© The Author 2009.
Rethinking the ‘Tribute System’: Broadening the Conceptual Horizon of Historical East Asian Politics
Zhang Feng is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University.
* Corresponding author. Email: zfmc@hotmail.com
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A notable feature of the study of historical East Asian politics is its absence of rigorous systemic theories explaining relationships between imperial China and its neighbours and how they worked. Long pre-eminent in this field is the idea of the ‘tribute system’ and its central importance to organizing our thinking about historical East Asian politics. But what is the ‘tribute system’ as it is used by these various scholars? How useful are their tribute-system perspectives and models in shedding light on historical East Asian politics? In this article I critically evaluate the venerable literature on the ‘tribute system’ in an attempt to clarify the concepts and broaden the main themes of traditional China's foreign relations and the larger political dynamics between China and its neighbours. I write from a political-science perspective, but engage extensively in predominantly historical scholarship on the subject.
Except for a few notable exceptions in recent years,
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The Tribute System: Three Views |
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The First View
The Second View
The Third View
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The Inherent Weakness of the Model |
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Assumptions
Logic
Power
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The Model and the Early Ming |
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Sinocentric Assumption
Descriptive Accuracy
Interpretive Power
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Beyond the Tribute System |
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Conclusion |
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