earticle

영어

As a result of research by the Western academic circles, Asia's modernity began to be understood as part of a long-term process initiated from the modern times. Especially since the 1990s, there have been efforts to reform ‘World system theory' - with strong Euro-centric view of history - into ‘World history' assigning an appropriate position to Asia. And this considerably affected China's research on maritime history. However, of special note here is the fact that in case of the Chinese academic circles, research approach with nationalistic point of view was overwhelming at least quantitatively. Given the reality in which maritime history-related research state of the Chinese academic circles is not properly known to our country, this study introduces a summary of the modern maritime history, divided into history of the shipping, history of the fishing industry, history of maritime defence, history of the navy, history of maritime border and history of maritime rights. The fact that the Chinese academic circles have pursued a new framework mainly through marine-related universities and research institutes by seeking to convert from history of the coast to maritime history or emphasizing research on maritime culture must be affected by the overseas academic circles but the overall research still shows considerable tints of nationalism. Indeed, how the Chinese government pursued an ocean power on world stage away from focus on the continent, was well illustrated by the message of a documentary Toward the Ocean. At this particular moment when conflicts between each country in Northeast Asia are heightened, research on maritime history needs a balance neither sticking only to each country's own interests, nor to Euro-centric view of history and East Asia centric view of history, from a cooler point of view.