Chinese- and Korean-language sources, deliberately broadening the evidence base beyond the mostly Chinese- or English-language materials typically used in debates about the region.

How the Evidence Was Compiled

• The dataset catalogs the extent, range, and patterns of conflict across multiple Sinic polities over nearly five centuries.
• Entries record episodes of interstate warfare and other forms of violence, enabling systematic comparison across time and actors.
• Emphasis on Korean-language materials ensures the project moves beyond a China-centric view to treat the region more holistically.

Key Findings

• The empirical record assembled by Kang, Shaw, and Fu corroborates characterizations of unusually peaceful and stable relations among Sinic East Asian states in this period.
• The authors argue that stability is best understood as emerging from cultural consensus around hierarchical order—rooted in Confucian norms—rather than from military or material power imbalances alone.

Why This Matters for Political Science

The article provides direct, regionally grounded evidence for theories about how international hierarchies are maintained. By pairing new, multilingual historical data with a clear theoretical claim about cultural foundations of order, the work challenges explanations that rely solely on material capabilities and contributes a resource that will enable further comparative and historical tests of international-order theories.

Data Access and Next Steps

The dataset of >1,100 entries is presented as a foundation for future research that integrates non-English sources and places East Asian international relations in broader comparative conversation with other early modern orders.