Chinese World Order John K. Fairbank

Traditional Chinese World Order

Li Zhaojie {James Li)

With nearly five-thousand years of recorded history, Chinese civilizationis one of the oldest in the world. Until the middle of the Qing Dynasty (1644—1911), age, culture, size and wealth had made China the natural center of EastAsia and perhaps, also one of the most powerful countries in the world.During this long period of history, however, geographical barriers insulatedChina from regular contacts with the other centers of civilizations. As a result,the development of Chinese civilization had been largely indigenous; it owedvery little to the world beyond East Asia.4

I. China's Contacts with the Outside World prior to ModernTimes

The history of China was by no means that of an isolated country whoseonly contacts with other great civilizations were with its closest neighbors. Onthe contrary, more than two millennia before the last century, China's vasthistorical records have well-documented instances of relations between theChinese on the one hand and West Asian and European peoples on the other.Outlined below are only a few of the most far-reaching contacts pre-modernChina had with the outside world, of which the earliest date back more than2,000 years before the Han Dynasty (206 B.C -A.D. 220).5

Seeking allies against the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), the nomadic enemies ofChina's Han Dynasty, the Han Emperor Wudi, in 139 B.C., sent his envoy^hang Qian to the west across the desert of Xinjiang to establish an alliancewith the Da Tuezhi (Great Yue-chih) people, a Central Asian tribe living in theAmu-Darya valley in what is now Uzbekistan. Despite great difficulties, ^hangand his men managed to reach the destination and return to China in 126 B.C.Seven years later, he set out again for what was then known as the "westernregion" (Xiyu) to seek an alliance with the Wnsun people, another central Asian

John King Fairbank, A Preliminary Framework, in: John King Fairbank (ed.), TheChinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations (1968), 5.John King Fairbank, China, A New History (1992), 186.Noticeably, China is guarded on the east by the endless oceans, on the north by thebarren steppes, on the west by the vast desert, and on the southwest by the world'shighest mountain system.Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (1975), 3, 6.China's contacts with the outside world prior to the Opium War (1840-1842) areoutlined in Liu Peihua's Jindai ^hongwai Guanxi Shi (Modern History of China'sForeign Relations) (in Chinese, 1986), vol. 1, 1-54.

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Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 21

tribe living in the Hi Valley north of the Tarim Basin. In addition to travellinghimself, Zhang also sent his assistants to visit Ferghana, Bactria and Sogdianaand the oases of central Asia.

These two missions brought China into contact with Hellenistic cultureestablished by Alexander the Great. They also brought back first-handknowledge about the lands of central Asia. For the first time, China came toknow of the existence of the Persian and Indian worlds. Perhaps, the mostsignificant achievement of these journeys was the opening of what iscommonly known as the Silk Road, the first trade route linking China with theWest.7

In military campaigns during the last quarter of the first century A.D.,Chinese armies advanced almost to the edge of the Roman Empire. Thedescription of the Romans was well documented in Han Histories, whichrecognized the existence of a people of an equal civilization. The RomanEmpire was honorably called by the Chinese "Da Qin", meaning "Great Qin",since the Romans were viewed as civilized as the Chinese viewed themselves(Qin) but taller in stature. The Chinese also discovered that the Roman Empirehad a great demand for China's silk, and promoted the trade.8 In A.D. 97, aChinese envoy was dispatched to the Roman Empire across Persia. When itprepared to cross the Red Sea, however, the Persians stopped it because theydid not want to see any direct relation between China and Romans, whichwould jeopardize their monopoly in the silk trade.

Late in the Han Dynasty, the sea route between the Chinese and theRomans was also established. In A.D. 166, an embassy from "An Dun King ofDa Qin" arrived at the Han court by sea. The "An Dun King" turned out to bethe Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. In A.D. 226, anotherRoman merchant, Qin Lun, arrived mjianye (Nanjing),1 and about sixty yearslater, shortly after the collapse of the Han Dynasty, another embassy, fromCarus or Diocletia, reached China.

Direct contact between China and the outside world took a new turnduring the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907). Indeed, until modern times, the Tang

6 Id., 2-4.7 C.P. Fitzgerald, The Chinese View of Their Place in the World (reprinted in 1971),

7-8.8 Id., 8.

Liu Peihua, above n.5, 5.Fitzgerald, above n. 7, 9-10.Liu Peihua, above n.5, 6.

12 T , cId., 6.



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Dynasty had been the golden age of China's contacts with foreigncivilizations. Not only was trade with merchants from central Asia throughthe Silk Road growing in importance, but the two big currents of civilizationflowing from Persia and India began to spread widely in China. With theexpansion of the Tang frontiers and the augmentation of the dynasty's prestige,the Tang emperors became involved in the politics of Persian kingdoms. InA.D. 638, an embassy from Persia arrived in Changan (Xian), the capital of theTang Dynasty, to request Chinese aid against the Arabs, who were attackingtheir kingdom. Later, when that kingdom perished, its King took refuge inChina, where he was welcomed by the Chinese and also given the post ofofficer with palace guards. In A.D. 643, an embassy from the King of Fu Lin(the Byzantine province of Syria), believed to have been sent to China by theEastern Roman Emperor Constans II, was received by the Tang court. '5

By the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism had taken root in China for so long thatit was no longer a foreign religion. Its links with its Indian origin, however,were renewed and strengthened with the return to Changan in A.D. 645 of themost renowned of all Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Xuan <a«g.'6 In order toprocure classical Buddhist treatises and enlarge his knowledge, Xuan £ang, analready established Chinese monk of Buddhism, set off alone across the desertsof central Asia in A.D. 628. In a span of seventeen years, he toured what isnow Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and the whole of India. On his return toChina, he directed until his death the most prolific translating teams in thewhole history of Chinese Buddhism. Moreover, one of his disciples used histravel notes to compile a general work on the countries that he had visited.The book provides information about climate, produce, manners and customs,political systems and history, as well as information about the state ofBuddhism in these various regions of Asia.'

In A.D. 635, a Nestorian monk known in Chinese as A Luo Ben (A-lo-pen)arrived at the Tang court and was welcomed by the Tang emperor. Shortlyafter, he was authorized to translate into Chinese the Nestorian Christian textshe had brought with him. The translation seems to have been enjoyed by thecourt. Soon, the construction of Christian churches in the Tang capital beganand the preaching of the Gospel was ordered. This new religion seemed to

13

Fitzgerald, above n.7, 19.Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization (translated byJ.R. Foster, 1982),283.

15 Id.16 Id., 277-281.17 Id.



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have spread to the provinces, at least to many large cities. A famous discoveryin 1625 in Changan of a bilingual stone tablet in Syriac and Chinese told diestory of the uhen-quite-recent evangelization in China. Nestroianism, however,scarcely had time to secure Chinese devotees. With the advent of the greatproscription of foreign religions in the years A.D. 841-846, it seemed to havedisappeared completely.

Later, with the rise of the Arab world, Tang's increasing contacts withcentral and western Asia led to the introduction of Islam to China. Theearliest contacts between the two cultures can be traced to the time of theArab expansion in the area between Mesopotamia and Lake Balkhash, thoughthere is evidence that Arab merchants brought Islam to Guangzhou (Canton)by sea at about the same period. The meeting of the two cultures facilitatedthe transmission of certain skills from China to the Arab world and then toEurope. The best known example is that of paper. By the time of the Arabconquest, Chinese paper manufacturers, weavers, goldsmiths, and painterswere found on the banks of the Tigris.

During the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), the Mongol expansionthroughout the central and west Asia and up to the lands of the EasternEurope renewed the importance of the old trade route that had linked Chinaand the West since Han times. Contacts between East Asia and the Hellenicworld, however, and later with Islam via the sea route, were available. Thisland route was systematically organized by the Mongols, who extended to itthe Chinese institution of postal relays. As a result, contacts between OuterMongolia and the northern part of China on the one hand, and Russia,Persia, and the Mediterranean, on the other, increased remarkably. TheMongol domain was traversed by men of every nation, and because of thelinks between business and administration in the Mongols' political system,certain foreigners were even allowed to serve as officials in the Yuan court.

By this time, countries of the Western Europe had decided to sendFranciscan missionaries to China. Among many of these Catholicmissionaries, the names of the famous Venetian merchants Niccolo, Maffio,and Marco Polo will be always remembered. The brothers Niccolo and Maffioleft Venice in 1254 on a journey to China via the land route. They returned toItaly in 1269, and set off again in 1271 with Marco Polo, son of Niccolo andnephew of Maffio. They arrived in Beijing in 1275, where they were warmlywelcomed by the Yuan emperor. Very impressed by Marco's extraordinary

18 Id., 283.19 Id., 287-289.20 Id., 373-374.



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talent, the emperor assigned to Marco Polo the task of governing the bigcommercial city of Yangzhou, and later, entrusted him with various differentmissions. In 1292, after spending about a quarter of a century in East Asia,Marco Polo returned to Venice. A few years later, his memoirs were publishedas the famous Book o/Ser Marco Polo, an immortal masterpiece of informationabout oriental civilization during the medieval period.21

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) witnessed the rise of great maritimeexpeditions conducted by the Ming Emperor Yongle's Grand Eunuch, £heng He.From 1404 to 1433, £heng led seven expeditions with large naval forces. Thefirst three voyages reached the southeast coast of Vietnam, Java, Sumatra,Malacca, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Siam and the western coast of southern India.The fourth went beyond India to Hormuz, and the last three visited ports onthe east coast of Africa, as far south as Malindi (near Mombasa). Detachmentsof the fleet made special side trips, one of them to Mecca. As was the case withother envoys to distant countries, the 1405-1433 maritime expeditions led byZheng He were followed by the publication of geographical works that enlargedChinese knowledge of the oceans and overseas countries and made it more

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precise.

II. Traditional Chinese View of World Order

While these instances, and others, illustrate that throughout Chinesehistory, China has dealt with foreign nations, the long-asked question is whythese contacts did not develop into a system of inter-state relations in the sensein which it emerged in the seventeenth century in the Western world. Toanswer this question, one must first bear in mind that, due to the geographicalbarriers that blocked China from the outside world, contacts with foreignnations in the early days were at best a weak, long link, susceptible to constantinterruptions. Although the contacts became more extensive and frequent inlater dynasties, no sustained, purposeful burst of cultural borrowing ever tookplace. The significance of these contacts was further weakened by the great

Id., 374-375.22

The naval force comprised several dozen big "treasure-ships", which displaced morethan 3,000 tons apiece. In the first voyage, Zheng He was accompanied by a staff of70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers, and 300 military officers, whocommanded a force of 26,800 men. See Fairbank, above n.2, 137-138.

23 Id.24

Immanuel C.Y. Hsu maintains that the main streams of Chinese and Westerncivilizations moved in divergent directions. The major currents of the twocivilizations could not meet until one of them had developed sufficient power andtechnology, coupled with interest, to reach the other. See, Hsu, above n.4, 6-7.



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distances and long periods through which these cultural imports had to travel,and by the fact that these contacts were conducted via intermediaries ratherthan through direct interactions with the centers that produced these imports.

More importantly, until the Western powers' invasion in East Asia in thenineteenth century, the conduct of China's foreign affairs had been primarilydirected under the traditional Chinese world outlook based on a politicalphilosophy that had been in effect since time immemorial. Thus, in order tounderstand China's response to the head-on confrontation with the West inthe nineteenth century and the calamitous consequence thereof, one has tofirst understand the nature of the traditional Chinese conception of worldorder.

/ . Sinocentrism and Cultural Supremacy

For a long time, geographical barriers kept the whole region of East Asiaseparate from the West. To Westerners, East Asia was a remote and seeminglyinaccessible land at the end of the earth. Even today, in European parlance,"the Far East" still remains in common use. However, the Chinese did notperceive their world the same way the Westerners did. The Far Eastern regionin Chinese eyes became Tianxia, literally, "all under Heaven," of which Chinaperceived itself to be the very center.27 Thus, China's name, ^hongguo, denoteda sense of "the central country" or Middle Kingdom which embraced thewhole world known to it. Such traditional Chinese perception of its place inthe world is what Western historians have meant by the term, "Sinocentrism,"which generally is used to characterize traditional China's relations with othernations.

Of course, China's self-image as the center of the world is a false idea inmodern geographical terms. Throughout history, however, such ideaaccorded closely with the facts of East Asian experience, and seemed to bereinforced by practical reality. The Chinese world (tianxia) originated in anagrarian-based cultural island in the Yellow River valley in what is now North

25

Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations (1960), 5-6.Moreover, Fairbank has identified a set of assumptions which underlie the originand growth of the traditional Chinese view of world order. See, Fairbank, above n.l,4-14.

26 Hsu, id., 6.27

Fairbank, above n . l , 2.



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28China. This area was insulated from the rest of the world by geographicalbarriers, and surrounded by minority tribal groups, Man, Ti, Xiong and Di, thefour quarters. It was this closed world that nurtured the growth of Chinesecivilization, which was at no time in direct contact with any people of an equallevel of civilization. The subsequent movement of Chinese civilization, mainlysouthward, and then to other parts of China, expanded the Chinese world byabsorbing both surrounding territories and people into the Chinese domain.The process of such development was so gradual that it was impossible to sayin which year any given territory came under the Chinese control.

The result, however, was solid and invariable: whether through militarycampaigns or sustained cultural influence, it was always the "alien" people, orthe "barbarian," to use the Chinese term, who were either ejected from theChinese domain or admitted into the Chinese world. Consequently, anassumption was created that China remained the center of civilization, andthe Chinese form of civilization was superior. Moreover, as Fairbank notes,the Chinese were impressed that their superiority was not one of morematerial power but of culture. Indeed, so great was their virtue, sooverwhelming the achievements of the Middle Kingdom in art and letters andthe art of living, that no barbarian could long resist them.33 In the end, whenthe Chinese tianxia reached its outposts, all peripheral countries—Korea,Annam (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), Burma, Japan, and the small islandkingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu Islands)—came under the powerful shadow ofChinese civilization. China's cultural, political, economic, and militarypreeminence caused it to remain the "natural" center of East Asia with agroup of tributary states clustered on its borders. This confirmed the Chinesein their belief that their civilization was matchless and supreme.

Historians agree that, in the earliest literate period, China was a group of statesliving in what is now North China, linked by culture and by language, andsurrounded by barbarian tribes. See Fitzgerald, above n.7, 3-5.Wang Gungwu, Early Ming Relations with Southeast Asia: A Background Essay, inFairbank, above n.l, 37.Fairbank, above n.l, 5.

31

T.F. Tsiang, China and European Expansion, in Immanuel C.Y. Hsu (ed.),Readings in Modern Chinese History (1971), 130.Wang, above n.29.

33

John K. Fairbank, 1 Tributary Trade and China's Relations with the West, FarEastern Quarterly (1942), 129.In the formative age of the Chinese empire, the Chinese civilization moved mainlysouthward to the Yangzi River valley, where the way of life was, like that of theChinese, sedentary agriculture, but backward. As the nomadic peoples were not ricecultivators, and the Chinese and southerners were not pastoralists, the southern



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2. The Concept of Universal State

Coupled with the sinocentrism was a vague but pervasive sense of all-embracing unity of the Chinese tianxia, in which the Chinese emperor claimedto be Tianzi (the Son of Heaven), who had supreme power to reign and ruleover all human affairs. The Book of Poetry expressed this sentiment in thefollowing words:

Under the wide heaven, there is no land that is not the Emperor's, andwithin the sea-boundaries of the land, there is none who is not a subjectof the Emperor.

The notion of a universal state ruled by a universal emperor had longpreceded the first effective political unification of the Chinese world, andpersisted throughout Chinese history.

The existence of China as a unified world may be dated back toprehistorical times when the Chinese knew their Central Kingdom as Xia(approximately 2200-1700 B.C.).37 Later, the Shang Dynasty (approximately1700-1100 B.C.), which replaced Xia, was believed to have once ruled over allChina.38 When the %hou Dynasty (approximately 1100-256 B.C.) replaced theShang at the end of the first millennium B.C., the concept of the Middle

peoples could be absorbed, civilized, and made into "Chinese," and graduallyadmitted into the circle of the civilized states. The northern nomads, however,remained beyond this pale. Their steppes yielding no crops, it was profitless toexpand to such a country, and all that could be done was to keep its dangerousinhabitants from raiding China. Thus, the Great Wall was built up along the ridgesof the northern mountain chain, ranging from the sea coast to the borders of thecentral Asia desert. The Great Wall was also regarded as the physical limit ofcivilization, beyond which the northern nomads might live, or die, as they would;their realm was no part of China. Id. See also Fairbank, above n.l, 5; Hsu, aboven.25, 6; and Hsu, above n.4, 6.

35

Book of Poetry (Shi Jing, Xiaoya, Beishan in Chinese) has been literally translated asBook of Odes. The original Chinese reads pu tian zfri xia, moftu, shuai tu zhi bin, mo.This is cited from Immanuel C.Y. Hsu's translation which is more literal. See Hsu,above n.4, 6. The most recently revised version of the Chinese-English BilingualSeries of Chinese Classics (1991), 437 gives the following translation: "Under thewhole heaven, every spot is the sovereign's ground; to the borders of land, everyindividual is the sovereign's minister."Fairbank, above n. 1, 5.It is said that the Xia stood for a group of separate states loosely linked together bycommon culture and by language. Id., 4.

38 Id, 6.



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Kingdom was born. Despite the fact the %hou disintegrated into manyadversary vassals in the periods known as the Spring and Autumn (722^476B.C.) and the Warring States (475-221 B.C.), and despite the fact that each ofthem claimed to be independent by centering themselves in their walledcapital, the notion of universal state had hardly been challenged. These"inter-state" contests were seen as the rivalries of princely houses forsupremacy instead of the conquest of one people by another.40 There stillexisted a general sense of unity based on the same language, and cultural andracial identity among these states which was expressed in the belief that all theChinese people—both the rulers and the ruled—were descended from theYellow Emperor {Huang Di), the semi-divine Sage King of remote antiquity.As a result, the subordination to the universal rule of the %hou persisted, atleast in theory.

The Qin's unification of all the warring states and the consequentfounding of China's first centralized dynasty, the Qin Dynasty in 221 B.C.,substantially reinforced the long-held belief that the Chinese world was aunited and centralized whole.4 What followed the Qin Dynasty had been ahistory of dynastic cycle—the fall of old dynasties and the rise of new ones.China as a unified empire under one dynasty rather than divided between twoor more, however, had never ceased to exist. Even when China was subject topartial conquest by northern nomads during periods of internal chaos andweakness, the idea of a universal state was only slightly impaired. In order toadminister the conquered land, the nomad invaders, the minority group interms of population and the inferior group in the arts of civilization, had tocooperate with the Chinese majority. To obtain this cooperation the nomadinvaders had to utilize the Chinese tradition and adapt themselves to the arts

39

Fairbank, above n.2, 49.Fitzgerald, above n.7, 5.The Chinese view of their origin has been firmly held to this date, and seems to bemore supported by archaeological evidence.Fairbank, above n.l, 5, 279.As Fitzgerald writes, "The contest of the warring kingdoms, north and south alike,were seen as the struggles of princely houses for supremacy, not as the conquest ofone people by a foreign race. Statesmen, nobles and warriors could change theirallegiance, travel the land in search of a just prince or a worthy master. This was nottreachery, no sense of betraying the home country deterred men from taking serviceunder a prince who might become the enemy of the ruler of the wanderer's nativeland." Fitzgerald, above n.7, 5.



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favored by the Chinese. Soon they found themselves assimilated into theChinese world.

With the deeply-ingrained and commonly-shared belief in belonging to acivilization, ° the ideal of a unified empire was seen as normal and right,whereas division, which only resulted from weakness, confusion, or partial,passing foreign conquest, was aberrant, and thus could not survive. With thecontinuing outward expansion of the Chinese tianxia, which brought theculture of the old center of Chinese civilization to the surrounding regions,any barbarian tribes who adopted the ways of China, accepted its ideas, andsubmitted to its rule were susceptible to being civilized, and were thustransformed into the fold as "new" Chinese.46 By the time the Chinesefrontiers were pushed to the edge of the Far East, China had become, in fact,a world onto itself.47

3. Civilization v. Barbarity

Since the concept of Chinese universal empire was that of an all-embracing domain, which included the whole world known to it, it was socialin nature rather than limited by geographical boundaries. For this reason, thetraditional Chinese perception of the world had a characteristic absence ofnational sentiment in its modern meaning; the concept of nationality in thesense in which it appeared at very early times in the West remained unknownto the Chinese throughout history. In addition, there was no national flag inImperial China; there were only dynastic or royal banners. After centuries ofsolitary grandeur as the center of Eastern Asia, what the Chinese developedmay be described as a spirit of culturalism, which mattered only with thedistinction between civilization and barbarity. However, barbarity was nottested by race, religion, language or national origin as the semantic force of

As compared by Fitzgerald, in the former Roman world the differences of race,language, and later of religion reinforced a separation which the Adriatic alreadyimposed; in China, however, an identity of race, language, and tradition reinforceda unity, see above n.7, 14—17.Fairbank, above n. 1, 9.

* M., 4-7.Hsu, above n.25, 6.

48 Thus, before the Opium War (1839-1842) broke out, when the Britishsuperintendent of trade in China urged the Viceroy of Canton to settle thedifferences between the "two nations" peacefully, the Chinese viceroy was puzzledby the term "two nations," which he took for England and the United States." Hsu,above n.25, 13.



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the term was to Greeks and Latins. Instead, civilization and barbarity wereconceptually related in that they defined each other.49 "He was barbarian whodid not accept Chinese civilization and who knew not the refinement ofceremony, music, and culture."50

By definition, Chinese superiority over the barbarians was based on acultural rather than political ground. The only test of barbarity rested on thestandard of cultural achievement. In Chinese eyes, barbarians were simplythose who were ignorant of the beauty of the Chinese way of life and notsophisticated enough to appreciate reason and ethics as the Chinese did. Theywere not foreign peoples but uncultivated, outlandish peoples waiting forassimilation into the Chinese world. From this it followed that the sign of thebarbarian was not race or origin so much as non-adherence to the Chineseway of life. Those who did not follow the Chinese way were ipso factobarbarians. Barbarians could become Chinese "when they advanced to theChinese level of civilization." By the same token, "the Chinese becamebarbarians if they debased themselves through uncivil practices."53

Such a spirit of culturalism dictated that the power to move others camefrom right conduct according to certain virtuous norms. Thus, the ruler couldgain prestige and influence over people merely by being virtuous. By a logicalexpansion of this theory, the emperor's virtuous action was believed to attractirresistibly the barbarians who were outside the pale of Chinese civilizationproper. The corollary of this theory was that the way to assimilate barbarians,as admonished by the Chinese classical teachings, was to win their admirationfor the grandeur of Chinese civilization through a virtuous and benevolentconcern for their welfare given by the Son of Heaven. It was the function ofthe emperor to be compassionate and generous. His tender cherishing of menfrom afar (huairou yuanren) is one of the cliches in all documents on foreign

Mancall, The Ch'ing Tribute System: An Interpretive Essay, in: John KingFairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations(1968), 63.Hsu, above n.25, 6-7.Id. Hsu also points out: "In their utter ignorance of the beauty of the Chinese way oflife and in their lack of sufficient intellect to appreciate reason and ethics, thebarbarians were considered no different from the lower animals. Nothing expressesthese sentiments so well as the ideographic Chinese characters used to designate thebarbarians. The designation for southern barbarians, Man, is written with an"insect" (ch'ung) radical, and that for the northern barbarians, 77, is written with a"dog" (ch'uan) radical. Ch'iang, a Western tribe, is written with the "sheep" (yang)radical."

52 Id.53 Id., 8.



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relations. In return, the barbarian were expected to voluntarily seek to comeand be transformed (laihua) and so participate in its benefits.

Accordingly, die Chinese did not feel the need to go out to bring dieblessings of their way of life, dieir ideas, their values, and their political systemto the outlandish tribes. When these tribes adopted elements of Chineseculture, they did so for their own reasons, and the Chinese were alwaysencouraging those who wished to transform themselves into members ofcivilization; but they did not, like the Western powers in die nineteenth andtwentieth centuries, try to convert and civilize die world by subduing it andturning it into a replication of themselves. As Hsu apdy suggests, die Chinesepolicy towards barbarian people was colored with a passive laissez-faire attitudeto "expect them to come to obtain transformation of their own accord."

This policy particularly accounted for China's defensive approach to thesituation where barbarian peoples who were not willing to submit tocivilization kept disturbing China. Then, and only then, must a physical limitbe set to the bounds of civilization. Thus, when northern nomads refused toaccept the benefits of civilization and continued to raid China, the only thingChina could do was keep them from making trouble. First, long walls alongthe ridges of the mountain chain which separates North China from dieMongolian steppe were built and, later, these walls were linked together toform the Great Wall, running some ten thousand li from the sea in the east tothe borders of the Central Asian deserts in the west. Beyond the Great Wall,the nomads might live, or die, as they pleased. China had no interest in theirrealm, for "the Chinese believed that if the barbarians did not aspire to ahigher life, there was no need to force them to do so."

As revealed by the foregoing survey, however, there were exceptions tothis passive policy. For instance, military campaigns during the last quarter ofthe first century A.D. were launched by Chinese armies to bring the vast xiyu(the West Region) under Chinese control or influence. In the Ming Dynasty,the maritime expeditions led by Zheng He between 1405 and 1433 reached asfar as the east coast of Africa. The primary motivation of these voyages was tospread out the Ming emperor's divinity and omnipotence so as to persuade alloutside countries to submit to the rule of China. But, as Hsu points out, these

However, it was generally essential that barbarians should recognize the uniqueposition of the Son of Heaven. Thus, the relationship which inhered betweenbarbarians and the emperor was by no means unilateral and indeed could hardlyexist except on a reciprocal basis. Fairbank, above n.33, 130-131.

55 Id., 9.56 Id.



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instances were always attributed to ambitious emperors or powerful ministers;they were exceptions to the general approach towards barbarian affairs.During the Qing Dynasty (1644—1911), several wars were waged in CentralAsia, Burma, and Vietnam. But these wars would not have happened withoutthe presence of the non-Han Manchu Dynasty and its special commitment tomilitary achievement in Central Asia. Moreover, in all these cases, the mainobjective was to extend and consolidate the tribute system, a peculiarrelationship between China and its neighboring countries, rather than toannex these countries into the Chinese territory.

4. Hierarchy and Anti-Egalitarianism

Since earliest times the Chinese world had been structured on a rigidhierarchical and patriarchal order, which integrated visions of the family andthe state, or of morality and politics, together with nepotism, male chauvinism,filial piety, seniority, obedience and reverence as the basic governingprinciples.09 Within this social order, man dominated woman, father overchild, husband over wife, senior over junior and, in return, benevolence andcare should be expected from the former to the latter. At the apex of this orderwas the Son of Heaven,60 "who eventually became in theory omnicompetent,functioning as military leader, administrator, judge, high priest, philosophicalsage, arbiter of taste, and was more than human. In sum, the state (shejt) as awhole was conceived of as an extended family, and the importance of filialpiety in the family corresponded to the emphasis on the duty of absoluteloyalty and obedience on the part of subjects to the ruler.

More importandy, this hierarchical social order was heavily colored withideological orthodoxy, particularly the conception that the power to rule overtianxia came from the mandate of a broader, impersonal deity heaven, whoseendowment might be conferred on anyone who was virtuous and worthy ofresponsibility. This so-called virtue (de) took the form of a set of establishedritual norms (It), which, in a broader sense, meant the whole corpus of

57 Id., 9.58

Gilbert Rozman (ed.), The Modernization of China (1981), 25-26. As for the non-Han rule under the Manchus, see Hsu, above n.4, 19-28.Zhang Guohua and Rao Xixian (eds.), /[hongguo Falu Sixiang Shi Gang (History ofChinese Legal Philosophy) (in Chinese 1984), Vol. 1, 86.This relationship of benevolence and obedience was later summed up as san gang(Three Cardinal Guidances), namely father guides son, husband guides wife, andruler guides subject. Id.Fairbank, above n. 1, 6.



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governmental laws, regulations, social institutions, and proper humanrelationships, and were, therefore, applied to govern every aspect of social liferanging from affairs of state to private individual transactions.62 The aim of liwas to achieve social stability, and the means to such an end was to make adistinction between persons. Hence, every person in such a society had anassigned status, including barbarians, and no one was supposed to orpermitted to overstep the dividing line. Whereas virtuous responsibilityconstituted the legitimacy of the Chinese world order, observing ritual normsas the symbol of one's authority as a ruler, official, or superior man, gave oneprestige and power among others. This responsibility would serve as a vitalmechanism to maintain stability and order, which were the highest virtues inthe cosmological continuum.

Such an ideologically-charged hierarchical social order reached not onlythroughout China proper, but continued outward beyond the borders ofChina to all mankind. Fairbank uses a model of zonation in characterizingthe scope of this Chinese world order. According to him, there were threemain zones. The first was Sinic Zone, which consisted of the closest and mostculturally-similar tributaries, Korea and Vietnam, parts of which had beenwithin the Chinese empire in ancient times, along with the Liuqiu (Ryukyu)Islands and, at brief times, Japan. The second was the Inner Asian Zone,which embraced tributary tribes of the nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples ofInner Asian, who were not only ethnically non-Chinese but were also lessinfluenced by the Chinese cultural heritage. The third was the Outer Zone ofthe outer barbarians generally at a further distance over land or sea whicheventually included Japan and other states of Southeast and South Asia andEurope that were supposed to send tribute when trading with China.

Within this zonal hierarchy, China, situated in the center, took theposition of the head dejure, if not always de facto, and the smaller nations on itsperiphery assumed the position of junior members. In effect, the Chineseimage of world order as such was no more than a corollary of the Chineseinternal order and, thus, an extended projection of Chinese civilization on the"inter-state" plane. Its underlying tenet was the concept of subordination of alllocal authorities to the central and awe-inspiring power of the Son of Heaven,

Later the moral and virtuous responsibility was developed into the so-called wu chang(Five Constant Virtues): humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and fidelity.Fairbank, above n. 1, 6.

1 Id' 8-Id., 2. Norton Ginsberg seems to maintain similar view. See On the ChinesePerception of a World Order, in: Tang Tsou (ed.), 2 China in Crisis, 80.



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who was the embodiment of virtue, and by whose very nature carried out therites required for the continuing harmony of the universe in both its naturaland its social aspects. Such hierarchically-structured world order wastherefore characterized by the absence of state-to-state relations on the basis ofprinciples of sovereign equality and territorial independence like the Europeanworld order, which, with its focus on precise division of territories amongsovereigns of equal status and its own concepts of legitimacy, laid thefoundation of modern international law. 7 The Chinese world order, incontrast, was unified and centralized in theory by the universal preeminenceof the Son of Heaven, in which all other non-Chinese nations had to besubmissive and obedient, and were expected to accept their inferior status ifthey wished to have relations with China. Just as every person within theChinese society had an assigned status, every non-Chinese nation that desiredcontact with China had its assigned place in the Chinese world order, and ithad to contact China through the medium of the so-called tribute system.

It should be noted that the legitimacy of the hierarchical and anti-egalitarian Sinocentric world order rested more on moral virtue than militarypower. In other words, the concept of the universal state ruled by the Son ofHeaven with a cosmic virtue was richer in cultural symbolism than in politicaldynamics, more passive than active, and thus, more defensive thanimperialistic. Indeed, except for a few isolated cases as indicated earlier, theChinese image of world order, on balance, did not lead to dynamic andaggressive imperatives to expand and impose its will upon recalcitrant non-Chinese states. China's cultural and economic preeminence was used as a

Note here that the Son of Heaven carried two personalities. As a tianzi, he was a sonnot in a biological but in a holistic sense, whereas as an emperor, he stood at theapex of organized civilization, and in this personality, he could stray from the pathof true virtue, betraying his role as son of heaven and causing disharmony in theuniverse.Fairbank, above n.l, 9.r9id-This was particularly reflected in the tributary system, in which the closer therelationship between China and a tributary state, the larger and more frequent thetributary mission. For tributary relations, see Part III of this article.As Fairbank suggests, in general, China's relations with non-Chinese nations (in aWestern sense) developed between two extremes, namely, the extreme militaryconquest and administrative control on the one hand and that of complete non-relations and avoidnace of contact on the other. The former led to efforts toincorporate non-Chinese into the bureaucratic empire, while the latter meant arefusal to acknowledge their existence.



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means to make its unique position prevail. But sometimes, this was notsufficient. Before the use of firearms, cavalry from the Inner Asian andnorthern grassland tribes played a very important role in war and politicswithin the Chinese empire. As Fairbank aptly reminds us, it became anestablished practice that, when China itself was too weak to maintain theSinocentric world order, mounted nomadic bowmen would become die finalarbiter of batde in die Sinocentric world and non-Chinese rulers couldbecome the actual Sons of Heaven at the apex of the hierarchy. Such a non-Han takeover of the imperial function culminated first in the conquest of partof China by the Khitan Liao Dynasty after A.D. 907 and the Jurched JinDynasty after 1122," and, later, in the conquest of all China by the Mongolsand Manchus, who established the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) and the QingDynasty (1664—1911) respectively. Noticeably, as will be discussed, once inpower, these non-Han dynasties utilized the Chinese tradition withoutexception in governing China and, to a large extent, in conducting dieirforeign relations.

This was manifested in the established assumption that the Chinese had nothing togain from the barbarians but those who desired contacts with China were expectedto accept the Chinese way of life.

72 Id., 9.73 The Khitan Liao Dynasty (907-1125) was established by the Khitans (Qulan), an

ethnic nomadic tribe living in today's North China. It was later subjugated by theJin (Chin) Dynasty (1115-1234), another nomadic Jurched tribe, living in today'sNortheast China (Manchuria). As the concept of "nation" or "nationality" in itsmodern sense was characteristically absent from the traditional Chinese perceptionof world order, the semantic force of the term "alien" or "foreign" should not beconfused with the term's modern sense. "Alien" in traditional Chinese eyes wassynonymous with barbarian. It denoted a cultural and ethnic meaning rather thanterritorial implications, as the term is commonly understood today. Thus, Khitans,Mongols, and Manchus were "aliens" only vis-a-vis the "native Chinese". But theChinese view was less concerned than the Western over what was alien because theSon of Heaven was in any case superior to all rulers and peoples and their statustherefore might easily shift back and forth through various degrees of proximity tohis central authority. It is noteworthy that, today, through the long and gradualhistorical process of cultural assimilation, most of the "alien" ethnic minority groupsin the traditional Chinese world have become part of the Chinese vis-a-vis a foreignstate. When referring to this phenomenon, I will use the term "non-Han" to replacethe term "alien" which is commonly used by Western scholars, in order to avoid theconfusion.



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5. Confucianism and the Chinese World Order

The culturally-based organizing principle of superordination-subordination in the Sinocentric world order does not mean that the Chinesewere innately more prone to arrogance than any other peoples. As Schwartzpoints out, claims of universal kingship had been made by many empires ofearly times. Also, the superordination-subordination structure was used in EastAsia between non-Chinese regimes in situations in which the rulers of Chinadid not participate at all.74 To that extent, what happened in ancient Chinajust conformed to the general pattern of early civilization of human society.D

What was unique about the Chinese case is that the development of thetraditional Chinese world order throughout centuries, though pre-Confuciusin origin, was strongly and progressively fortified by the refinement of theConfucian concept of a moral social order, which warranted methodsamounting to a justified avoidance of certain of the principles that wouldotherwise have governed the Chinese foreign relations.

To be sure, Confucianism is not a religion. Instead, it is a school ofpolitical and ethical philosophy founded by Confucius (551-479 B.C.) and hisdisciples. As it was reinstated in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 24)as the state ideological orthodoxy, Confucianist cosmopolitan outlook becameintegrated into the practical aspects of social and political life in China andformed the most dominant political and cultural force in shaping thetraditional Chinese view of world order. Confucius lived in the so-calledSpring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.) when the ^hou Dynastydisintegrated into vassal states. Because the rule of the ^hou king became a rulein name only, each of these vassal states claimed to be an independentsovereign in its relations with others. All the vassal states fought amongthemselves and with the peripheral barbarian tribes for hegemony. Thissituation, lamented by Confucius as "libeng yuehuai" (the collapse ofobservances of propriety and the ruin of music), caused tremendous politicaland social disorder in the Chinese world.

Fairbank, above n.l, 9.Benjamin I. Schwartz, The Chinese Perception of World Order, Past and Present,in Fairbank, above n. 1, 277.As the rule of the £hou emperor was declining, any powerful duke could use theemperor's name to order others. The usurp of the duke power by ministers andoverstep of authority by assistants became pervasive. Zhang Guohua and RaoXixian, above n.59, 47-50. Mencius later described: "Again the world fell intodecay, and principles faded away. Perverse speakings and oppressive deeds wererampant again. There were instances of ministers who murdered their sovereigns,



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The drastic changes during this period resulted in the growth andflourishing of various schools of social and political ideas known as the"hundred schools of thought," which competed with each other for solvingpolitical and social problems. What made the Confucian school stand outamong others was its value of peace (ping) and harmony (he) as the ultimategoal of the order of tianxia culminating in the Son of Heaven. As advocated byConfucius himself,

While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the mindmay be said to be in the state of EQUILIBRIUM. When those feelingshave been stirred, and they act in their due degree, there ensues whatmay be called the state of HARMONY. This EQUILIBRIUM is thegreat root from which grow all the humans acting in the world, and thisHARMONY is the universal path which they all should pursue. Let the statesof equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order willprevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourishedand flourish.

In the light of Confucian teachings, when this universal path was pursued,

...the world community was equally shared by all. The worthy and ablewere chosen as office-holders. Mutual confidence was fostered and goodneighborliness cultivated. Therefore, people did not love their parentsonly, nor treat as children only their own children. Provision was madefor the aged till their death, employment for the grownup, and themeans of growing up to the young. Old widows and widowers, orphans,childless people, as well as the sick and the disabled were all well takencare of. Men had their proper roles and women their homes. While theyhated to see wealth lying about on the ground, they did not necessarilykeep it for their own use. While they hated not to exert their effort, theydid not necessarily devote it to their own ends. Thus evil schemingsstopped to appear and robbers, thieves and other lawless elements failedto arise, so that outer doors did not have to be shut. This was what iscalled Universal Commonwealth.8

and of sons who murdered their fathers." See The Chinese-English Bilingual Seriesof Chinese Classics, above n.35, 381-383.The Doctrine of the Mean in The Chinese-English Bilingual Series of Chinese Classics,above n.35, 24-27.Li Ji (Li Yun), as quoted in Frederick Tse-Shyang Chen, The Confucian View ofWorld Order (with minor changes), in: Mark W. Janis (ed.), The Influence ofReligion on the Development of International Law (1991), 32.



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Noticeably, what Confucius portrayed about world order was not onlythe proper norm in human relations but also in relationships between manand nature. All Confucian teachings may be seen as aimed at achieving thesenorms characterized by peace and harmony. The Book of Great Learning, aConfucian canonical text, regarded as "the gate by which first learners enterinto virtue," pronounced four steps which people should take as the wayleading to these norms. Before the accomplishment of these four steps, peopleshould make sure to start with rectifying their hearts by making their thoughtssincere through investigating things and acquiring complete knowledge.Accordingly,

Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their personsbeing cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families beingregulated, their States were righdy governed. Their States being righdygoverned, the whole empire (tianxia) was made tranquil and happy.

In a hierarchical and nonegalitarian society, however, these four steps, asFairbank notes, constituted, in effect, the means of education andindoctrination from which the right standards of behavior would be instilled,and in return, peace and harmony would be promoted between the rulers andruled. Therefore, no matter how idealized such a philosophy of peace andharmony might sound, they served as a political and social doctrine designedto justify and perpetuate the conservative status quo. In the realm of foreignrelations, such socio-political status quo was to be preserved within the Chineseworld order through a symbolization of universal peace and harmony. It wasalso essentially the Sinocentric universal state based on the principle ofsuperordination-subordination which prevailed in the Chinese hierarchicaland anti-egalitarian domestic social order. As Confucius himself advocates,

The duties of universal obligation are five,...[They are] tJiose betweenruler and subject, between father and son, between husband and wife,between elder brotiier and younger, and those belonging to theintercourse of friends.8'

The Book of Great Learning, in The Chinese-English Bilingual Series of ChineseClassics, above n.35, 2-5.Fairbank, above n. 1, 6.The Doctrine of the Mean in The Chinese-English Bilingual Series of Chinese Classics,above n.35,40-41.



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Thus, if "affection between father and son, righteousness between theruler and the ruled, separate function between husband and wife, proper orderbetween old and young and fidelity between friends" could be maintained,peace and harmony could be achieved. As one Confucian exponent laterclaimed,

If a society follows the order in which subjects serve their ruler, sonserves his father, and wife serves her husband, society will be in peaceand harmony, otherwise, the society will be in chaos. This principle willperpetuate forever.

The cornerstone of the Confucian world view, as the outgrowth of thecultural preeminence of early Chinese civilization, was the concept of theuniverse—the entire cosmo—as an unbroken, orderly stasis-continuum. TheConfucian view conceived the world as being, which is by definition differentfrom becoming. Process, change, competition, and progress were therefore allconcepts unnatural to Confucianism, none had temporal relativism, acornerstone of Confucian thinking. Virtue, as reflected in social hierarchy andinequality, was thereby absolute and enduring. Stability and order—thehighest virtues in the cosmological continuum—were secured through themaintenance of hierarchy and the performance of ritual ceremonies. Thus,the Confucian world outlook placed emphasis on the righteous life on earthand felt no need for seeking the ultimate reality. In practice, it always directedthe thoughts of the Chinese to the pragmatic ordering and refining of humanrelations.

However, an excessive reliance on peace and harmony as the regulatorynorm of the social process poorly equipped the Chinese to play a role ininternational politics, which became more and more based on SocialDarwinism. The concept of the balance of power or alliance was also alien tothe Chinese official world, since there never had been an ally of equal status orstrength in Sinocentric international relations. The hierarchical and anti-egalitarian image of Confucianism made Chinese officials and intellectualsincapable of conceptualizing foreign relations in egalitarian terms. As a result,the Chinese expected the Western powers to make whatever adjustments werenecessary to fit their relations into the hierarchical and anti-egalitarian

The Work of Mencius, Teng Wen Gong, Part 1, in The Chinese-English BilingualSeries of Chinese Classics, above n.35, 358-359.

no

Zhang Guohua and Rao Xixian, above n.59, 331.84 Mark Mancall, China at the Center: 300 Years of Foreign Policy (1984), 22-23.



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framework of the Chinese world order. Ensuing confrontation between thetwo mutually-exclusive systems resulted in the advancing Western systemeclipsing the Chinese system, and when China was forced to entered theWestern family of nations, it became an inferior member.

6. The Role of Law in the Chinese World Order

Within the traditional Chinese world order, law as a means of socialcontrol in the term's modern sense never attained the prestige and importancethat it gained in the West, although for well over two-thousand years Chinahad maintained and developed a very sophisticated system of legal codes andof institutions for their application. ° In light of the precepts of Confucianism,the conduct of social relations should rely on the ritual norms (It), instead ofbeing governed by a set of rules that are backed up by state-imposed sanctionsin case of non-compliance and are, so to speak, exterior to each individual. Inother words, people should first and foremost learn and then internalize therules of appropriate behavior through a painstaking process of education,suasion, and socialization. Only when a person proved extremely recalcitrantor when the educational system failed, would it be necessary to use severepunishment of law. Therefore, law in the eye of Confucianism was notdeemed a major social achievement and a symbol of rectitude. Instead, it wasregarded as a rather regrettable necessity, principally employed by the state asthe last resort to maintain social order. When society was functioningpeacefully and harmoniously, law was something to be avoided, because resortto law was seen as essentially an admission of the loss of virtue and failure inhuman and communal relations. More laws did not make for a better or morepeaceful and harmonious society.

As advocated by Confucius and his disciples, to maintain the peace andharmony of the Chinese world order, emphasis should be placed on the meritsof government by education, persuasion, and moral example. The ruledshould be taught what was right and wrong with the li so that they wouldbehave properly according to their conscience and not merely because of thethreat of punishment. The rulers themselves should also try to behavevirtuously, so as to set good examples for their subjects to follow. In thisregard, Confucianism stressed that government should be able to win the

Comprehensive legal codes were enacted in both the Qin and Han dynasties.However, the oldest surviving code today is the Tang code, which was promulgatedin die seventh century A.D. The Tang code also laid down the foundation on whichthe later codes of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were developed. SeeZhang and Rao, above n.59.



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hearts of the people rather than securing their outward submission throughthe use of law. This is because the emphasis on law would lead people to thinkonly in terms of their self-interest and make them more litigious and loophole-happy (by trying to manipulate the laws to suit their own interests), and wouldalso divert attention away from the more important work of moral education.As Schwartz noted, "in a society dominated hyfa Paw], the people as a wholewill all develop the peculiar talents of the shyster lawyer and the sense ofshame will suffer." In a society where people were governed by li, however,disputes and conflicts easily would be resolved through friendly negotiation,mediation and mutual compromise. People would not assert their self-interestin an utterly acquisitive manner but would instead adopt an attitude of self-restraint and conciliation so as to arrive at a common understanding withother parties. In this way, peace and harmony would be achieved. Litigationwould be avoided, and a system of explicit legal rules rendered unnecessary.

Thus, in the traditional Chinese world, the role of law was consideredonly secondary as well as supplementary to ritual norms. This attitudeaccounts for some salient features of the legal concern of the traditionalChinese world order. Firstly, until the beginning of this century, there hadexisted no jurisprudential distinction between criminal law and civil law. Thewritten codes as well as decrees addressed mainly matters which would beclassified under criminal law and administrative law in the light of modernstandard. In these circumstances, private law for personal and propertyrelations among individuals was conspicuously under-developed. Disputesconcerning personal and property matters were usually settled informally byvirtue of mediation, conducted by respected leaders or elders of family clans,villages, and guilds in the light of customary rules and prevailing notions ofmorality. Thirdly, there was no formal separation of judicial power from otherpowers nor was there the doctrine of judicial independence. Fourthly, the legalprofession and education in the term's modern sense did not exist. Last, butnot least, the concept of the rights of the individual or of the people wasconspicuously lacking. The traditional Chinese legal system was based onpeople's duties and obligations rather than their rights and interests. Thus,there was no conception of individual rights enforceable against the state orother authorities. As Schwartz has succincdy described,

Individuals have legitimate interests, to be sure, and in the good societythese interests will be taken care of (in accordance with requirements of

B. I. Schartz, On Attitudes Toward Law in China, in: M. Tatz (ed.), Governmentunder Law and the Individual (1957), 27.



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the individual's social status). To surround these interests with an aura ofsanctity and to call them 'rights,1 to elevate the defence of theseindividual interests to the plane of a moral virtue, to 'insist on one'srights'—is to run entirely counter to the spirit of li. The properpredisposition with regard to one's interests is the predisposition to yieldrather than the predisposition to insist."87

In this regard, the emperor had an absolute power to rule and the peoplewere under an absolute obligation to obey. As discussed earlier, the emperorwas the highest legislative, judicial and executive authority. He made laws,which were binding on all but not on himself. The only restraints on hisexercise of power were political ethics, rationality, and precedent, none ofwhich, as shown by history, could always check the caprice of the ruler. Undersuch a system of the rule of man, the possibility of popular participation ingovernment affairs and legislative process was precluded. Since the ruledcould only be the objects of the ruler's whims and could only hope but had noright to assert that the ruler would be good and benevolent, they felt soimpotent vis-a-vis the law and the governmental authorities that theydeveloped a phenomenal behavioral syndrome—they either withdraw andsubjugate or defy and rebel. The Chinese people, as noticed by acommentator, never learned how to treat government officials as ordinaryhuman beings equal to themselves. "The officials were either benevolentguardians or high-handed oppressors. They were [either] to be obeyed or [tobe] revolted against but not checked and supervised."

87 Schwartz, id., 32.Chang Wei-jen, Traditional Chinese Attitudes toward Law and Authority, in: ASymposium on Chinese and European Concepts of Law (held in Hong Kong, underthe auspices of the Chinese Law Programme, Center for Contemporary AsianStudies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, March 20-25, 1986), 31. In traditionalChinese legal philosophy, there was no lack of elements which emphasized theruler's need to have regard for the well-being of the people. Chinese scholarsidentify these as the ideas of minben zhuyi (the people-as-the-basis doctrine).Mencious, Confucius' most important disciple, for example, has been frequendyquoted to say that, in the order of importance of governance, "The people are offirst importance; the state is the next; the ruler is the least important. In relation tothe emperor's responsibility to Heaven and the interpretation of the Mandate ofHeaven, Confucian classics also maintained that "Heaven sees as the people see,Heaven hears as die people hear." Even a right of revolution was asserted againsttyrannical rulers in extreme situations. A successful rebellion meant that the originalMandate of Heaven had been forfeited and a new mandate had been bestowedupon another virtuous person, usually the leader of the rebellion. Cited in Albert



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7. The Influence of Foreign Religions

Until the onslaught of Western imperialistic invasions in the nineteenthcentury, the proclamations of continuous and solitary splendor of the Chineseworld order remained persistent and unchallenged by genuine peers. In otherwords, the growth of the Chinese view of the outside world was by and largeindigenous in the sense that it had owed very littie to cultural exchange fromother civilizations. True, China was aware of the Roman Empire, but thecontact had not in any way resulted in a political impact on Chinese statecraft.When ancient Chinese civilization reached its peak by the time of the TangDynasty, most of Europe was just emerging from the Dark Ages. On the otherhand, China's knowledge about the outside world developed not becauseChinese craved for information, but generally because foreigners coming toChina brought information that struck the Chinese as delightfully quaint.These circumstances further contributed to confirm the Tightness of theSinocentric world outlook. Thus, even though cultural imports from theoutside world continually came to China throughout history, no such importshad ever been recognized at any time as the products of higher civilization.

Such a statement needs to be qualified, however, when examining twomajor implants from outside the Chinese cultural sphere. The first isBuddhism, which entered China from India during the late Han Dynasty, aperiod of political and social disunity and upheaval, and was until moderntimes "the major, almost the only strong foreign influence affecting theChinese culture, and the only one which left a permanent mark." AsSchwartz suggests, "[T]he fact that millions of Chinese looked to a sourceoutside the Chinese cultural orbit for salvation and for highest wisdom mustcertainly have shaken the general cosmology on which the Chinese perceptionof world order rested."92 While the influence of Buddhism on Chinese art,literature and religion was great and lasting, however, the Indian perception of

H.Y. Chen, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People's Republic of China(1992), 10-11.Mancall, above n.84, 11.In the opinion of the authors of The Modernization of China, there were three majorcultural imports to China, namely, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. However,Chinese scholars generally recognize the first and the last ones. This is becauseIslam mainly took root in China's border provinces of the west and spreadthroughout China as a pervasive Chinese minority religion and culture. GilbertRozman, above n.58, 24.

91Fitzgerald, above n.7, 10.

92Schwartz, above n.75, 279.



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world order as expressed in Buddhist teaching turned out to be devoid ofpolitical imperative, and, as a result, had little impact on the long establishedChinese cosmology.

This might be due to the underlying philosophical difference betweenBuddhism and Confucianism. While the state of Nirvana as advocated inBuddhism shares in a sense with the Confucian ideal of peaceful andharmonious universe, the process of entering this state was, nevertheless,through soul-transmigrations and reincarnations which would take a long timeand many lives as well. Furthermore, the ultimate goal of Buddhism—personal annihilation or total submergence in the primal unity—certainly runscounter to the Confucian idea of world order and the Great Path leading to it.Thus, anti-Buddhist campaigns were "marked by a most vehement andabsolutist reassertion of the Chinese image of world order."93 As a result, incontrast to the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, theintroduction of Buddhism to China had more the character of acclimatizationthan a true Buddhist conquest of the Chinese world view.94 The influence ofBuddhism was further weakened by the fact that India, the cradle ofBuddhism, never became a politically coherent society; in no way was itcomparable with China which remained far more often united and well-organized from the time of the Tang Dynasty. In fact, Buddhist shrines in Indiawere falling into neglect by the time of the Tang Dynasty.

A second major import was Christianity, which was brought to China byJesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century when European learningquickened the interest of the Chinese intelligentsia in the progress of physicalscience in the non-Chinese world. Among these missionaries were manyscholars of great distinction in the field of sciences of the West. Theirknowledge of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and physics was moreadvanced than it was in China. They introduced to the Chinese the Westernsciences of astronomy, mathematics, architecture, geography, andcartography. They translated Chinese classics and historical works intoWestern languages. In addition to imparting scientific learning to the Chinese,the missionaries' major undertaking was to convert China into Christianity.Their success in this respect, however, turned out to be limited, even non-existent. The Chinese never felt that their bridge to the interest in Westernsciences required the abandoning of the major tenets of their view of worldorder, for scientific principles were seen as universal rather than culturallybound to the men who imparted them. The very fact that the Chinese had

93 Id., 280.94

Fitzgerald, above n.7, 11.



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never had any overriding religion eventually defeated the missionary, • 95

enterprise.Also, as Fitzgerald suggests, the Christian religion, in all its forms, was

foreign. To the Chinese this was already a serious failing. Accepting thisforeign learning implied that the wisdom of China was deficient, and that theforeigner had something better to offer. This certainly ran counter to the time-honored assumption of Chinese cultural superiority. Foreigners, even thoughsome of them had valuable knowledge in limited fields, were, after all,members of distant barbarian peoples who could not be expected to be theequals to the Chinese in any respect. In addition, the governing ideologicalorthodoxy in China was Confucianism, and any questioning would threatenthe legitimacy of existing authority and was thus ruthlessly suppressed. As aresult, while their introduction of scientific knowledge was highly appreciatedby the imperial court, their influence was limited only to a small group ofChinese scholars and officials in the ruling circles. They left little imprint onChina's political institutions, social structure, or economic systems. Despitethriving throughout the entire seventeenth century, missionary activities werelater restricted, confined to a few bases, and eventually forbidden.

8. Factors o/Wbn-Han Conquests

As noted earlier, the source of power to maintain the Chinese worldorder was basically non-military. In view of the fact that there were periodswhen China had to accept the military supremacy of the surroundingbarbarians, the chief concern was how to maintain Chinese superiority. Asdemonstrated by Fairbank's work, solutions included cessation of contact;indoctrinating the non-Han rulers in the Chinese view by cultural-ideologicalmeans; buying them off by marriage, honors or material inducements or both;

95

Note here that trained in the European tradition and soaked in its history boththeological and lay, the missionaries could not realize that the Chinese simply lackedsome of the assumptions of Western culture. The Chinese were unfamiliar with theideas of revelation, infidelity, heresy, and "false gods." Id., 29-30.During the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-95), the missionaries merely continuedto perform useful work in their own accepted roles as technical and scientificassistance for the Qing court in the time-honored tradition of alien service within therealm of the Sinocentric world order. In the provinces, however, persecution grew,and the number of Christians fell dramatically. By the time the pope dissolved theJesuit order in 1773, the history of the Catholic attempt to convert China could beread only as a record of failure.



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using one barbarian against another through diplomatic maneuvers and, atthe extreme, accepting barbarian rulers at the apex of the Chinese world.7

For example, when the Han emperor Gaozu (206-193 B.C.) lost the battleto the Xiongnu, he adopted the suggestion of his minister that peace be boughtat the price of marrying a Chinese princess to the chieftain of the enemy. Bydoing so, the future chieftains of the Xiongnu would be his grandsons and greatgrandsons and hence, less likely to be rebellious. A more glowing example ofthe above-mentioned alternatives was the relationship between the SongDynasty (960-1279) and Liao, an ethnic minority nation. The Song Emperor^henzong made an agreement with the Liao king by which he consented to treatthe Liao Empress Dowager as "an aunt," and the Liao king agreed to treat theSong Emperor as an "elder brother." In addition, the Song agreed to supply theLiao with 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 rolls of silk annually. For 160years ad hoc envoys were exchanged between the two on an almost equalfooting on such occasions as New Year's Day, royal birthdays and deaths, andthe ascension to the throne of new emperors and kings.

Yet, only in the Chinese way of life could non-Chinese rulers rule overthe Chinese world. The vitality of the Sinocentric world order was thereforeeven reinforced by the non-Han conquests. The Mongols and Manchusrespectively seized the whole of China through military forces, and establishedtheir rules—Yuan (1279-1367) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties—from topdown. But nothing in these non-Han conquests sufficed to convince theChinese that their long-established Chinese world view was inadequate.Being culturally less advanced, these non-Han conquerors soon foundthemselves incompetent in running a country of great wealth and highcivilization. They had been superior in military matters, but in these alone.For the details of constructive administration, they had to adopt and adapt aConfucianism-based superstructure.102 Ironic as it seems, the non-Hanconquerors subdued China militarily, but in the end they themselves becamevictimized by the glory of Chinese civilization. The relative short life of theMongol rule may have been due to a violent breach in Chinese traditions. Inorder to avoid the fate of Mongols, the Manchus, who had been stronglyinfluenced by Chinese culture, had to be very careful to champion the

Fairbank, above n.l, 13-14.98

Hsu, above n.25, 11.As for the origin of the Manchus and the Qing Dynasty, see Hsu, above n.4, 19-28.Fitzgerald, above n.7, 26.

101 Id.102 Samuel S. Kim, China, the United Nations and World Order (1978), 22.



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103grandeur of Chinese civilization. It is therefore not surprising that whenEuropean imperialist expansion reached China in the mid-nineteen century,its evident superiority in military power "did not impress the Chinese as proofof cultural equality, but tended to show them in an unfavorable light."101

In addition, economic factors also contributed to strengthen the Chineseself-image of world order. Up to the nineteenth century, the Chinese economyhad basically been agrarian and self-sufficient and tenaciously resisted theimportation of products through foreign trade. The lack of commercialimpetus coupled with perennial concerns about land frontiers and the militarysecurity of Inner Asia had always directed the attention of the Chinese rulersto the continent. ° As a result, maritime potentials had rarely become apriority. This may pardy explain why the great maritime expeditions led by£keng He between 1405 and 1433 abrupdy came to an end, and were neverresumed.

Although foreign trade developed, it was not because the Chinesethirsted after foreign goods but rather foreign merchants came to China totrade. Also, the trade routes ended far to the south, and were in the hands ofprivate traders who dealt with principalities dimly seen and poorly understoodin Beijing. This led Chinese officials to develop a strong mentality that thedistant barbarians had nothing of value to communicate. To them, the factthat foreign merchants came to China to trade despite difficulties and distancemight have indicated the importance of trade with China for the countriesconcerned. Thus, their ultimate resource lay in the power to stop that tradealtogether.107

Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Chinese world stood aloof fromthe mainstream of world affairs. It was uninterested in seeking outside values,ideas, and goods as well. It was unprepared to face the impending challengecoming from another system which carried its own normative expectations.

III. The Tribute System

As the foregoing survey has indicated, the concept of the Chinese worldorder was based on die notion of a Sinocentric universal state, colored with

By the mid-nineteenth century, the triumph of Chinese civilization over the Manchuwas nearly complete, with the abolition of Manchu even as a secondary officiallanguage. Id.Fitzgerald, above n.7, 26.Gilbert Rozman, above n.58, 26.

106 Id.107 Id., 27.



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the assumption of cultural and normative superiority over less advancedneighbors. It was organized on hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism, andlegitimized by orthodox Confucian culturalism. Within this order, thereexisted only civilization and barbarity. In the sense that "civilization was anempire without neighbors,"' the Chinese empire was not a nation-state in themodern sense of the term. Rather it was "the administration of civilizedsociety in toto." Therefore, what was established within the Chinese worldorder was but an indigenous family of nations with its own rules that "cannotbe explained in modern terms of international law.""0

In seeking to understand the operational aspect of the traditionalChinese view of world order, Western Sinologists have come up with a specialterm, namely, the "tribute system," to describe the sum total of complex,practical, and institutional expressions of the Chinese diplomatic practice.The tribute system was a natural outgrowth of the cultural superiority of earlyChinese civilization."2 Its origin can be traced back to the ancient Chinesepractice whereby the emperor "invested" ifeng) fiefs, titles and authority in anumber of hereditary "vassals" {fan), who in turn were obliged to present tothe emperor their local products {fang wu) as "tribute" (gong), which hadoriginally meant a sort of tax payments. As inherited from history, payingtribute to the Chinese emperor was gradually developed into a political systemand was applied to the relations between China and all non-Chinese nationswhich desired to enter relations with China.

As formalized by the Ming Dynasty and perfected by the Qing Dynasty,"5

the tribute system was refined into a highly ritualistic performance whichoperated as an institutional mechanism to translate into diplomatic practicethe ideological assumptions, values and beliefs which underlay the Chineseworld order." The tribute system survived even after the Opium War withBritain, which marked the beginning of the disintegration of the aged Chineseworld order, and petered out slowly as the unequal treaty regime took hold of

108 Mancall, above n.84, 13.109 Id."° Id., 13.'"id., 13-14.

John King Fairbank and S.Y. Teng, the Traditional Role of Tribute, in: King C.Chen (ed.), The Foreign Policy of China (1972), 14.Fairbank, above n. 1, 7; see also, Zhang and Rao, above n.59, 45.

"4 Fairbank and Teng, above n.l 12, 18-22."5 T.F.Tsiang, above n.31, 131.

Hsu, above n.4, 182; see also, Mancall, above n.84, 14-20.



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LA, Traditional Chinese World Order 49

117Chinese foreign relations. The last tributary mission was sent by Nepal in

1181908, the eve of the Chinese Revolution.The tribute system was a comprehensive institution under which all

types of contacts between China and non-Chinese countries were supposed totake place. Yet the tributary relationship was strictly bilateral in that thetribute receiver was always China, and the bearer always a non-Chinese statethat desired to participate in the China-centered family of nations. Also, therights and duties involved in the tributary relationship were reminiscent ofConfucianism-sanctioned proper relationship between individuals, namely,ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife.

The tribute system can be likened to a family unit. Within the system,China, occupying the position of patriarch, took the leadership. Depending ona given situation, the Chinese emperor had authority for sending envoys toofficiate at the investitures given by the imperial court to the rulers of tributarystates, conferring on them the imperial patents of appointment and noble titlesin the hierarchy of Imperial China, and granting to them official seals for useof correspondence. China also had responsibility for assisting tributary statesin times of foreign invasion or natural disaster. In return, tributary states, whocame into contact with China as the part of the family but in a subordinateposition, were obliged to honor China as the superior state by presentingperiodic tribute of local products and tribute memorials of various sorts onappropriate statutory occasions as well, by requesting the investiture of theirrulers, and by dating their communications by the Chinese calendar-based orthe reign of the emperor."9

As the Chinese emperor maintained supreme authority over all rulersand peoples of tributary states, he was seated in his palace, usually theForbidden City, to receive the envoys of tributary states, who had to takespecially-designated routes in traveling to and from China. Entry into theemperor's presence and presentation of tribute to the emperor had to followthe correct performance of ritual ceremonies of which the most important andsolemn part was the so-called three kneelings, of which each was accompaniedby three kowtows (san gui jiu kou li). In the Chinese view, this performance

John King Fairbank, The Early Treaty System in the Chinese World Order, inFairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations,above n. 1,258.John King Fairbank and S.L. Teng, Ching Administration: Three Studies (1960),165-169.Hsu, above n.4, 182. Also, Fairbank has elaborated the main elements of the tributesystem of the Qing Dynasty. See Fairbank, above n.l, 10-11.



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symbolized the recognition not only of China's superior civilization but ofcivilization itself, of which the highest point was the Chinese emperor. Thus,refusal to perform these rituals was tantamount to an insult to the universalscheme of things, an unnatural act that could not be tolerated by the emperorsince it was his role to maintain the peace and harmony of universe.

The rigidity of the tribute system was especially reflected in the CollectedStatutes of the Qing Dynasty (Da Qing Huidian), which were issued both as a recordof administrative practice and as a guide to bureaucratic day-by-dayactivities. In the Collected Statutes were prescribed regulations in specific termson such matters as the frequency and size of tributary missions, the designatedpoints of entry and departure, as well as the routes to be traveled in China byeach mission, the appointment of Chinese envoys to deliver imperial edicts tothe rulers of tributary states, and ritual requirements to be observed at thecourt. Each state that entered relations with China was required to followthese rules.

Between 1662 and 1911, over five-hundred tribute missions called at theQing court from sixty-two different countries.12 As recorded in Fairbank'swork, Korea collected tribute four times a year, and presented the tribute alltogether at the end of the year. Liuqiu (Ryukyu) twice every three years,Annam (Vietnam) once every two years, Siam every three years, Burma andLaos every ten years. This survey indicates that the closer the relationshipbetween China and a tributary state, the larger and more frequent themission. Because the Chinese view of world order was devoid of graduatedrelationships, the Qing court insisted that die tribute system applied not only tothe peripheral states of Asia but also to all other states which wanted toestablish relations with China. Therefore, even if the Western trading nationsdid not formally belong to the system, the Collected Statutes still listed themalongside other regular tributary states, requiring them to be treated as thoughthey were tributary bearers if they came to China on their own.126 Given thesporadic nature of these missions, however, the Western trading nations wereprecluded from maintaining a fixed schedule for bringing tribute in view of

Fairbank and Teng, above n.l 12, 15.121 Id., 14.122

Masataka Banno, China and the West 1858-1861: The Origins of the TsungliYamen (1964), Z-\.

123Mancall. above n.84, 15.

124Fairbank, above n. 1, 11.

19;

Hsu, above n.4; 182.Hsu, above n.25, 14.



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127their great distance from China. Of the seventeen early Western missions toChina from 1655 to 1795 (six from Russia, four from Portugal, three fromHolland, three from the Papacy, and one from Britain), all but the last, underLord Macartney, yielded to the Chinese demand for the kowtow to the Chineseemperor, albeit reluctantly.128

Although the rigidity of the tributary system in China's relations withWestern officials was uncompromising (with the Macartney mission as theonly exception129), it did not mean that traders in their private individualcapacity could not visit or even reside in China. On the contrary, until theOpium War, traders from the Western maritime nations were allowed toreside in Macao and to conduct trade in Guangzhou (Canton).130 Russians alsolived in Beijing almost continuously after 1727.'3' However, this apparentcontravention of the tribute system was interpreted as a special imperial favortowards men from afar. But private Western traders were prohibited fromseeking entries into any direct relations with Chinese officials. If they hadcomplaints, "they could only 'petition' through the Chinese monopolisticmerchants and the Customs Superintendent, known as the Hoppo."132

In the face of constant Russian challenge, Qing policy and practiceconstituted a marked exception from relations with the Western maritimenations. It concluded its first equal treaty, the Treaty of Nerchinsk, withRussia in 1689, which set the eastern border between the two countries.After the Treaty of Kiakhta of 1727, Russians were allowed to maintain anOrthodox Church in Beijing with a language school attached to it.'35 AlthoughRussian missions to China were recorded as tribute bearers, and although theyperformed Kowtow to the Chinese emperor, Russia was not officially listed as atributary state in any of the five editions of the Collected Statutes.'3 On the otherhand, the Chinese envoys to Russia performed the Kowtow to the Russian

127 Id.™Id.,5.

For the Macartney mission, see Hsu, above note 4, 206-214.130 Id., 14.131 Mancall, above n.84, 23.132 Hsu, above n.25, 14-15.133 Hsu, above n.4, 150-166.134 Id., 162.135 Id., 165.136

Id., 164. Also see Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, Russia's Special Position in China during theEarly Ch'ing Period, in: Hsu (ed.), Readings in Modern Chinese History (1971),113-123.



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137ruler. Russian traders were also treated very well under the two treaties.They were allowed to come to Beijing every three years in groups of twohundred, and although they paid their own way, their goods were brought in

inn

duty-free. In a nutshell, Qing policy and practice concerning its relations withRussia demonstrated a remarkable degree of capacity to compromise therigidity of the system to the realities of power.

Under the tribute system, the Chinese emperor also sent his envoys toforeign nations to show compassion to those at a distance, to bring them intothe tribute system, and to confer the rulers of these foreign nations theimperial seal. Of many Chinese envoys dispatched for this purpose, the mostfamous one was perhaps the aforementioned Zheng He's seven maritimeexpeditions between 1405 and 1433 during the Ming Dynasty. As has alreadybeen noted, these expeditions took the Chinese envoys to India, the PersianGulf, and the East African coast almost a century before the more well-knownPortuguese navigators reached those places by sea around Africa. Themotivation of these expeditions is believed to have lain in the desire of theMing court to perfect its claim to rule all men by showing that no one was leftoutside the Chinese world order.

The immediate achievement was splendid. Most of the forty nations thatZheng visited sent back tributary envoys to China. During the Qing period,imperial missions were dispatched only to the three important tributary statesof Korea, Liuqiu, and Annam, and as a rule, this was occasioned in wake of thenewly throned tributary king sending a special envoy to Beijing to requestinvestiture.

Certainly, the tribute system did not operate in the light of the principleof sovereign equality, which, as part of the fundamental principles of thecontemporary international law, directs political and economic transactionsbetween states on the basis of reciprocity. On the contrary, the periodicpresentation of tribute by a non-Chinese state followed by the performance ofthe required ritual ceremonies functioned as the acknowledgement of China's

137 Id.138 Id., 165.139

This is an exemplary example, as noticed by Fairbank, that the traditional Chineseworld order suffered from a chronic problem of how to square theory with fact, theideological claim with the actual practice. This phenomenon may be explained bythe fact that the traditional Chinese perception of world order was richer in culturalsymbolism than in political dynamics. Fairbank, above n. 1, 3.John King Fairbank, The United States and China (reprinted in 1983), 149-151.Wang Gungwu, above n.29, 51-60.

141 Id., 183.



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cultural superiority and the Chinese family of nations headed by the Son ofHeaven. It also worked as a reminder of the tributary bearer's inferiority inpower and culture. In return, non-Chinese nations "were given their place inthe all-embracing Chinese political, and therefore ethical, scheme of things."Although such a system made no "realist" sense, it served a vital symbolicfunction by exemplifying and legitimizing the myth of the universal stategoverned by the Son of Heaven. As Fairbank suggests, even during the goldenera of the Sinocentric world order, "China's external order was so closelyrelated to her internal order that one could not long survive without theother."143 In other words, even imperial China with all its pretensions ofnormative self-sufficiency could not really live in isolation; it neededoutlandish barbarians in order to enact, validate, and institutionalize theintegrity of its universal overlordship: whoever wished to enter into relationswith China was supposed to acknowledge the supremacy of the Chineseemperor and obey his commands.

The persistence of the system was mostly revealed in Qinghunresponsiveness to a continuing threat from the expansionist and dynamicWest during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was thus not until 1861after the Western powers forced China to agree to permanent diplomaticresidence in Beijing that the Qing court began to recognize the Western stateson equal terms as required by international law. Corresponding to thisunresponsiveness was the distinctive character of the mechanisms under whichthe tribute system was managed. Because the tribute system constituted theoperational part of the Sinocentric world order, which was presumed toreproduce itself in a concentrically larger expandable circle as the correctcosmic order, there was no awareness of the necessity for the establishment ofa foreign office in its modern sense within the Chinese bureaucracy tocentralize the management of foreign affairs, for "the existence of a foreignoffice in a state presupposes an awareness of the necessity for relations withother more or less equal states."

During the Ming time, the tributary affairs were under the supervision ofthe Reception Department of the Board of Rites, the highest governmentoffice that was committed to the maintenance and correct execution of therituals that were of central importance to Confucianism-based world order.Also, a department of the Board of War, the government's military office, wascharged with responsibility for the management of tributary relations when

142

Fairbank and Teng, above n. 112, 15.Fairbank, above n. 1, 3.

144 Cited in Hsu, above n.25, 13.



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145they involved certain aboriginal tribes along China's cultural frontiers. Thisadministrative structure was later modified and refined by the Qing Dynastywhen it set up Li Fan Yuan, or the Barbarian Control Office, as the institutionto specially handle Mongolian, Mohammedan, and Russian affairs whileleaving tributary relations with East, Southeast, and South Asia to thejurisdiction of the Board of Rites.'46 In addition to this organizationalstructure, the power to deal with trade relations with the Western maritimenations was entrusted to the governor-general at Guangzhou (Canton), whomanaged foreigners through the Hoppo, the superintendent of maritimecustoms and the cohong, the guild of Chinese merchants.

It is especially important to note that the tribute system functioned as adefensive mechanism in social nature: "it translated barbarian impingementson Chinese society into social terms comprehensible to the ConfucianChinese, thus minimizing fluctuations like a kind of conductor-reductor thatfiltered barbarian pressures into a Confucian conceptual context."147 To thisextent, the system served as a perfect process within the boundary spherebetween the "purely barbarian" and the "purely Chinese." As mythicallyassumed by the Chinese, barbarians could not help but be transformed (lai-hua) by the awe-inspiring virtue of Chinese civilization. From this it followedthat the barbarian who wished to be transformed and so participate in thebenefit of civilization had to recognize the supreme position of China'sculture. As Mencius advised, "I have heard of men using the doctrines of ourgreat land to change barbarians, but I have never yet heard of any beingchanged by barbarians."'4

A corollary of cultural transformation was the doctrine of non-intervention in, and non-exploitation of, the barbarians. As indicated earlier,the Confucian proposition as to barbarians was to win their submission

145 Mancall, above n.84, 16-17.Id., 17-19. In addition to these two main organs, Huitong Siyi Guan, or CommonResidence for Tributary Envoys, supervised by a senior secretary of the Board ofRites was designed for reception and accommodation of tributary envoys. See Hsu,above n.25, 13-14. And even the Board of War was involved with the task ofescorting the tributary envoys to the frontiers. See Wang Tieya, International Lawin China: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, in: 221 Recueil Des Corns (1990-II), 224.

' Cited in Mancall, above n.86, 16.148 Id.149

The Works of Mencius, Teng Wen Gong, part 1, in The Chinese-English BilingualSeries of Chinese Classics, above n.35, 360-361.



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through benevolent and virtuous concerns for their welfare. As advised by theBook of History,

Be kind to the distant, and cultivate the ability of the near. Give honor tothe virtuous and your confidence to the good, while you discountenancethe artful:—so shall the barbarous tribes lead on one another to maketheir submission.150

As indicated earlier, the tribute system was by no means a system whichfacilitated imperialistic expansion, exploitation and oppression, as comparedwith the Western colonial regimes' thrust upon the Asian and African nationsin the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On the contrary, the tributesystem in general imposed nothing on foreign peoples who chose to remainoutside the Chinese world. As mentioned earlier, during the Ming Dynasty,the Chinese maritime expeditions reached as far as the eastern coast of Africa.Although China's precedence over the West at that time in naval architecture,navigation, and the nautical arts in general was clearly manifested, theChinese simply lacked the type of expansive urge that the Western powersdemonstrated a century later. As far as tribute bearing nations wereconcerned, China never made a profit out of the tribute system in pureeconomic terms since all tributary travel expenses and maintenance of themissions in China were borne by the Chinese government. Given thefrequency, size and travelling distances of these missions, maintainingtributary relations in effect was a considerably expensive business. Inaddition to the enormous cost for the operation of the system, the Chineseemperor's gifts were usually more valuable than the tribute he received.'53

Yet, barbarians always had to be watched with vigilance in order toprevent their infiltration into the heartland of China and their mixing with theChinese populace, acts that threatened to adulterate the established way ofChinese life. This laissez-faire and defensive attitude towards barbarians latercrystallized into a policy of segregation and of constant precaution. Thus,when the tributary envoys called upon China, they were escorted overdesignated routes, closely watched over, and were subject to many restrictions.They were not allowed to purchase Chinese weapons or books while in die

b0 Cited in Hsu's work. Hsu, above n.25, 7.151 T.F. Tsiang, above n.31, 131.152 Hsu, above n.4, 183.153 F.T. Tsiang, above n.31, 131.134 Hsu, above n.25, 10.



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capital, lest they make trouble or become too wise, and they were not allowedto roam about freely in the streets without securing permission from theproper Chinese authority, who would then specially guard the streets theywere to pass through.

On the part of the tributary states, the imperative of the tribute systemwas multi-dimensional. For the rulers who maintained very close relationswith China, this was the system which operated to recognize their legitimacyat home, heighten their prestige before their peoples, and offer themprotection against foreign invasion and natural disaster. For others,particularly those from the Inner Asian and Outer zones, their associationwith China as junior tributary states provided them with enormous tradeopportunities. As a rule, each tributary mission was allowed to beaccompanied by a large number of traders, and trade followed immediatelyupon the presentation of tribute to the emperor at the capital. Sometimes,trade was even conducted by the mission itself. In these cases, trade was alsopermitted at the frontier. For instance, market places were set up on the Sino-Korean and Sino-Mongolian frontiers, and in ports along the China coast.Bearing in mind that Chinese court bore all expenses of the trip, includingaccommodations while the tributary mission stayed in Beijing, commercialtransactions as such were certainly highly profitable.D Motivated by thetremendous commercial value of the tribute system, those who might see theirrelationship with China in far different terms at their end accepted the tributesystem, only superficially or tacitly, at least in part, as a matter of expedienceto advance trade benefits.'5'

Thus, as Fairbank and Teng concluded, the tribute system servedbenefits for both sides, the moral value of the system being the more importantin the minds of the rulers of China, and the material value of trade in theminds of the tribute bearers.158 To the extent that the system functioned as aninstitutional expression of the time-tested Chinese view of world order, trade

!6

Hsu, above n.4, 182-183. However, it should not be understood that thepresentation of tribute by a specific country was a prerequisite for commercialexchange between a country and China. Trade might take place along the frontierwithout the presentation of tribute. The British East India Company traded atCanton regularly until the Opium War. Mancall, above n.86, 76.Fairbank, above n.l, 12.

158

Fairbank and Teng, above n.l 12, 17. However, they warn that this conclusion maybe an over-simplification which runs counter to the whole set of ideas behind diesystem, and it also overlooks the interesting possibility, which deserves exploration,of an imperial economic interest, for instance, in the silk export trade.



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permission given to tributary states was intended to be a mark of imperialbounty and a means of keeping the barbarians in the proper state ofsubmissiveness.'5 On the part of tributary states, the fact that the China tradewas lucrative sufficed to justify their subjection to whatever humiliation wasentailed in the observances of the ritual requirements. In such a case, however,the submission of tributary states to the Chinese world order worked inreverse, because it was actually bought and paid for by the trade conceded byChina.

It is apparent that the tribute system left no room for the principle ofsovereign equality. Although such system cannot be said to be of neithercrusading nor colonial nature, it created a formidable barrier to a foreignpolicy based on the concept of equality between or among sovereign states asunderstood in the term of international law.' ' As Kim rightly observes, "Theburden of adjustment always fell on the tributary states."'62 It was this systemof the "family of nations" that the Western powers encountered when theybegan to expand to East Asia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies. The stage was set for conflict and confrontation as more and moreWesterners arrived in China. They could not accept this system ideologicallyor institutionally without sacrificing valued principles of state sovereignty anddiplomatic relations based on the European system of international law. TheWest mistook what was a culturally-dictated and politically-oriented institutionin China for purely political and legal reasons. Hence, the arrival of eachWestern mission in China invariably sparked an occasion for quarrel. Westernnations felt that their submission to the tribute system was a humiliation anddisgrace, and they insisted on application of the European system ofinternational law as the governing norms for their relations with China.

Yet, the fact that the Kowtow ceremony had been performed by envoysfrom several Western nations erroneously impressed China that even thoseWestern nations had submitted themselves to the supremacy of the Son ofHeaven. Accordingly, it could hardly see any reason to sacrifice this cherishedsystem simply because of the argument of the Western barbarians. TheChinese advanced equally rhetorical logics: "We have not asked you to come;if you come you must accept our ways," as put by Hsu. Inevitably, theChinese world and the Western one, with their distinct claims of superiority

F.T. Tsiang, above n.31, 131.Fairbank and Teng, above n. 112, 17.

161 T.F. Tsiang, above n.31, 130.162 Kim, above n. 102, 46.

Hsu, above n.4, 185.



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based on different world outlooks, collided head on. Without the support ofmilitary forces, yet anxious to achieve trade benefits, early Western envoysusually yielded grudgingly to the Chinese practice. Beginning from the lateeighteenth century, however, the circumstances changed drastically. TheIndustrial Revolution had generated vastly increased surplus productioncapacities in the West, which was in turn transformed into a powerful drive toseek and open new markets as well as sources of raw materials abroad.Released from the Napoleonic Wars, Western nations, notably Britain, withthe wild ambition for an imperialistic empire where the sun never set, resolvedto force open China's door and come to China on its own terms.



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Documents

Chinese World Order John K. Fairbank