System, empire and state in Chinese international relations

Review of International Studies

Volumn 27, Issue SPEC. ISS., 2001, Pages 43-63

  Zhang, Yongjin ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 23044531219     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. Benno Teschke, 'Geopolitical Relations in the European Middle Ages: History and Theory', International Organization, 52:2 (1998), p. 328.
2. For a good summary of such criticisms, see Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History - Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
3. See also Christian Reus-Smit, 'The Idea of History and History with Ideas: Toward a Constructivist Historical Sociology of International Relations', in John M. Hobson and Steve Hobden (eds.), Bringing Historical Sociologies into International Relations (forthcoming).
4. See Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the English School (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998).
5. See in particular, Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966),
6. Martin Wight, Systems of States, edited with an introduction by Hedley Bull (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977),
7. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984),
8. Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1992),
9. Robert H. Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
10. See for example John M. Hobson, 'The Historical Sociology of the State and the State of Historical Sociology in International Relations', Review of International Political Economy, 5:2 (1998), pp. 284-320;
11. Stuart J. Kaufman, 'The Fragmentation and Consolidation of International Systems', International Organization, 51:2 (Spring 1997), pp. 173-208;
12. Steve Hobden, 'Theorising the International System: Perspectives from Historical Sociology', Review of International Studies, 25:2 (1999), pp. 257-71.
13. Teschke, 'Geopolitical Relations', pp. 325-58,
14. Christian Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Kaufman, though, has tentatively looked at the history of ancient Middle East as a testing case.
15. Watson's The Evolution of International Society does contain a brief chapter on the Ancient Chinese system of states. See pp. 85-93.
16. Adda B. Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960). Bozeman devoted a whole chapter in this book (Chapter 4) to studying international relations in Chinese history. What also makes Bozeman's book different is that she weaves this into a truly international history, which she views indivisible as a universally shared fund of human experience.
17. See for example John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968),
18. Richard Louis Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971).
19. Buzan and Little, 2000.
20. F. S. Northedge, The International Political System (London: Faber & Faber, 1976), pp. 34-52.
21. Lucian Pye, 'China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society', Foreign Affairs, 69:4 (Fall 1990), p. 58.
22. The differences have been captured nicely by a Chinese historian when argued that 'Whereas wars during the Spring and Autumn period were waged mainly to contend for hegemonic leadership (Ba), wars waged during the Warring States period aimed at annexation'. Yang Kuan, Zhan Guo Shi (A History of the Warring States Period) (Shanghai: Shanghai People's Press, 1998), p. 2.
23. Wight, Systems of States, p. 46.
24. The Chinese cultural area was, it should be noted, an ever-expanding one. Cultural commonality in the Ancient Chinese world refers to an existing state of affairs as much as a creative process. The sinicization of barbarians (yi xia bian yi) was already in dynamic full swing in the Spring and Autumn period. The states of Chu and Yue, which were regarded as 'non-Chinese', were fully assimilated through participating in the rivalry for Ba (hegemony/leadership) and in the political order. Both indeed won leadership contests at various times during the Spring and Autumn period. The state of Qin, which eventually unified China at the end of the Warring States period, was once regarded as 'semi-barbarian', as it was situated at the periphery of the Chinese cultural world.
25. All these states, estimated at between 148 and 170 at the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period, had previously been principalities of the Zhou Dynasty. They emerged as states with independent claims only when the authorities of the Zhou Court slowly but inexorably dissolved. Many of them however retained a semblance of allegiance to the Zhou Court until as late as the end of the fifth century BC.
26. Hong Junpei, Chunqiu Guoji Gongfa (International Law in the Spring and Autumn Period) (Taipei: Literature, History and Philosophy Publishing House, 1975), pp. 58-62.
27. It is not uncommon, for example, for diplomats and scholarly advisers to serve several courts in their lifetime and even at the same time. Confucius was one such ineffective adviser to a number of courts other than his native one. See Joseph R. Levenson and Franz Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History from the Beginnings to the Fall of Han (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969), p. 46.
28. This is of course not to deny the existence of localism as seen in broad differences in dialect, customs, religion, legends and cults, which existed among the various regions prior to the Spring and Autumn period.
29. The American sinologist William A. P. Martin is probably the first Western scholar to compare rules and norms of Ancient Chinese international relations to modern international law. At the International Conference of Orientalists in Berlin in 1881, Martin presented a paper entitled 'Traces of International Law in Ancient China'. A revised version of this paper is included in William A. P. Martin, The Lore of Cathay (London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1901), pp. 427-49.
30. Martin was also responsible for translating Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law into Chinese in 1864, the first of its kind, which was published by the government of the Qing Dynasty.
31. Teschke, 'Geopolitical Relations', p. 350.
32. This is also the case with the ancient Greek and Renaissance Italian states-systems. Christian Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State, p. 6.
33. Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 83. It has also been noted that states in Ancient China agreed that a state should not be invaded in the year in which its ruler has died, or in which there has been an insurrection within the state.
34. Hong Junpei, International Law, pp. 266-8. A number of culturally informed rules amounting to the laws of war were also practised.
35. For more details, see William A. P. Martin, The Lore of Cathay, pp. 443-8.
36. Sun Yurong, Gudai Zhongguo Guojifa Yanjiu (A Study of International Law in Ancient China) (Beijing: Chinese University of Politics and Law Press, 1999), pp. 80-81.
37. In Walker's words, 'It was customary for envoys to obtain permission for passage through the states which lay in the path of their missions. Envoys who attempted to pass without permission were seized and some were put to death'. Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 24.
38. See also Sun Yurong, International Law in Ancient China, p. 86.
39. Roswell Britton, 'Chinese Interstate Intercourse before 700 BC', American Journal of International Law, 29 (1935), pp. 630-2.
40. See also Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 90.
41. Wight, Systems of States, p. 32.
42. Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 79.
43. Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, Ibid, pp. 56-8.
44. See also Hsu Chao-yun, 'The Spring and Autumn Period', in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 562.
45. It was not an uncommon practice, for example, for the two states that were party to a bilateral treaty to exchange hostages as a guarantee for the enforcement of the treaty signed. On such occasions, hostages were often sons of the rulers.
46. Hong Junpei, International Law, pp. 164-212.
47. Walker noted this with clarity. 'The free Chinese sources record the various diplomatic activities under such terms as Chao, a court visit paid by one ruler to another; hui, meetings of officials or nobles of different states, pin, missions of friendly inquiries sent by the ruler of one state to another; shi, emissaries sent from one state to another; shou, hunting parties where the representatives of different states combined business with pleasure'. Walker, Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 75.
48. See Xu Chuanbao, Xianqin Guojifa zhi Yiji (Traces of International Law in Ancient China) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1931), pp. 127-50
49. Sun Yurong, International Law, pp. 93-118.
50. Fung Yu-lan explicitly argued, for example, that 'These peacetime and wartime li, as observed by one state in its relations to another, were equivalent to what we now call international law'. Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1953), p. 178.
51. Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, pp. 56-61.
52. See also Fung Yu-lan, A Short History.
53. A number of short excepts from classical Chinese philosophical writings on opposing views of human nature can be found in Evan Luard (ed.), Basic Texts in International Relations: The Evolution of Ideas about International Society (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), pp. 5-17.
54. Bozeman, Politics and Culture, p. 134.
55. Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions (edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter), (London: Leicester University Press, 1991), p. 66.
56. Benjamin Schwartz, 'Perception of World Order, Past and Present', in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order, p. 278.
57. This probably explains why Ancient Greeks 'unaccountably missed a manifest destiny' of turning the states system of Hellas into a union of federation or an empire, though the ancient Greeks, too, entertained a strong idea of great political unity. Kaufman recently argued that strong principles of city-state identity held by both the Sumerian cities and the Greek cities also acted to resist unification and withheld the legitimacy of established empires. Kaufman, 'Fragmentation and Consolidation', pp. 193-4.
58. Bozeman, Politics and Culture, p. 143.
59. He Fangchuan, Huayi Zhixu Lun (A Study of Pax Sinica), Journal of Peking University (Philosophy and Social Sciences edn.), 6 (1998), p. 32.
60. Geoffrey Hudson, Europe and China: A Survey of Their Relations from the Earliest Times to 1800 (Edward Arnold, 1961)
61. Yu Yingshih, Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967).
62. Yu Yingshih, Trade and Expansion, pp. 48-54.
63. He Fangchuan, A Study of Pax Sinica, pp. 32-35. He also noted that during the Song Dynasty, the 'Silk Road on the sea' brought more Southeast Asian countries into closer relations with China in the tribute system.
64. Fang Yaguang, Tangdai Duiwai Kaifang Chutan (Preliminary Studies of Tang's Opening to the Outside World) (Hefei: Huangshan Books Publisher, 1998), p. 14.
65. The term is from Michael Mann. For more discussions on transnational moral authority in international relations, see Rodney Bruce Hall, 'Moral Authority as a Power Source', International Organization, 51:4 (Autumn 1997), pp. 591-622.
66. Sechin Jagchid and Van Jay Symons, Peace, War and Trade Along the Great Wall: Nomadic-Chinese Interaction Through Two Millennia (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989),
67. Thomas Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 1989).
68. Two points must be made here. First, such relations were not regarded as interacting within the Chinese world order. Second, the Koreans viewed the interactions with China and Japan differently. In the first instance, it was shida, a small country serving a large one, and in the second, jiaolin, intercourse with a neighbouring kingdom. The other interesting case was Liuqiu, which was a tributary to both China and Japan from the seventeenth century onwards.
69. For the description and diagraphs of these two patterns, see Buzan and Little, International Systems, pp. 96-8.
70. See Lien-sheng Yang, 'Historical Notes on the Chinese World Order',
71. Mark Mancall, 'The Ch'ing Tributary System: An Interpretive Essay', both in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order, pp. 20-33, and pp. 63-89.
72. See for example, Morris Rossabi (ed.), China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983).
73. Yu Ying-shih, Trade and Expansion, p. 41.
74. See also Li Dingyi, Zhonghua Shigang (A Brief History of China) (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1997), pp. 103-4.
75. John K. Fairbank China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 114.
76. Joseph F. Fletcher, 'China and Central Asia, 1368-1884', in Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order, pp. 209-216.
77. John K. Fairbank, 'A Preliminary Framework', in Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order, pp. 2-3.
78. This is borrowed from Krasner. In Krasner's conceptualization, the discrepancy between the professed ideals embodied in the notion of sovereignty and the actual behaviour of its adherents is considered organized hypocrisy. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
79. For more arguments about for the flexibility of China's tributary system, see Mark Mancall, 'The Ch'ing Tribute System'.
80. Fletcher, 'China and Central Asia', p. 224.
81. He Fangchuan, A Study of Pax Sinica, p. 37.
82. Fairbank, 'A Preliminary Framework', pp. 8-9.
83. Lien-sheng Yang, 'Historical Notes', p. 21.
84. Michael Loewe, 'The Heritage Left to the Empires', in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, p. 993.
85. Fung, 'A Short History', p. 188.
86. Reus-Smit, Moral Purpose of the State, p. 39.
87. This is understandably a rather crude summary of Reus-Smit's central arguments about the constitutional structures of international society. For more details, see Reus-Smit, Moral Purpose of the State, pp. 26-39.
88. 'The orthodox line of Confucianism', Schwartz observed, 'considered the main purpose of the state to be the support and maintenance of the moral, social, and cultural order of social peace and harmony'. Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 10.
89. For want of a better word, I use it here guardedly and with reservation.
90. This table is adapted from Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State, p. 7.
91. I use this here to refer mostly to what can be regarded as the inner circle of the Chinese world order.
92. Hudson, Europe and China, pp. 291-329.
93. The persecutions of Christianity during the seventeenth and eighteenth century owes much to the official intolerance for domestic political reasons rather than outright challenge posed by Christianity to the Confucian ethics and social order.
94. In one conversation with Chinese mandarins prior to his audience with Emperor Qianlong, Macartney claimed that King George III was the 'greatest sovereign of the West' and Qianlong, 'the greatest sovereign of the East'. Alain Peyrefitte, The Collision of Two Civilizations: The British Expedition to China in 1792-1794, trans. Jon Rothschild (London: Harvill, 1993), p. 211.
95. For a brief version of King George III's letter to Qianglong, see Alain Peyrefitte, The Collision of Two Civilizations: The British Expedition to China in 1792-1794, ibid, pp. 195-7.
96. J. L. Cranmer-Byng (ed.), An Embassy to China: Lord Macartney's Journal (London: Longman, 1962), p. 219.
97. Adam Watson, 'Hedley Bull, States Systems and International Society', Review of International Studies, 13:2 (1987), p. 151.
98. Gerrit Gong, The Standard of 'Civilization' in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
99. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987).
100. Fairbank, 'A Preliminary Framework', p. 11.
101. Only Siam escaped the European imperialist colonization of Southeast Asia, becoming a buffer zone between the British and French colonies in the area.
102. In an edict sanctioning the signing of the Treaty of Tianjin, the Emperor reluctantly decreed, 'England is an independent sovereign state, let it have equal status [with China]'. Yongjin Zhang, China in the International System, 1918-1920: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), p. 17.
103. Immanuel Hsu, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations - The Diplomatic Phase, 1860-1880 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960),
104. Gerrit Gong, 'China's Entry into International Society', in Bull and Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society, pp. 171-84.
105. Yongjin Zhang, 'China's Entry into International Society: Beyond the Standard of "Civilization"', Review of International Studies, 17:1 (1991), pp. 3-17.
106. Quoted in Jerome Ch'en, China and the West: Society and Culture, 1815-1937 (London: Hutchinson, 1979), p. 42.
107. Teng, Ssu-yu and John K. Fairbank (eds.), China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).
108. Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), vol. 1, p. ix. Levenson made a revealing comparison between two encounters of Confucianism and Western thought. In his words, 'In the first case, the Chinese tradition was standing firm, and Western intruders sought admission by cloaking themselves in the trappings of that tradition; in the second case, the Chinese tradition was disintegrating, and its heirs, to save the fragments, had to interpret them in the spirit of the Western intrusion'.
109. See Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power.
110. Bozeman, Politics and Culture, p. 8.
111. Lucian Pye, 'China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society', p. 58.