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Tributary Trade and China's Relations with the West
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
Until a century ago, China's foreign relations were suzerain-vassal relations conducted through the ancient forms of the tributary system. This traditional Chinese basis for diplomacy was finally turned upside down by the “unequal” treaties of the period 1842–1858, but vestiges of the old Chinese way of dealing with the barbarians survived much longer and today still form a considerable though latent portion of the heritage of Chinese diplomats. It is of course a truism that tribute was not exactly what it seemed, and that both diplomacy and international trade were conducted within the tributary framework. The following essay offers a preliminary interpretation of the origin, function, and significance of this great Chinese institution.
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- Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1942
References
1 This article is chiefly based upon the data presented in Fairbank, J. K. and Teng, S. Y., “On the Ch'ing tributary system,” Harvard journal of Asiatic studies, 6 (1941), 135–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 This topic has been analyzed at length by Lattimore, Owen, Inner Asian frontiers of China (New York, 1940).Google Scholar For a bibliography on tribute in general see Fairbank, and Teng, , op. cit., pp. 238–43.Google Scholar
3 Fairbank, and Teng, , op. cit., p. 141.Google Scholar
4 Ibid., p. 159.
5 Cf. regulations translated in ibid., pp. 163–73.
6 Ibid., p. 171.
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17 Letter of Capt. Francis Light in Journal of Malayan branch of the R.A.S., 16, part 1 (July, 1938), 123–26.
18 See Schurz, W. L., The Manila galleon (New York, 1939).Google Scholar
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22 Ibid., pp. 187, 232. For a pertinent discussion of the reasons for the failure of Ricci's map to gain acceptance see Ch'en, Kenneth, “Matteo Ricci's contribution to and influence on geographical knowledge in China,” JAOS, 59 (Sept., 1939), 325–59Google Scholar, especially pp. 347 et seq.
23 Ibid., pp. 189–90.
24 Ibid., pp. 188–89, table.
25 This Dutch embassy has been carefully studied by Prof. Duyvendak, , “The last Dutch embassy …“, T'oung pao, 34 (1938), 1–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 223–27; 35 (1940), 329–53.
26 See Fairbank, and Teng, , op. cit., pp. 206–19Google Scholar for a list of some 35 Ch'ing works on maritime relations which await further study.
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