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Traditional Chinese World Order PDF
Traditional Chinese World Order PDF
Traditional Chinese World Order PDF
John King Fairbank, A Preliminary Framework, in: John King Fairbank (ed.), The
Chinese 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 the
barren steppes, on the west by the vast desert, and on the southwest by the world's
highest 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) are
outlined in Liu Peihua's Jindai ^hongwai Guanxi Shi (Modern History of China's
Foreign Relations) (in Chinese, 1986), vol. 1, 1-54.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 21
tribe living in the Hi Valley north of the Tarim Basin. In addition to travelling
himself, Zhang also sent his assistants to visit Ferghana, Bactria and Sogdiana
and the oases of central Asia.
These two missions brought China into contact with Hellenistic culture
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, c
Id., 6.
22 Chinese JIL (2002)
Dynasty had been the golden age of China's contacts with foreign
civilizations. Not only was trade with merchants from central Asia through
the Silk Road growing in importance, but the two big currents of civilization
flowing from Persia and India began to spread widely in China. With the
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.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 23
have spread to the provinces, at least to many large cities. A famous discovery
in 1625 in Changan of a bilingual stone tablet in Syriac and Chinese told die
story of the uhen-quite-recent evangelization in China. Nestroianism, however,
scarcely had time to secure Chinese devotees. With the advent of the great
18
Id., 283.
19
Id., 287-289.
20
Id., 373-374.
24 Chinese JIL (2002)
talent, the emperor assigned to Marco Polo the task of governing the big
commercial city of Yangzhou, and later, entrusted him with various different
missions. 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 published
Id., 374-375.
22
The naval force comprised several dozen big "treasure-ships", which displaced more
than 3,000 tons apiece. In the first voyage, Zheng He was accompanied by a staff of
70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers, and 300 military officers, who
commanded 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 Western
civilizations moved in divergent directions. The major currents of the two
civilizations could not meet until one of them had developed sufficient power and
technology, coupled with interest, to reach the other. See, Hsu, above n.4, 6-7.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 25
distances and long periods through which these cultural imports had to travel,
and by the fact that these contacts were conducted via intermediaries rather
than through direct interactions with the centers that produced these imports.
More importantly, until the Western powers' invasion in East Asia in the
For a long time, geographical barriers kept the whole region of East Asia
separate from the West. To Westerners, East Asia was a remote and seemingly
inaccessible land at the end of the earth. Even today, in European parlance,
"the Far East" still remains in common use. However, the Chinese did not
perceive their world the same way the Westerners did. The Far Eastern region
in Chinese eyes became Tianxia, literally, "all under Heaven," of which China
perceived itself to be the very center.27 Thus, China's name, ^hongguo, denoted
a sense of "the central country" or Middle Kingdom which embraced the
whole world known to it. Such traditional Chinese perception of its place in
the world is what Western historians have meant by the term, "Sinocentrism,"
which generally is used to characterize traditional China's relations with other
nations.
Of course, China's self-image as the center of the world is a false idea in
modern geographical terms. Throughout history, however, such idea
accorded closely with the facts of East Asian experience, and seemed to be
reinforced by practical reality. The Chinese world (tianxia) originated in an
agrarian-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 origin
and 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.
26 Chinese JIL (2002)
28
China. This area was insulated from the rest of the world by geographical
barriers, and surrounded by minority tribal groups, Man, Ti, Xiong and Di, the
four quarters. It was this closed world that nurtured the growth of Chinese
civilization, which was at no time in direct contact with any people of an equal
Historians agree that, in the earliest literate period, China was a group of states
living in what is now North China, linked by culture and by language, and
surrounded by barbarian tribes. See Fitzgerald, above n.7, 3-5.
Wang Gungwu, Early Ming Relations with Southeast Asia: A Background Essay, in
Fairbank, 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, Far
Eastern Quarterly (1942), 129.
In the formative age of the Chinese empire, the Chinese civilization moved mainly
southward to the Yangzi River valley, where the way of life was, like that of the
Chinese, sedentary agriculture, but backward. As the nomadic peoples were not rice
cultivators, and the Chinese and southerners were not pastoralists, the southern
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 27
Coupled with the sinocentrism was a vague but pervasive sense of all-
embracing unity of the Chinese tianxia, in which the Chinese emperor claimed
Under the wide heaven, there is no land that is not the Emperor's, and
within the sea-boundaries of the land, there is none who is not a subject
of the Emperor.
peoples could be absorbed, civilized, and made into "Chinese," and gradually
admitted into the circle of the civilized states. The northern nomads, however,
remained beyond this pale. Their steppes yielding no crops, it was profitless to
expand to such a country, and all that could be done was to keep its dangerous
inhabitants from raiding China. Thus, the Great Wall was built up along the ridges
of the northern mountain chain, ranging from the sea coast to the borders of the
central Asia desert. The Great Wall was also regarded as the physical limit of
civilization, 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, above
n.25, 6; and Hsu, above n.4, 6.
35
Book of Poetry (Shi Jing, Xiaoya, Beishan in Chinese) has been literally translated as
Book 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 Bilingual
Series of Chinese Classics (1991), 437 gives the following translation: "Under the
whole heaven, every spot is the sovereign's ground; to the borders of land, every
individual 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 by
common culture and by language. Id., 4.
38
Id, 6.
28 Chinese JIL (2002)
Kingdom was born. Despite the fact the %hou disintegrated into many
adversary vassals in the periods known as the Spring and Autumn (722^476
B.C.) and the Warring States (475-221 B.C.), and despite the fact that each of
them claimed to be independent by centering themselves in their walled
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 be
more 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 of
one people by a foreign race. Statesmen, nobles and warriors could change their
allegiance, travel the land in search of a just prince or a worthy master. This was not
treachery, no sense of betraying the home country deterred men from taking service
under a prince who might become the enemy of the ruler of the wanderer's native
land." Fitzgerald, above n.7, 5.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 29
favored by the Chinese. Soon they found themselves assimilated into the
Chinese world.
With the deeply-ingrained and commonly-shared belief in belonging to a
civilization, ° the ideal of a unified empire was seen as normal and right,
3. Civilization v. Barbarity
the term was to Greeks and Latins. Instead, civilization and barbarity were
conceptually related in that they defined each other.49 "He was barbarian who
did not accept Chinese civilization and who knew not the refinement of
ceremony, music, and culture."50
Mancall, The Ch'ing Tribute System: An Interpretive Essay, in: John King
Fairbank (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 of
life and in their lack of sufficient intellect to appreciate reason and ethics, the
barbarians were considered no different from the lower animals. Nothing expresses
these sentiments so well as the ideographic Chinese characters used to designate the
barbarians. 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.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 31
However, it was generally essential that barbarians should recognize the unique
position of the Son of Heaven. Thus, the relationship which inhered between
barbarians and the emperor was by no means unilateral and indeed could hardly
exist except on a reciprocal basis. Fairbank, above n.33, 130-131.
55
Id., 9.
56
Id.
32 Chinese JIL (2002)
Since earliest times the Chinese world had been structured on a rigid
hierarchical and patriarchal order, which integrated visions of the family and
the state, or of morality and politics, together with nepotism, male chauvinism,
filial piety, seniority, obedience and reverence as the basic governing
principles.09 Within this social order, man dominated woman, father over
child, husband over wife, senior over junior and, in return, benevolence and
care should be expected from the former to the latter. At the apex of this order
was the Son of Heaven,60 "who eventually became in theory omnicompetent,
functioning as military leader, administrator, judge, high priest, philosophical
sage, arbiter of taste, and was more than human. In sum, the state (shejt) as a
whole was conceived of as an extended family, and the importance of filial
piety in the family corresponded to the emphasis on the duty of absolute
loyalty and obedience on the part of subjects to the ruler.
More importandy, this hierarchical social order was heavily colored with
ideological orthodoxy, particularly the conception that the power to rule over
tianxia came from the mandate of a broader, impersonal deity heaven, whose
endowment might be conferred on anyone who was virtuous and worthy of
responsibility. This so-called virtue (de) took the form of a set of established
ritual 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 of
Chinese 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, and
ruler guides subject. Id.
Fairbank, above n. 1, 6.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 33
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 Chinese
Perception of a World Order, in: Tang Tsou (ed.), 2 China in Crisis, 80.
34 Chinese JIL (2002)
who was the embodiment of virtue, and by whose very nature carried out the
rites required for the continuing harmony of the universe in both its natural
and its social aspects. Such hierarchically-structured world order was
therefore characterized by the absence of state-to-state relations on the basis of
Note here that the Son of Heaven carried two personalities. As a tianzi, he was a son
not in a biological but in a holistic sense, whereas as an emperor, he stood at the
apex of organized civilization, and in this personality, he could stray from the path
of true virtue, betraying his role as son of heaven and causing disharmony in the
universe.
id
Fairbank, above n.l, 9.
r9 -
This was particularly reflected in the tributary system, in which the closer the
relationship between China and a tributary state, the larger and more frequent the
tributary mission. For tributary relations, see Part III of this article.
As Fairbank suggests, in general, China's relations with non-Chinese nations (in a
Western sense) developed between two extremes, namely, the extreme military
conquest 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 to
incorporate non-Chinese into the bureaucratic empire, while the latter meant a
refusal to acknowledge their existence.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 35
means to make its unique position prevail. But sometimes, this was not
sufficient. Before the use of firearms, cavalry from the Inner Asian and
northern grassland tribes played a very important role in war and politics
within the Chinese empire. As Fairbank aptly reminds us, it became an
This was manifested in the established assumption that the Chinese had nothing to
gain from the barbarians but those who desired contacts with China were expected
to 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 the
Jin (Chin) Dynasty (1115-1234), another nomadic Jurched tribe, living in today's
Northeast China (Manchuria). As the concept of "nation" or "nationality" in its
modern sense was characteristically absent from the traditional Chinese perception
of world order, the semantic force of the term "alien" or "foreign" should not be
confused with the term's modern sense. "Alien" in traditional Chinese eyes was
synonymous with barbarian. It denoted a cultural and ethnic meaning rather than
territorial implications, as the term is commonly understood today. Thus, Khitans,
Mongols, and Manchus were "aliens" only vis-a-vis the "native Chinese". But the
Chinese view was less concerned than the Western over what was alien because the
Son of Heaven was in any case superior to all rulers and peoples and their status
therefore might easily shift back and forth through various degrees of proximity to
his central authority. It is noteworthy that, today, through the long and gradual
historical process of cultural assimilation, most of the "alien" ethnic minority groups
in the traditional Chinese world have become part of the Chinese vis-a-vis a foreign
state. When referring to this phenomenon, I will use the term "non-Han" to replace
the term "alien" which is commonly used by Western scholars, in order to avoid the
confusion.
36 Chinese JIL (2002)
The drastic changes during this period resulted in the growth and
flourishing of various schools of social and political ideas known as the
"hundred schools of thought," which competed with each other for solving
political and social problems. What made the Confucian school stand out
While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the mind
may be said to be in the state of EQUILIBRIUM. When those feelings
have been stirred, and they act in their due degree, there ensues what
may be called the state of HARMONY. This EQUILIBRIUM is the
great root from which grow all the humans acting in the world, and this
HARMONY is the universal path which they all should pursue. Let the states
of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will
prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished
and flourish.
In the light of Confucian teachings, when this universal path was pursued,
...the world community was equally shared by all. The worthy and able
were chosen as office-holders. Mutual confidence was fostered and good
neighborliness cultivated. Therefore, people did not love their parents
only, nor treat as children only their own children. Provision was made
for the aged till their death, employment for the grownup, and the
means of growing up to the young. Old widows and widowers, orphans,
childless people, as well as the sick and the disabled were all well taken
care of. Men had their proper roles and women their homes. While they
hated to see wealth lying about on the ground, they did not necessarily
keep it for their own use. While they hated not to exert their effort, they
did not necessarily devote it to their own ends. Thus evil schemings
stopped to appear and robbers, thieves and other lawless elements failed
to arise, so that outer doors did not have to be shut. This was what is
called Universal Commonwealth. 8
and of sons who murdered their fathers." See The Chinese-English Bilingual Series
of 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 of
World Order (with minor changes), in: Mark W. Janis (ed.), The Influence of
Religion on the Development of International Law (1991), 32.
38 Chinese JIL (2002)
Noticeably, what Confucius portrayed about world order was not only
the proper norm in human relations but also in relationships between man
and nature. All Confucian teachings may be seen as aimed at achieving these
norms characterized by peace and harmony. The Book of Great Learning, a
Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons
being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being
regulated, their States were righdy governed. Their States being righdy
governed, the whole empire (tianxia) was made tranquil and happy.
If a society follows the order in which subjects serve their ruler, son
serves his father, and wife serves her husband, society will be in peace
and harmony, otherwise, the society will be in chaos. This principle will
perpetuate forever.
The Work of Mencius, Teng Wen Gong, Part 1, in The Chinese-English Bilingual
no
Series of Chinese Classics, above n.35, 358-359.
Zhang Guohua and Rao Xixian, above n.59, 331.
84
Mark Mancall, China at the Center: 300 Years of Foreign Policy (1984), 22-23.
40 Chinese JIL (2002)
Comprehensive legal codes were enacted in both the Qin and Han dynasties.
However, the oldest surviving code today is the Tang code, which was promulgated
in die seventh century A.D. The Tang code also laid down the foundation on which
the later codes of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were developed. See
Zhang and Rao, above n.59.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 41
hearts of the people rather than securing their outward submission through
the use of law. This is because the emphasis on law would lead people to think
only 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 would
In this regard, the emperor had an absolute power to rule and the people
were under an absolute obligation to obey. As discussed earlier, the emperor
was the highest legislative, judicial and executive authority. He made laws,
which were binding on all but not on himself. The only restraints on his
exercise of power were political ethics, rationality, and precedent, none of
which, as shown by history, could always check the caprice of the ruler. Under
such a system of the rule of man, the possibility of popular participation in
government affairs and legislative process was precluded. Since the ruled
could only be the objects of the ruler's whims and could only hope but had no
right to assert that the ruler would be good and benevolent, they felt so
impotent vis-a-vis the law and the governmental authorities that they
developed a phenomenal behavioral syndrome—they either withdraw and
subjugate or defy and rebel. The Chinese people, as noticed by a
commentator, never learned how to treat government officials as ordinary
human beings equal to themselves. "The officials were either benevolent
guardians or high-handed oppressors. They were [either] to be obeyed or [to
be] revolted against but not checked and supervised."
87
Schwartz, id., 32.
Chang Wei-jen, Traditional Chinese Attitudes toward Law and Authority, in: A
Symposium on Chinese and European Concepts of Law (held in Hong Kong, under
the auspices of the Chinese Law Programme, Center for Contemporary Asian
Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, March 20-25, 1986), 31. In traditional
Chinese legal philosophy, there was no lack of elements which emphasized the
ruler's need to have regard for the well-being of the people. Chinese scholars
identify these as the ideas of minben zhuyi (the people-as-the-basis doctrine).
Mencious, Confucius' most important disciple, for example, has been frequendy
quoted to say that, in the order of importance of governance, "The people are of
first importance; the state is the next; the ruler is the least important. In relation to
the emperor's responsibility to Heaven and the interpretation of the Mandate of
Heaven, Confucian classics also maintained that "Heaven sees as the people see,
Heaven hears as die people hear." Even a right of revolution was asserted against
tyrannical rulers in extreme situations. A successful rebellion meant that the original
Mandate of Heaven had been forfeited and a new mandate had been bestowed
upon another virtuous person, usually the leader of the rebellion. Cited in Albert
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 43
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 major
cultural imports to China, namely, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. However,
Chinese scholars generally recognize the first and the last ones. This is because
Islam mainly took root in China's border provinces of the west and spread
throughout China as a pervasive Chinese minority religion and culture. Gilbert
Rozman, above n.58, 24.
91
Fitzgerald, above n.7, 10.
92
Schwartz, above n.75, 279.
44 Chinese JIL (2002)
93
Id., 280.
94
Fitzgerald, above n.7, 11.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 45
95
Note here that trained in the European tradition and soaked in its history both
theological and lay, the missionaries could not realize that the Chinese simply lacked
some of the assumptions of Western culture. The Chinese were unfamiliar with the
ideas of revelation, infidelity, heresy, and "false gods." Id., 29-30.
During the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-95), the missionaries merely continued
to perform useful work in their own accepted roles as technical and scientific
assistance for the Qing court in the time-honored tradition of alien service within the
realm of the Sinocentric world order. In the provinces, however, persecution grew,
and the number of Christians fell dramatically. By the time the pope dissolved the
Jesuit order in 1773, the history of the Catholic attempt to convert China could be
read only as a record of failure.
46 Chinese JIL (2002)
103
grandeur of Chinese civilization. It is therefore not surprising that when
European imperialist expansion reached China in the mid-nineteen century,
its evident superiority in military power "did not impress the Chinese as proof
of cultural equality, but tended to show them in an unfavorable light."101
By the mid-nineteenth century, the triumph of Chinese civilization over the Manchu
was nearly complete, with the abolition of Manchu even as a secondary official
language. Id.
Fitzgerald, above n.7, 26.
Gilbert Rozman, above n.58, 26.
106
Id.
107
Id., 27.
48 Chinese JIL (2002)
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.
LA, Traditional Chinese World Order 49
117
Chinese foreign relations. The last tributary mission was sent by Nepal in
118
1908, 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 to
John King Fairbank, The Early Treaty System in the Chinese World Order, in
Fairbank (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 tribute
system of the Qing Dynasty. See Fairbank, above n.l, 10-11.
50 Chinese JIL (2002)
19;
Fairbank, above n. 1, 11.
Hsu, above n.4; 182.
Hsu, above n.25, 14.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 51
127
their great distance from China. Of the seventeen early Western missions to
China from 1655 to 1795 (six from Russia, four from Portugal, three from
Holland, three from the Papacy, and one from Britain), all but the last, under
Lord Macartney, yielded to the Chinese demand for the kowtow to the Chinese
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 the
Early Ch'ing Period, in: Hsu (ed.), Readings in Modern Chinese History (1971),
113-123.
52 Chinese JIL (2002)
137
ruler. Russian traders were also treated very well under the two treaties.
They were allowed to come to Beijing every three years in groups of two
hundred, 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 with
137
Id.
138
Id., 165.
139
cultural superiority and the Chinese family of nations headed by the Son of
Heaven. It also worked as a reminder of the tributary bearer's inferiority in
power and culture. In return, non-Chinese nations "were given their place in
the all-embracing Chinese political, and therefore ethical, scheme of things."
142
145
they involved certain aboriginal tribes along China's cultural frontiers. This
administrative structure was later modified and refined by the Qing Dynasty
when it set up Li Fan Yuan, or the Barbarian Control Office, as the institution
to specially handle Mongolian, Mohammedan, and Russian affairs while
145
Mancall, above n.84, 16-17.
Id., 17-19. In addition to these two main organs, Huitong Siyi Guan, or Common
Residence for Tributary Envoys, supervised by a senior secretary of the Board of
Rites 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 of
escorting the tributary envoys to the frontiers. See Wang Tieya, International Law
in 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 Bilingual
Series of Chinese Classics, above n.35, 360-361.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 55
through benevolent and virtuous concerns for their welfare. As advised by the
Book of History,
Be kind to the distant, and cultivate the ability of the near. Give honor to
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.
56 Chinese JIL (2002)
capital, lest they make trouble or become too wise, and they were not allowed
to roam about freely in the streets without securing permission from the
proper Chinese authority, who would then specially guard the streets they
were to pass through.
!6
Hsu, above n.4, 182-183. However, it should not be understood that the
presentation of tribute by a specific country was a prerequisite for commercial
exchange between a country and China. Trade might take place along the frontier
without the presentation of tribute. The British East India Company traded at
Canton 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 may
be an over-simplification which runs counter to the whole set of ideas behind die
system, and it also overlooks the interesting possibility, which deserves exploration,
of an imperial economic interest, for instance, in the silk export trade.
Li, Traditional Chinese World Order 57
based on different world outlooks, collided head on. Without the support of
military forces, yet anxious to achieve trade benefits, early Western envoys
usually yielded grudgingly to the Chinese practice. Beginning from the late
eighteenth century, however, the circumstances changed drastically. The
Industrial Revolution had generated vastly increased surplus production