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Reconceptualizing World Order After the Tribute System

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Reconceptualizing World Order After the Tribute System Chapter 2 Reconceptualizing World Order after the Tribute System The history of Chinese foreign relations has long argued that before the arrival of European imperialism in the mid-nineteenth century introduced the idea of national sovereignty the regional order in East Asia has been hierarchical and ecumenical. The sociopolitical function of the tianxia, or all-under-heaven, was to provide an exclusive order (immortalia et semper manentia, to put it into the words of Augustinus)1 by creating sense and positioning the human into an either unknown or rapidly changing cosmos. In both cases, order offers orientation.2 Tianxia allowed—and longed for—the integration of the areas beyond the civilized world. Thus, in principle, China is seen during the imperial age as an empire without borders, or, to put it into Chinese political language, tianxia, i.e. the “all-under-heaven.”3 It is conceived as a suprapolitical entity that is significantly bigger than the single state and claims a universality that is only rarely questioned. At the same time, though being a distinct Han-Chinese vision of how the world is structured it was readily taken over by non-Han eth- nicities that conquered the empire, such as the Jurchen, Mongolians and last 1 De vera religione, here taken from Eric Voegelin, Ordnung und Geschichte, vol. 1 (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2002), 221. 2 From a plain Eurocentric perspective, the notion of a Chinese ecumene is actually mislead- ing: in a literal sense, there can be only one ecumene, and not a plurality thereof. However, if understood in a cosmological sense, a variety of ecumenes can coexist, each providing sense and order to a given historical community. Hence, cosmological cultures are characterized by the notion of tolerance (i.e., the exchangeability of symbolizations). There is neither ortho- doxy (i.e., orthopraxy) nor heresy. The cosmological myth was part of each ancient civiliza- tion, ranging from ancient Greece over Mesopotamia to ancient China. Only, the arrival of Jewish monotheism and Greek philosophy caused the conceptions of world order to experi- ence profound changes (Voegelin, Ordnung und Geschichte, vol. 9, 139–140). 3 For various terminological discussions on the term tianxia, cf. Yuri Pines, “Changing Views of tianxia in Pre-imperial Discourse,” Oriens Extremus, no. 43 (2002): 101–16; Peter Weber- Schäfer, Oikumene und Imperium: Studien zur Ziviltheologie des chinesischen Kaiserreiches (München: Paul List Verlag, 1968); Mizoguchi, Chūgoku shisōshi 中国思想史; and the RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�7�53_004 Reconceptualizing World Order After The Tribute System 33 but not least the Manchu.4 A short conceptual history of tianxia will show how the idea of a borderless polity was able to survive despite these conquests and military conflicts, and will clarify what consequences the (assumed) longevity of tianxia had for the spatial-territorial imagination of China. I argue here that the ecumenical claim of Confucianism entailed an obvious effort to integrate those areas beyond the civilized world that were inhabited by outer barbarians (waiyi 外夷), i.e. those who were still without the blessings of Chinese civilization. Those in the east were called Dongyi 東夷, those in the west Xirong 西戎, those in the south Nanman 南蠻, and those in the north Beidi 北狄, all being within the range of Chinese influence. Those people out- side this range (huawai zhi di 化外之地) lived in areas so far away from the civi- lizational center that its culture was unable to transform (hua 化) them into civilized (or human) beings. The inability to do so was considered to be merely temporary, and not absolute. Thus in principle, no social, ethnic or cultural group was to be excluded, but rather integrated into the cosmological order by the very fact that the political rulers of areas beyond the direct control of the emperor derived their power from the center (as in the case of the tributary states, for instance). The idea of tianxia being a suprapolitical entity is already mentioned in the oldest scriptures, such as the Zuozhuan, the earliest Chinese work of history (covering the period from 722 bc to 468 ad). Since then, it has often been used in political reasoning, as exemplified in the Analects (Lunyu 論語) of Confucius, or Kongzi 孔子 (551–479 bc), where it reads in chapter 16/2: 孔子曰天下有道則禮樂征伐自天子出天下無道則禮樂征伐自諸侯出自 諸侯出蓋十世希不失矣自大夫出五世希不失矣陪臣執國命三世希不失 矣天下有道則政不在大夫天下有道則庶人不議。 Confucius said: When good government prevails in the empire, ceremo- nies, music and punitive military expeditions proceed from the son of 4 See Herbert Franke and Rolf Trauzettel, Das Chinesische Kaiserreich (Frankfurt: Fischer Bücherei, 1968), 207–10. The crisis of the Song dynasty in the early twelfth century did not destroy the ideal of tianxia, because the invading Jurchen forces did not question the worldview itself, and because the Song were very well able to adapt to the changing situ- ation. For more on this issue, see Rolf Trauzettel, “Sung Patriotism as a First Step toward Chinese Nationalism,” in Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China, ed. John Winthrop Haeger (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1975), 199–214; Matten, Die Grenzen des Chinesischen; and Christopher P. Atwood, “ ‘Worshiping Grace’: The Language of Loyalty in Qing Mongolia,” Late Imperial China 21, no. 2 (2000): 86–139..
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