Lifan Yuan Lǐfānyuàn 理藩院

◀ Liaozhai Zhiyi Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667.

The Lifan Yuan (Office to Administer Foreign in 1638 and staffed by Manchu, that is, members of the Barbarians), established in 1638, was the Qing multinational banners the constituted the core military dynasty’s principal organization for supervis- and social groups of early Qing society. It was created ing the tribute system, during which outsid- by renaming an older agency, that of Mongolian affairs, even before the formal accession of the dynasty. Govern- ers brought (but mainly received) gifts to the ing the operations of the office was a special set of rules Chinese court. It persisted in this important and regulations that provided the basis for the operations role until nearly the end of the dynasty when of the Lifan Yuan for almost the entire Qing period and pressures exerted by the outside world, prin- embodied long-term Chinese experience in dealing with cipally contact with Western powers, caused outside peoples. change. The Lifan Yuan later co-existed with the traditional Board of Rites (libu, one of six boards in the Qing government), the board with which tribute bearers, real or alleged, from the West and south were most likely to mperial Chinese foreign policy, whatever the prag- come into contact. As set up, the Lifan Yuan, which held matic reality, was always rooted in a Confucian tribu- nearly ministerial authority and was unique in its power tary system whereby outsiders—“barbarians”—had in the Qing system, had charge of Qing relations with the obligation, in the well-known words of the Chinese the Mongols associated primarily with what is now In- philosopher Mencius, to “come to court and bear trib- ner Mongolia. This was an important function since the ute” and thus recognize the superior virtue of the Chi- Manchu were then closely allied with Mongol princes by nese ruler. This was true even if in reality the gifts usually marriage, had borrowed the alphabet and key elements of returned by the emperor in exchange for the tribute ex- their culture from the Mongols, and were heavily reliant ceeded its value by a substantial margin. on Mongol riders to back up their military striking power. Various agencies supervised such actions throughout Mongolia, as well as Manchuria, also bordered on Russia, imperial history and often intervened in the countries and almost immediately the Lifan Yuan had dealings with from which tribute came to express the superior power that Western and at the same time Inner Asian power. and position of China and to ensure the continued main- Russia became the first country with which China signed tenance of the tribute system and thus the traditional a treaty as an equal (Treaty of Kiakhta, 1727), but the fic- order itself. The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was no excep- tion of tribute participation continued to be asserted. tion. Among the agencies supervising the tribute system Later the authority of the Lifan Yuan, along with Qing and trade and the countries involved was the Lifan Yuan power itself, was extended more generally westward to (Office to Administer Foreign Barbarians), established take charge of virtually all relationships with the peoples 1328

of Inner Asia. Here the driving force was Qing conquest of dynasty (960–1279), for example, deals extensively with the Mongols and the gaining of a paramount influence in the overseas trade upon which the Southern Song dy- Tibet and in Xinjiang, an area that in the later nineteenth nasty (1127–1279) was dependent. A significant part of the century became a Chinese province to counter Russian agency’s activities was providing special quarters for visit- ambitions (and is now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous ing envoys and their assistants, staging official banquets Region). Key events were the various Qing campaigns and other entertainments, and collecting and codifying against the Dzungars and their eventual defeat, the grad- law codes connected with tribute relationships and the ual absorption of all of Mongolia (by the mid-eighteenth countries involved, particularly Mongolia, and even some century), and the imposition of a Qing protectorate in specially administered Buddhist temples. Buddhism was Tibet to replace that of the Dzungars. then the common religion of the Manchu themselves, Although the central Asian trade of the old Silk Roads their Mongol allies, and Tibet, the central authority for was no longer what it once was with the new maritime the Tibetan Buddhism involved, thus the eagerness of the age, and although the central Asian states were no longer Manchu to control it. The Lifan Yuan also had control of a that menacing to China with the coming of gunpowder system of subordinate agencies and of individually ranked empires, a substantial flow of goods still existed. This religious and secular princes. flow was worth administering, and trade could be ma- Although it remained a part of Qing government or- nipulated to bring the peoples and states involved under ganization almost until the end, the Lifan Yuan declined greater Chinese influence, thus the importance of the Li- considerably in importance as the role of Inner Asia in fan Yuan. This was particularly true for Mongolia, where Qing life decreased. By the nineteenth century relations the Qing pursued an active policy of economic divide and with Western powers were of far more significance, lead- conquer, rewarding some with luxury goods and food, ing to an increasing reorganization of Qing government blockading others. to try to respond better to the modern world; this modern Although primarily an administrative organization, world included Russian pressure in Turkistan, where the the Lifan Yuan carried on a considerable research on Russians attempted to seize some Qing domains taking the peoples and cultures with which it was involved and advantage of the large-scale rebellion there. In 1861 the provided language experts to the Qing government. The Lifan Yuan became China’s first real foreign ministry, the latter was an old tradition, and many foreign texts sur- Zongli Yamen, an event marking the real end of tradi- vive from antiquity in editions produced to train transla- tional tribute relationships as the West kicked the door tors involved in the tribute trade, including what is now open. known as the Secret History of the Mongols, the Chinese Paul D. BUELL version being originally intended to train Ming transla- tors in using Mongolian documents. Among reference works produced by the Qing Lifan Yuan, or in whose pro- Further Reading duction the Qing agency cooperated, were encyclopedias, Fairbank, J. K. (Ed.). (1968). The Chinese world order. Cam- often well illustrated, sometimes withhand- drawn color bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pictures, of strange customs and of the strange peoples Perdue, P. C. (2005). China marches west: The Qing con- offering tribute. Here, too, the officers of the Qing agency quest of central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap followed old precedents. One such book from the Song Press of Harvard University Press.

LIN Biao ▶

Lifan Yuan Lǐfānyuàn ​理藩院

Lifan Yuan Lǐfānyuàn 理藩院