The Chinese Perception of World Order

Abstract

Chinese theory and practice of relations with non-Chinese states, referred to by Western scholars for convenience as tribute system, has a very long history originating in the Han dynasty but with antecedents going back another millennium. China only abandoned the tribute system reluctantly towards the end of the nineteenth century. Thus in the twentieth century the Chinese have had to adjust themselves to an international order of sovereign nation-states (as developed in the West) which is the antithesis of China's long and successful system based on entirely different concepts. In Chinese World Order± a number of scholars have examined various aspects of this subject in essays which significantly enlarge our understanding of traditional Chinese attitudes and practices towards non-Chinese states. Contributions by John Fairbank, Lien-sheng Yang, Wang Gungwu, and Mark Mancall analyse the broad aspects of the Chinese world order in its historical development, while subsequent essays examine specific case studies concerning aspects of China's relations with Korea, the Liu-Ch'iu islands, Annam (Vietnam), Inner Asia, Mongolia, and the Dutch, mainly during the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911). last two essays, Fairbanks The Early Treaty System in the Chinese World Order and Benjamin Schwartz' The Chinese Perception of World Order, Past and Present, bring the discussion into the twentieth century. At the risk of oversimplification it may be worth attempting to identify some of the main aspects of the Chinese system and to show its ability to adjust to changing circumstances. underlying theory of this system had its origin in the earliest historical dynasties when a priest-king ruled over what the Chinese then considered as the civilized world. From their Middle Kingdom the early Chinese spread outwards, gradually absorbing the less civilized surrounding peoples and Sinicizing them. As a result of this early experience the Chinese came to have a strong sense of the superiority of Chinese culture combined with a strong belief in the unity of their world. This was reinforced by the Chinese attitude towards their ruler. At the apex of Chinese society stood the emperor who, in his role as the Son of Heaven, was more than mortal because of his function, inherited from earliest times, of maintaining harmony between human society and the cosmic order. After China became unified under the stable and expanding power of the early Han dynasty the Confucian scholars established the outlines of an imperial bureaucracy and began to refine and extend the tenets of Confucian thought. As the Chinese had more contact with non-Chinese people they tended to consider these relations as expressing externally same principles of social and