The Tributary System

The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2012

The conception of a Chinese world order is in many ways vested in the tributary system pursued in the Imperial China, particularly during the Ming and the Qing dynasties of thirteenth to early twentieth century AD. The Chinese system of international relations and international order has been usually studied under the shadow of one of its earliest scholarship in the Fairbank school of Sinocentric thought, which is equally convinced about its non-egalitarian, hierarchical precepts as it is about the relative stability it brought in the region prior to the active engagement of the West in the nineteenth century AD. However, a recent surge of reinterpretation of the tribute trade dynamics and the variations in the central Chinese imperial power has resulted in a much larger frame of study of tributary relations and its role and influence in the Chinese world order over the recent centuries and the possible future trajectories with resurgence of China in global trade and the consequent larger roles in the international systems. This paper seeks to present the current debates and inherent contradictions in the Chinese world order in a tributary based system of international relations. In order to do so, it is important to understand the dynamics of the tributary system in its rituals and methods as noted in the Collected Statues of the Qing and a similar document of the Ming dynasty and the interpretations made by various scholars regarding the system.

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2017

In recent years, the Chinese leadership has openly argued that the international community has to exceed the dominance of the Western-based rules in international relations. Since in the last two centuries these rules have become globally accepted, China's claim seems to be a hardly imaginable vision. However, according to some scholars' view, there is a possible historical alternative for the international order, the so-called Chinese Tributary System, which once bounded the East and Southeast Asian states together. The present study examines whether the mainstream schools of the International Relations Theory provide an appropriate tool to understand the characteristics of this system. The study argues that the culturally based "guanxi model" can supply a better explanatory framework to understand the inner logic and the working mechanism of the Tributary System.

As East Asia's traditional international system, the China-centered tribute system has typical ideologies that are essentially based upon Chinese culture, especially the Confucian teachings and principles. The pillar ideologies of this international system consist of three inherent associated ideas-Confucian Ren and Li, Tianxia idea and Chinese-Barbarians order (Huayi Zhixu), with which the system functioned well as an effective mechanism by granting domestic political legitimacy for rulers of both China and its neighboring states (vassals), profiting neighboring states economically and keeping regional stability in security. The function of this system based on Chinese culture to effectively keeping regional stability by peaceful approach rather than by force or coerce has significant implications for contemporary international relations in East Asia.

Academia Letters, 2021

In this paper, I describe the various models of the Chinese tributary system and point out that the basis of tributary relations is to maintain order and stability in the East Asian region. "There is no turmoil greater than the absence of the son of heaven; without the son of heaven, the strong overcame the weak, the many lords over the few, they incessantly use arms to harm each other. From the earliest generations, multiple states were extinguished in all under heaven, but the way of the ruler did not decline: this is because it benefits all under heaven" 1 .-Lishi Chunqiu (composed on the eve of imperial unification of 221BC) The cornerstone of traditional Chinese political culture was the idea of "All under heaven" where the empire should be unified under a single monarch. The concept of "Son of Heaven" where the sage-like emperor acts as the mediator between the people and the heaven (highest deity) is another linchpin to the Chinese political institution. Thus, these concepts which advocated a ruler-centered party for stability shaped the political dynamics during the ages of unity and fragmentations. The conception behind these concepts is to maintain stability and order in the Chinese empire. Throughout its history, China had tried to maintain its stability and order through unification. During the spring and autumn period (770-453BC), China had a multistate system under the aristocratic elites which 'contributed to the establishment of certain common rules of interstate relations, became a surrogate for international law' 2. This collapsed during the warring states period (453-221BC) where war was ubiquitous and alliances were short-lived. The devastations created by this period lead many philosophers of the time to favor the concept "Stability is in Unity".

International relations scholars have recently taken increased interest in empire. However, research has often focused on European colonial empires. This article aims to evaluate imperialism in a non-Western historical setting: Late Imperial China. The article first compares extant international relations (IR) accounts of empire (one broad and one narrow) to theories of the East Asian hierarchical international system. Second, to further specify analysis, I evaluate IR theories of empire against the historical record of the Ming and Qing dynasties, addressing Chinese relations with surrounding ‘tributary’ states, conquered imperial possessions, and other neighboring polities. I argue that while IR theories of empire capture much of the region's historical politics, they nonetheless underspecify it. Theories of East Asian hierarchy suggest additional mechanisms at work. The historical cases suggest extensive variation in how empires expand and consolidate. I conclude that there is room for further theory building about empire in IR and suggest possible areas of emphasis.

China's relations with the Asian world between 1500 and 1900 were shaped by a variety of political, economic, and cultural factors. A common denominator in these international relationships was a loose framework of ideological principles and administrative procedures later dubbed by scholars the "tributary system." This "system," first posited in the early 1940s, has remained the single most influential concept for interpreting the interactions of Ming and Qing China with Asian countries. However, in recent decades it has been critiqued from various perspectives, narrowed in the scope of its application, and modified by a greater focus on the actual course of specific cases rather than ideological principles. That is, historians have increasingly come to understand China's relations with the Asian world as influenced by pragmatic considerations and changing local dynamics, so that each relationship and the factors shaping it are best understood on their own terms. One approach to the study of Ming and Qing relations with the Asian world is to consider it within the framework of three regional groupings. China's interactions with its neighbors in Northeast Asia were shaped by its largely stable relations with Korea and the Ryukyu Kingdom, and its radically fluctuating relations with Japan, sometimes marked by conflict and sometimes by the deliberate avoidance of political contact. Early Ming political relations with maritime Southeast Asia atrophied as the role of European and private Chinese merchant intermediaries increased. Those with continental Southeast Asia (particularly Burma, Siam, and Vietnam), more enduring, were influenced by intense regional rivalries that occasionally impinged on the borderlands of China's southern provinces. In these two regions, the Ming-Qing transition, although particularly resented in Korea where it involved two invasions, did not radically alter existing patterns of international relations. By contrast, the vast territorial expansion of the Qing Empire did greatly change China's foreign relations to the north and west, where it encountered states that had not had relations with the Ming. In these regions the Qing government drew principles and practices from its foreign relations in the south and east, but modified them to fit new conditions. After 1800, and more intensively after 1850, European and later Japanese imperial power began to penetrate Central, South, Southeast, and ultimately East Asia, in each region undermining existing Qing relationships with Asian neighbors. By 1900, virtually all former Qing tributaries were under the direct or indirect control of the British, Russian, French, or Japanese empires.

Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History, Politics & Strategic Studies, 2022

This article attempts to explain why China-Vietnam relations, which were based on tributary ties, broke down when France conquered Vietnam in the 19 th century. As such, it traces the history of China-Vietnam-France relations, particularly on the eve of the French invasion of Vietnam, and explores China's efforts to defend the country. This study is significant because it sheds light on the history of the French conquest of Vietnam while it was under the Chinese tributary system. For almost a century, China claimed to have power as a presidential state over Vietnam. However, the French did not acknowledge China's power. Moreover, one by one, the territories of Vietnam were seized and eventually conquered by France. In this study, qualitative content analysis was applied to primary and secondary sources to evaluate the extent to which the tributary system affected and influenced the international external relations between the three countries of the three countries. The study's findings showed that Vietnam had autonomy in theory but was submissive and willingly under China's protection regarding its foreign affairs. However, the French did not recognize the tributary system as a foreign relationship, and they continued to mobilise colonial efforts in Vietnam in the mid-late 19 th century.

This paper critically examines an ongoing debate in International Relations (IR) as to why there is apparently no non-Western IR theory in Asia and what should be done to 'mitigate' that situation. Its central contention is that simply calling for greater incorporation of ideas from the non-West and contributions by non-Western scholars from local 'vantage points' does not make IR more global or democratic, for that would do little to transform the discipline's Eurocentric epistemological foundations. Re-envisioning IR in Asia is not about discovering or producing as many 'indigenous' national schools of IR as possible, but about reorienting IR itself towards a post-Western era that does not reinforce the hegemony of the West within (and without) the discipline. Otherwise, even if local scholars could succeed in crafting a 'Chinese (or Indian, Japanese, Korean, etc.) School', it would be no more than constructing a 'derivative discourse' of Western modernist social science.