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Unit Eight: Towards a Global Order, Part I: The Middle Kingdom 8.1 Linguistic Ethnonationalism

We look now at the growth of China as the major player in Asian history and consider more carefully aspects of how China related to other groups in the area. We will investigate two central questions: How did China emerge from political turmoil to establish connections in and through the rest of Asia? And How did its influence extend beyond its borders?

One answer to these questions is found in how the Chinese in the first centuries of the common era began to promote the importance of importance of cultural cohesion, and sense of shared identity fostered by a common set of beliefs about the way the world works, how political legitimacy is created and maintained, and how the social, political, and cultural reflected one another. China developed over time what scholars call a form of “linguistic ethnonationalism,” by which they mean a coherent culture, with a shared language, and sense of identity that allows them to distinguish self and other. This cohesion -- which mapped onto a type of ethnic identity - - was reinforced or fostered through the creation of common language that was promoted through the court and bureaucracy.

This shared identity, practically speaking, meant that Chinese rulers sought the creation of a powerful set of ideas about identity and shared history. This developed in China in part through ideas about the legitimacy of political rulers. Emperors were thought to be the Son of Heaven, and their rule was legitimated or reinforced by the suggestion that they ruled not because of who they were or what they had done, but through the Mandate of Heaven. In other words, they ruled because their rule was an expression of the natural order of things. This natural order was then translated through Confucianism into ideas about social hierarchy and behavior. Just as people have roles to play in a family that are based on gender, age, and status, so too could political power be arranged in a similar fashion; each could be justified by appeals to nature. These attitudes were reflected in other forms such as ethnic identity, and the clear distinction between the Chinese and foreign elements whom the Chinese considered to be “barbarians,” little better than animals.

That said, Chinese history is also a history of assimilation and integration, as well as expansion and isolation. Managing these distinct processes and seeing how they developed historically is a goal of this unit. By the time of the collapse of the Han Dynasty around 220 CE, and proceeding for the next thousand years, we see a complex dance of forces shaping both Chinese history and how Chinese actions shaped the contours of the Eurasian world.

To investigate these processes, consider the foundations of power in the Han dynasty: the administrative apparatus, a central structure that steered clear of local power elites at first but later centralized as much as possible; a bureaucracy that could oversee taxation, military service, civic registration. This apparatus could be used to bring regions under central control and it also could be used in a tool to quell rebellions both internal and external. In short, aside from linguistic ethnonationalism, the Han also bequeathed their successors a set of tools that could be used to competent administration. These tools not only helped successive Chinese dynasties like the Song and the Tang to rule the empire, they also helped them bring bordering peoples into the Chinese orbit. 8.2 Chinese Reunification

For four hundred years (206 B.C.E – 220 C.E.), the Han Dynasty maintained the stability and influence of China. When that dynasty faltered, China experienced 350 years of fractured

government. In the north, a non-Chinese dynasty was established; in the south, a series of rulers rose and fell, even as the cultural achievements in this part of China continued to progress in such arts as poetry and calligraphy. This period from 220-589 C.E. came to be known as China’s Age of Division. Finally, in the 580s, the Sui Dynasty once again reunited China into one society. The Emperor Yang Jian was ethnically Chinese; through marriage, he established familial ties with the non-Chinese population that had established rule in North China over the preceding centuries. Through effective political maneuvering and military strategy, Yang Jian extended his rule from the north to the south of China. Upon establishing his dynastic authority, he mobilized the population to build the Grand Canal, a waterway connecting the Yellow River to the Yangtze River. This massive engineering project was hugely significant in reinforcing government power because it enabled valuable commercial crops grown in the Yangtze region to be transported to the Yellow River region from which government and military power emanated. The Sui emperors also marshaled significant resources that were used to repair the Great Wall of China, which had been constructed in the 3rd century B.C.E. by the Qin dynasty but had fallen into disrepair.

The process of unifying China gathered further momentum under the Tang dynasty, established in 618 as the Chinese population rose against the perceived tyranny of the Sui rulers. The Tang dynasty was successful in continuing to expand central government power over locally influential large landholders. Under Tang rule, peasants paid their taxes directly to the state; peasants were also recruited into military service by the state. These measures went hand in hand with a rapidly expanding government bureaucracy that resurrected and expanded preexisting educational systems used to train and to test for employment future government officials.

The reach of the Chinese government expanded to influence every facet of life in China. The government regulated trade and used tax revenues to finance government projects. The Sui dynasty expansion of the transportation networks continued apace under Tang rule with the construction of new roads and canals. Regular censuses were conducted by government officials in order to calculate accurate population counts and surveys of taxable land. Organizing government officials into a variety of agencies, the Tang rulers oversaw a government that surpassed in complexity and effectiveness any governments that would take shape in Europe for a thousand years to come. The city of Xi’an, already sizeable during the Han dynasty, became, during the Tang dynasty, the largest city in the world with some 2 million residents. Organized into rectangular grids, each of which was surrounded by walls and closed to traffic at night, Xi’an was just one of many populous and thriving cities in China.

As politicians at court jockeyed for influence within the government, Chinese poets wrestled with existential and philosophical questions. It was during this period that Buddhism came to influence Chinese thinkers and attracted significant following among the broader population. Buddhist monasteries hosted festivals and educated children as well as serving practical economic functions providing lodging for traveling merchants and serving some banking functions as well. As Buddhism was integrated into Chinese culture, distinctly Chinese variations of Buddhist thought emerged. Although Buddhism was tolerated by early Tang rulers, by the 9th century C.E., the Chinese government instituted policies that sought to diminish Buddhist influence. In 845, government officials ordered the destruction of Buddhist temples and monasteries and denied hundreds of thousands of monks further recognition as religious figures. The late Tang rulers were troubled by Buddhism’s non-Chinese origins; this policy of religious repression was part of a large xenophobia (fear of outsiders) surfacing in Chinese government

policy. China’s second “Golden Age” was drawing to a close with the outbreak of civil war in 906 and the collapse of Tang rule in 907.

Despite the faltering of Tang leadership, centralized Chinese institutions of government proved to be resilient. In 960, the Song dynasty rose to power by reinstating many of the practices of their Tang predecessors. Although stretches of northern China remained outside the reach of Song authority, the rest of China once again operated under central authority, justified by the principles set forth by a resurgent Confucian tradition. 8.3 The Nature of Chinese Tributary Relations

The resurgence of Chinese power required new methods of navigating and policing cross cultural relationships and power structures. One of the ways this was accomplished by the Chinese in this period was through a series of highly formalized rituals that served to highlight the differences between the Chinese and those groups seeking access to the Middle Kingdom. One way to understand this process is to consider it through the lens of civilization. The Chinese, based on the idea that the emperor had a mandate from Heaven and that the Chinese empire was in the middle of the world – thus the “middle kingdom” – was literally and symbolically central to all other groups. Civilization, which the Chinese embodied, could then be contrasted with the barbarians living on the periphery. Nomads like the Xiognu were considered to be especially rustic since they lacked houses, cities, and the finery of courtly life. The Chinese assumed that their system was autonomous – requiring no commodities or other influences from the outside. barbarians, however, required access to the trappings of Chinese civilization to be considered at all superior to beasts. The problem facing the Chinese was one of determining how to manage relations between the middle kingdom and the barbarians. The answer was to craft a tribute system. Anyone outside the Middle Kingdom was required to acknowledge their base status, the refined nature of the Chinese, and ultimately Chinese superiority. To gain access to China it was required that foreigners perform a series of elaborate and humiliating rituals at court that symbolically but also realistically represented the differences in status – not just of commoner and lord but of Chinese and barbarian. Visitors were also required to present to the Chinese a set of valuable gifts, brought with them on the voyage to Beijing. All visitors – whether nomads, visitors from other pan-Pacific regions like Korea and Japan, or, after the 15th century, Europeans, were required to fulfil these obligations. The tribute system and the elaborate rituals of the court, in other words, were meant to shape interactions between the Chinese and foreign elements in ways that continuously reproduced the elevated status of Chinese civilization. 8.4 Tributary Relations with the Xiongnu

Relationships between the Chinese and the nomadic tribes to North -- the Xiongnu, in particular -- were never easy ones. The Xiongnu way of life was really at odds with what was more typical of the Chinese. They were nomads or semi-nomads. They might participate in seasonal agriculture, but never really put down stakes in a particular region for very long. They herded livestock, but also developed a highly mobile, horse-based mode of transportation. Their social units were oriented around kin groups and their political allegiances were driven by affinal ties. There was no state bureaucracy, unlike in China, that oversaw military conscription, taxation, or trade. That said, the Xiongnu also sought Chinese goods -- especially wine, silk, and iron.

But the Chinese also sought commodities controlled by the Xiongnu, who oversaw important sections of the Silk Road. This dynamic that existed between the Xiongnu and the Chinese -- trading partners who nonetheless often sparred militarily -- was compounded by some of the elements we have already considered: the ideological divisions that existed in the minds of Chinese rulers that considered the Xiongnu barbarians in contrast to the civilized interactions of the Chinese court. This was the situation that existed when the tribute system was applied to Chinese-Xiongnu relations. Importantly, despite characterizing the Xiongnu as savages, the Chinese were unable to assert control over them militarily, leading to the establishment of a tribute system, in which the Chinese regularly supplied the Xiongnu with a range of “gifts” including grain, wine, silk, and even elite Chinese women as marriage partners. We see, in other words, that the Xiongnu were in a position to demand tribute from the Chinese, provided in exchange for Xiongnu promises to halt military incursions into China. Other nomadic or peripheral groups arranged similar deals with the Chinese. The Uighur, for instance, demanded -- and received -- elite Chinese women as marriage partners as well as 500,000 rolls of silk each year. In short, not every relationship between the Chinese and external peoples were favorable to the Chinese. 8.5 Tributary Relations with Korea The Xiongnu in some ways entered into the tributary relationship with China in a superior position. Although the Chinese could present their relationship with Xiongnu horsemen in favorable terms -- as if they were simply being magnanimous by giving the Xiongnu such generous conditions -- in reality the relationship between the two groups was less than equitable. We turn now to a different case study -- the tributary relationship between China and Korea -- as a way to analyze the diverse ways that tribute worked in East Asia. Korea and China experienced cultural exchanges and influences across the frontier even during the time of the Han dynasty. The Korean peninsula had three kingdoms (Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje) competing with one another before the 7th c CE. In 668, one of these political entities -- Silla -- unified the peninsula. Following this unification under the Kingdom of Silla, Korea saw the creation of a government modelled on Tang dynasty China. Tribute missions were established between Silla and the Tang, and these led to close connections between the two groups. However, this relationship ultimately discredited Silla in the eyes of many Korean elites, and a rebellion broke out in the 10th c CE, led by Wang Kon, who initiated the Koryo dynasty.

One of the issues propelling Korean history before 1000 was the search for local autonomy. This, however, was difficult given the power and influence of China in the region, and the political realities meant that Korean leaders attempted to forge temporary strategic alliances with China in order to undermine rival states. After unification under Silla, we see Korean leaders using the backing of the Tang to generate political unity in the Korean peninsula. In other words, Koreans used Tang influence to generate political stability, but this came at a cost. Indeed, there were Chinese attempts to convert these kingdoms into puppet regimes dependent on Chinese military force. When these attempts failed, the Chinese imposed a tribute system in Korea beginning in in the 7th c CE. This model of interaction allowed for nominal Korean independence, but it also meant that Korean leaders needed to tread carefully. With unification of the peninsula in 688 under the Silla, we see a strategy on the part of the Koreans to use tribute missions to foster political legitimacy. These missions were also important opportunities for cultural exchange and social connection between the two polities. Scholarly exchanges, trade, religious missions, and other types of cultural exchange between the

two groups characterized this period. The Chinese succeeded in extending their influence and cultural attitudes among the Silla elites, and there were important changes in the nature of Korean society as a result. For example, we see changes in Korean marriage patterns. Koreans were forced to identify primary and secondary wives, which had practical ramifications not only in terms of marriage and kinship relations but also in terms of inheritance patterns as well. But Koreans also maintained political independence and cultural autonomy after 688 and the creation of the tribute system. Korean cultural autonomy was retained in part because Chinese influence was really limited to elites and to aristocracy -- it just didn’t trickle down the social ladder to have influence over the lives of many normal people. Korean autonomy was also produced through language and the preservation of Korean both as a spoken language and as a written one -- the phonetic alphabet gives an indication of this. It is also vitally important to recognize that Korean economic forms were also retained, and scholars note that Korean economic dependence on slavery -- ⅓ of the population was unfree -- also limited the impact of Chinese cultural, economic, and social norms in the Korean peninsula. In short, relations between China and Korea before 1000 CE reveal around a complex set of power relations. The Chinese certainly extended their influence throughout the Korean peninsula, but they could not achieve their aims militarily. Instead, tributary exchanges between Silla and the Tang meant that Chinese cultural, legal, and social influence was extended but not at the cost of Korean autonomy. 8.6 Tributary Relations with Vietnam In its relationship with China, Korea retained a type of political and cultural autonomy, and it never experienced sustained military occupation. Vietnam had a different experience. Vietnam was occupied by the Chinese for a long period of time -- 111 BCE - 939 CE -- more than 1,000 years.

During this period, the Chinese forced changes to the Vietnamese economy, and these transformations were especially important when looking at the question of food production. The Chinese demanded high tribute taxes, and they were focused on translating Vietnamese methods of rice cultivation (as well as Vietnamese strains of rice) to a Chinese context. Vietnamese social elites adopted aspects of Chinese Confucianism and were absorbed into the government bureaucracy. We also see Chinese control over other aspects of commercial life. Commerce conducted in Chinese, for instance, rather than in Vietnamese. Vietnamese elites borrowed from Chinese culture, adopting various religious and philosophical ideas, incorporating Chinese administrative methods into government, and so on. In this regard, Vietnam was similar to Korea in that it was “a vassal state” in the tribute system, although its political independence was less than that of Korea’s. In other words, the Chinese, beginning with the Han and continuing into the Song and Tang dynasties, treated Vietnam like a vassal state. Vietnam was occupied militarily; its elites adopted Chinese cultural norms; its commerce was conducted in Chinese, and its trade controlled by them. Large tributary payments were routinely extracted. This long period of occupation and the tributary relationship between China and Vietnam helped stimulate resistance to, and rebellion against, the Chinese. One example of the forms this rebellion took is seen in the case of the Trung Sisters, who led a rebellion against Chinese forces in the 1st century CE. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi were aristocrats whose family came from a military background. The Trung Sisters’s rebellion against the Chinese began when Trung Trac’s husband, who protested against Chinese corruption and their control over local commercial practices, was arrested and executed. This spurred Trung Trac to form an anti-Chinese coalition,

and alliance of other aristocrats, farmers, and military leaders. The sisters attacked the Chinese, forged a small independent kingdom, and ruled as queens. Importantly, the Trung Sisters eliminated the payment of tribute taxes to the Chinese, further bolstering their popularity. The Trung Sisters boasted a large army -- perhaps as many as 80,000 people -- and was led by female generals. Eventually, however, the Trung Sisters’s rebellion was quashed. The Chinese counterattacked, routed the rebels, and the Trung Sisters took their own lives rather than suffer the indignity of defeat and capture. The Trung Sisters also serve as an anti-imperial symbol throughout Vietnamese history, resurfacing for instance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as signs of Vietnamese resistance to French, Japanese, and American forces.

Chinese control of Vietnam came to an end in 939 CE, when a large rebellion broke out and Chinese forces were defeated in battle. However, the newly independent Vietnam continued to send tribute missions to the Chinese court, and its leaders adopted elements of Chinese rule such as the Mandate of Heaven. Vietnam, in other words, may have enjoyed some nominal political independence from China after 939, but China continued to exert influence -- economic, cultural, and social -- over large sections of Vietnamese life. 8.7 Tributary Relations with Japan Korea and Vietnam represent two sets of interactions: one of occupation and resistance, the other of accommodation and semi-autonomy. Japan presents an opportunity to examine a third way that Chinese influences were handled. Because the Japanese islands had a natural barrier, their relative isolation made the Japanese case different from Korea or Vietnam. Japan was able to successfully avoid invasion or occupation (unlike Vietnam) by Chinese forces. This fact allowed Japan, in the words of one scholar, to “selectively borrow” those elements of Chinese culture that it found useful. The pattern of borrowing from China developed in the context of political fragmentation, and reached a high point between 600-800 CE, but then was curtailed with the consolidation of a more centralized Japanese polity. One way to imagine this process is to suggest that the Chinese provided Japan with a model of how to build a functioning state. Japanese tribute missions to China are associated with Prince Shotoku Taishi (574-622 CE), who arranged for a diverse group of Japanese to experience Chinese culture and courtly society. Prince Shotoku gathered scholars, religious leaders, and artists and exposed them to Chinese influences. This group absorbed the lessons of the Tang dynasty and then translated them back into a Japanese context upon returning to Japan. While in China, this group was immersed in Buddhism and Confucian thought, and the larger project of aligning Japan with the Tang dynasty was developed in part through these areas. The tribute missions also focused on statecraft, and we see the importation of Chinese methods of governance, taxation, legal structures, and administrative practices to the Japanese islands. Indeed, Prince Shotoku was responsible for generating the “seventeen-article constitution” for Japan, a document steeped in Buddhist and Confucian principles that then served as a blueprint for Japanese governance.

Political integration, however, did not translate into political stability in Japan. Following Prince Shotoku, we see the creation of the Taika reforms in the mid-7th century CE, which established a kind of Tang-style Confucian court in which political legitimacy stemmed from mandate from heaven. In terms of the larger impact of Chinese systems on the political culture of Japan, it is important to note that Japan never developed a centralized, bureaucratized court like the one we see in China. Political power remained dispersed among the aristocratic families, putting in place a destructive political culture that would over time degenerate into perpetual

conflict. This lack of a political center meant that wealthy families began to create their own military apparatus, the samurai class of noblemen who lived according to the bushido code, the “code of the warrior.” Political ideas and practices were one area on which the Japanese adapted Chinese ideas to their own context. There are also other examples of this borrowing, such as Japanese ideas about urban planning that were adopted from Chinese examples. Two key Japanese cities -- the capital city of Kyoto as well as Nara -- were built on Chinese models. Japanese religion also reveals a process of absorption and adaptation to local conditions. Buddhism was integrated into existing forms of religious belief and did not supplant them. Indigenous beliefs, related in some ways to old forms of ancestor worship, would later cohere into Shintoism. The Yamoto state -- the political culture of Japan -- was based in Shintoism, the “way of the deities.” It was thought that one’s soul transforms after death into a kami, a local deity, thus forming an important tradition of local shrines and temples in Japan. These religious practices could be aligned with Buddhism rather than seen as antithetical towards it. The Taika reforms also established Buddhism as a state religion, or least the religion of the emperor and his family, but they also continued to embrace Shinto practices, which together shows the interweaving of religious traditions in medieval Japan. There were some traditions in Japan, as we saw in Korea, that revolved around maintaining a unique and autonomous culture. One example of this may be seen in the preservation of a distinct Japanese literary culture, demonstrated in the Tale of Genji, written around 1000 CE, by the female courtier Murasaki Shikibu, which focused on courtly life and is sometimes described as the first novel. Because Japan was never under any direct physical threat from China, the Japanese had a different relationship with the Chinese. They sent tribute and tributary missions to China to be sure, but they also were able to carefully curate those aspects of Chinese culture that they imported to Japan and applied to their own situation. The Japanese, in other words, certainly borrowed from China, but they also produced a unique culture of their own. 8.8 Chinese Society and Technology as a Draw

China’s tributary system was an important political, social, and cultural force. We have seen how tribute missions shaped the political structures, how they helped transform marriage and inheritance patterns, and how Buddhism and Confucian thought interacted with existing belief structures. But the tribute system was also a potent intellectual force as well, and the tribute system functioned in part as a way to incorporate and diffuse ideas throughout Asia. China, it is worth remembering, benefited from tribute, as well as from the importation of ideas and practices that other societies had perfected. For example, new forms of rice cultivation and new strains of rice itself, developed in Vietnam and then imported to China, were important because they allowed for multiple plantings per year, thus generating new food resources to support a growing population. Vietnamese methods of wet-field cultivation prompted the development of subsequent technologies related to water moving and irrigation. Canal building projects -- huge public works initiatives using peasant labor -- were initiated in order to make better use of freshwater resources. Chinese canals were also used for transportation and communication. Chinese merchants also adapted new forms of textile productions aimed at the trade along the silk road--learning not only how to create and sell silks, but also paper, woodblocks, iron, and porcelain as well as cotton textiles. The Chinese importation of

technology and ideas ranging from textiles like cotton to foods like sugar and rice are two examples of things imported by the Chinese.

Besides importing ideas and technology from subject states, the Chinese also diffused technology throughout Asia. Chinese technologies were adopted by tribute states -- we see Chinese methods of salt production, of paper making, of printing (including moveable type) be adapted to and then absorbed by other Asian populations. Technology spread through a variety of mechanisms from trade and military conquest to tribute mission and the migrations of people. Although many of these Chinese inventions were imported and exported to other areas around the world, they were sometimes reinvented in other regions in a form of parallel development (Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type is one example). That said, Chinese innovations such as papermaking and printing represent a revolution, as one historian has put it, of “global dimensions.” Similarly, Chinese military technologies -- gunpowder, especially -- invented around 1000 CE fundamentally changed the course of world history and spread rapidly throughout the networks of the Eurasian world, as did a wide range of Chinese commodities. In short, China was a forum for importing knowledge and technology from other areas. Once in China, they were transformed and adapted to the Chinese context. Both in China, along the Silk Road, and within tributary states, technological innovations could initiate a larger sequence of innovation. These chain innovations -- by which the importation of one technology spurred the development of many others -- indicates some of the ways that ideas spread throughout the Eurasian world. But China also did more than simply absorb ideas from other regions; they also actively pursued new forms of exchange, and over time sought to assert their influence over a wider and wider portion of the world, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. 8.9 Chinese Buddhism as a Catalyst One area in which Chinese influence was widely felt relates to religion. Buddhism, as we have seen, declined in India but exploded in China, which then passed it along to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Buddhism came to China initially via the silk road in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. While the Han Dynasty at first viewed Buddhism as a problem because it seemed to contradict the natural tendencies of Confucianism, that changed over time. The Han were suspicious of Buddhism’s focus on the self, rather than the kinship relations and social nexus that is so critical to Confucian ideology, and this fact limited the impact of Buddhism during the Han dynasty. Following the collapse of the Han in the 3rd century CE, however, Buddhism’s influence grew, especially between 300 - 800 CE. In the context of the collapse of the Han dynasty, and the political violence and fragmentation of the Warring States period as well as a decline in adherence to Confucianism, Buddhism developed a popular appeal. Indeed, the social services provided by Buddhism -- local support structures that provided a type of social safety net to local residents -- only burnished its appeal. Mahayana Buddhism also permitted an alliance of indigenous forms of religion with Buddhist practice, and this too expanded its attractiveness.

Emerging from the Warring States period with this new reputation, Buddhism was in a position to enjoy widespread popularity. And during the Song and Tang dynasties, Buddhism developed a type of institutional support from the state. Emperor Wendi, for instance, built monasteries, which over time developed in to wealthy institutions that could dominate aspects of a local economy.

The popular support and prestige that Buddhism enjoyed did not persist, however, and over time it was opened up to challenges. Perhaps counterintuitively, the support of Buddhism by the emperor, along with the wealth and power of its monasteries, came to be seen as a problem.

In fact, Buddhism came to be viewed by some Chinese as little more than a deviation from or usurpation of legitimate political authority. After 800 CE these critiques of the foreign nature of Buddhism, the wealth of the monasteries, and their social and cultural power took hold, and it was in this context that Confucians initiated an attack on the social basis of Buddhism in China. Buddhism, after all, was perceived as having a foreign and “barbarian” origin, and for those reasons somewhat antithetical to indigenous Chinese culture. If Buddhism could be portrayed as a foreign interloper in Chinese life, its political, social, and economic power could be blunted. This had a political impact, and many Buddhists lost their tax-exempt status; Buddhist monasteries were confiscated, and the wealth of prominent Buddhist centers was seized. At the time of these anti-Buddhist campaigns, there were 50,000 monasteries, presenting critics of Buddhism with a lucrative target. One critic, the “scholar official” Han Yu, attacked Buddhism as barbaric and different in “language, culture, and knowledge.” New regulations were put in place that limited the ways that Buddhists might practice. The attempted suppression of Buddhism in China indicated a reemergence of state control over religious practice (unlike a European model, in which religion took over state functions). Together, these measures culminated in an undermining of Buddhism in China, but one that did not succeed in eliminating the faith from China. Rather, it was assimilated into Chinese religious practice, aspects of its nature transformed by its connection to the state. 8.10 Zheng He and Chinese Disinterest

The tribute system crafted to police interactions between the Chinese and foreigners worked to reproduce Chinese notions of superiority. And those ideas shaped the way that the Chinese viewed themselves for centuries in ways that invited cross cultural connection and exchange. Those principles began to collapse, however, in the 15th century. Following the traumas of the plague outbreaks of the 14th century, and building upon the formation of a new political order under the control of the Ming, Chinese merchants were instrumental in reconnecting the trade routes – both overland and across the seas – that had contributed to the premodern world system. Commodities like chinese silks and cotton, as well as porcelain, were goods that had a world-wide market. As luxury items, Chinese commodities like silk and china were sought after by people around the world. The port cities along China’s coast grew prosperous, and Chinese merchants moved their goods to Taiwan, the southern Japanese islands, and throughout Southeast Asia. It is important to recognize, however, that these trade networks were viewed with some suspicion by the political elites in Beijing, who feared that trade, commerce, and interactions with other cultures would destabilize the political order. Indeed, a ban on foreign trading was enacted by the Emperor in 1371, although this was only weakly enforced. While trade continued until the 16th century, it remained under official ban, and was viewed by officials with distaste. Despite banning overseas trade, the Emperor also sponsored a series of missions to explore the oceans. The most important of these missions were those carried out by the admiral Zheng He between 1405 and 1433. Zheng He was a Muslim who had been captured as a small child by the Ming. He was castrated and then given a military upbringing. In 1405 he took command of an amazing armada of ships – more than 260, staffed 28,000 sailors – and began the first of seven expeditions. The largest of these ships was 400 feet long. Travelling through the South China Sea, the strategically important Straights of Malacca, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea, Zheng He not only explored these parts of the world, he also established official trade networks and sought to incorporate these far flung areas

into a larger system that would provide tributary payments to Beijing. The payments – extracted under threat of attack by his fleet – included a wide variety of amusing and exotic items. Not only spices, but also strange and amazing wildlife – like giraffes and zebras – were brought back to the delight of the court. Zheng He’s voyages also served a certain political purpose. They were also meant to showcase the power and majesty of China, at least until the expeditions became so expensive that they no longer were thought to serve a useful purpose. They were cancelled abruptly in 1433. Nonetheless, Zheng He’s voyages – like the powerful naval presence that they demonstrated China could mobilize – remained a potent symbol of Ming power. And when they were halted, control of the seas was once again an open question. It is important to recognize the Chinese halted – to some degree – cross cultural interactions after 1433.