China Among Equals

The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries

Morris Rossabi

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780520045620
• eBook ISBN: 9780520341722
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Scholars have long accepted China's own view of its traditional foreign relations: that China devised its own world order and maintained it from the second century B.C. to the nineteenth century. China ruled out equality with any nation: foreign rulers and their envoys were treated as subordinates or inferiors, required to send periodic tribute embassies to the Chinese emperor. The Chinese court was otherwise uninterested in foreign lands. Its principal interests were to maintain peace with what it perceived to be barbarian neighbors and to coax or coerce them into admitting China's superiority and accepting the Chinese emperor as the Son of Heaven.

But Chinese foreign policy was not monolithic. Court officials in traditional times were much more realistic and pragmatic than is commonly assumed. They did not scorn foreign trade, nor were ignorant of foreign lands. Challenging the accepted view of Chinese foreign relations, the authors of China among Equals contribute to a clearer assessment of Chinese foreign relations and policy. From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, China did not dogmatically enforce its own world order. Chinese were eager for foreign trade and knowledgeable about their neighbors. The Sung (960-1279), the principal dynasty during that era, was flexible in its dealings with foreigners. Its officials recognized the military and political weakness of the dynasty, and in general they adopted a realistic and pragmatic foreign policy. They were compelled to accept foreign states as equals, and the relations between China and other states were defined by diplomatic parity.




Scholars have long accepted China's own view of its traditional foreign relations: that China devised its own world order and maintained it from the second century B.C. to the nineteenth century. China ruled out equality with any nation: foreign rulers an

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Maps
• Contributors
• Note on Transliteration
• Preface
• Introduction MORRIS ROSS ABI
• PART I China in Disarray
• ONE Diplomacy for Survival: Domestic and Foreign Relations of Wu Yűeh, 907-978
• PART II The Sung Dynasty in a Multi-State System
• TWO The Rhetoric of a Lesser Empire: Early Sung Relations with Its Neighbors
• THREE Barbarians or Northerners: Northern Sung Images of the Khitans TAO JING-SHEN
• PART III Institutions for Foreign Relations in the Multi State System
• FOUR Sung Foreign Trade: Its Scope and Organization
• FIVE Sung Embassies: Some General Observations
• PART IV Foreign Lands and the Sung
• SIX National Consciousness in Medieval Korea The Impact of Liao and Chin on Koryo MICHAEL C. ROGERS
• SEVEN Tibetan Relations with Sung China and with the Mongols
• EIGHT Old Illusions and New Realities: Sung Foreign Policy, 1217—1234
• PART V The Mongol Hegemony
• NINE The Yűan Dynasty and the Uighurs of Turf an in the 13th Century
• TEN Turks in China under the Mongols A Preliminary Investigation of Turco-Mongol Relations in the 13th and 14th Centuries
• PART VI China’s Foreign Relations in Historical Context
• ELEVEN Yin and Yang in the China-Manchuria-Korea Triangle
• Glossary of Chinese Characters
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index