Qin and Han
The Qin dynasty re-established two things crucial to the Chinese worldview: the political unity of the Chinese culture area; and the exalted role of the emperor as the Son of Heaven. The significance of political unity lay in the concentration of power (de) is made possible. But the thought of de conjointly carried the ancient sense of ‘virtue’, and so enclosed an ethical dimension. Internally de brought about good government, and it was this example, later thinkers agreed, that led barbarian rulers freely to acknowledge Chinese suzerainty.5 the notion of de was reinforced by the concept of Dao. This term has complex meanings, but as the core concept of the Taoists it denotes the ‘way’ of the natural world, and so refers to the unitary natural order of things. Once differentiated, Dao gives rise to the contending forces of yin and yang, the universal principles of, respectively, female and male, dark and light, cold and heat, and so on. Equilibrium between these forces produces harmony (ho) within each individual and society. (Qin and Han)
The synthesis of all the varied components contributing to the Chinese worldview was achieved throughout the Han dynasty. The core belief is that Heaven, humankind, and Earth ideally constitute a single, harmonious, natural order. This order is each balanced, through the interaction of yin and yang, and moral, therein its ideal harmony rests on a moral basis. The central figure in this scheme of things the point, as it were, where Heaven and Earth converge was the emperor. As the Son of Heaven, he was the purpose of contact between the macrocosm and the microcosm. By the sacrifices he performed at the temples of Heaven and Earth, he ensured cosmic balance and harmony; by his personal behavior, he ensured or failed to ensure Heaven’s blessing. Any ethical failure on the part of the emperor, any failure of de, would provoke Heaven’s vexation, created known by signs and portents, in the type of such remarkable and unseasonable events as the appearance of shooting stars, floods, and earthquakes, or by increasing human misery and social chaos. (Qin and Han)
Qin and Han
The Emperor dominated ‘all under Heaven’ (tian-Xia), the complete human world as cosmically constituted. In a cosmic sense, the Son of Heaven was a universal ruler; not just his capital, but he himself was the center of the world. The realm over that he dominated was the Middle Kingdom, a term that acknowledged that different kingdoms lay beyond it within the four directions. The Chinese worldview was Sinocentric, but this did not mean that it ignored the existence of other peoples. Beyond the core area of Chinese civilization lived barbarian peoples (Yi-ti), inferior in every way to the Chinese, yet still existing under Heaven and so part of the great ‘family’ presided over by the Son of Heaven. Though Chinese superiority was primarily cultural, this simply slipped into attitudes that were primarily racial. Non-Chinese were likened to animals and stood well below the Chinese in the socio-cultural hierarchy. Redemption was doable just for those who were culturally assimilated. Until this happened, non-Chinese were to be treated with paternal benevolence, as objects of the emperor’s protection. (Qin and Han)
The place of non-Chinese in this view of the world was arrived at over the course of time. The Chinese had always been surrounded by those they termed ‘barbarians’, for their lack of civilization (wen). In unifying the empire, Qin pushed back the barbarians in the north and northwest and protected the Chinese core cultural area by constructing the Great Wall. It was in the southeast, however, that the best gains were made. Qin and Han
There new military/administrative commanders were created, colonized by a motley collection of criminals, fugitives from military service or forced labor, bonded servants, and small traders and retailers who stood at the bottom of the social scale. Continuing internal migration during the Han dynasty eventually brought all the non-Chinese coastal peoples, known collectively as the Yue, inhabiting the region from Fujian to Guangdong and south to the Red River delta (in what’s currently northern Vietnam) below Chinese political control and cultural influence. Qin and Han
The progress and significance of this southern expansion for relations with Southeast Asia will be examined in the next chapter. Here, what is important is how Qin and Han’s conquests reinforced Chinese thinking about how non-Chinese peoples should be incorporated into the Chinese world order. The most powerful of these non-Chinese peoples, the Xiongnu, precursors to the Huns, inhabited the steppe lands to the northwest.
As their mobility and fighting prowess made the Chinese conquest impossible, appeasement was the only possible recourse. Rich annual payments of silk, alcohol, foodstuffs and the dispatch of Chinese ‘princesses’ were used to buy off Xiongnu rulers. An accord signed in 198 BCE not solely established the Great Wall as the frontier between Han China Xiongnu confederacy but also formally noted the equivalent status of the two ‘brother’ kingdoms. This was for the benefit of the Xiongnu. For the Chinese, brothers were never of equal status: one was perpetually the elder, the opposite the younger.
Even so, such a situation rankled the Chinese, for it threatened their own understanding of the world and the respective places of Chinese and barbarians in it. Moreover, as the treaty stipulated that the Han would provide a substantial annual ‘gift’ of silk and other commodities in return for a Xiongnu commitment not to raid Chinese settlements within the wall, it was a moot point who was paying tribute to whom. Qin and Han
Despite the accord of 198 BCE, therefore, the Chinese ne’er for an instant accepted the Xiongnu as their equals. The Chinese view of the world that had evolved by the later Han period (the first two centuries CE) conceived it in the form of five concentric zones or regions (wu-fu), whose relations to each other were strictly hierarchical. At the center stood the royal domain, the area under the direct rule of the emperor himself.
Beyond lay the zone controlled by the nice feudatory lords of the kingdom, who were loyal to the emperor. Then came those areas, known as the pacified zone, that were culturally Chinese, but had had to be conquered in order to be brought into the empire. These three zones comprised the Middle Kingdom, beyond which lay two further barbarian zones an inner one or controlled zone for those barbarian tribes who accepted Chinese suzerainty, and an outer or wild zone for those who didn’t. The 5 zones combined so constituted ‘all below Heaven’. (Qin and Han)
The hierarchical relationship between these zones was defined by the frequency with which tribute was presented to the emperor. In the central zone, this was on a daily basis in the form of products and services rendered to the court. Qin and Han
The lords were required to present their tribute once a month, while tribute from the pacified zone was expected every three months. Controlled barbarians presented the tribute annually, while those beyond, in the wild zone, were expected to appear only once at court, a symbolic appearance that signaled their inclusion within the Chinese world order. While this was clearly an idealized schema, during the Han dynasty it did roughly reflect the division, within the Chinese cultural area, into a well-guarded capital territory, commentaries under the central government, and feudal kingdoms that had stated allegiance to the Han emperor. Qin and Han
Over time, most of these kingdoms reverted to the direct control of the central administration, particularly after the conquests of Han Wudi, who finally brought the Yue coastal region into the empire. Even once these conquests, the Yue counted as inner or controlled barbarians, or ‘dependent countries’, from whom annual tribute was expected. The Xiongnu, in contrast, were classified as outer or wild barbarians on the far side of Chinese management, so not expected to pay regular tribute. Qin and Han
The tributary system was not fully institutionalized under the Han, but it did evolve in response to particular circumstances. Because it is useful, as noted above, to the Chinese yet as barbarians, the system was in a sense comprehensive rather than conflicting. It included barbarians within the Chinese world order but created a clear distinction between inner and outer barbarians, between those effectively colonized through imperial expansion, and those allowed independent status. Qin and Han
Non-Chinese peoples within the empire were placed under the Chinese administration and progressively sinicized. Those beyond the empire’s frontiers were under no such pressure, though the Chinese could pretend that eventually these too would come to accept the superiority of Chinese civilization. (Qin and Han)
Han conquests brought new barbarian peoples inside the empire. These included the southern Yue, whom we now know as the Vietnamese. It didn’t embody the peoples of Yunnan, wherever the later kingdoms of Nanzhao then Dali maintained their independence till conquered by the Mongols in 1253 CE. Qin and Han
While most of the peoples incorporated into the Han empire became sinicized over the centuries, some stubbornly maintained their own cultures, including the Vietnamese, the Miao (Hmong), and other mountain tribes and minorities. Some, including the Tai, migrated south, away from Chinese domination, to establish their own independent principalities. No kingdom on China’s frontiers to the south, however, ever posed the same military threat to the steppe peoples of the north. (Qin and Han)
In summary, therefore, by the time of the later Han dynasty, when the expansion of the Chinese cultural area had brought Chinese peoples increasingly into contact with those of Southeast Asia, a specifically Chinese view of the world was already firmly established, though the institutions by which foreign polities were ritually incorporated into this worldview (the tribute system) were not yet fully in place. The key elements of this worldview included the unity of Heaven, Earth, and humankind; the notion of Heaven as a moral force imposing a moral order; social harmony as Heaven’s way; and the emperor as Son of Heaven at the apex of, and presiding over, a hierarchical social world in which all were assigned their status, including non-Chinese. The Middle Kingdom comprised the Chinese cultural area whose superior civilization was available to less cultured peoples. Qin and Han
Eventually, the Chinese were convinced, that barbarian peoples would be drawn by the virtue of the emperor to recognize the superiority of the Chinese civilization and voluntarily embrace it. In the meantime, they were expected symbolically to recognize that superiority, and along with it the cosmic status of the emperor, by deferentially offering their tribute at court and gratefully receiving gifts in exchange. They were also expected to keep the peace along China’s frontiers, for the notion of social harmony necessarily extended beyond the Middle Kingdom to embrace ‘all under Heaven’. In alternative words, China delivered to its earliest relations with Southeast Asia an already evolved foreign relations culture. Qin and Han
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