China's recent rise has made many uncomfortable with its direction as a world power. The experience called China and its thinking are so very different to that in the West that misunderstanding is so easy, leading to unnecessary fear and unwarranted optimism. If Russia is a riddle in an enigma, China is even more mysterious, with little contact with Western history until lately, different religion & philosophy and even different basis for its language.
While I am not a scholar or an expert in the field, I find most analysis of China's foreign policy ignores the history and culture of this great nation and so I will attempt to explain how China's foreign policy is rooted in its history and its culture. The timeline of the Chinese dynasties here may help put things into historical perspective. Also, by culture, I do not mean the arts, although that is an element, but I mean the way people think and behave in the social sphere.
The article got much longer than I expected and is now part of a five-part series. In the process I all realised that what I really want to do is to share insights into Chinese culture, philosophy and practices, which shaped and are shaped by its history. Many non-Chinese observers view China as a mirror of their own experience but while there is much that the Chinese culture shares with the rest of the world, being part of the human world after all, there is also much that can be very alien to it. And of course, a great deal lies in the middle - same drives expressed in different conditions. So, I hope I can help the Western mind understand China using an examination of its foreign policy as a convenient vehicle. You will need to keep this intention in mind as this series is not intended to be a complete thesis of all the topics it touches on.
This is the second article in the series, the first article is here.
Chinese hegemony or Western colonialism It is sometimes said that China is morally superior to the West because China has never colonised other countries. China historically had a form of power relationship with its neighbours that is different from Western colonialism which is also destructive in its own way. I am not sure which is worse: Chinese hegemony or Western colonialism.
Chinese xenophobia meant they never colonised other countries outside of its current borders (I guess, we may have to add: other than Taiwan island, formally colonised only in 17the century - yes, as late as that) because they never deemed that other countries can supply them with anything they need. China was happily self-sufficient, thank you. Chinese colonialism of non-Han Chinese lands within its borders were particularly aggressive when resisted (as in Tibet and Xinjiang) or was just overwhelming when not (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi Zhuang).
Chinese treasure voyages
The seven voyages of Zheng He in the early 15th century were initiated by Yongle, a singularly unusually cosmopolitan Ming emperor. Ostensibly for purposes to facilitate international trade, there is the underlying impetus to reassert and extend Chinese suzerainty to kings they didn't or hardly knew. Imagine the impact it had when some 27,000 men in 250 ships turn up at your window one morning, the largest of which carried 500 men armed with dozens of cannons and said to have the capacity for 2500 tons of treasure. The initial trepidation soon gave way to relief with the realisation that the fleet was not there for territorial control but rather, to safeguard the economic seaborne space. Most local kings were quick to see the usefulness of a peace enforced by an obviously powerful but distant emperor, but the few who resisted were quickly dispatched. The resulting Pax Sinica did help stimulate the economy throughout Asia and helped integrate China's commerce into the global trading system, which hitherto was rather patchwork and low-key, with merchants then occupying a lower social strata than today.
It also protected the rise of regional trade powers like the Malaccan empire, at which centre the voyages left a Chinese community that exist to this day. Pax Sinica opened the region to Arab traders, encouraging the spread of Islam in South East Asia (yes, strangely Zhenghe is that rare Chinese Muslim, and by the way, also a eunuch) and eventually led to the fall of the Majapahit empire by rising Muslim states, after Majapahit power was curtailed by the voyages. The legacy of the voyages also interestingly left, among other things, Chinese fishing technology in India. And the legacy of the man Zhenghe: he was deified, literally and is today worshiped as Sam Po Kong by the Chinese diaspora in South East Asian temples. Yes, think of it - a castrated Muslim worshipped by Chinese in Buddhist temples - it's a strange world isn't it. The voyages were very much an aberration as they took place during a lull in recurring sea bans common in the Ming period. After the death of Yongle, enthusiasm for the voyages gradually declined due to its high cost and the inevitable conflict with Confucianists ideals as understood by court mandarins (the uncastrated ones), before finally ending in the morass of Chinese court politics. China then reverted to its official isolationism, ostensibly to focus the nation's efforts to deal with the landward threat of Mongol incursions but unofficially also in part to stem the tide of Chinese immigration engendered by growing trade that the voyages stimulated. It must be said that, in line with the ineffectiveness of similar bans throughout Chinese history, the Ming (and later Qing) bans also leaked. Coinciding in particular with China's need for outside goods: silver in exchange for Chinese valuables such as silk, porcelain and the like - tea and opium much later when the British finally got involved.
Tribute system
The tianxia system was enforced by the tribute system, in which foreign kings were required to send tributes to acknowledge the overlordship of the Chinese emperor. This was invariably demanded from every other king they come across, who were required to send emissaries to the imperial court to report the state of their kingdoms, bringing objects to please the emperor, and to acknowledge the superiority of the Chinese culture. The acknowledgement took the form of ritual obeisance to the emperor as prescribed by Confucianist practice involving prostrations and kow-tows, for which the visitors will be issued with letters granting them status as tributary states.
Those of independent Vietnam after liberation from Chinese rule in 938 were typical of the nature of gifts tributary states were required to bring. From interesting animals, particularly single horned ones (which reminded the Chinese of a mythical unicorn in their folklore) in the early years to highly structured sexennial missions from Vietnam, bringing objects made of gold & precious metals/stones, quantities of gold/silver ingots, and caravans of spices, precious commodities & other local produce. African kings sent giraffes, with famously created wonderment in the Chinese capital at the qili of Chinese mythology. The sultan of Malacca sent a golden tree, among other things. In return, Chinese gifts were lavished on visitors multiple times the value of what they gave to the emperor, and all these Chinese gifts were intended to impress visitors with the superiority of Chinese civilisation. While China did obtain much goods from tribute, they were very much tiny in relation to the Chinese economy - though proportionately much larger for the smaller tributary economies. And the trading rights that were granted never brought much goods critical to the Chinese economy. Thus, the tribute systems did not bring all that much material benefit to the China. If anything the very one sided exchange of gifts loses China materially than it gained. What China gained from the tribute system was non-material: the affirmation of its ethnocentric view of the world with the emperor as the patriarch of the family of nations. The arrival of the foreign kings and emissaries were seen by the Chinese as barbarians irresistibly drawn to the centre of civilisation to be transformed to the Chinese culture or lai hua in Chinese thought.
The exchange was similarly unprofitable for the tributary states. Even if the value of the gifts exchanged favoured the visitors, one has to remember that the gifts from the tributary states are paid for by the resources of their respective nations, whereas the gifts they received in return are personal to the tributary king. It is not like you can pawn off for national coffers that matching glittering gold embroidered full set of suit that the Malaccan prince and his wife got for their visit. So, the exchange was profitable for the ruler but not the ruled, who paid with their taxes.
Tributary states also did not always gain the protection they expected (unless the aggression happened when the Zhenghe armada happened to be at your doorstep) as China has its[ non-interventionist policy that they practice until today. Ming emperors repeatedly did not intervene in disputes involving tributary states other than the occasional letter of admonishment sent to the offending enemy. It was not Western-style gunboat diplomacy that brought tributary emissaries to the Chinese capital with gifts though. It was the size of the Chinese economy and the promise of riches from the trading rights that tributary status confers. But just as Victorian entrepreneurs expecting to "add an inch to every Chinaman's shirttails" found out, China's largely chimeric trade promises rarely pans out for foreigners, except for Spanish silver traders and British opium smugglers.
While the proximity of Siam (modern day Thailand) and Annam (in modern day Vietnam) meant that any expansionist ambitions were effectively curtailed, the fledgling Malaccan trading port was well protected from incursions from Siam, Annam and non-tributary Majapahit, as was the Bruneian sultanate. To this day, Malaysian Malays have a positive narrative of its relationship with China, without which Malacca may not have survived. The positive way in which the tributes and emissary to China was described contrasted greatly in Malaysian history books with the negative descriptions of European colonialism. So, response to the Chinese tributary system ranged from guarded resentment to grateful enthusiasm.
On the spectrum of colonial control expressed in modern terms, the Chinese tributary system lies somewhere beyond the European protectorate systemic Asia: this is where sovereignty of the local polity is recognised with autonomy recognised in all local affairs so long as they do not conflict with European values while foreign policy and defence are under the exclusive responsibility of the colonial power. On the other hand, it is rather more than the American network of military alliances minus the bases, with the balance of power so tilted decidedly one way to the point that wars between fellow tributary states often require express permission from the imperial court: the Annamese attack on Malacca was forestalled by an letter from the emperor advising the Malaccans to resist any Annamese attack, implying the attack had no imperial sanction.
The tribute system has been the Chinese way of acknowledging overlordship for four thousand years since the time of the semi-mythical Xia dynasty, the immediate predecessor of the Shang dynasty. It is probably the device by which early dynasties exert authority over distant vassal states, who retained considerable autonomy to manage their own culture, language and social life, not just politically and economically. So, really, the tianxia system does not distinguish between domestic and foreign relationships as it is all part of the same universe revolving around the Chinese emperor as the centre of civilisation, just that foreign nations are just that further away from civilisation. Tianxia focussed more on cultural affinity with the Chinese culture in distant lands rather than the political control by the emperor.
Tianxia or colonialism The question of which is worse boils down to this: Would you prefer your country to be ignored by the world power because you have nothing of value to be exploited? But you still have to send periodic emissaries of gold and goods paid for out of the resources of your country. Your country gets little of value for its pains other than the intangible benefits from adopting the culture of the superpower nation.
Or would you prefer to have your natural resources exploited by a colonial power recognising the wealth you have and building a local transportation and education system need to help them in the exploitation, from which your people may benefit in a trickle down way. And the legacy of democracy and rule of law from pretending to be an Englishman.
Turmoil and pain as sacrifice for some progress and development OR independence and non-intervention paid for in barbarian status and marginalisation. Which is worse for those of us in China's cultural and economic orbit? I am really not sure. The next article in this series is here.
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