Short Abstract:

This panel narrates economic relations between Japan and Korea from the early 1400s into the East Asian War of the 1590s by establishing the general framework of trade, examining the disruption of Japanese silver exports, and offering a rare example of resource extraction during wartime.

Long Abstract:

The panel has three papers that offer an overview of economic relations between Japan and Korea from the early 1400s, through the 1500s, and into the 1590s. The first paper establishes the general framework of trade from the early 1400s onwards. This general framework governed economic and diplomatic Japan-Korea relations until the late nineteenth century. The second paper explores the largest factor that was to disrupt the trade and affect the political economy of the entire region: Japanese silver exports. The massive rise of silver exports over the sixteenth century affected economies and politics from the archipelago into the continent, and silver continued to be exported from Japan until the eighteenth century. The third paper offers a rare look at wartime trade and economy in the midst of the East Asian War of the 1590s (Imjin Waeran). Although the peacetime trade regime had been shattered by war, the third paper shows that other forms of economic extraction and trade took its place. Wartime forms of trade were probably too extractive and too removed from direct political control, and that may explain why the pre-war system of heavy political control was re-established after the invasions. Together, the papers offer a narrative of Japan-Korean economic relations over two centuries.