Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East Asian History 9780804795043

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Chinese Hegemony

Chinese Hegemony g r a n d s t r at e g y a n d i n t e r n at i o n a l institutions in east asian history

Feng Zhang

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2015 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zhang, Feng, 1980– author.   Chinese hegemony : grand strategy and international institutions in East Asian history / Feng Zhang.   pages cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.   isbn 978-0-8047-9389-6 (cloth : alk. paper)   1.  China—Foreign relations—East Asia.  2.  East Asia—Foreign relations— China.  3.  China—History—Ming dynasty, 1368–1644.  4. Hegemony—China— History.  5.  Hegemony—East Asia—History.  I.  Title.   ds740.61.z53 2015   327.5105—dc23 2014041549 isbn 978-0-8047-9504-3 (electronic) Typeset by Newgen in 11/14 Garamond

To my wife Shu Man, for all your love and sacrifice, and to our daughter, Zhang Han, for the faith we have in you

Contents

List of Illustrations

ix

Notes on Transliterations

xi

Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

xiii xv



1 Introduction



2 A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy

20



3 Sino-Korean Relations

47



4 Sino-Japanese Relations

85



5 Sino-Mongol Relations

119



6 Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony

153



7 The Value of Relationalism

174

1

Appendix I  Major Periods in Ancient and Imperial China

193

Appendix II  Translation of Key Chinese Terms and Expressions

195

Notes

199

References

221

Index

249

Illustrations

figures Comparing concentrations of material capability

14

6.1 A relational framework of the constitutional structure of international society

158

1.1

tables 1.1 Population and gross domestic product of China, East Asia, and the world around 1500

13

2.1

Logics of action in Confucian relationalism

30

2.2

Relational international structure in traditional East Asia

31

2.3

Relational grand strategies

37

3.1

Evolution of Chinese strategies toward Korea

81

3.2

Evolution of Korean strategies toward China

82

4.1

Evolution of Chinese strategies toward Japan

115

4.2

Evolution of Japanese strategies toward China

116

5.1

Evolution of Chinese strategies toward the Mongols

150

5.2

Evolution of Mongol strategies toward China

151

x  Illustrations 6.1 Institutional structure of the international society of Chinese hegemony

167

Duration of strategies during the early Ming period

177

7.1

map 3.1

Northeast and Inner Asia during the early Ming period

46

Notes on Transliterations

Chinese names and terms are transliterated with standard Pinyin romanization except when they are taken from a Western-language source that uses the Wade-Giles system or the Cantonese system. Japanese names and terms are transliterated with the Hepburn system, and Korean with the McCuneReischauer system. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are written with the family name preceding the given name, except when they are taken from a Western-language source that provides the author’s given name before the family name. Conversion of Chinese dates into their Western equivalents is based on the excellent online converting system developed by Academia Sinica (http://sinocal.sinica.edu.tw). Citation of multichapter (juan) Chinese sources such as the Ming shi lu and Ming shi that are available in modern editions generally follows the customary practice among historians of placing a period between the juan number and the page range. The page range referred to is that of the pagination of the modern edition (e.g., MSL, Taizong shi lu, 247.2313–14; MS, 328.8497). Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Chinese terms and sources are my own.

Acknowledgments

This book could not have been completed without the help and support of many individuals and institutions. My greatest intellectual debt is to my teachers and friends in the International Relations Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Chris R. Hughes helped me to sharpen my thinking on important questions that the project needed to tackle. Barry Buzan and Karen Smith helped me plan this book in its early stages. Barry, moreover, read the next-to-last draft with great care and provided many insightful comments and criticisms. I was also fortunate to have colleagues to aid me along the process, including Toh Ee Loong, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Jeffrey Reeves, and many others. I am also grateful to LSE’s Government Department, particularly Lin Chun and Dominic Lieven. The Vincent Cheng scholarship of the LSE provided crucial financial support for the project. The International Relations departments of Tsinghua University, Murdoch University, and the Australian National University have also provided helpful institutional environments for revising and completing this book in different ways. During the long gestation of the book, I have received encouragement, support, comments, and much-needed criticisms from many scholars. They include Daniel Bell, Timothy Brook, William Callahan, Chen Jian, Ja Ian Chong, Michael Cox, Pamela Crossley, Nicola Di Cosmo, Tim Dunne, Mark Elliott, Paul Evans, Rosemary Foot, Ian Hall, Victoria Tin-bor Hui, David Kang, Peter Katzenstein, Richard Ned Lebow, Jason Sharman, Jack Snyder, Song Chengyou, Masayuki Tadokoro, William Tow, Tsai MonHan, Geoff Wade, Wang Gungwu, Yuan-kang Wang, Arne Westad, John E.

x iv  Acknowledgments

Wills Jr., William Wohlforth, Brantly Womack, Yan Xuetong, Yu Wanli, Yuen Foong Khong, Zhang Qian, Zhang Yongjin, Zhao Tingyang, and Zheng Yongnian. I am especially grateful to Victoria Hui for her invaluable advice almost from the start of this project. Wang Gungwu’s interest in my work has been a particular encouragement to me. Barry Buzan, David Kang, Peter Katzenstein, Richard Ned Lebow, William Tow, Tsai Mon-Han, and Yuan-kang Wang have all read part or whole of the manuscript and provided insightful comments and suggestions. Dave Kang and Ned Lebow read multiple drafts and provided extensive feedback. Ned Lebow, moreover, has been extremely helpful in the final submission stage. I am also grateful to Geoffrey Burn at Stanford University Press for taking this project on board, to James Holt, Anne Fuzellier, and Jay Harward for editorial and production assistance, and to Katherine Faydash for expert copyediting. I also thank my colleague Mary-Louise Hickey in the International Relations Department of the Australian National University for her very careful proofreading. I owe my family the deepest debt for their unwavering support over many years. My wife, Shu Man, with her love and dedication, is the most important person behind the initiation and completion of this book. Our recently arrived daughter, Zhang Han, has given us joy and faith. Finally, I am grateful to my parents, Zhang Zhihao and Fan Lianyun, for understanding and supporting me over such a long and sometimes difficult period.

Abbreviations

DMB  Dictionary of Ming Biography, Carrington Goodrich and Fang FADYJ Fu an dong yi ji, Ma Wensheng GLS Gaoli shi zhong zhong han guanxi shiliao huibian, Jin Weixian LCSL Chaoxian lichao shilu zhong de zhongguo shiliao, Wu Han MGHJSL I Mingdai menggu hanji shiliao huibian, di yi ji, Bo and Wang, vol. 1 MGHJSL II Mingdai menggu hanji shiliao huibian, di er ji, Bo and Wang, vol. 2 MS Ming shi, Zhang Tingyu MSL Ming shi lu, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo SYZZL Shu yu zhou zi lu, Yan Congjian

Chinese Hegemony

one

Introduction

China’s rise is one of the most significant developments in contemporary international relations. As the result of more than three decades of phenomenal economic growth, since the initiation of economic reform in 1978, a strong China now stands before the world for the first time in over a century. As China may rival the United States in material capabilities,1 recent discussions on China’s role in world politics have been gradually shifting from a focus on the material characteristics of China’s rise to a growing concern with the impact of Chinese power on regional and international order. The central question is no longer “Can China rise?” or “How great will its capabilities be?” but “What will China do with its new power?” and “What will China want?”2 As Paul Evans puts it, “The great strategic issue of our times is not just China’s rising power but whether its worldview and applied theory will reproduce, converge with, or take a separate path from the world order and ideas produced in the era of trans-Atlantic dominance.”3 Indeed, such an analytical shift is apparent in an emerging academic and policy discourse, inside and outside China, on possible Chinese hegemony in East Asia. Inside China, an important group of scholars, albeit still a minority in the Chinese intellectual community, has begun to promote China’s world leadership on the basis of a distinctive type of Chinese hegemony, “humane authority.”4 Outside China, discussions of Chinese hegemony either reflect a general concern with the ramifications of greater Chinese power or derive from a traditional, realist preoccupation with hegemonic competition in international politics. Thus, the writer Martin Jacques asks, “What 

  chapter 1

will a globally hegemonic China look like?”5 And Aaron Friedberg, a realist scholar worried about China’s challenge to US hegemony, avers that “Beijing may not seek conquest or direct physical control over its surroundings, but despite repeated claims to the contrary, it does seek a form of regional hegemony.”6 These discussions are taking place despite the Chinese government’s persistent renunciation of any hegemonic ambition throughout the reform era (1978 to the present). But how can we think about a future Chinese hegemony if it is possible? Pure theoretical deductions will not offer great help, because most theories in the social sciences, including international relations (IR) theories, are poor at useful predictions of any sort.7 And when general predictions are possible, such as the offensive realist one that a strong China will be bent on regional hegemony,8 they are too general to illuminate the characteristics of a putative Chinese hegemony. As John Ruggie has observed, “All hegemonies are not alike.”9 Nor will policy speculations about possible Chinese strategies based on recent trends help us understand future strategies, since current trends are not necessarily reliable guides for the future. Nor will historical analogies offer great insights. Many Chinese analysts frequently assert that a strong China will be as peaceful and benign as its imperial predecessor supposedly was. Many Western observers take for granted the disruption of the rise to power and the hegemonic struggle—in this case, China as the rising power in competition with the United States as the existing hegemon. Yet such analogies are extremely facile on close scrutiny, and the historicist notion of invariant historical laws has long been discredited.10 Although we cannot claim to know too much about the consequences of a possible future Chinese hegemony, scholarly research can achieve a modest aim of providing theoretical clues and establishing historical foundations from which to view those clues. This book explores the strategic and institutional dynamics of international relations in East Asian history when imperial China was the undisputed regional hegemon. The theoretical and historical orientation serves three purposes. First, it examines China’s historical hegemony in the East Asian region as a distinct mode of international hegemony in world history. Second, it provides the essential historical background for us to consider China’s new, and possibly hegemonic, role in contemporary East Asia. Third, it offers an important historical East Asian case to qualify, challenge, and revise some existing IR theories and perspectives that have developed out of the modern Western experience.11 Although this

Introduction  

study is motivated by a current policy concern, it is not a contemporary policy analysis. Its aim is to provide a new explanation of traditional East Asian international relations under the condition of Chinese hegemony and to make a theoretical argument about the value of a relational approach for IR research. Contemporary policy implications follow from theory and history, but they are not derived from theoretical deduction or historical analogy. Instead, employing ethical relationalism as a critical and normative IR theory for evaluating contemporary Chinese foreign policy grounds those implications in a rich historical background. I understand the policy significance of history to be an indispensable background for making sense of contemporary developments. Theory, in contrast, is an essential instrument for gaining deep understanding of enduring problems, which can shed light on contemporary issues. Of course, China may not become a hegemon, given the inherent limits and constraints of its power, and the question of a future Chinese hegemony would thus be a moot one. Even so, the value of this study as a historical and theoretical inquiry into international relations in East Asian history will stand. An exploration of the dynamics of historical Chinese hegemony and the intellectual challenges it poses to existing Eurocentric IR theory will in itself make a contribution to IR as a global field of study. Specifically, the book examines two major dimensions of international relations in East Asian history: the grand strategies of imperial China and its neighbors in their strategic interactions and the fundamental institutional practices of regional politics. Addressing the strategic patterns and institutional maintenance of hegemony, these are central questions for understanding any hegemonic order. What were the grand strategic choices that imperial China and its neighbors adopted toward one another under the condition of Chinese hegemony? What were the fundamental institutional practices that sustained their interactions as part of an international society of Chinese hegemony? And how can we explain these strategic and institutional choices? I develop and evaluate a relational theory of grand strategy and institutional formation to answer these questions. For policy implications, my question is not what the grand strategies and international institutions in East Asian history might suggest for strategic and institutional developments of a new East Asian order with a reemerging China. Such a question can certainly be asked, and it is indeed a ­customary

  chapter 1

one, but it risks historicism. Instead, I ask how the theoretical approach taken in this book and the historical foundation laid by it help us critique contemporary Chinese strategy and evaluate the future possibilities of that strategy. Policy issues are engaged by outlining ethical relationalism—a critical and normative theory with empirical foundations—to assess the strategic impact of China’s rise. The book is thus simultaneously empirical, critical, and normative. This is a fully defensible and even desirable position since, as Christian Reus-Smit has argued, the IR mainstream needs to reclaim ethics as a central field of inquiry alongside the currently dominant explanatory mode.12 Indeed, prominent recent works are already moving in this direction.13 Still, one may ask, what is the value of this historically and theoretically oriented work for someone interested only in contemporary policy? Anyone attempting to understand China’s new role in East Asia will, however, need an appreciation of its historical role in the region and some guidance of theory for interpreting its past and present roles. Anyone trying to identify the strategic possibilities of contemporary Chinese foreign policy may want to understand such possibilities in China’s long history. Anyone hoping for a more peaceful and cooperative China as a great power may want to assess the potential of a more ethical Chinese strategy in the future. And anyone seeking to understand regional responses to rising Chinese power today may want to know about regional responses to Chinese hegemony in the past. This book offers a detailed historical explanation of the strategic and institutional dimensions of the region’s hegemonic experience and China’s role in that experience. It explains Chinese grand strategies in the past and considers the possibility of a normatively desirable relational strategy in the present. It explains the essential role of Confucian ethics in imperial Chinese foreign policy and discusses the potential of ethical relationalism in contemporary Chinese foreign policy. It clarifies the multifaceted nature of past regional responses to Chinese hegemony and suggests the need to go beyond simplistic categories for understanding contemporary responses. Moreover, the critical theory of ethical relationalism sketched in the final chapter identifies the ways in which Chinese foreign policy, and the foreign policies of other countries, might be made more ethical, relational, and cooperative. The theory proposes reestablishing the Confucian value of humaneness as the central moral purpose of international relations and suggests why this is possible.

Introduction  

The Argument I make an interrelated set of arguments about the grand strategic interactions and fundamental institutional practices of historical East Asian politics under the condition of Chinese hegemony. First, however, I develop a concept of relationality in international relations and construct a relational theory for explanation. By relationality I mean the dynamic processes of connections and transactions among actors in structured social relationships, as opposed to their substances and attributes.14 Relationalism is the theoretical perspective that we need to understand international relations— and indeed any social behavior—in terms of the relational processes of interactions among actors in a network of social relationships. It is a structural approach in taking mutual relations, not actor attributes, as the primary unit of analysis. A relational perspective requires looking beyond actor attributes to their patterned relationships in social explanation. For example, one may explain a state’s grand strategy by theorizing how its relative capability or ideology may suggest certain strategic propensities. Such an explanation ignores how the relationships the state forms with other actors may affect strategic choices during their interactions independent of the attributes of capability or ideology. A relational explanation, however, would focus on the structural effects of patterned relationships on actor strategy. This book shows how the relational structure of historical East Asia and the changing interaction dynamics among China and its neighbors affected the strategic choices of all actors. Chapter 2 develops a three-part conception of the relational international structure in the traditional East Asian context and theorizes its implications for grand strategy. Chapter 7 constructs a relational framework of the constitutional structure of the international society of Chinese hegemony and discusses its fundamental institutions. Relationalism is, of course, not new in IR research.15 The theoretical synthesis of Chinese and Western relationalisms and empirical application to historical East Asia, however, produce a novel approach for studying a historically significant and currently policy-relevant topic in a vastly understudied area of international relations in world history. My first substantive argument deals with hierarchy in regional politics. I differentiate between hierarchy as a relational structure of international authority and hierarchy as a Chinese international strategy. According to

  chapter 1

David Lake, “A political relationship is anarchic if the units—in this case, states—possess no authority over one another. It is hierarchic when one unit, the dominant state, possesses authority over a second, subordinate state.”16 This is the view of hierarchy as an international relationship of legitimate authority.17 But hierarchy may also become a state strategy to create such a relational structure in foreign relations. Indeed, imperial China adopted two distinct strategies of hierarchy depending on the relational interaction dynamics. David Kang is the pioneering scholar in advancing the East Asian hierarchy argument.18 He does not, however, distinguish these two conceptions of hierarchy or establish degrees of relational hierarchy in regional politics. His analysis is insightful but sometimes too general. My argument builds on Kang’s work, but it is theoretically more specific on the hierarchy concept and empirically grounded in in-depth historical case studies. I show that the East Asian order during China’s early Ming dynasty (1368–1424), the methodological choice of which is justified in the next section, was not a complete hierarchy of Chinese authority over its neighbors. Its degree varied with different foreign relationships. This argument is crucial for establishing the degree of Chinese hegemony in regional politics. I define hegemony as the conjunction of material primacy and social legitimacy. Hegemony, as Ian Clark emphasizes, should not be conflated with primacy. It entails the additional implication of primacy underpinned by social legitimacy rather than the condition of material preponderance alone.19 Michael Mastanduno explains that hegemony “requires a preponderance of material resources, a sense of social purpose, the ability to control international outcomes of importance to the dominant state, and some degree of consent and acceptance from other states in the system.”20 Thus, although hegemony usually requires material primacy, a system of primacy is not necessarily one of hegemony. Hegemony entails a social recognition by other states that the leading state’s material dominance and its consequent international rules and behaviors are broadly legitimate. This understanding of hegemony as based on international legitimacy runs parallel to the understanding of relational hierarchy as a relationship of legitimate authority. International hegemony and hierarchy are thus intrinsically cognate concepts: hegemony entails a high degree of hierarchical authority, and such authority, possessed by one state over other states, implies a hegemonic structure in their relationships. Because China’s hierarchi-

Introduction  

cal authority over its neighbors was incomplete, its regional hegemony was consequently also incomplete. Hierarchy could also be seen as the preeminent grand strategy of early Ming China, and it was executed in two very distinct ways. Most of the time, early Ming emperors adopted a strategy of instrumental hierarchy for the maximization of self-interest by exploiting hierarchical relationships with foreign rulers. Less frequently, but still significantly, they practiced a strategy of expressive hierarchy in accordance with Confucian propriety by establishing ethically endowed relationships for the sake of having such relationships. This conception of imperial Chinese grand strategy is considerably broader than those of Alastair Iain Johnston and Yuan-kang Wang, which focus narrowly on military power and security.21 Second, I argue that expressive rationality embodying Confucian relational affection and obligation, as opposed to instrumental rationality of consequentialist means-end calculation, was an essential feature of regional relations in Ming China. Expressive rationality was the Confucian paradigm of psychologically natural and ethically appropriate social action. The empirical analysis shows that this paradigm accounted for more than onefifth of total regional strategic outcomes, measured by the number of years in which the various strategies were adopted during the early Ming period. Although not as prominent as instrumental rationality overall, expressive rationality was clearly a constituent—and at times significant—feature of regional politics. This finding challenges the Eurocentric IR literature, which has hardly any conception of expressive rationality at all. It also qualifies the traditional Chinese view of “Confucian pacifism” and the recent realist approach of reducing Confucianism to a residual variable in accounting for strategic formation.22 Confucian pacifism implies China’s hegemonic benevolence, but it is clearly mistaken, because Confucian expressive strategies did not dominate regional relations. The realist approach is also inadequate because in cases of expressive strategies, Confucianism was the major, not residual, variable. My overall argument is that regional relations reflected both expressive and instrumental strategies. The adoption of these strategies was conditioned by the degree of the conflict of interest in particular relationships. Expressive strategies were more likely to be adopted under the condition of relational amity. Existing approaches tend to take the causal role of

  chapter 1

Confucianism either too seriously or too lightly. This argument shifts the analytical focus to the question of the conditions of different strategies and away from the absolute dominance of one strategy or another. My third argument challenges the venerable paradigm of the tribute system in the traditional historical as well as the more recent IR literatures. According to its most significant exponent, the eminent historian John K. Fairbank, imperial China created a “Chinese world order” sustained by the tribute system as a total system for all of China’s international relations. 23 But in fact, Fairbank described the tribute system mainly as a mechanism for diplomacy and trade symbolized by foreign rulers’ presentation of native products as tribute to the Chinese court. It is hard to believe that such a mechanism could have constituted the totality of the international relations of China or East Asia. Nevertheless, drawing on this paradigm, some IR scholars, notably David Kang and Zhang Yongjin and Barry Buzan, conceptualize the tribute system as a social structure or international society in East Asian history.24 Others find in the tribute system a historical precedent of a benevolent Chinese hegemony.25 They assert that it “still provides a model for China’s present and future relations in Asia, particularly the ability to develop and maintain enduring, mutually beneficial relations with weaker states, without provoking a backlash or attempts at counterbalancing.”26 The tribute system may be usefully conceived of as a significant international society with shared norms, rules, and institutions.27 But, like the “organized hypocrisy” of Westphalian sovereignty,28 it was an incomplete system that was constantly revised, challenged, or avoided by different actors. It was far from the totality of China’s foreign relations, not to mention regional relations as a whole. It therefore becomes important to delimit the boundary of the tribute system in a given historical period and distinguish it from greater East Asian international society. In identifying it as an international society, however, a central analytical task is to explain the structural or institutional effects of the tribute system on actor behavior. Existing approaches of Kang and Zhang and Buzan fall short because they focus too much on the structural characteristics of the tribute system, to the neglect of the agential processes that created and shaped that structure in the first place. I suggest that my relational theory of grand strategy and fundamental institutions supported by the case studies implicitly supplies an agential account. The agency in regional relations—the causal processes of institutional origination, change, and effects—are analyzed in terms of the

Introduction  

evolution of the grand strategic interactions between early Ming China and its neighbors. It was through these strategies that fundamental institutions exerted their varying constraints on actor behavior. Did the tribute system embody Chinese benevolence? If we see the tribute system as an international society, tributary diplomacy—the process whereby Chinese and foreign rulers established and sustained a hierarchical relationship—would then become its fundamental institution. I argue that the institution of tributary diplomacy was reflected in four strategies that China and other actors adopted toward one another: expressive hierarchy for Confucian propriety and instrumental hierarchy for self-interest maximization in the case of China, and identification with Chinese values and deference to Chinese power in the case of other actors. While expressive hierarchy and identification were expressive strategies, instrumental hierarchy and deference were instrumental ones. Thus, the tribute system actually embodied both Chinese humaneness and instrumentality. This is a sufficient challenge to the assumption of Chinese benevolence in the tribute system, but it does not constitute a theoretical advance if the claim is only that both logics applied to the tribute system. I contend, in addition, that the degree of relational tension was a facilitating condition for the adoption of instrumental or expressive strategies. The tribute system, including both its strategic and its institutional dimensions, can also be explained relationally. Finally, this book makes a much-needed argument about the strategic responses of China’s neighbors to Chinese hegemony in the region. As the eminent historian Wang Gungwu suggests, we need to note the experiences of China’s neighbors during those previous times when China was wealthy and prosperous, in order to develop a long-term and balanced historical perspective on contemporary China’s rise.29 Although an established paradigm on regional responses does not seem to exist in the current literature, there are several suggestive views that can serve as a starting point for discussion. An outdated part of the traditional historical literature sometimes portrayed other polities’ relations with China as servile submission. The paradigm of the tribute system identifies trade as the most important motive of these polities’ tribute to China.30 Occasionally the polities are described as China’s “satellites,” in a sort of Chinese sphere of influence. 31 A recent realist interpretation characterizes their strategy as bandwagoning with China for security.32

  chapter 1

I argue that China’s neighbors adopted an impressive variety of strategies, including, from the most to the least cooperative, identification with Chinese values, deference to Chinese power, access to China’s resource network, and exit from that network. The strategy of deference in order to maximize self-interest by exploiting Chinese resources was the most prominent. To understand the multiplicity of regional responses, this argument goes beyond the somewhat sterile realist debate on balancing versus bandwagoning in secondary states’ response to greater power.33 The finding also offers a new perspective on other polities’ tribute to China. Tribute never constituted the totality of China’s international relations. But even the practice of tribute itself was not uniform or monolithic.34 The strategies of identification, deference, and access embodied three very different rationales for tribute. Historians have proposed typologies of tributary relationships by differentiating typical, general, and nominal tributary relationships to indicate the different nature of tribute.35 Although this line of research focuses on the different forms of tribute, my explanation of the different strategies of China’s neighbors clarifies the varied strategic motivations behind each form. Yet the strategies of identification, deference, access, and exit were not always tributary strategies in the sense of creating or resulting in tributary relationships. Access and exit certainly were not. Historians have pointed out that the great variety of China’s power relations with its neighbors cannot be portrayed simply as tributary relations.36 This is a point repeatedly made in this book. It is theoretically and empirically elaborated on with explanations of regional strategic dynamics beyond tributary relations. Before proceeding to methodology, a clarification of what I mean by Confucianism is necessary. Confucianism is a Western term invented to generalize the school of thought developed by Confucius and his interpreters.37 It represents not a monolithic thought but rather a cluster of problems and themes that have evolved over time.38 Some scholars, equating Confucianism with imperial ideology, dismiss it as having any causal role in foreign policy or any utility in building modern social-science theory. Such a simplistic view can no longer be sustained. Few of us today, notes the distinguished historian Yü Yingshi, “would subscribe to the crude but once dominant notion that Confucianism was no more than a political ideology that functioned to legitimate imperial authority.”39 In fact, Confucianism can be seen “as a political system, as ethical teachings, as social norms, as a humanistic philosophy, or as a religious worldview.”40

Introduction  

We need to at least make a distinction between intellectual Confucianism, or Confucianism as an intellectual tradition and the point of view of the shi (士 literati; see Appendix II for translation of key Chinese terms and expressions) class,41 and imperial Confucianism, or Confucianism as the ideology of the imperial Chinese polity. This study examines both types of Confucianism and their effects on foreign policy during the early Ming period. Chapter 2 shows that they could each inform a possible Chinese grand strategy, and it is a matter of empirical research to determine their practical importance. We should not expect Confucian ethical principles and visions to be fully realized in practice, and this book explains the conditional significance of Confucianism in international relations. But it is undeniable that Confucianism has influenced thought and guided behavior throughout East Asia in different ways and to varying degrees. Discounting Confucianism would be like discounting Christianity in Western European history.42 It is realistic to assume that theoretical perspectives derived from Confucian relationalism will be useful for theorizing regional relations and for enriching Eurocentric IR theories. A caveat about the distinction between pre-Qin classical Confucianism (c. 600–200 B.C.) and Song-Ming neo-Confucianism (c. 1100–1600) (see Appendix I for major periods in ancient and imperial China) is also in order.43 The distinction is relevant to this study because it was neoConfucianism that became imperial ideology and the dominant intellectual influence during the Ming-Qing period. And although it shared major tenets with classical Confucianism, neo-Confucianism differed in its emphasis on moral meditation and personal cultivation, in addition to its new metaphysics.44 Fortunately, for the major strand of Confucian thought that I draw on—Confucian role ethics—there was no fundamental conflict between them, even though their interpretations of certain key concepts (e.g., ren 仁, li 禮, cheng 誠) were different. Neo-Confucianism was as much concerned with role ethics as was classical Confucianism.45 In general, I use the term Confucianism to indicate common elements within the Confucian tradition.

Case Selection This study is a conscious exploration of the strategic and institutional dynamics of traditional East Asian international relations under Chinese hegemony.46 The first methodological criterion for empirical case selection is a period in East Asian history when China achieved regional hegemony. The second criterion is that the period must also be one during which a regional

  chapter 1

international society existed, composed of China and its neighbors and sustained by some fundamental institutional practices.47 The third criterion, given my engagement with the tribute system paradigm, is that the period ideally should be the one in which the tribute system was most fully developed in Chinese history. The early Ming dynasty (1368–1424), spanning the reigns of the founding Hongwu emperor (r. 1368–1398) and his son the Yongle emperor (r. 1403– 1424), offers the best methodological fit in case selection. Japanese scholars have long argued that an East Asian international society had come into being no later than the Sui-Tang period (589–907).48 By Ming times, an international society had existed in the region for more than seven hundred years, a society to which IR theories ought to apply.49 And historians share a strong consensus that the tribute system became institutionalized for the first time in Chinese history during the early Ming period.50 Ming China created an East Asian tributary order based on a sense of Chinese cultural identity. This order began to fall apart with the establishment of the Qing dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century, two centuries before modern European international relations began to encroach on East Asia.51 The early Ming is thus the best period in East Asian history for examining the operation of the tribute system in all of its manifestations. Did early Ming China also achieve regional hegemony? Hegemony requires both material primacy and international legitimacy, as noted earlier. The degree of China’s legitimate authority over regional actors cannot be quantified but needs to be determined in qualitative case studies. I establish some theoretical criteria in Chapter 2 for measuring China’s regional authority, and I argue on the basis of empirical analysis that early Ming China possessed reasonable, though incomplete, hierarchic authority in the region. That it also commanded material primacy can be quantitatively demonstrated. Some rough data on the population and gross domestic product (GDP)—two approximate measures of capability for which comparative data are available—of East Asian polities around the year 1500 illustrate the vast disparities of capability between China and its neighbors during the early to mid-Ming period. Not only were China’s population and GDP both roughly ten times greater than those of Japan and Korea, but also each was twice as big as the combined population and GDP of other regional polities as a whole. In fact, China’s population and GDP accounted for about 66 percent and 68 percent, respectively, of the regional total and

Introduction   table 1.1 Population and gross domestic product of China, East Asia, and the world around 1500 Population (000s)

GDP (million 1990 international $)

China

103,000

61,800

Japan

15,400

7,700

Korea

8,000

4,800

29,600

16,188

Polity and/or region

East Asia except China, Japan, and Korea

53,000

28,688

East Asia in total

East Asia except China

156,000

90,488

World in total

438,400

248,300

Ratio: China to East Asia

0.66

0.68

Ratio: China to world

0.23

0.25

source: Maddison 2007, 116–17, 174. note: East Asia includes both Northeast Asia (principally China, Korea, and Japan) and Southeast Asia (overland and maritime).

about 23 percent and 25 percent of the global total. Table 1.1 and Figure 1.1 present the distribution of material capability across regional actors in both absolute and relative measures. In comparison, the United States—the current global hegemon—accounted for roughly one-fifth of global GDP and more than 40 percent of GDP among the established great powers in 2009.52 John Ikenberry claims that “this is greater than the economic position of any other state in history—aside from America’s own relative economic size after World War II when the economies of the other major [powers] were temporarily depressed.”53 In fact, however, the current global economic position of the United States as measured by GDP is slightly less prominent than that of Ming China at the height of its power. In addition, early Ming China had about 2 million soldiers throughout the empire, with about 863,000 stationed in garrisons along the northern frontier at the end of the Yongle reign.54 Indeed, Ming China of the Yongle reign has been described as “the strongest, wealthiest, and most populous country on earth at that time,”55 with clear material primacy in the East Asian region. In fact, partly inheriting the legacy of Mongol hegemony for stimulating Eurasian commerce and travel,56 early Ming China created a vast international network beyond the geographical confines of East Asia.

  chapter 1 China 70

Population GDP

60 50 40 30 East Asia except China

Japan

20 10 0

East Asia except China, Japan, and Korea Polity

Korea

Population (%)

Gross domestic product (%) 68

China

66

Japan

10

9

Korea

5

5

East Asia except China, Japan, and Korea

19

18

East Asia except China

34

32

figure 1.1 Comparing concentrations of material capability: Distribution (%) of population and gross domestic product among East Asian polities around 1500

It encompassed the nomads of Mongolia and Manchuria in the north, the Japanese archipelago and the Ryukyu Islands in the east, Southeast Asian polities from Vietnam (Annam) to the Philippines (Luzon) in the southeast, various kingdoms on the coast of the Indian Ocean in the south, Central Asian polities from Hami to Samarkand in the west, and the east coast of Africa in the far west. Some of these places were reached for the first time in Chinese history thanks to the celebrated naval expeditions of Admiral

Introduction  

Zheng He between 1405 and 1433.57 Ming China at this time possessed the capacity, if not the will, to become the world’s hegemonic power.58 With the early Ming chosen as the empirical focus, the next question is to determine a specific set of its foreign relations that could represent the full spectrum of regional relations. This set should offer variations on both the independent and the dependent variables—that is, actors and their relationships should themselves exhibit great diversity while also producing a wide range of strategic and institutional outcomes in regional politics. On this criterion, it makes sense to select a set of relationships between China and its neighbors from the most cooperative to the most confrontational. Three dyadic relationships of Sino-Korean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Mongol relations would meet this requirement. Early Ming China’s relationships with Korea and the Mongols were the most cooperative and confrontational, respectively, of all of its foreign relations. The relationship with Japan, containing elements of both cooperation and confrontation, provided a good case in between.59 Three cases are methodologically sufficient. Adding more would reduce the overall quality of case studies given the space limits. Further cases, such as Sino-Vietnamese relations, though interesting from a historical point of view,60 are unlikely to offer additional methodological benefits. The analytical focus is on the dyadic relationships between China and its neighbors because, as Chapter 2 explains, China’s foreign relations were always bilateral and never multilateral. The relationships among China’s neighbors themselves, particularly their own tributarystyle relations modeled on the Chinese scheme, deserve much more study than is currently available, but they are not the focus of this book.

Method The qualitative case studies of this book employ the method of contextualizing historical narratives in order to analyze grand strategy formation. The existing literature sometimes defines grand strategy as “a set of ideas for deploying a nation’s resources to achieve its interests over the long run.”61 It is thus seen as a country’s applied theory for achieving national interest—a conceptual road map with a set of policy prescriptions. So conceived, any grand strategy involves the identification and prioritization of (1) national interests and goals, (2) potential threats to such interests, and (3) resources and/or means with which to meet those threats and protect those interests.62

  chapter 1

This definition is useful for highlighting national strategic design and the choices states have to make in the face of trade-offs between ends and means in policy making. But it has the risk of post hoc scholarly rationalization. That is, although national governments often do not have any overarching grand strategic plan, and their strategies unfold in contingent and piecemeal steps, scholarly analysis has made it seem as if they had such a premeditated strategic design.63 I avoid this pitfall by adopting a different conception of grand strategy from a relational perspective. Grand strategy, I contend, should be seen as the outcome of a relational process of strategic interaction in which actors develop relatively coherent and distinctive means to achieve some ends in international relations. It is rarely the result of an unambiguous policy decision determined by rational calculation before relational interaction takes place. Rationalist theories attribute strategic impulses to instrumental rationality. They assume action “as the pursuit of preestablished ends, abstracted from concrete situations.”64 Yet actors to a transaction do not enter into mutual relations with their identities and interests already given. Identities and interests grow out of actors’ social relations in their networks.65 A relational approach assumes that “ends and means develop coterminously within contexts that are themselves ever changing and thus always subject to reevaluation and reconstruction on the part of the reflective intelligence.”66 Actor motivations or goals in grand strategy cannot be specified a priori,67 because they develop only out of concrete interactions. Whereas conventional definitions of grand strategy see it as a premeditated theory for achieving some preconstituted national interests, my definition shifts the focus to the relational process whereby changing strategic means and ends are revealed. It suggests that a relational structural theory of grand strategy needs to focus on the opportunities and constraints that the relational structure imposes on actor choices. Such a theory should look beyond the categorical attributes of the actors themselves (e.g., capability, ideology), which may be useful for suggesting a national strategic plan, to the circumstances of relational interaction in which their strategies are actually developed. Grand strategy formation lies in actors’ efforts to adjust relations with other actors. Because grand strategy is a processual outcome involving interactions among political actors, its adoption can be explained only by analyzing it as part of a political process.68 Narrative is an eminently suitable method for

Introduction  

this purpose because it can represent relational sequences and processes over time. Narratives are “constellations of relationships (connected parts) embedded in time and space, constituted by causal emplotment.”69 Narrative explanation is necessary because “people are guided to act by the relationships in which they are embedded and by the stories with which they identify—and rarely because of the interests we impute to them.”70 From a relational perspective, a cause must be demonstrated by telling a story, “a causal narrative about the causal pathways by which one class of events is actually affected by another.”71 In fact, the narrative method closely resembles what political scientists refer to as process tracing.72 Process tracing enables one to examine in great empirical detail the evolving strategic means and ends in changing relational contexts and then to determine the overall character of grand strategy. Throughout the book I use the term polity rather than state to refer to the political units of premodern East Asia. Some of these units, particularly the Sinic regimes of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, displayed characteristics analogous to those of the modern state,73 understood as a sovereign political unit with a legitimate monopoly over the use of force in its territory. But they also differed in many ways from the European nation-state model, not least in the conception of the fundamental concept of sovereignty.74 In any case, the “state” as we know it today did not exist before the nineteenth century, even in the West.75 The concept of polity, however, avoids the modernist baggage when defined as “any organized political community that has or could have a history of self-rule.”76 Polities are broader than states in that they can also include empires, ethnic groups, clans, and other communities that can survive as autonomous political entities.77 Thus, in our case, China, Korea, Japan, and the Mongol tribes during the early Ming period can all be seen as polities but not necessarily as states.

Plan of the Book The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 2, drawing on distinguished relational traditions in both China and the West, advances my relational approach. It develops a relational theory to explain a distinct set of grand strategies that imperial China and its neighbors adopted in their interactions. The theory provides a new framework for understanding the strategic dynamics of regional politics under the condition of Chinese ­hegemony. It also affords a new perspective on the role of Confucianism in

  chapter 1

Chinese foreign policy: constraining in the grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy but causal and constitutive in the grand strategy of expressive hierarchy. Equally important, it uncovers an expressive dimension of regional politics that is almost universally ignored in the existing literature. The theory also posits a major facilitating condition of rationality and strategy: they are both relational outcomes conditioned by the degree of the conflict of interest in particular relationships. Chapter 3 examines the strategic interaction dynamics between early Ming China and Korea to evaluate the main theoretical claims advanced in Chapter 2. It argues that the Chinese strategy was initially characterized by expressive hierarchy but was subsequently overshadowed by instrumental hierarchy. On the Korean side, the Koryo˘ dynasty in its final years (1369–92) adopted a strategy of deference, whereas the Choso˘n dynasty in its early years (1392–1424) mainly developed a strategy of identification. Expressive rationality was a key feature of the relationship, although it was not always the dominant one. The correlation between degrees of interest conflict and specific rationality and strategy was unmistakable. Instrumental rationality, of both Chinese and Korean rulers, appeared strongest when interest conflict between the two sides was the sharpest. Conversely, expressive rationality took hold when the relationship was largely cooperative. I conclude that this relationship was largely the result of Chinese hierarchic authority. Chapter 4, on Sino-Japanese relations, continues to evaluate the relational theory. Similar to the Korean case, instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy characterized a good deal of Chinese strategies toward various Japanese rulers. But this case also differed in that early Ming rulers adopted a strategy of defensive isolation to protect the Ming coast from the threat of Japanese piracy. The various Japanese rulers, in contrast, adopted the strategies of exit, access, and deference at different times. Like the Sino-Korean relationship, expressive rationality was an essential but not dominant feature of the relationship. And again, I find a strong correlation between degrees of interest conflict and specific rationality. Overall, this relationship was not one of Chinese hierarchy. The degree of Chinese authority over Japanese rulers was rather limited. Chapter 5, on Sino-Mongol relations, completes empirical evaluation of the relational theory. It shows that Chinese strategies were well accounted for by instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy. The Mongol strategies were mainly characterized by exit and deference. A somewhat surpris-

Introduction  

ing finding is that the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy was more prominent in this relationship than in the Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relationships, thus making expressive rationality a key feature of the relationship. And although the instrumental rationality of the Mongols was more or less constant, the correlation between degrees of interest conflict and Chinese strategic rationality was as impressive as that in the Sino-Korean and SinoJapanese relationships. On the whole, Chinese rulers possessed a greater degree of hierarchic authority over Mongol chieftains than over Japanese rulers, but it was never as great as their authority over Korean rulers. On the basis of the theoretical and empirical analyses of the preceding chapters, Chapter 6 analyzes the fundamental institutions of East Asian order. It argues that early Ming Chinese hegemony in the region was at the same time a distinct international society with its own rules, norms, and institutions. Applying my relational approach and drawing on English School and constructivist theories of international institutions, the chapter develops a relational framework of the constitutional structure of the society of Chinese hegemony. The framework explains the institutional manifestations of tributary diplomacy while also observing other fundamental institutional practices. Although tributary diplomacy was an extremely consequential institution, it was not always the most important one. The East Asian society of Chinese hegemony was broader and more dynamic than the tribute system. Conceptualizing the tribute system as an international society is useful for highlighting the distinctiveness of international relations in East Asian history. But it is inadequate for understanding the full dynamics of regional relations. Chapter 7, the concluding chapter, explains the value of relationalism for examining motivational, strategic, and institutional formations in historical East Asian politics. It also highlights the key empirical finding of expressive rationality in regional relations. A more important purpose of the chapter is to outline ethical relationalism as a distinct critical and normative IR theory and to apply its perspectives to evaluate contemporary Chinese strategy. The theory provides the link between the past and present and suggests policy implications of this study. Chinese foreign policy already contains a rarely noted element of ethical relationalism. But that ethical relationalism is in competition with other intellectual currents for policy influence and must be expanded and deepened if Chinese foreign policy is to realize its relational potential more fully.

two

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy

International relations in East Asian history can be studied with various theoretical approaches. Realism, constructivism, and the English School, in particular, have been applied to generate important insights.1 But international relations (IR) is also a fertile field for new theories to produce novel insights that enrich our understanding. I propose a relational approach that focuses on the structured patterns of relations among political units as a promising theoretical alternative. The advantage of relationalism derives from three considerations, one practical and the other two theoretical. First, the practical consideration is that in this area the relationships between imperial China and other polities have always been the central scholarly concern. A relational approach addresses this concern extremely well because it takes relations and processes as the primary units of analysis. Indeed, the historian James Hevia urges us to focus on “networks of relationships among heterogeneous agents, rather than discrete units organized around uncomplicated notions of cause and effect.”2 Second, relationalism has an intrinsic relevance for the social sciences, as social life revolves around a few elementary forms of human relations.3 Not only does relationalism address the substantive analytical concerns of this study; it has also been identified as a promising and, in some fields, central theoretical and methodological approach to the study of social behavior. Sociologists working in modern Western social theory have distinguished relationalism and its intellectual rival, substantialism, which focuses on ­substances—actors’ categorical attributes—as the main unit of analysis.4 

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

Most IR theories today are substantialist in presuming that entities (most commonly, the “state”) precede interaction; that is, they are already entities with preconstituted identities and interests before they enter into social relations with other entities. Because such theories inevitably encounter the same problems confronting substantialist theories in other fields, some IR scholars have recently called for a shift toward relational approaches. 5 In particular, social network analysis, the dominant relational approach in Western social sciences, is considered “eminently suited to the study of international relations.”6 Some even argue that relationalism provides a unifying concept for political science.7 In any case, different relational approaches have begun to establish themselves in the field.8 Yet relationalism is not a unique Western intellectual tradition. In fact, some Chinese scholars might unwisely claim that relationalism is a unique Chinese intellectual tradition, which is not the case. But it is undeniable that there is a strong relational tradition in China’s intellectual history, and that tradition is underexplored in contemporary social-science research. The third consideration for relationalism therefore rests on the belief that China’s Confucian relationalism also needs to be exploited for IR. This chapter attempts to develop a relational structural theory of grand strategic interactions between China and its neighbors by synthesizing and applying the insights of both Chinese and Western relationalism. Sharing a relational ontology and methodology, both types of relationalism take patterns of relations as the primary feature of social structure. Both types also suggest three relational structural components of the historical East Asian system: the ordering principles of expressive and instrumental rationalities, the differentiation of roles in a sovereign-subordinate and father-son hierarchy, and the distribution of ties measured in terms of actor degree centrality. These structural forces shape three distinct Chinese grand strategies: expressive hierarchy under expressive rationality, as well as instrumental hierarchy and centralization under instrumental rationality. They may also produce four distinct grand strategies of other actors: identification under expressive rationality, as well as exit, access, and deference under instrumental rationality. Expressive hierarchy is the strategy whereby China seeks to establish ethically and emotionally endowed relationships for the sake of having such relationships. With the strategy of instrumental hierarchy, China seeks to establish hierarchical relationships with other actors in order to achieve some other ends. With centralization, China seeks to maintain

  chapter 2

its central position in its international network. With a strategy of identification, other actors identify themselves as China’s hierarchically differentiated outer vassals and fulfill their subordinate obligations to China. With deference, those actors defer to, but do not necessarily accept as legitimate, Chinese hierarchy in order to achieve their own ends. Access is the strategy whereby those actors try to obtain access to the resources controlled by or mediated through China by establishing relations with it. In an exit strategy they reduce the strengths of their ties with China. This chapter specifies the major conditions for the adoption of each of these strategies. The identification of the Chinese strategies of instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy also affords a new perspective on the role of Confucianism in Chinese foreign policy: it is constraining in instrumental hierarchy but causal and constitutive in expressive hierarchy. The differentiation of the two strategies is one of the main analytical tasks of the three case studies presented in this book, and this chapter provides some methodological criteria for empirical adjudication. Finally, the chapter notes four alternative explanations of different aspects of historical East Asian politics and situates my relational theory among them. The relational theory explains a distinct set of grand strategies that imperial China and its neighbors may have adopted in their interactions. It provides a new framework for understanding the strategic dynamics of regional politics under the condition of Chinese hegemony. Equally important, the theory uncovers an expressive dimension of regional politics that is almost universally ignored in the existing literature. Restoring the expressive dimension theoretically will help broaden our conception of human rationality in international relations. The theory also posits a major facilitating condition of rationality and strategy: they are both relational outcomes conditioned by the degree of the conflict of interest in particular relationships. These three main contributions of the theory—an explanation of grand strategic possibilities, the identification of expressive rationality, and a hypothesis on the relational condition of rationality and strategy—can all be empirically illustrated and evaluated.

Chinese and Western Variants of Relationalism Relationality is a distinctive feature of Chinese social behavior, perhaps more prominent in traditional times but certainly not absent in the modern

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

era. The very concept of the person (ren 人) in Chinese, for example, is based on the individual’s transactions with other human beings in terms of his or her place in a web of interpersonal relationships, rather than on the individual as a discrete entity with an independent personality.9 In the Confucian tradition, observes Tu Wei-ming, “the true self, as an open system, is a center of relationships rather than an isolated individual.”10 Chinese relationalism proposes a relational ontology of mutual relations, interconnected events, and interdependent coexistence among meaningful actors in the social world. As Roger T. Ames, an authority on Confucian philosophy, puts it, Chinese relationalism understands an “actor” to be “a complex event rather than a discrete ‘thing,’ a process of ‘becoming’ rather than an essential ‘being,’ an on-going ‘doing’ rather than an autonomous ‘is,’ a configuration of concrete, dynamic, and constitutive relations rather than an individuated substance defined by some subsisting agency.”11 The distinguished sociologist Fei Xiaotong’s famous study of the characteristics of China’s rural society may be seen as the first significant attempt to apply a relational approach in Chinese sociology.12 Fei argues that the basic structure of Chinese rural society is “a differential mode of association” (chaxu geju 差序格局). It is “composed of webs woven out of countless personal relationships. To each knot in these webs is attached a specific ethical principle.”13 More recently, social psychologists have vigorously exploited Confucian relationalism to build an indigenous psychology rooted in Chinese society. David Y. F. Ho, an early pioneer, suggested “Asian” methodological relationalism as an alternative framework to “Western” methodological individualism.14 A relational analysis “requires the theorist to consider how relationships are culturally defined, before attempting to interpret the behavior of individuals.”15 Drawing on Ho, Kwang-Kuo Hwang has tried to develop a Chinese relationalism in social psychology by examining the ways in which the Chinese people arrange their relationships within their social networks.16 In philosophy, the relational nature of Confucian thought has long been recognized. Ames argues that Confucian ethics “is grounded in a distinctive, relational conception of role-bearing persons.”17 In this intellectual tradition, “There is no discrete, essential, innate, and reduplicated ‘nature’ independent of a person’s specific context; there are only unique yet analogically similar persons constituted by their always-specific roles and relationships.”18 Confucianism does not make an appeal to putatively objective

  chapter 2

principles or to rational choice alone; instead, it proposes a phenomenology of experience by exploring ways in which constitutive relations of particular situations can be enhanced. Ames recommends the potential of Confucian role ethics for international relations: “The notion of interdependence and the assumption that if your neighbor does better, you do better, is a productive framework within which a community of nations can work towards negotiating a common good.”19 Among Chinese philosophers, Zhao Tingyang, best known for his work on the tianxia (天下) system in IR circles,20 has been promoting relationalism on philosophical and methodological grounds.21 Zhao contends that methodological individualism in modern social sciences unjustifiably prioritizes the atomistic individual as the unit of analysis and assumes the rationality of exclusive self-interest maximization.22 Such individual rationality can lead to collective irrationality because it embodies a unilateral strategy of maximizing self-interest that is ultimately self-defeating and counterproductive. The alternative proposed is a Confucian methodological relationalism as an approach to analyzing human actions and values in terms of relationships rather than individuals. Zhao claims that methodological relationalism embodies a more reasonable relational rationality that is grounded in the belief that the minimization of conflicts is a necessary condition for the maximization of self-interest. Relational rationality prioritizes the best mutual relations (the minimization of mutual harm) rather than the best unilateral strategy (the maximization of individual interest). Individual interest is most reliably obtained when mutual harm is minimized. Relational security (the minimization of mutual harm) and relational interest (mutual help and support) thus set the limits of and necessary conditions for individual interest. Relationalism has also found its way into Chinese IR. Qin Yaqing and Shih Chih-yu, based respectively on the mainland and Taiwan, are leading promoters of Chinese relationalism for the study of Chinese foreign policy and IR theory.23 Qin, in particular, identifies the potential of relationalism to contribute to Chinese IR theories. Taking mainstream Western IR theories as his foil, Qin criticizes those theories’ neglect of social processes and consequent failure to theorize relations in international relations. In contrast, he points out, processes and relations are two key concepts of

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

Chinese political philosophy: the core of process is relations in motion, and the ­motion of relations forms process. Like many Chinese scholars, he emphasizes the relational orientation of Chinese society by reference to the influence of Confucianism and contrasts “Western rationality” based on individualism with “Chinese relationality” based on relationalism. In brief, Chinese relationalism provides an ontology of events situated in relations, not one of substance that consists of discrete entities.24 This event-substance opposition corresponds almost exactly to a central divide in Western social theory between substantialism and relationalism. Substantialism places entities before relations, as if they had an autonomous existence. Relationalism takes relations as the primary unit of analysis because entities are believed to derive their meaning, significance, and identity only from their involvement in those relations.25 Substantialism tends to commit the error of essentialism—the belief that things are what they are because that is their nature, essence, or definition. Challenging this view, relationalism holds that “what things are they are for an empirical observer, and what these things can do depends on how they are related to things of a similar sort.”26 The contrast between a relational ontology of relations, events, and coexistence and a substantialist ontology of attributes, interactions, and existence is profound, for it suggests fundamentally different analytical priorities in social research. A central relational approach in Western social sciences is social network analysis, a structural approach to the study of social behavior. Conceptualizing social structure as regularities in the patterns of relations among interacting units,27 “the network approach investigates the constraining and enabling dimensions of patterned relationships among social actors within a system.”28 Behavior is interpreted in terms of structural constraints on activity rather than in terms of units’ categorical attributes.29 This position, known as the anticategorical imperative, rejects all approaches that emphasize the nonrelational attributes and/or purposive actions of individuals or collectivities in social explanation.30 Structured relationships are believed to be a more powerful source of explanation than the attributes of system members.31 In international relations, one of the most significant relational approaches of recent years is Richard Ned Lebow’s successive projects on ethics, culture, and identity, which are informed by ancient Greek thought.32

  chapter 2

Challenging theories that start with autonomous actors and take identities as unitary, consistent, and given, Lebow stresses the social nature of identity formation in the course of relational interaction with others. He also highlights the importance of dense relationships—and the commitments and obligations they generated—in the life of Greek city-states. Lebow’s work reveals a striking similarity between ancient Greek and Chinese relational thought. Chinese and Western relational approaches are easily compatible, highly complementary, and—when properly synthesized—capable of producing significant insights for studying traditional East Asian relations. Both follow the anticategorical imperative and share a relational ontology. Both promote a methodological relationalism that treats relations as the primary unit of analysis. And they share the basic concept that “individual action has its end in the formation of social ties” rather than the “satisfaction of utilities.”33

Relational International Structure ordering principles

Relationalism is a structural approach in social analysis. How can one apply its insights to theorize the structure of the historical East Asian system? A good place to start is this question: by which ordering principles are the relationships among international actors arranged? Ordering principles reveal a major structural feature of any international system.34 They suggest an important aspect of the patterns of relations among political units. According to Confucian relationalism, two major ordering principles of a relational network are the expressive principle (qingganxing yuanze 情感 性原則) and the instrumental principle (gongjuxing yuanze 工具性原則). These lead to two distinct types of relationships. The expressive principle embodies humanized affection (renqing 人情) between two actors, whereas the instrumental principle reflects a relational interaction to obtain resources for the purpose of utility.35 Each principle produces a distinct rationality and logic of relational action. Instrumental rationality is the notion that actors behave strategically according to a consequentialist means-end calculation.36 This notion is frequently considered the dominant principle of action in the modern world, and it is built into much of IR theory, particularly rationalist theories of strategic choices.37 These theories are usually materialist in positing that ac-

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

tors develop strategies to maximize material utilities such as security, power, and wealth by slighting or ignoring the norms, values, or obligations involved in social transactions.38 The logic of action following instrumental rationality is the logic of maximizing self-interest, although instrumental actions need not always be egoistic. In an instrumental relationship, actors are principally concerned with maximizing utility. The relationship becomes a means to an end, a way to attain other goals.39 The relationship itself is not valued. It does not involve the affection or obligation that actors may attach to each other, and it may not last beyond the moment of mutual expediency. Confucian relationalism does not take instrumentality to be the only or the dominant principle of social action.40 Its intellectual contribution is to identify expressive rationality as a distinct principle of social action alongside instrumental rationality. This is the proposition that social actions can involve commitment, empathy, affection, mutual support, and human obligation among actors and are thus more than instrumental calculation. Expressive rationality is the psychological, emotional, and ethical foundation of the Confucian paradigm of relational social life based on reciprocal respect, affection, and obligation.41 Confucianism contains an implicit theory of social psychology that identifies the mind-and-heart (xin 心) as a fundamental drive of human behavior. It is posited as an expressive drive that delivers emotionally satisfying and ethically appropriate ways of life. Humaneness (ren 仁), conceived by Confucius as the foundation of expressive rationality, for example, is understood as a psychological condition that produces feelings of affection and obligation with emotional attachments and ethical implications.42 In this sense, expressive rationality is different from the logic of appropriateness as commonly understood in constructivism. Appropriateness, as originally proposed by March and Olsen, “involves cognitive and ethical dimensions, targets, and aspirations.”43 It lacks the psychological and emotional underpinnings of expressive rationality. Expressive rationality can still be seen as a logic of appropriateness, but it is a distinct type of appropriateness rooted in the Confucian tradition. Expressive rationality need not imply altruism, but neither is it egoism.44 The apparent paradox is eminently explainable by the emphasis of Confucian relationalism on the fulfillment of the self-other relationship,45 in terms of what Tu Wei-ming refers to as Confucianism’s “inclusive humanism”: “Theoretically, learning to be human can be both ‘for the sake of others’ and

  chapter 2

‘for the sake of the self.’ Indeed, this preference for the inclusive ‘both-and’ rather than the exclusive ‘either-or’ solution to conflicts between self and society is a distinctive feature of Confucian ethics.”46 Expressive action is nonconsequentialist, oriented not toward the outcome of action but toward the action itself.47 It is undertaken not because it can generate a consequential outcome, but because it is psychologically natural, emotionally satisfying, and ethically appropriate in the Confucian context. When an individual attempts to establish an expressive relationship with another person, the relationship itself becomes the goal, because it is through such a relationship that affection and obligation can be realized and enhanced. The expressive relationship thus is the end of social interaction, not a means to an end, as in an instrumental relationship.48 In the traditional Chinese context, expressive rationality contains a twodimensional principle of action: intimacy-distance (qinshu 親疏) and superiority-inferiority (zunbei 尊卑). The former refers to the closeness of the relationship, whereas the latter indicates the relative positions of the two actors involved.49 According to Confucian ethics, all relationships should be conducted by following the principle of respecting the superior (zunzun yuanze 尊尊原則), which will lead to hierarchical role relationships between actors. The superior party in those relationships should then allocate resources by following the principle of favoring the intimate (qinqing yuanze 親親原則)—that is, those who are seen as close receive better treatment than those who are seen as distant.50 The implication of these principles for international relations will become clear once we examine the second relational structural component suggested by Confucian relationalism: role differentiation. the differentiation of roles

Differentiation is a central topic in Western social theory,51 but it has not been effectively employed to develop structural insights into IR.52 Role is a key concept in classical Western thought, but it has lost its place in the modern era and is now being reexamined.53 Both concepts, however, are essential to Confucian relationalism’s ethical theory of role differentiation.54 Role and status relationships are among the most important relational contexts in social life,55 and role ethics is central to Confucian thought. Confucian role ethics teaches that social interactions should begin by assess-

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

ing the role relationships between actors. Different role relationships require different ethical principles of action. Each of the five cardinal relationships in Chinese society identified by Confucianism,56 for example, requires a distinct ethical rule for behavior. The differentiation of roles suggests how actors stand in relation to one another. The function of a specific role makes sense only in relation to another role. As also recognized by many Western theorists, “every social role . . . exists concretely only in relation to one or more complementary roles with which it regularly interacts.”57 The differentiation of roles is therefore a relational—and structural—concept. What might have been the most important role relationships between China and its neighbors in traditional East Asia? In the Chinese conception, these roles are differentiated along two hierarchical axes of sovereignsubordinate and father-son relationships. The Chinese emperor is the sovereign and father of the known world, and people inhabiting this world then become the emperor’s subordinates and sons. This is of course China’s normative ideal; the specific nature of the relationships can vary greatly by cultural, political, and strategic context. Normatively, this role differentiation implies a distinct set of reciprocal obligations and implicit rights based on expressive rationality between China and other polities. The most important obligations due to the Chinese emperor, according to Confucian ethics, are imperial grace (en 恩) and humaneness (ren 仁).58 Non-Chinese rulers, however, are obligated to develop loyalty (zhong 忠) and integrity (cheng 诚). This is “a hierarchy of reciprocal relationships,” the duties of one side implying the rights of the other side.59 Thus, the Chinese duties of en and ren become the rights of the non-Chinese, and non-Chinese rulers’ duties of zhong and cheng become the rights of the Chinese emperor. Such hierarchical role differentiation is consistent with the expressive principle of respecting the superior mentioned already. At the same time, the logic of hierarchy demands a logic of differentiation according to the principle of favoring the intimate, also mentioned earlier. Relationships with actors of different degrees of intimacy need to be managed differently. This principle originally derives from China’s kinship-based familism. In foreign relations, the extent of intimacy or distance comes to be determined more by culture than by race, that is, by foreign polities’ perceived cultural affinity with China. Simultaneously integrating and differentiating, the intimacy-distance principle assigns foreign entities differential places in

  chapter 2 table 2.1 Logics of action in Confucian relationalism Ordering principle

Logic of relational action

Expressive

Hierarchical differentiation

Instrumental

Self-interest maximization

China’s international network according to their cultural affinity.60 Based on Confucian culture and ethics, this two-dimensional expressive logic of action can be simplified as the logic of hierarchical differentiation, to be distinguished from the logic of self-interest maximization in instrumental relationships (see Table 2.1). the distribution of ties

The third relational structural component—the distribution of ties—can be derived from social network analysis. Because relationalism takes relations and ties as the main units of analysis, the distribution of ties in a network ought to be a major structural feature of the network. The distribution of ties can be conceptualized and measured in a number of ways. For our purposes and for the sake of simplicity, we will focus on one such measure: actor degree centrality. The degree centrality of an actor is the sum of the value of the ties between that actor and every other actor in the network. Assuming that central actors must be the most active, in the sense that they have the most ties to other actors in a network, degree centrality measures the extent to which an actor is involved in relationships. It can be used to estimate the extent of centralization in a network—how much other actors rely on a single actor.61 Centrality so measured is often a proxy for power and influence,62 as it suggests “prominence in networks where valued information and scarce resources are transferred from one actor to another.”63 Thus, an actor with a high degree of centrality may possess social power, easily accessing resources and information from other actors because of its central position. Such power may also allow the actor to shape the flow of information among relevant actors and “alter common understandings of relative capabilities, common interests, or norms.”64 In all, then, a relational approach produces a three-part conception of international structure in the traditional East Asian context (see Table 2.2).

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy   table 2.2 Relational international structure in traditional East Asia Structural components

Analytical indicators

Ordering principles

Expressive and instrumental

Differentiation of roles

Sovereign-subordinate and father-son hierarchy

Distribution of ties

Actor degree centrality

A brief comparison with the neorealist conception of international structure—once dominant in the field—will make the distinctiveness of this relational conception clear. Kenneth Waltz has developed a three-part definition of structure in terms of ordering principle, functional differentiation, and distribution of capabilities.65 Positing anarchy and hierarchy as two major ordering principles of political orders, he contrasts the allegedly anarchic nature of international politics to the hierarchical nature of national politics. This diametric view of anarchy and hierarchy, as if they were categorically distinct and mutually exclusive, is under mounting attack in recent scholarship. Many scholars now argue that anarchy and hierarchy can coexist to different degrees within a single international system and that viewing international hierarchy and anarchy as a continuum or matter of degree will have great analytical payoff.66 A relational conception of international structure does not explicitly posit anarchy and hierarchy as ordering principles;67 nor does it see them as diametrical categories. Rather, recognizing that political orders may be organized more or less anarchically or hierarchically, the anarchy-hierarchy continuum is implicitly contained in all of the three structural components. Waltz has also been heavily criticized for dropping the second structural component of functional differentiation and for contending instead that states are like units on the international stage.68 Yet Confucian relationalism suggests that role differentiation—if not quite what Waltz refers to as functional differentiation—is an important relational structure that can causally affect actor behavior.69 With the invariance of anarchy assumed and functional differentiation dropped, the distribution of capabilities becomes the only, and a highly consequential, structural variable. Relationalism, in contrast, suggests an alternative concept of the distribution of ties in place of the distribution of capabilities. Both conceptions make excellent sense from their ­respective

  chapter 2

theoretical standpoints. Neorealism is a substantialist theory of international politics, and thus it focuses on the categorical attributes of actors as analytical variables—in this case, the material capabilities of states. Relationalism, in contrast, rejects the categorical imperative and instead focuses on relational patterns as structure, and thus sees the distribution of ties as a central structural component. Network analysts have long suggested e­ xplaining behavior “by analyzing the social distribution of possibilities: the unequal availability of resources such as information, wealth, and influence as well as the structures through which people may have access to these resources.”70 The distribution of ties is a major structural feature that can affect the distribution of such possibilities. Finally, as Alexander Wendt points out, Waltz’s three structural components do not by themselves predict state behavior. It is rather the principle of self-help, which Waltz views as a logical corollary of anarchy, that does the decisive explanatory work in the theory.71 In contrast, the relational structural components of expressive and instrumental rationalities and hierarchical role differentiation specify possible behavioral patterns to be empirically investigated, and thus constitute a more “meaningful” conception of social structure. As for Wendt, his own “thin” constructivism is also problematic in one key respect—it is not fully relational.72 Wendt in fact essentializes identity by positing a cohesive, presocial self,73 rather than seeing identity as composed of a series of identifications developed and changed through relational interactions.

Instrumental Relational Grand Strategies What, then, are the possible behavioral patterns that follow from such a relational structure? How might that structure act “as a constraining and disposing force” to shape the grand strategic choices of China and its neighbors?74 Two possibilities arise under instrumental rationality: instrumentalism coupled with role differentiation and instrumentalism coupled with the distribution of ties. The behavioral implications of each need to be theorized separately. Confucian hierarchical role differentiation would promote the establishment of international hierarchy as the norm of China’s foreign relations. Instrumentalism, in contrast, would determine that such a norm is only

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

consequentially exploited for self-interested goals. Thus, their conjunction might lead to a grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy, whereby China seeks to establish hierarchical relationships with other polities in order to achieve some other end, such as security, power, or legitimacy, the specificity of which can be empirically examined. Under this strategy hierarchy is a means to other ends, not an end in itself. In response, other actors might pursue a grand strategy of deference, whereby they defer to, but do not necessarily accept as legitimate, Chinese hierarchy in order to achieve their own ends, the specificity of which are also to be empirically examined. The strategy is adopted under the Confucian cultural norm of hierarchical differentiation, but, as with instrumental hierarchy, its instrumentalism determines that the norm is only strategically used for self-interest. The relationship formed as a result of the strategic interaction between China’s instrumental hierarchy and other actors’ deference is not, strictly speaking, a complete authority relationship of super- and subordination. Secondary actors, rather than accept Chinese hierarchy as legitimate (something that ought to occur), merely comply with China’s hierarchical scheme of foreign relations for their own self-interested reasons.75 Instrumental action under the cultural structure of Confucian role differentiation seems at first sight implausible if we assume the incompatibility of strategic interests and norms. Yet, as recent constructivist work has begun to show, the relationship between strategic interests and norms can be complementary rather than contradictory. States can use international norms and institutions strategically for their self-interests. Still governed by the instrumental logic of consequences, actors alter their calculations of how best to achieve strategic ends by adapting to the constraints of norms. Norms thus affect the incentives facing actors by constraining or regulating their behavior, not by constituting and redefining their identities and interests.76 Indeed, positing states as strategic actors embedded in a socially constructed environment provides a way to see rational choice and constructivism as complements rather than antagonists.77 Thus, Chinese rulers’ grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy is possible because they can use Confucian norms and institutions to justify and legitimate its instrumental objectives.78 In fact, this is how Confucianism as imperial ideology is supposed to work. Secondary actors’ instrumental strategy of deference is possible because they can strategically use, manipulate, and exploit Chinese

  chapter 2

norms and ­institutions for their own self-interests. These norms and institutions constrain rather than constitute their strategic choices. But this is not to say that they are useless: that they can constrain at all demonstrates their moral force.79 Instrumentalism coupled with the distribution of ties, in contrast, might lead to a grand strategy of centralization, whereby China as the central actor in its international network seeks to maintain its central position in the network. The instrumental logic here assumes China’s interest in ­sustaining a favorable distribution of network ties in order to enhance its prominence and influence. The strategy of centralization aims to control scarce resources, either material or nonmaterial, the specificity of which can be empirically determined. It focuses on building and maintaining more ties between China and other actors than other actors may have among themselves, so that those other actors will rely more on China than China will rely on them. If other actors expect China’s resource network to bring them benefits, they might respond with a grand strategy of access, whereby they try to obtain access to the resources controlled by or mediated through China by establishing relations with it. Trade immediately comes to mind as a simple form of this strategy. But if the actors believe that such access would actually damage their interests, they may instead opt for the opposite of the access strategy. This is the strategy of exit, whereby they reduce the strengths of their ties with China (alienation), sever ties with China in the present network in order to be left alone (isolation), or enter into relations with other actors in a different network (switching). The choice of access or exit, both of which are possible under the relational structure of instrumentalism and the distribution of ties, depends on actors’ calculation of their interests, which must be empirically examined.

Expressive Relational Grand Strategies Expressive rationality embodies relational affection and obligation at psychological, emotional, and ethical levels. In Confucian ethics, it is meant to apply to interpersonal relationships among individuals. But it is worth asking whether and to what extent it may manifest in international relations. International relations are, after all, conducted by persons as policy agents, not by “states” as unitary actors.

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

Expressive rationality coupled with Confucian role differentiation suggests that Chinese rulers are likely to create differentiated bilateral hierarchical relationships with the rulers of other polities. The differentiation of roles in the Confucian cultural context indicates that they will try to establish hierarchical relationships along the sovereign-subordinate and father-son axes—the same implication for the strategy of instrumental hierarchy discussed earlier. Where the new strategy differs is in the expressive rationality of affection and obligation. Further, the expressive principle of favoring the intimate suggests China’s differential treatment of different polities on the basis of their cultural intimacy to or distance from it. These dynamics give rise to what I call a grand strategy of expressive hierarchy, whereby Chinese rulers, charged with the superordinate obligations of grace (en 恩) and humaneness (ren 仁) based on expressive rationality, seek to differentially bind foreign rulers to an interlocking and hierarchical network of bilateral relationships centered on China. These relationships are necessarily bilateral rather than multilateral, because it is this bilateralism that conforms to the relational logic of hierarchical differentiation discussed earlier.80 In practice, the relational hierarchy can be more or less intense, and the sovereign-vassal relationship more or less substantive. Their degrees vary with individual relationships, as each is seen as distinct in itself. Central to this strategy are the principles of reciprocity and mutuality, not exploitation.81 Expressive hierarchy is a strategy of simultaneous integration and differentiation: it integrates foreign polities by assigning them to separate places in China’s international network according to their cultural affinity with China. Or, as James Hevia puts it in a different context, this kind of hierarchy is supposed to be “materialized via a logic of inclusion or encompassment which simultaneously maintains difference.”82 It is a Confucian cultural strategy consistent with the logic of hierarchical differentiation. Notice a fundamental difference between the instrumental strategies of centralization and instrumental hierarchy and the expressive strategy of expressive hierarchy, a difference that is in accord with the understanding in Confucian relationalism of the different nature of relationships under instrumental and expressive rationalities. Centralization and instrumental hierarchy are strategies to use relational ties to achieve some other ends, which is why they are instrumental. Expressive hierarchy, in contrast, is a strategy

  chapter 2

to establish ethically and emotionally endowed relationships for the sake of having such relationships, because the relationships themselves are seen as the most appropriate outcomes of Confucian international relations. Such relationships are the end of the strategy, not a means to some other end. Expressive rationality does not consider its end in terms of interest (e.g., gain, advantage), because it is fundamentally a psychological, emotional, and ethical paradigm. If we need to interpret the practical outcomes of expressive hierarchy in interest terms, we may say that it contributes not to gaining immediate rewards but to ensuring the welfare for the relationships of which China is a part, as a whole. If under expressive rationality the main grand strategy of China is expressive hierarchy, what is the grand strategy that other actors may employ toward China? Under instrumentalism, other actors may pursue deference, access, or exit. The last option of exit is implausible under expressive rationality since it implies actors’ attachment of affection and obligation to their relationships with China. But how might expressive rationality transform their deference and access strategies? If the Confucian role differentiation of a sovereign-subordinate and father-son hierarchy is a potent structural force, and if other actors genuinely follow Confucian expressive rationality, one may posit that they will accept their subordinate roles vis-à-vis China, identify themselves as China’s hierarchically differentiated outer vassals and fulfill their obligations of loyalty and integrity toward China. This is what I call a grand strategy of identification. Its end is the expressive subordinate relationship with China itself, because that is the appropriate outcome of foreign relations in the Confucian context. It is a strategy informed by “a passionate and sincere belief in the positive, transformative power” of Chinese civilization.83 A relationship based on this strategy will be an authority relationship, since the subordinate actor accepts China’s hierarchy as legitimate.84

Conditions of Grand Strategies The theory identifies several distinct grand strategies of China and its neighbors (see Table 2.3). What are the conditions that make them more or less likely? Because the theory has not assumed the invariance or dominance of either of the two rationalities, rationality itself becomes the first major condition that makes particular strategies possible. Thus, centralization,

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy   table 2.3 Relational grand strategies Actor

Instrumental

Expressive

China

Centralization, instrumental hierarchy

Expressive hierarchy

Other actors

Exit, access, deference

Identification

i­nstrumental hierarchy, access, exit, and deference are instrumental strategies, and expressive hierarchy and identification are expressive strategies. Can one further identify the conditions for the operation of instrumental and expressive rationalities? Confucian relationalism holds that both instrumental and expressive actions are possible in the real world. It is unhelpful to specify a priori which one might be more prevalent in a given situation. Rational choice theory has long made it seem as if instrumental rationality dominated social action. While Confucian relationalism heavily qualifies this assumption, it is equally mistaken to presume that in the traditional East Asian context expressive rationality must be the dominant principle of action simply because of the assumed influence of Confucianism in that historical context. Nevertheless, it is possible to hypothesize one major facilitating condition of the two contrasting modes of rationality. We have already observed that instrumental rationality involves consequentialist interest calculation, whereas expressive rationality is a psychological, emotional, and ethical paradigm that eschews such calculation. My hypothesis is that in the Confucian context, the degree of the conflict of interest in a relationship is a major facilitating condition of instrumental or expressive rationality. In general, the greater the degree of the conflict of interest, the greater the requirement for interest calculation will become, and the stronger the instrumental rationality that will tend to develop. Conversely, the lesser the degree of the conflict of interest, the greater the room for ethical considerations will be, and the stronger the expressive rationality that will tend to grow will be. The degree of the conflict of interest is a relational condition endogenous to interaction dynamics. It is situation specific, making the further generalization of the causes of interest conflict difficult. One must also stress that it is a facilitating condition of instrumental or expressive rationality, but not a necessary or sufficient condition of either. Instrumental rationality does not necessarily require the precondition of conflict of interest, nor does

  chapter 2

e­ xpressive rationality depend on the absence of such conflict. Outside of the Confucian context, such as when China is dealing with a non-Confucian polity, the degree of cultural similarity between them also becomes a condition of rationality. We may well hypothesize that non-Confucian polities are unlikely to develop Confucian expressive rationality because that is culturally alien to them. For China, however, the degree of interest conflict is still the major condition of rationality in these circumstances. One may further suggest that the difference between instrumental and expressive rationalities is not in kind, but in degree.85 The point is easier to see once we allow variations in rationality. Elements of both instrumental and expressive rationalities, not mutually exclusive, may be found in the same action. What particular rationality along the instrumental-expressive continuum prevails in a given situation is an empirical puzzle, not a theoretical postulate. The specificity of rationality should be explained as an outcome, rather than a foundation, of certain relations. Rationality is ultimately also relational, determined by specific situations.86 As the condition of the degree of the conflict of interest implies, Confucian China may practice expressive hierarchy when the degree of interest conflict is low but adopt instrumental hierarchy when it is high. It will also be useful to view the Chinese strategies of instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy, as well as secondary actors’ strategies of deference and identification, as matters of degree rather than kind. Consistent with seeing instrumental-expressive rationality as degree variation, this view of the nature of the differences between the strategies is likely to be particularly useful in empirical research, since a categorical distinction between them would sometimes require clearly establishing actor motivations and goals. One should strive to answer motivational and purposeful questions as far as the available evidence allows, but seeing the strategies as variations in degree permits more careful and defensible empirical claims. Moreover, such a view corresponds nicely to the understanding of authority as “a variable that exists in greater or lesser degrees in different times and places.”87 This implies that relational hierarchy (not to be confused with hierarchy as a Chinese strategy), understood as a relationship of legitimate authority, also needs to be understood “as a continuum on which one actor has more or less political authority over other actors.”88 This will then enable us to see that China’s authority over other actors may be more or less complete, and

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

the relationship more or less hierarchic, along a continuum from secondary actors’ strategies of access and exit (no authority), through deference (some authority), to identification (great authority). The second major condition for the adoption of particular strategies is the specificity of relationship dynamics, a condition that derives from the conception of grand strategy as a processual outcome. Actors develop strategies in relational interactions with other actors, which can change with changes in the nature of the relationships. As Robert Jervis observes from a different perspective, strategies depend on the strategies of others.89 My hypothesis is that a grand strategy of a certain rationality (expressive or instrumental) is more likely to be sustained in interaction with a grand strategy of the same rationality, although this does not preclude the possibility of the coexistence of strategies of different rationalities. In the abstract, then, one can say that China is more likely to adopt the grand strategy of expressive hierarchy when the degree of interest conflict in its foreign relations is low and when the strategy is reciprocated with one of identification from other actors. It is more likely to adopt the grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy when the degree of interest conflict in its foreign relations is high and when Confucian norms only constrain their behavior rather than constitute their identities and interests. It is more likely to adopt the grand strategy of centralization when the degree of interest conflict in its foreign relations is high and when Confucian norms have little influence on their behavior. Non-Chinese actors are more likely to adopt the grand strategy of identification when the degree of interest conflict in their relations with China is low and when the strategy is reciprocated with expressive hierarchy from China. They are more likely to adopt the grand strategy of deference when the degree of interest conflict in their relations with China is high, when they are motived by resource gains, and when Confucian norms constrain only their behavior rather than constitute their identities and interests. They are more likely to adopt the grand strategy of access when the degree of interest conflict in their relations with China is high, when they are motived by resource gains, and when Confucian norms have little influence on their behavior. They are more likely to adopt the grand strategy of exit when the degree of conflict of interest in their relations with China is high and when they believe reducing the strength of ties with China is a better protection

  chapter 2

of their interests. Needless to say, these are general facilitating conditions that make particular strategies more likely, not necessary or sufficient conditions of these strategies.

Confucianism in Chinese Grand Strategy The theory is in part based on Confucian relationalism. What, then, does it say about the role of Confucianism in Chinese grand strategy, a topic that has recently become prominent? Two conceptions, reflected in the s­ trategies of instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy, respectively, are of central importance. In instrumental hierarchy, Confucianism is seen as constraining Chinese behavior, in the sense that rulers need to use the Confucian rhetoric to justify and legitimate their actions motivated by other considerations, but not to constitute their identities and interests. Confucian norms and institutions are used instrumentally to promote other interests. Even so, Confucianism still exercises its moral, if not behavioral, force by moderating the policy discourse. In expressive hierarchy, in contrast, Confucianism is seen as constituting Chinese identities and interests and causing actual policies, making it a “truly” Confucian grand strategy. In instrumental hierarchy, Confucianism is reduced to an imperial ideology; in expressive hierarchy, it exerts its causal power as an intellectual source and an ethical guide. It is obvious that instrumental hierarchy is compatible with coercion and inducement, since Confucianism plays only a justificatory and constraining role. But does expressive hierarchy, constituted by Confucian ethics, have a place for coercion and inducement? In fact, Confucianism has its own hierarchy of almost unlimited strategic means, albeit with distinct ethical connotations.90 Chinese rulers have surely made use of their material resources, such as when they bestowed generous gifts on foreign tribute envoys. But if we were to follow the Confucian logic, it would be a mistake to understand this as instrumental inducement to initiate a relationship and gain future deference. Rather, it is seen as a fulfillment of the expressive principle of en (恩 grace). Its purpose is not economic or commercial exchange (e.g., trade), but the enhancement of the expressive relationship itself. Whether the instrumental or expressive interpretation makes more sense in particular cases is of course an empirical question. As for coercion, a long tendency in the literature associates Confucianism with pacifism by assuming the incompatibility between Confucian culture

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

and the use of force, thereby foreclosing the possibility of coercion in Confucian foreign policy. This is an extremely common but rather simplistic understanding of Confucianism in foreign policy. I would suggest that Confucianism has a ranked order of grand strategic preferences, with expressive hierarchy as the ideal choice. The purpose of this strategy is for both China and other actors to observe the propriety in their roles and relations (li 禮) according to Confucian role ethics as applied in foreign relations. It is intended not to enforce direct governance outside the administrative realm of the Chinese empire, but to establish “an ethical communion”91 beyond the empire’s territorial scope based on expressive rationality. This essentially requires, as noted earlier, imperial grace (en 恩) and humaneness (ren 仁) on the part of China and subordinate loyalty (zhong 忠) and integrity (cheng 诚) on the part of secondary actors. But if the li—the fundamental basis of the Confucian ethical order—is seen as having been violated in Chinese eyes, coercion, whether rhetorical or actual, will be considered a legitimate instrument to restore it.92 The extreme case is punitive expedition justified by Confucianism’s own theory of just war,93 which is not to say that it is also objectively justifiable. Coercion in those circumstances, according to Confucian theory, is used not for military aggression, destruction, conquest, or colonization, but for the restoration of an ethical order. This is why the classics used xing (刑 penal law)—“as an instrument for defining and sustaining communal harmony”94—to describe this kind of “ethical coercion.”95 A methodological question arises. Expressive hierarchy is compatible with coercion, but so is instrumental hierarchy. How, then, can one tell whether a given coercion is a reflection of expressive hierarchy or instrumental hierarchy? “War” in instrumental hierarchy usually entails the expansion of its aims and revision of the status quo in order to gain substantive material advantages. “Punishment” in expressive hierarchy is meant to rectify serious violation of ethical principles, such as foreign rulers’ expected obligation of loyalty and integrity toward China or major principles of politics and governance within foreign polities that are considered legitimate and necessary by Confucian statecraft. It should imply China’s restoration of these principles, not gains of material benefits as the result of the use of force. In the case of force projection into other countries, punishment should entail force withdrawal after military operations. There are, then, both behavioral and motivational indicators to differentiate between instrumental war and expressive punishment.

  chapter 2

In general, instrumental hierarchy involves interest calculation of the consequentialist means-end sort and self-interest maximization without taking into account the interest of other actors. Expressive hierarchy, in contrast, does not proceed from such interest calculation. It is an emotionally and ethically generated strategy for establishing an expressive relationship of superordinate humaneness and grace, as well as subordinate loyalty and integrity, between Chinese and foreign rulers. It is the creation of such a particular type of relationship and a corresponding ethical order that is that strategy’s distinct aim. Although expressive rationality does not express itself in interest terms, the analyst, from a practical point of view, can say that expressive hierarchy serves the interest of both China and its interacting actors in their relationships. In terms of interest, the strategy is neither altruistic nor egoistic, but relational. Broadly speaking, then, in seeking to distinguish between instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy, one should look for empirical evidence of the degrees of Chinese rulers’ calculation of interest and policy behavior geared toward self-interest maximization. One should also look for evidence of the degrees of Chinese humaneness and grace revealed in rulers’ affection, care, and support for other actors. One should try to determine whether Chinese rulers used hierarchical relationships to achieve other goals or whether they took the establishment of these relationships to be the end in itself. Material interest such as the exploitation of material resources or the acquisition of material capabilities should appear strong in instrumental hierarchy but weak or nonexistent in expressive hierarchy. There should thus be both behavioral and motivational indicators for empirical adjudication. Similar methodological criteria can be applied to differentiate between secondary actors’ strategies of deference and identification in terms of the degrees of interest calculation for self-interest maximization and the degrees of the expressive obligation of loyalty and integrity toward China.

Alternative Explanations My relational theory of grand strategy tries to accomplish three tasks. First, it seeks to explain the patterns of strategic interactions between China and its neighbors. It posits the Chinese strategies of expressive hierarchy, instrumental hierarchy, and centralization, as well as other actors’ strategies of identification, deference, access, and exit, and it specifies the major con-

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

ditions of those strategies. Second, it suggests that expressive rationality, rooted in the Confucian cultural tradition and ignored by the Eurocentric IR literature, may have been an important feature of international relations in East Asian history. Third, it hypothesizes the relational and cultural conditions of rationality and strategy, especially the degree of conflict of interest in particular relationships. It is now useful to briefly compare my theory with several alternative theories in the existing literature. Four such alternatives are notable. The first is the notion of Confucian pacifism, with preference for a defensive or accommodationist grand strategy. This conventional Chinese view has been extensively critiqued in recent scholarship.96 I have also noted already its oversimplification of the Confucian tradition and its implausibility as a general characterization of imperial Chinese foreign policy. Peace may or may not be the policy end, and the Confucian strategy of expressive hierarchy that I posit does not preclude the possibility of coercion, nor the instrumental strategies of instrumental hierarchy and centralization. The second interpretation is sometimes called ritual integration, ritual domination, or ritual hegemony.97 It claims that China wanted to establish symbolic but not actual domination over other polities, by initiating tributary hierarchies with them but not imposing direct political or military rule over them. According to the historian Mark Mancall, “the ritual integration of Confucian non-Chinese into the Sino-Confucian world order through grants of patents of authority that rested on the mutual acceptance of Confucian hierarchical principles and the performance of certain ritual acts” was the only distinct Confucian strategy.98 This view is based on a distinction between symbolism and substance in Chinese foreign policy, a distinction that makes sense in the Western intellectual tradition but can be misleading in the Chinese context. Moreover, even if we see ritual domination understood as Chinese control over political and diplomatic rituals as somewhat compatible with expressive hierarchy, it would still appear inadequate as a general characterization, since expressive hierarchy is only one among three possible grand strategies China might adopt. The third thesis is Alastair Iain Johnston’s famous argument of cultural realism. That is, China had a realpolitik grand strategy determined by its parabellum strategic culture and modulated by military capabilities, with a preference for offensive and power-maximizing strategies.99 The fourth is Yuan-kang Wang’s recent argument of a realpolitik grand strategy

  chapter 2

c­ onsistent with the logic of offensive realism.100 Both identifying a realpolitik grand strategy, Johnston and Wang differ in explaining the causes of the strategy—a parabellum strategic culture for Johnston and realism for Wang. Confucianism appears for Johnston as idealized and symbolic justification for realpolitik. Wang allows for “a supplementary role” of Confucianism, subordinate to the dominance of realist calculations, by noting the phenomenon of “Confucian expansionism.”101 This study will not be able to evaluate Johnston’s argument since it is not a work on China’s strategic culture. But this study provides a new ­perspective on the argument. Johnston believes that Confucianism has only a symbolic and justificatory role in Chinese strategies. I agree with this possibility, having suggested instrumental hierarchy as a possible strategy, but I do not believe it to be the only one, since the strategy of expressive hierarchy is also theoretically possible. Wang, in contrast, contends that offensive realism is a sufficient explanation for Song and Ming China’s use of force. Since this is a study not on early Ming China’s use of force but on the larger strategic and institutional dynamics in regional relations, it cannot claim to assess Wang’s argument either. This study will, however, provide a new explanation of the role of Confucianism in Chinese strategy that differs from both Johnston’s and Wang’s treatment. My claim is that Confucianism is the major causal variable in accounting for the strategy of expressive hierarchy, but it plays only an ideological, and thus a noncausal, role in the strategy of instrumental hierarchy. Moreover, neither expressive hierarchy nor instrumental hierarchy can be characterized as a realpolitik offensive strategy, which Johnston and Wang posit. They conceptualize grand strategy narrowly in military-security terms. And in trying to highlight the similarity of Chinese strategies with Western ones, they downplay the possibility of Chinese distinctiveness. Adopting a broader conception of grand strategy, my approach aims to capture both the distinctiveness of Chinese strategies and their similarities with Western ones.

From Theory to History This chapter has developed a relational theory of grand strategy in East Asian history. The theory is not meant to be predictive. The point of “testing” it in the following three empirical chapters is not falsification, a philosophically untenable approach,102 but illustration of its relevance and

A Relational Theory of Grand Strategy  

usefulness. Dogmatic falsification is virtually never practiced in the social sciences anyway.103 The purpose of theory building is to provide an explanatory framework of grand strategic possibilities for interpreting and understanding how regional relations might have actually operated, whose utility or the lack thereof can be empirically demonstrated. It is not to impose a new theory to be verified by empirical research, in which case the historical case studies would simply serve to prove a preferred view. Rather than subordinating history to theory, we need to let history shed its own light on theory. And rather than treating history as a source of data, we should use it as a way of explaining data.104

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three

Sino-Korean Relations

Chapter 2 advanced three main theoretical claims: the explanation of grand strategic possibilities, the identification of expressive rationality, and a hypothesis about the relational condition of rationality and strategy. This first case-study chapter evaluates these claims by examining the dynamics of strategic interaction between China and Korea during the early Ming period. The aim is to identify the main grand strategies that China and Korea adopted toward each other, to assess the degree of expressive rationality in their strategies, and to test the correlation between degrees of interest conflict and specific rationality and strategy. The findings will also enable us to appreciate the advantage of the narrative method and to determine the degree of hierarchical authority in the Sino-Korean relationship of this period. As the chapter shows, the main contenders for the Chinese grand strategy are instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy, and those for the Korean grand strategy are deference and identification. I use the methodological criteria specified in Chapter 2 to differentiate these strategies. Instrumental hierarchy should be evidenced by Chinese rulers’ calculation of interest and maximization of self-interest, as well as their attempts to use the hierarchical relationship with Korea to achieve instrumental ends. Expressive hierarchy, in contrast, should involve Chinese rulers’ affection and obligation toward Korea rather than interest calculation. Chinese rulers should take the establishment of an expressive relationship with Korean rulers as the policy end rather than use the relationship to maximize self-interest. On the basis of these criteria and the evidence adduced, I argue that the 

  chapter 3

Chinese strategy was initially characterized by expressive hierarchy but subsequently overshadowed by instrumental hierarchy. The Korean strategy of deference should suggest Korean rulers’ interest calculation in their compliance with the Chinese attempt to establish a hierarchical relationship with them. Rather than enhancing the propriety of the relationship as defined by Confucian role ethics, Korean rulers should have instrumentally used the relationship to maximize self-interest. The strategy of identification, in contrast, should involve their voluntary acceptance of the role hierarchy between themselves and the Chinese emperor. They should take their subordinate duty of loyalty and integrity toward China for granted and aim to create an expressive relationship. I argue that the Koryo˘ dynasty in its final years (1369–1392) adopted a strategy of deference, whereas the Choso˘n dynasty in its early years (1392–1424) mainly developed a strategy of identification. How important, then, was the expressive dimension of the relationship? Following the argument that Chinese and Korean rulers adopted the expressive strategies of expressive hierarchy and identification at different times, expressive rationality was clearly a key feature of the relationship, although it was not always the dominant one. And was there a correlation between degrees of interest conflict and specific rationality and strategy? My answer is yes. Instrumental rationality, of both Chinese and Korean rulers, appeared strongest when interest conflict between the two sides was the sharpest. Conversely, expressive rationality took hold when the relationship was largely cooperative. A sketch of the historical background will be useful for understanding Sino-Korean relations during the early Ming period. Traditionally the relationship has been understood as one of remarkable amity and harmony, and Korea was considered China’s “model tributary” for its loyalty and submissiveness.1 This characterization makes good sense for the Choso˘n period (1392–1910) in Korean history. It is not a valid generalization of historical Sino-Korean relations as a whole. Viewed as a whole, the almost twomillennium history of the relationship before the Ming dynasty was characterized by fluctuations of conflict and accommodation.2 From a Korean perspective, one can distinguish two broad periods in pre-Ming Sino-Korean relations: the period of resistance (109 B.C.–A.D. 677) and the period of mixed response (677–1392). The first period was marked by Korean responses to Chinese incursions into the Korean penin-

Sino-Korean Relations  

sula, including several rounds of large-scale military invasions by the Han (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), Wei (220–265), Sui (589–618), and Tang (618–907) dynasties. Peaceful tributary trade, cultural borrowing, and institutional adoption characterized the second period, but it was also distinguished by Korean autonomy and resistance to Chinese pressure.3 It was only after the establishment of the Choso˘n dynasty that the relationship ceased to be ­conflict-prone. Before the Hongwu emperor (r. 1368–1398) founded the Ming in 1368, the Koryo˘ dynasty of Korea (918–1392) had been subjugated by force by the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1206–1368) for more than a century. The Koreans managed to develop a cooperative though very onerous relationship with the Yuan by intermarriage between the two royal houses, but the relationship crumbled toward the end of the Yuan period when Mongol military power declined in the face of domestic rebellions. The Koryo˘ court, led by King Kongmin (r. 1351–1374), sought to regain Korean independence and autonomy by exploiting Mongol weakness and strategic uncertainty in northeast China. Meanwhile, the Hongwu emperor initially also needed the Koryo˘’s support and cooperation in consolidating his new regime.4 These political and strategic transformations during the Yuan-Ming transition set the stage for the development of Sino-Korean relations during the early Ming period. The following historical narrative is divided into three periods: the opening of relations between Ming China and Korea in the period 1369–1371, the deterioration of the relationship in 1372–1398, and the stabilization of the relationship in 1399–1424. The historical narrative of each period is followed by a theoretically informed analysis of Chinese and Korean grand strategies.

The Opening of Relations, 1369–1371 In January 1369, the Hongwu emperor dispatched an envoy to Korea to announce the founding of the new Ming dynasty. The imperial rescript read in part: In the first month of this year, I ascended the imperial throne with the support of my ministers and peoples, choosing Great Ming [大明] as the name of our world [tianxia 天下] and Hongwu [洪武 overflowing martial accomplishment] as the reign title. Because foreign kingdoms [si yi 四夷5] have not been notified, I am sending an envoy for the king’s information. In the past China and

  chapter 3 Gaoli [i.e., Koryo˘] had adjoining territory, and your kings had served as vassals [chen 臣] or guests [bin 賓] to the emperors of China, largely because of their admiration of Chinese custom and for the purpose of settling down the lives of their people. Although my moral excellence [de 德] does not match that of China’s Sage Kings of antiquity and thus may not obtain foreign kingdoms’ admiration and following [huai 懷], I cannot fail to make [the founding of the Ming] known throughout the world [tianxia 天下].6

A conventional interpretation of this rescript would hold that the emperor simply wanted to obtain the same tributary submission from Korea as his imperial predecessors had in the past, given his evocation of the historical precedents of the relationship. But he in fact mentioned two traditions, not just one, in past Sino-Korean relations: Korean rulers had either submitted to China as its vassals or had appeared as its guests without submission. Vassal indicates a much greater degree of hierarchy than guest. We need not evaluate the emperor’s historical claim, but we should note that at this point he interpreted two quite different kinds of past relationship between China and Korea. Compared with subsequent ones, the tone of this rescript was not too condescending.7 And the emperor was not yet imposing a tribute system on Korea.8 That the emperor might not have intended to subordinate Korea as a tributary vassal at this point was more clearly revealed in a rescript written after the murder of King Kongmin in 1374: At the time of ascending the throne, [I] followed the way of the Sage Kings of antiquity and informed the rulers of foreign kingdoms of the fact that China had a [new] emperor. At the time it was just communicating the intention of opening friendly relations [tong hao er yi 通好而已]. Unexpectedly [bu qi 不期] Wang Zhuan [王顓, i.e., King Kongmin], King of the Koryo˘, swiftly submitted as a vassal and sent tribute. This was not a result of force, but of the pleasure of mind-and-heart [xin 心].9

In May 1369, yet to hear anything from Korea, the emperor sent another rescript, mentioning the discovery of about 160 Koreans among the people migrating from the northern region to the south of China. He offered to send these people, along with a eunuch retainer who was also ethnically Korean, back to Korea for family reunion.10 At this time the emperor’s January rescript reached Korea. And in June, one month after it was delivered in the Koryo˘ court, King Kongmin stopped using the reign title of the Yuan

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dynasty as a symbol of his rejection of the Yuan’s legitimacy and sent a tributary mission to the Ming capital Nanjing to congratulate the Ming’s founding. The king’s memorial declared: Humbly residing in the east, your vassal [chen 臣] looks to the northern polar star. Although unable to participate in congratulation ceremonies, [your vassal] will always send tribute with sincerity.11

This was prima facie confirmation of submission to the Ming emperor as an outer vassal (as opposed to inner vassals or ministers within the Chinese empire). When it reached the Ming capital in September 1369,12 we can only presume the emperor’s great satisfaction, given his initial uncertainty about Korean attitudes. He quickly dispatched an envoy with a gold seal and imperial writ to invest King Kongmin as “King of the Koryo˘.” The investiture writ read in part: I have become emperor of the Central Kingdom [zhong guo 中國] from a humble background, and have obtained the submission of foreign kingdoms in the Eight Directions, which are living in tranquility with one another. They have not wantonly disturbed our frontier, and I have not rashly resorted to pacifications. Korea is a heaven-made foreign kingdom in the east [dong yi 東夷], strategically placed and far away. My [original] intention was not to govern you [bu si 不司], so that we can avoid trouble and live in tranquility. You have requested to become our subject [qing li 請隸] several times, and your expressions have grown firmer. . . . I therefore accept your request, and will treat you equally [yi shi tong ren 一視同仁], without making any distinction between the civilized and uncivilized [bu fen hua wai 不分化外]. I accept your reverence and sincerity [qian ken 虔懇], request that you inherit your former rank, follow your own propriety, and abide by your former laws. Making both foreign kingdoms and China tranquil must be heaven’s will. Deferring to my authority, you must not create disturbances. . . . You, King of the Koryo˘ Wang Zhuan, have guarded Korea for generations, have inherited your former kings’ enterprises, and have dutifully respected the Central Civilization [hua xia 華夏], and are thus a renowned vassal (ming fan 名藩) of the east. When the Four Directions were just pacified, [I] dispatched envoys to send the message, [and you] immediately sent a memorial and tribute [biao gong 表貢], making me fully aware of your integrity [zhong cheng 衷誠]. You indeed have long practiced civilizational custom and diligently carried out your duty as a vassal. This must be appraised. . . .

  chapter 3 [I] have now sent an envoy with a seal to invest you as King of the Koryo˘ as before, allowing your propriety and institutions to follow local customs. . . . Serve as our guard on the frontier [zuo zhen bian chui 作鎮邊陲].13

With this rescript, the emperor was unmistakably instituting a hierarchical emperor-vassal relationship between himself and the Korean king, allowing Korea to send tribute two or three times a year.14 The emperor claimed to have no intention of governing Korea. Indeed, according to him, he would rather have China and Korea isolated from each other so as to avoid the trouble that a formal relationship would bring. Another Korean mission arrived in October 1369.15 On its return at the end of the month it carried a new rescript from the emperor to King Kongmin. It is worth quoting in length because the emperor’s approach and attitude toward Korea here revealed are important for later analysis: Our envoy has recently returned from Korea, and I asked him about Korea’s politics and customs, walls and fortifications, soldiers and weapons, and the king’s residence. He said: “There are no fortifications; although there are soldiers and weapons, military defense is not solid; the king has a royal residence but no building for the conduct of government affairs; the king is fond of Buddhism; and only after a distance of 30 or 50 li [10 or 17 miles] from the coast can one find people living in peace.” I asked the reason. He said it was because of the depredations of the Japanese. If so, I am deeply worried about you. Although I lack moral excellence, I have become ruler of the known world [tianxia zhu 天下主], and you have submitted to me as an outer vassal and sent tribute, which conforms to ancient propriety. Usually when a vassal kingdom is in a dangerous situation, the danger may approach us as well. So we cannot neglect to counsel you of the ways of avoiding danger and protecting your kingdom. Rulers of ancient kingdoms used unassailable positions to protect their kingdoms. Now the king has people but no fortifications, and how are the people to be protected? A ruler of a country should not neglect military affairs; now the king is not prepared for military defense, and the power of your kingdom will wane. People’s first need is food; now the coastal land is not cultivated, and this will endanger people’s food supply. Countries must have places for conducting government affairs; now with a residence but no building for government affairs, the king has nothing to inspire the respect and awe from his ministers, and this I do not approve. Rulers of successive generations, regardless of whether they were culturally Chinese, have used humaneness, appropriateness, propriety, and music to enlighten people and establish proper customs; but now the king

Sino-Korean Relations   has forsaken this mode of governance and resorted to Buddhist practices to seek fortune. This is losing the central way of governance. In the epoch of the Three Emperors and Five Sovereigns Buddhism was as yet unknown, and yet the world was governed very well. And never since has there been a ruler who protected the country via Buddhism. The Liangwu emperor can serve as a clear example of this. Has the king not realized this? The reason that the king is the king of the Koryo˘ is because of succession from past generations. If the king can follow the way of past kings by improving the welfare of the people . . . then your kingdom will live on forever. . . . A ruler of a country should emphasize sacrificial rites. I hear that your kingdom does not raise sacrificial animals; how can you perform sacrifices to the deities of streams and mountains and village shrines inside your territory? The ancients said: “The two most important matters for a country are sacrifices and defense.” Now if you do not prepare for your defense and offer sacrifices, how can you govern your kingdom? Now that the Mongols have met their fate, people of the desert have lost their rulers. Since my armies have not reached the Liaodong region, the area may invite bandits and strongmen who, if not a security threat to China, must be a worry for the Koryo˘. Besides, the Japanese have been despoiling your coast for more than a decade. They must have knowledge of the king’s situation, and this we cannot fail to worry either. If the king wants to block them, how can you fight them outside of your own territory without intrepid generals and brave soldiers? If the king wants to defend against them, how can you blunt their attacks and take them captive without deep moats, high walls, reserves inside and reinforcements outside? Judging from this it is clear that the king bears a heavy responsibility. The wise make preparations before the unexpected, and turn a situation of peril into one of safety. I have been very detailed with the above matters. This is only because we share your concerns. The king is urged to consider them carefully and take necessary actions. Knowing that you want to make ceremonial robes for sacrifices at the royal ancestral shrine, I am very pleased.16

In February 1370 the emperor made an innovation in the history of China’s foreign relations by dispatching envoys to offer sacrifices to the mountains and streams of Korea (as well as to those of Champa and Annam). His personally written stone inscription pledged to “share the governance of peace” ( gongxiang sheng ping zhizhi 共享昇平之治) with the known world.17 Several more missions were sent to Korea in 1370 and 1371 for special purposes. The Koreans also dispatched their embassies in earnest. They

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sent three tributary missions to Nanjing in 1369, five in 1370, and three in 1371.18 analyzing chinese grand strategy

What was the grand strategy of the Hongwu emperor toward Korea during this amicable opening of the relationship between Ming China and Koryo˘ Korea? I argue that expressive hierarchy is the best characterization of the emperor’s approach during this period. An element of instrumental hierarchy could be interpreted, but that element was not significant. Evidence for the strategy of centralization is the weakest, given little indication of Chinese attempts to control scarce resources or to compete with Korea for tie density with other polities. In the beginning of the relationship, the emperor’s expressive rationality was not yet apparent. The first rescript of January 1369 was basically an announcement of the founding of the Ming. Given that the emperor also dispatched a number of similar rescripts to other polities around the same time, the announcement is best seen as a move toward legitimation. Since he was the founding emperor, having just seized power by force from the Mongol Yuan dynasty, it is reasonable to presume that the Hongwu emperor needed internal and external legitimation for his regime. Indeed, internally, he initiated a series of moves to identify himself with the tradition of legitimate Confucian political authority by cultivating the symbols of Confucian rule and by suppressing the remnants of the heterodox origins of the Ming regime.19 This may be seen as instrumentally oriented: Confucian norms and institutions were useful insofar as they could help him govern the empire.20 Externally, foreign acknowledgment of Ming China’s cosmologic centrality and the legitimacy of his succession to the authority of the great dynasties of China would be useful legitimation too.21 Given that the Ming regime during this period was still trying to consolidate territorial gains and plan further conquests, whose targets included the Northern Yuan regime in exile, the Xia kingdom in Sichuan, and King Liang in Yunnan,22 external legitimation would buttress his imperial project. Thus, we can interpret the emperor’s initial announcement of January 1369 as mainly instrumentally oriented for the political interest of legitimacy. But as noted already, he was not yet imposing a tributary hierarchy on Korea, largely because he was unsure of the possible Korean response.

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After King Kongmin’s apparent submission, as seen in his June 1369 memorial, however, the emperor quickly applied a scheme of Confucian, tributary international relations to his relationship with the Korean king. In his investiture writ of September 1369, he was clearly assuming King Kongmin’s subordinate obligation of loyalty and integrity as his outer vassal. Here one sees the structural influence of Confucian role differentiation, as the emperor set out to establish an emperor-vassal relationship between himself and King Kongmin as the appropriate mode of their relationship. He also believed that such a relationship was based not on coercion, but on the expressive rationality of affection. An indication of this was his 1374 rescript quoted earlier, in which he took “the pleasure of mind-and-heart [xin 心]” to be the foundation of the relationship. As explained in Chapter 2, Confucian expressive rationality is a relational paradigm based on the psychological foundation of the mind-and-heart (xin 心).23 The emperor’s expressive rationality was also revealed in his lengthy October 1369 rescript to King Kongmin, also quoted earlier. The rescript has been described by historian Donald Clark as “a paternal letter of admonition.”24 From a relational perspective, however, it can be seen as an important example of expressive rationality in Chinese foreign policy. Worried about Korea’s situation, the emperor felt impelled to counsel King Kongmin on the best ways to govern the country. His concern demonstrated a good degree of paternal affection and care for Korean well-being, and his various pieces of advice seemed to be based on his understanding of his superordinate obligation to the Korean king. At this point the Hongwu emperor’s instrumental rationality was not particularly strong. The motivation for legitimation mentioned already can be assumed to be present, but it was unlikely to be a significant element once the relationship took an expressive turn after mid-1369. One can also identify security as another possible motivation. Although the first rescript of January 1369 gives no clue of it, some historians think that the envoy carried an additional task of persuading Korea to sever ties with Naghachu, the Mongol leader in the northeast region of Liaodong and a principal Ming enemy.25 Such concern for security was certainly understandable. The Ming regime was unable to annex the Liaodong region until 1387 when it finally pacified Naghachu. Liaodong thus constituted a security problem for nearly two decades after the fall of the Yuan. Historically, Korea always had vital

  chapter 3

security interests in the region because of its geographical and strategic location.26 It could damage Ming security interests either by directly challenging Ming power or by allying with the Mongols or the Jurchens (another tribal group in the region), or both to balance against it. After all, in the last days of the Yuan dynasty, Naghachu attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to forge an anti-Ming alliance with the Koreans. Fear of such an alliance might have been a motivation behind the emperor’s first few missions to Korea.27 One might point out that in the September 1369 investiture rescript, the emperor expected Korea to serve as a loyal guard for the northeastern frontier. And in the October 1369 rescript, he urged the Korean king to improve military defense against the Mongols and the Japanese. However, in the opening phase of the relationship, security did not appear to be the key concern of the emperor’s Korea policy, certainly not as significant as it would become in the 1370s and 1380s. Unlike in later periods, we do not see much evidence of the emperor using his hierarchical relationship with King Kongmin to advance security interests. And the expectation of Korea as a frontier guard and the advice on improving defense were both compatible with expressive hierarchy. The expectation can be seen as a necessary obligation of Korea as an outer vassal serving as a “fence country” for China’s security.28 It was thus an essential ingredient of the Sinocentric Confucian order. The paternal advice, however, can be seen as a reflection of the emperor’s superordinate obligation to Korea as his subordinate vassal. In summary, during this short period from September 1369 to 1370, Chinese strategy was mainly characterized by expressive hierarchy. The Hongwu emperor was trying to establish an expressive relationship of hierarchical but mutual affection and obligation between himself and the Korean king. He expected of Korea obligations of loyalty and integrity, and he tried to fulfill his own obligations of humaneness and care by advising the Korean king on domestic governance. He seemed to assume that a relationship based on such reciprocal expressive obligations was the most appropriate outcome in China-Korea relations. In terms of interest, one can certainly point out that the emperor’s Confucian scheme of foreign relations would also serve his interest in political legitimacy and frontier security. That is true, but the Confucian scheme is also consistent with the relational nature of expressive hierarchy as serving the interest of both parties to the relationship. China and Korea could peacefully coexist and cooperate in a hierarchical and yet

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reciprocal relationship while enhancing their expressive feelings by participating in regularized tributary diplomacy. analyzing korean grand strategy

Deference and identification are the main contenders for the Korean grand strategy, since Korea offered submission to China as its vassal. But was this genuine acceptance of China’s hierarchical authority, which would suggest a strategy of identification, or a mere symbolic gesture for some instrumental ends, which would suggest a strategy of deference? A careful analysis of the decision-making process and events around 1368 suggests that deference is a better characterization than identification. To begin with, the Koreans had already started to evaluate their relations with the Mongols in the last years of the Yuan dynasty. King Kongmin had decided to break the century of Mongol yoke even before the Ming dynasty was founded. The king’s position initially rested on Mongol support, as he had been educated in the Yuan capital Peking and carried on the custom of intermarriage between the ruling houses of the Koryo˘ and Yuan nobility. Nevertheless, he waged a decisive anti-Mongol campaign between 1352 and 1365 to reestablish Korean autonomy.29 He terminated Mongol rule by abolishing the use of its reign title, driving out Mongol officials, and executing pro-Mongol Koreans.30 Most significant of all, he dispatched a military force to reoccupy the northwestern part of Korea as far as the Yalu and ordered his generals to secure the Hamgyo˘ng region against further Mongol and Jurchen inroads.31 Kongmin’s anti-Mongol policy was also a result of the changing factional politics at the Koryo˘ court. At one end of the political spectrum was the old landowning aristocracy, who had wielded real power in Korea through private links with the Yuan regime and had adopted Buddhism as a political ideology. Often tied to the Mongols by blood or livelihood, they would have preferred continued Mongol influence in Korea. At the other end was an emerging minority of Confucian officials who had become increasingly dissatisfied with the existing landowning system and the dominance of Buddhism in state affairs. The new Confucian elites were proto-nationalists and anti-Yuan, and after 1368, they became pro-Ming. Influenced by this emerging Confucian group, Kongmin took as his mission to assert his authority and the Koryo˘’s status as an independent kingdom.32 His break

  chapter 3

with the Yuan, therefore, had little to do with his perception of the rising Ming and everything to do with maximizing his interests at a time of Yuan decline.33 He watched the collapse of the Yuan closely and maintained regular contacts with prominent rebel leaders to hedge his bets on the outcome of the struggle. His active foreign policy initiatives demonstrated his astute grasp of the power realities confronting Korea.34 When the victory of Zhu Yuanzhang, the future Hongwu emperor, seemed imminent, he remained cautious, neither decidedly pro-Ming nor decidedly pro-Yuan. He appeared to be suspicious of the new dynasty as he took the precautionary steps of building up border garrisons in the Yalu area. By dispatching embassies to both Shangdu, where the Yuan emperor had fled after Peking’s fall, and to Nanjing, the capital of the new Ming dynasty, he was clearly trying to stay out of the fray while keeping lines open to both contending parties.35 And for good reason: newly established or invigorated Chinese dynasties such as the Han and Tang had invaded Korea in the past. One can also argue that deference to the Ming was strategically imperative. Rejecting the Ming regime’s request for Korea’s continuing tributary submission and continuing support for the Yuan would put Korea’s own survival in jeopardy, as the Ming might attack it if necessary to conquer the Mongols. In any case, it would not make sense for Korea to support the collapsing Yuan, from which it had decided to break away for years. Deference could also enhance Korea’s security, although it could not solve all of the problems. For twenty years after its founding, the Ming dynasty was preoccupied with subduing the Mongols in its northern and northwestern frontiers, leaving breathing time for the Mongols led by Naghachu in the northeast to reorganize themselves. This posed a serious threat to Korean security. Naghachu raided the Korean border in 1362. Although he later offered tribute to Korea in 1369–1370, the Koreans never trusted him. Early in 1368, upon the impending collapse of the Yuan, Naghachu sent a delegation to negotiate with King Kongmin for a joint defense agreement against the Ming.36 Fear of Naghachu might have been another reason for the king to defer to the Ming.37 It would make sense to have some kind of Ming protection. Even so, the Koryo˘ could not entirely ignore the Mongol presence in Liaodong. For this reason, they tried to maintain contacts with Naghachu while conducting normal tributary relations with the Ming.38 They also

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kept ties with the Northern Yuan court in exile. Even in 1369, after his first mission to the Ming was sent, King Kongmin still sent envoys to the Yuan.39 This is fairly clear evidence of the strategy of deference for the instrumental goal of maintaining security. A strategy of identification based on the expressive obligations of loyalty and integrity would suggest at least a complete closure of relations with the Mongols, if not also substantial help to the Ming’s conquest of them. The pressing issue for the Koryo˘ at this point, however, was how to navigate between the Chinese and the Mongols for its own interest, and in practice they vacillated in their choices.40 History does not favor an interpretation of the strategy of identification. The only evidence was King Kongmin’s declaration of himself as the Hongwu emperor’s vassal and the admiration of the Ming as expressed in formal memorials. But memorials are a poor motivational indicator. Submissive languages may reflect more a bureaucratic routine than real motive.41 Behavioral patterns are a better indicator, as they enable the assessment of alternative explanations. In any case, what the Koreans wrote could not be squared with what they did.

From Amity to Enmity, 1372–1398 The amicable beginnings of the relationship between the Ming and Koryo˘ were dealt a first blow by the Koryo˘’s campaign in 1370 and 1371 into Liaodong, the ostensible purpose of which was to drive scattered Mongol remnants away from the Koryo˘’s northern borders and recover Korean territory. The Koreans won a victory at Liaoyang, but cold and hunger forced them back to Korea in 1371 without having consolidated it. This attack sowed the seeds of the Hongwu emperor’s suspicion of Korea all the way to his death in 1398, a suspicion deepened by a report that Naghachu’s raid against the Ming in 1371 was guided over unfamiliar terrain by Korean collaborators.42 In November 1372, two Korean embassies happened to arrive in the Ming capital around the same time. Noting this, the emperor turned back both embassies and stipulated a frequency for future missions: Several tributary missions have come within a year. This burdens the people and adds the difficulty of travel by the sea. . . . In antiquity vassals sent a small mission annually and a big mission triennially to the Son of Heaven. And distant kingdoms beyond the Nine Providences only paid one visit once in a generation.

  chapter 3 Their tributes were not luxury goods. Now the Koryo˘ is closer to the Central Kingdom, its people know the classics and history, and its culture and rituals are somewhat similar to ours. This is not what other kingdoms can compare with. It is proper to request that it follow the propriety of sending one big mission triennially and one small mission annually, and its tributary goods should be no more than ten bolts of locally produced cloth.43

The message, which the emperor ordered the Imperial Secretariat to draft, was delivered to Korean envoys in January 1373. But its content became much more specific and hostile than instructed by the emperor. In addition to criticizing Korea for sending too many embassies, the message also accused it of killing a Ming eunuch envoy and being suspicious of the Ming, of spying on the Ming northeastern frontier, of colluding with the Mongol leader Naghachu in the attack on a Ming military station, and of failing to send horses for trade. It particularly emphasized the Korean king’s lack of integrity (bu cheng 不誠). Clearly, by this time the Ming-Koryo˘ relationship had begun to deteriorate.44 In October 1373, a Korean mission came to present fifty tributary horses. Two of the horses died en route, and the envoy substituted them with two of his personal horses.45 Hearing this, the emperor rejected the tribute on the grounds of the envoy’s lack of integrity. His rescript to King Kongmin mentioned for the first time his imperial predecessors’ “punitive expeditions” (tao fa zhi shi 討伐之師) against Korea in the past. Reprimanding the Korean envoy’s deceitfulness (zha 詐), he said: According to the rules of the Spring and Autumn Annals, foreign affairs are no personal matters of ministers. The king’s envoy came to present tribute by crossing the dangers of the winds and waves, but he made personal decisions and tried to deceive us. Is this really the propriety of serving the great by the small [yi xiao shi da zhi li 以小事大之禮46]? . . . If the king instructed this, [you] need to improve your moral excellence and change your behavior [xiu de gai xing 脩德改行], in order to protect your country and abandon the stratagem of deception; if this was done by the envoy, the king needs to punish him.47

In June 1374, a Korean mission arrived to request permission for presenting tribute overland via Liaodong. However, the Imperial Secretariat sent a memorial to the emperor that the Koreans used the name of a former Yuan tribute-receiving office in their memorial rather than that of the Ming, a mistake that allegedly revealed the lack of integrity of the mission. Reject-

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ing the mission, the emperor’s rescript began with a description of China’s ancient principles of foreign relations. The Sage Kings, he said, rather than govern distant countries, allowed those countries to govern themselves. This was to realize the Way of Heaven, to promote humaneness (ren 仁), and to make people live in tranquility. They did not allow exaggeration or duplicity (bu wei kua zha 不為誇詐), or value goods from distant places (bu bao yuan wu 不寶遠物), or burden foreign peoples (bu lao yi ren 不勞夷人). The emperor implied that he would follow these principles too, but he warned that disaster would fall on King Kongmin should he fail to observe his role in his relations with the emperor. Finally, the emperor declared a preference for fewer tributary goods (wu bao 物薄) and more affective feelings (qing hou 情厚) in future relations.48 In a separate rescript, the emperor demanded that Korean tributary missions come triennially and by sea, not land.49 In the same year, he requested that Korea send two thousand quality horses for his conquest of the Mongols.50 King Kongmin was murdered by court officials in October 1374. A Korean envoy arrived in the Ming capital in April 1375 to report the murder, claiming that an envoy was sent shortly after the king’s death but was blocked by bandits on the way to China. He further reported an incident of the killing of a Ming envoy to Korea by a Korean official. The death of the Ming envoy significantly damaged subsequent Ming-Koryo˘ relations. The emperor not only detained the Korean envoy but also imposed more demanding conditions on Korean tributes.51 In October 1376, King Kongmin’s successor and son, King U (r. 1374– 1388), sent a tributary mission. In February 1377 another embassy came to request a posthumous title for King Kongmin. The emperor rejected the request on the grounds that it was two years too late. Suspecting that his grant of the title would be used by King U for domestic political purposes, he accused the request of lacking integrity (fei cheng 非誠), although he returned the Korean envoy who had been detained after the April 1375 mission.52 After rejecting two further embassies in June 1377 and January 1378, the emperor became considerably more suspicious of Korean intentions, and even hostile. In an instruction to the Imperial Secretariat following the January 1378 mission, he cited the deceitfulness of Korean embassies and the deterioration of Korean politics as the main reasons for his suspicions. Recounting the history of Sino-Korean relations, he claimed that it was Korea’s “lack of gratitude” (bu huai en 不懷恩) and deceitfulness that had

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led to disasters in the past, including Chinese military interventions. Since King Kongmin had been assassinated by treacherous ministers, he went on, these traitors and usurpers should be put to death according to the appropriateness (yi 義) of ancient Chinese principles. He demanded to know the real situation of the successor-King U and the governance of Korea, and he stipulated a set of stringent conditions for the resumption of normal tributary relations: If the government was as it had been and if the new king was not in fact a prisoner, then he should send tribute as the previous king did, an annual tribute of 1,000 horses, and beginning next year, 100 catties [130 pounds] of gold, 10,000 taels [13,000 ounces] of silver, 100 good horses, and 10,000 bolts of broadcloth. He should return those people of Liaodong whom the Koreans have taken captive. Only by doing so can the king’s rightful rule and the country’s smooth governance be demonstrated, and I will have no doubts.

He concluded with an explicit warning. Assuming that the Koreans were counting on their geographical advantages for defense and alluding to the past invasions of Korea by the Han (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) and Tang (A.D. 618–907), he declared that his armies were much stronger than those of the Han and Tang, with proven capabilities in both land and naval warfare during imperial conquest.53 In December 1378 the emperor rejected another Korean embassy, warning that unless a leading minister came to the court with all annual tributes, Korea would not be able to escape punishment for the deep offense of killing Chinese envoys, which referred to the incident reported by the Korean envoy in April 1375. He again emphasized China’s military prowess to compel the Koreans.54 In response the Koreans sent two lengthy memorials in 1379 to apologize for the killing of Ming envoys, to explain the real difficulties of meeting the emperor’s tributary conditions, and to request a posthumous title for King Kongmin and an imperial writ of investiture for King U. But the embassy was turned back from Liaodong for its failure to meet the tributary conditions.55 In 1379 the emperor twice instructed military commanders of Liaodong that the Koreans were possibly attempting to spy on the frontier region.56 By this point he had clearly become very suspicious of Korean intentions and concerned about the security of the northeastern frontier.57 The Liaodong commandery, meanwhile, began to warn Korea to either sever ties

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with the Mongols or expect dire consequences.58 In January 1380 the emperor rejected another embassy with one hundred catties of gold and ten thousand taels of silver on the grounds that the tributes did not meet the conditions set down in January 1378.59 One month later he sent a rescript accusing the Koreans of regicide and failing to honor tributary agreements.60 In June 1380 he again reminded his Liaodong commanders of the need to be vigilant against the Koreans’ deceitful nature and their spying activities.61 Reiterating the same warning twice in August 1380, he demanded the rejection of Korean embassies that did not meet his January 1378 conditions. Only by following the propriety (li 禮) and sending reputed envoys with the integrity of serving the great, he demanded, could the Koreans demonstrate their loyalty to him. Noting that Korea disrupted China’s frontiers during the Han, Sui (581–618), and Tang dynasties, he urged great care in conducting relations with them.62 These instructions were made after a Korean envoy’s arrival in the Ming capital and an audience the emperor had given him in the same month. The envoy explained that Korean tributes did not meet the emperor’s conditions not because of Korea’s lack of loyalty and integrity, but because of the poverty of the Korean people and the lack of material resources. Greatly annoyed, the emperor detained the envoy and requested one hundred catties (130 pounds) of gold, five thousand taels (6,500 ounces) of silver, five thousand bolts of cloth, and one hundred horses as the following year’s (1381) tribute, to absolve Korea’s offense of killing Ming envoys.63 In December 1381 the emperor again instructed his Liaodong commanders: In the past some emperors of China tried to subdue [foreign rulers] with force [yi li fu zhi 以力服之] and some tried to cherish them with moral excellence [yi de huai zhi 以德懷之]. Since moral excellence cannot cherish the treacherous like the Koryo˘, awesomeness [wei 威] must be used to make them fear us. . . . Although China cherished [foreign rulers] with moral excellence and treated them with propriety, they still resorted to deceptions and rebellions in an erratic manner. This was the reason for the military expeditions of past dynasties. Now although Li Ren [a Korean minister who the emperor claimed had murdered King Kongmin] claimed to be deferential, we do not know what he will do over the long run since we do not know his integrity as a vassal. You and other generals should be cautious. The Koryo˘’s tributes must be rejected if they fail to meet the previous conditions. [You] should strongly guard the frontier and avoid being deceived by them.64

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The Koreans continued to send embassies to present tribute and request their king’s investiture, but they made no breakthrough. In February and November 1383 the emperor twice rejected Korean tributes for a new reason: missing the imperial calendar for tribute presentation. In the November rescript, he explained that he rejected Korea’s past tributes because the envoys had been deceitful but allowed the Koreans to improve their own reputation and cultivation (zi wei sheng jiao 自為聲教). He stipulated the conditions of Korea’s annual tribute in 1378, but Korea had failed to meet those for five years. Since Korea submitted as a vassal, it should forever maintain the integrity of serving the great (yong shou shi da zhi cheng 永守事大之誠). The envoy should be punished for impropriety (wu li 無禮) and the tributary goods rejected. He demanded, finally, that if Korea truly wanted to meet the tributary conditions, it should present the tributary horses, gold, and silver that were due for the past five years. Only by doing so could the Koreans demonstrate their integrity and sincerity (cheng yi 誠意).65 In 1384 the emperor finally accepted two thousand tributary horses presented as part of Korea’s effort to meet the 1378 conditions.66 But he soon found another fault: the Korean envoys had bribed Ming officials in the capital, which the emperor regarded as another example of their impropriety (wu li 無禮). And he rejected King U’s request to inherit King Kongmin’s title “King of the Koryo˘” and to give Kongmin a posthumous name.67 A turning point occurred in February 1385, when Korea presented five thousand horses, five hundred catties (650 pounds) of gold, fifty thousand taels (65,000 ounces) of silver, and fifty thousand bolts of cloth—a major effort to meet the emperor’s 1378 conditions (much of the gold and silver was paid in horses, since Korea was poorly endowed in these resources). Apparently satisfied, the emperor relaxed the conditions considerably by reducing Korea’s tributary obligations to a triennial tribute of fifty horses. He explained that his previous high demand for tribute was not intended to make China rich but only to test Korea’s integrity. Since Korea had shown its integrity, a triennial small tribute would suffice.68 In August 1385 he invested King U as “King of the Koryo˘” and gave the posthumous name of “Kongmin” to the former king.69 In 1385–1387 the relationship at last seemed to be improving, but it was still difficult, as the Ming again accused the Koreans of lacking integrity in their unwarranted offer of free horses to the Ming when the emperor had requested only commercial purchase. Such a free offer, according to the emperor, misunderstood his benign intention

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and made him seem as if he were coercing the Koreans, as some of his imperial predecessors had.70 Yet the relationship was to have its worst crisis in 1387–1388. The Ming again accused the Koreans of spying on the Liaodong region after the regime’s pacification of the Mongol leader Naghachu in 1387. Then the Ming criticized the poor quality of both tributary and purchased horses from Korea.71 In January 1388, the emperor laid territorial claims to areas north, east, and west of Tieling as spoils of conquest.72 He claimed that the areas, previously part of the Mongol Kaiyuan district, now belonged to the Ming, and he began to incorporate them into the Liaodong garrison network.73 Whether he also claimed territories south of the Yalu River is not clear, and historians disagree on the exact location of Tieling in 1388.74 The main purpose of incorporating the Tieling areas seemed to be pacifying the Jurchens and the Mongols rather than driving back the Koreans.75 The latter nevertheless interpreted the claim as China’s demand for the northern third of their peninsula and challenged China accordingly.76 The emperor responded by warning Korea to accept the Yalu River as the border and to stop molesting the Chinese frontier,77 indicating that he actually did not want territories south of the Yalu. But the Koryo˘ court still seemed to have misunderstood this as an attempt to define its northern border and ordered General Yi So˘ng-gye (1355–1408) to lead an army into Liaodong. Yi So˘ng-gye, however, believed in yi xiao shi da, bao guo zhi dao (以小 事大, 保國之道 the way of protecting the country is for the small to serve the great) and challenged the court’s authority.78 He turned his troops back to Kaegyo˘ng and subdued the Koryo˘ court.79 Between his coup d’état in 1388 and the founding of the new Choso˘n Dynasty in 1392, Korea entered a period of political instability. The Koryo˘ dynasty was all but dead. But Yi So˘ng-gye was not yet ready to enthrone himself, instead preferring to rule through two puppet kings for four years. The Koreans naturally had to report their changing politics to the Ming, and court factions in fact hoped to use the Ming in their domestic political intrigues. The Hongwu emperor, confused and disgruntled by the erratic course of Korean politics, took a wait-and-see attitude while continuing to criticize Korea’s deceitfulness.80 In 1392 Yi So˘ng-gye formally ascended the Choso˘n throne (King T’aejo 太祖, r. 1392–1398). He and his successors sought to rectify Korea’s relationship with China by establishing sadae, or “serving the great,” as the central policy principle toward China.81 Shortly after founding the new dynasty, he

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sent envoys to the Ming capital to explain Korean politics of the previous four years. The emperor was not greatly interested, apart from the implications of the new regime for the Ming empire’s security in the northeast. He instructed the Ministry of Rites to write a rescript exhorting the Koreans to improve their own reputation as well as refinement and education (zi wei sheng jiao 自為聲教) and to stop disrupting the Ming frontier.82 In July 1393 the Liaodong commandery reported that the Koreans had enticed more than five hundred Jurchens across the Yalu in preparation for an attack on Liaodong. Hearing this, the emperor’s rescript first delivered a long lecture on the past history of Chinese military interventions in Korea. Then, accusing the new king of failing to observe his inferior role (bu zhi zun bei zhi fen 不知尊卑之分), the rescript issued another military threat. Korea, it said, was but a tiny area. Taking its people into China’s fold would not increase China’s population, nor would incorporating its land expand China’s territory. The expeditions of past Chinese dynasties were all due to Korea’s disturbances, not China’s greed for Korea’s land. Asserting that Ming armies were now much more powerful than those of the Han and Tang, it concluded: Even so, all peoples under heaven are my loyal sons. [I should] clearly show them the key to disaster or fortune and allow you to make a fresh start. If you can send the enticed Jurchens to the capital and correct your past wrongs, I will allow you to improve your own reputation and cultivation [zi wei sheng jiao 自為聲教] so as to cherish you. If you violate the Way of Heaven again, then you should not regret the punishment that will fall on you.83

One month later the emperor instructed the Liaodong commandery to watch the frontier carefully and to block Korean tributary envoys. He further issued military orders to strengthen fortifications and to patrol up to the Yalu River.84 In late 1393 and early 1394 several Koreans were captured for alleged spying and marauding, which led to the emperor’s reprimand of King T’aejo’s impropriety (wu li 無禮).85 The Korean king was offended: The emperor, by having many soldiers and by being strict in his administration of punishments, at last has succeeded in establishing his rule over the world. But he has overdone the killing and many of his best statesmen and counselors have lost their lives. In his frequent admonitions to our little country he has imposed demands without limit upon us. And now he is reproving me even though I have done nothing wrong, threatening me with his armies.86

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Nevertheless, he felt compelled to placate the emperor, sending his son as a tributary envoy in October 1394.87 This mission was apparently successful as the emperor began to accept Korean tributary horses.88 But he was irritated again in January 1396 by the alleged arrogance of a tributary memorial and demanded that the memorial’s author be sent over to his court.89 This time the Choso˘n king balked at the request. The author of the memorial was his closest adviser, and he decided to send two others instead of him. In February 1396 the king sent another embassy to request an imperial seal and writ but was rejected again by the emperor on the grounds of its lack of sincerity.90 The Koreans nevertheless continued to send tributary embassies toward the end of the Hongwu reign in 1398. analyzing chinese grand strategy

How can one make sense of Chinese and Korean grand strategies during this period? Instrumental hierarchy was a much more prominent Chinese strategy than expressive hierarchy. Increasingly suspicious of and hostile to Korea, the Hongwu emperor became preoccupied with Korean threats to the security of the empire’s northeastern frontier. At the same time, he felt less and less affection for Korea, eventually telling the Koreans, in effect, to improve themselves before they attempted to improve their relationship with China. I have argued here that by 1370 the Hongwu emperor had maintained a fairly high degree of expressive rationality toward Korea. The Koryo˘’s 1370–1371 campaign into Liaodong and the report on Korean collaborators for the Mongols must have dampened that expressive rationality somewhat. In November 1372, however, the emperor was still affectively disposed toward Korea, as he favorably noted its close cultural affinity with China and concerned himself with the perils of Korean tributary travel to China. But at the same time, he indicated displeasure with Korean missions when he reduced the frequency of Korean tribute to triennially. Between 1371 and 1372, we may interpret the emperor’s expressive rationality as greater than his instrumental rationality, but not as great as it was during the previous period of September 1369–1370. The first turning point came in 1373. The emperor began to openly criticize Korean deceitfulness and mention China’s past “punitive expeditions” against Korea. In his 1374 rescript, the emperor strongly claimed to

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be ­following Confucian expressive rationality of humaneness and affection. Yet at the same time he requested Korean horses for military use and made a few more requests in subsequent years. He clearly valued Korean horses, given the short supply of quality horses in China, thus contradicting his Confucian claim of taking no interest in Korea’s material resources. His material interest exposed the hypocrisy of his expressive claims. Moreover, in the same year he also demanded that Korean embassies travel by sea rather than overland. Expressive rationality, though, would imply a preference for the land route, since that would help Korean envoys avoid the dangers of sea travel and thus demonstrate the emperor’s humaneness. But the request can be usefully explained by instrumental rationality, since a sea route would cut Korean contacts with the Mongols and Jurchens in Liaodong and prevent them from spying on the region through which they must travel to get to the Ming capital. From 1373–1374, then, instrumental rationality began to dominate expressive rationality in the emperor’s approach toward Korea. From 1375 to 1378, the emperor’s attitude continued to deteriorate, culminating in the imposition in January 1378 of draconian conditions on Korean tributes. In the same year the emperor at least twice threatened Korea with military invasion. During this period, the emperor was mainly provoked by the perceived duplicity of Korean embassies and the erratic course of Korean politics. Judging from his repeated castigation of the Koreans for their supposed lack of integrity and his demand of knowing the reality of Korean politics, he was trying to restore a hierarchical relationship of selfdefined propriety between himself and the Korean king. It appears that using the relationship for legitimation was not an important motive, since he repeatedly rejected Korean embassies and King U’s requests of investiture. And the self-interest in frontier security was not yet pronounced. The emperor still sought an expressive relationship rooted in Confucian propriety. Even so, his castigations and threats were a far cry from Confucian humaneness. The year 1379 was another turning point. If in the period 1373–1378 the emperor was compelling Korean propriety, after 1379 he became preoccupied with Korean threats to the security of the Liaodong region, as seen in his repeated instructions to the Liaodong commandery. His rejection of Korean missions, his accusation of Korean failings, and his increasing

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demands for tribute were coercive means of restoring a proper hierarchical relationship. The relationship was sought less for its own sake and more to ensure the security of the Liaodong region. Because the emperor was using the relationship for self-interest maximization, his instrumental rationality was even more pronounced than in previous periods. And his expressive rationality was at its lowest level. In the November 1383 rescript, he explained that he had told the Koreans to improve their own reputation and cultivation. This amounted to his renunciation of obligation to the Koreans and indicated his loss of interest in a close relationship with them, even though he still assumed a hierarchical relationship to be the norm of Sino-Korean relations. Relational tension continued until February 1385 when the emperor, after accepting a major tribute from Korea, relaxed tributary conditions. This relaxation, however, can also be partly explained by his perception of a diminished possibility of a Korean-Mongol alliance and by his need for Korean neutrality in his upcoming attack on Naghachu.91 It was thus in part instrumentally generated too. In 1387–1388, the relationship almost turned conflictual as the result of a territorial dispute. In the remaining years of the emperor’s reign (1389–1398), the main interest of his Korean policy was security in Liaodong, not the restoration of a close tributary relationship. He regularly tried to compel Korean compliance with his security demands. In July 1393, even Korea’s option of self-improvement was made dependent on its returning the enticed Jurchens, and he issued a military threat to that effect. He also asked Korea to establish a fixed border with walls and fortifications. This is difficult to explain from an expressive perspective, whereas in an instrumental account we can interpret this to be the emperor’s attempt to prevent Korea from threatening Ming emplacements and to reduce Korean-Jurchen contacts, the Koreans and Jurchens being two remaining threats for the Ming after the pacification of the Mongols.92 Indeed, the emperor wanted to divide and rule the Koreans, Mongols, and Jurchens in the northeastern security order. What little was left in his expressive affection and obligation toward Korea seems to have been completely lost by this point. For the entire period 1373–1398, then, instrumental rationality overshadowed expressive rationality in the emperor’s approach toward Korea, thus making instrumental hierarchy his preeminent strategy.

  chapter 3 analyzing korean grand strategy

In the case of Korea, we need to distinguish the final years of the Koryo˘ regime from the new Choso˘n regime. Deference continues to make excellent sense as the Koryo˘’s central strategy. The main instrumental end it wanted to achieve was security, but at times it also wanted power and influence. For example, its 1370 campaign into Liaodong was a war of territorial expansion—to extend the borders of the Koryo˘ into Manchuria to the limits formally held by Koguryo˘ (37 B.C.–A.D. 668) at the height of its power. And the Koreans had long wished to re-create the great empire in the north.93 Although the campaign damaged its relations with the Ming, the ­Koryo˘ continued to send regular tributary missions, far exceeding the triennial or even annual frequency stipulated by the Hongwu emperor. During the Hongwu reign, Korea sent more than seventy-three embassies between 1369 and 1397, averaging two and a half missions per year.94 Why were the ­Koreans so enthusiastic about tributary missions even when they were mistreated? The missions were unlikely to result from a strategy of identification because, if that had been the case, the Koryo˘ would have followed Ming instructions, severing ties with the Mongols and protecting the Ming frontier. Yet the fact is that the Koryo˘ had maintained relations with the Mongols alongside its tributary relations with the Ming ever since 1369. And after King Kongmin was assassinated in 1374 and the new King U ascended the throne, the Koryo˘ court explicitly pursued an uneasy neutrality between Chinese and Mongol power centers in Liaodong. The difficulty of gaining the Ming’s favor forced King U’s government to adopt a more conciliatory policy toward the Mongols in order to keep Korea secure. The king even received investiture from the Northern Yuan and adopted its reign title in 1377 (replaced again by the Ming reign title after 1379). This was an act indicating a tilt away from the Ming once more and suggesting that U rather badly needed external symbols of legitimacy to keep his house in order.95 And it was only after the Ming’s pacification of the Mongols and establishment of control over Liaodong and southern Manchuria in 1387 that the Koryo˘ severed contact with the Mongols.96 Thus, the primary reason for the unwavering attempts of King U’s government to make good relations with the Ming was to obtain investiture from the Ming to boost domestic legitimacy, given its weak political base,

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which resulted from controversies surrounding King Kongmin’s murder and King U’s accession.97 Chinese investiture could confer legitimacy on foreign regimes because China was seen by countries influenced by its culture as the civilizational center, which defined a set of universally legitimate political symbols and institutions. The Koreans, especially those of the Choso˘n era, valued Chinese investiture because they perceived their politics as embedded in a larger regional political process defined by Chinese precepts. Establishing tributary relations and obtaining Chinese investiture was an important guarantee for domestic rule.98 As historian Key-Hiuk Kim puts it: Lacking the cosmic symbols and attributes that made the Chinese emperor the Son of Heaven, the Korean ruler needed investiture from the former as the ultimate symbol of legitimacy. Although his power as ruler was neither derived from nor materially enhanced by the Chinese investiture, the lack of it could not but adversely affect his prestige in the eyes of his officials and subjects in a Confucian society such as Yi Korea.99

Note in this case of the Koryo˘ U court, however, seeking Ming investiture did not mean that the court had fully identified itself with Ming China or aspired to be “civilized” along Chinese lines. In fact, Mongol influence was pervasive in the Koryo˘ court. And vacillating between the Ming and the Northern Yuan, the court actually sought investiture from both the Chinese and the Mongols. Its instrumental motive of legitimacy was thus stronger than identification with either the Chinese or the Mongol civilization. Although the subsequent Choso˘n court may be said to have fully identified Korea with the Chinese civilization, the same cannot be said of the Koryo˘. The Koreans also used tributary embassies to keep track of political and military intelligence of the Liaodong region, or so at least according to the Hongwu emperor and his officials. They were clearly mistrustful and suspicious of the Ming, as the Ming was of them. They were particularly worried about Ming deployments in Liaodong, as these could be used against them and the Mongols. Indeed, distrust of the Ming gave rise to unfounded rumors of Ming attacks, thus adding further tension to the relationship.100 Frustrated by the difficulties of improving relations with the Ming, after 1381 the Koryo˘ upgraded military deployments to prepare for possible clashes, even while still requesting Ming investiture.101 Traditionally, scholars have assumed economic profits as an important motive of Korean tributary missions.102 Envoys en route to and from the

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Ming capital had opportunities to trade along the way, possibly profiting both the envoys and the court. Ming officials noted that Korean envoys often brought with them private merchandise and carried back Chinese goods, and the Korean court tried to impose a ban on private trade.103 Commercial profits may have been substantial at different times, particularly for tributary envoys and their associates. Whether and how much the Korean court—and for that matter, the Chinese court—benefited economically from tributary visits in general, however, is still an open question. Historian Chun Hae-jong has pointed out that tributary relations actually produced a net economic loss for Korea during China’s Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Nor did it bring economic profits to the Qing court.104 Indeed, in our case, given the severe conditions that the Hongwu emperor laid down for Korean tributes, it is hard to believe that the Koreans went to the Ming mainly for profit. The significance of tributary relations for the Koryo˘ court lay much more in politics and security than in commerce and culture. The political and security motivations behind the Koryo˘’s generally defensive policies, as well as behavioral evidence of occasional challenges to the Ming and continuous contacts with the Mongols, revealed the centrality of the strategy of deference. The case was somewhat different between 1388 and 1398 for Yi So˘ng-gye, who controlled the Koryo˘ court in 1388–1392 and ruled as the first king (King T’aejo) of the Choso˘n dynasty from 1392 to 1398. We have already noted that the king and his successors established sadae (serve the great) as the central principle of the new regime’s China policy. In 1388 when Yi So˘ng-gye first employed the concept to mobilize his troops against the Koryo˘ court, he was simply trying to preserve Korea’s security by accommodating rather than challenging the Ming.105 He was thus “informed above all by a timely realpolitik.”106 He might have also believed that sadae would not only help ensure Choso˘n security but also legitimate his new regime through Chinese investiture. As a dynastic founder and, more important, a usurper, King T’aejo particularly needed legitimation. And since he lacked royal lineage, Chinese investiture was doubly important as a legitimating symbol.107 Thus, King T’aejo’s preeminent strategy also seems to have been deference. In an important sense, sadae may be seen as being motivated by “a quite pragmatic assessment of the best way to guarantee both security and autonomy for Korea.”108 We should, however, allow for the possibility

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of some link between sadae and the Confucianization of Choso˘n Korea, which ushered in a radical departure in the nature of Sino-Korean relations from that of all previous eras.109 Cultural and ideological affinities between Choso˘n Korea and Ming China could make it easier for Korea to adopt sadae. Perception of China as the source of higher civilization could legitimate sadae in cultural terms. We can presume a certain degree of identification in King T’aejo’s strategy, but his reign was too short, and evidence too sketchy, to permit conclusive analysis.

Stabilization and Rapprochement, 1399–1424 With the end of the Hongwu reign, a turning point occurred in Sino-Korea relations. In contrast to the heavy-handed approaches of the Hongwu emperor, his successors were more favorably disposed toward Korea. But the relationship was not without its difficulties. Between 1398 and 1400, the Korean throne changed three times: King T’aejo abdicated in favor of King Cho˘ngjong (定宗, r. 1398–1400), who was overthrown by King T’aejong (太宗, r. 1400–1418). In China, the Jianwen (建文) emperor’s brief reign (1399–1402) was almost entirely spent on the civil war with his uncle Zhu Di, the future Yongle (永樂) emperor (r. 1403–1424). In February 1399, King Cho˘ngjong sent an embassy to Nanjing to congratulate the Jianwen emperor’s accession to the Ming throne.110 The king must have wondered how different the new emperor would be from his father, as he and his ministers criticized the Hongwu emperor’s extreme suspicion and massive purge of officials, as well as his autocratic method of governance.111 The early signs were good, as a Ming rescript came in July 1399 to confirm King T’aejo’s abdication of the throne to King Cho˘ngjong.112 In late 1400 a royal power struggle forced King Cho˘ngjong to abdicate as well. The new king, T’aejong, sent a mission to the Ming in late January 1401. In March a Ming embassy came to express the Jianwen emperor’s surprise at King Cho˘ngjong’s abdication and his suspicion of ­Korea’s deceitfulness, temporarily withholding King T’aejong’s investiture.113 One month later the emperor allowed the Koreans to decide on the abdication themselves.114 In June a new embassy arrived at the Choso˘n court with the emperor’s writ and a gold seal to invest T’aejong as “King of the Choso˘n,” along with the usual expectation of Korea’s propriety as China’s tributary vassal.115

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As the civil war was intensifying, a Ming envoy who returned from Korea gave a memorial to the emperor that China could request trading horses with Korea to strengthen horse supplies for the war. The emperor wasted no time in instructing the Ministry of War to request a trade for ten thousand fine horses from Korea, a request that reached the Choso˘n court in October 1401.116 In March 1402 the emperor made a further requisition of three thousand horses.117 The Koreans were disgruntled. Two officials criticized the requisition as material exchange, which, they pointed out, was not how the King of Heaven (i.e., the Chinese emperor) should treat his vassallords. They recommended rejecting the horse trade, warning that although the king could not object to the requisition because of his integrity of serving China as the superior country, Korea’s limited horse supplies would be depleted and the efforts to meet Chinese requisitions would still fall short of China’s insatiable desire.118 They thus opposed horse trading outside of the normal tributary framework on both cultural and practical grounds. Although the king could not adopt this recommendation, he moved to strengthen fortifications on the northern frontier after hearing of the intensification of the civil war in China.119 In October 1402, as the Jianwen emperor was defeated, King T’aejong stopped using the reign title of “Jianwen” and sent a mission to congratulate the victory of the Yongle emperor. In November, the new emperor sent a rescript to justify his rebellion against the Jianwen emperor and his accession to the Ming throne.120 He also told Korean envoys in Nanjing that he started the war to rectify the wrongdoings of the Jianwen emperor, not because he wanted the Ming throne.121 In late April 1403, a Ming embassy arrived at the Choso˘n court with a gold seal and writ of investiture to invest T’aejong as “King of the Choso˘n.” The emperor instructed the Ministry of Rites to treat Korea more favorably because Korea was seen as different from other tributary polities given its closeness to the Ming in terms of the emperorvassal and father-son relationship. The embassy also contained other purposes. It requested that Korea return Ming subjects who had fled from Liaodong to Korea. It also claimed that Korea still had to trade 2,193 horses to meet the requirement of trading 10,000 horses made during the Jianwen reign.122 The king, having received two Ming investitures within barely two years from two emperors, while recalling the extreme difficulty of King U and King T’aejo in obtaining investiture from the Hongwu emperor, asked a Ming envoy why the Yongle emperor treated him so favorably. It was a

Sino-Korean Relations  

reward, the envoy replied, for Korea’s loyalty as the first tributary vassal to congratulate the emperor’s accession to the throne.123 Around the same time, the Yongle emperor requested that Korea help the Ming pacify the main Jurchen tribes in the northeast and bring them under Chinese control. The Koreans, however, considered these Jurchens to be their subjects and resisted the request.124 The Korean king also opposed the Yongle emperor’s proposal of intermarriage between the two royal houses, explaining that intermarriage would bring a closer but also more troublesome relationship with China.125 The king further complained about the emperor’s heavy demands: sixty eunuchs in November 1403 and ten thousand oxen in May 1404. He pointed out, as his officials had earlier, that these were not tributary requests in accordance with Confucian principles but rather trade based on material exchanges.126 From 1404 the Ming began to establish the Jianzhou commandery in Liaodong and southern Manchuria to control the Jurchens in the region, an area inhabited by the Koreans until the tenth century.127 This set off alarm in Korea and triggered intense Sino-Korean competition for control over the Jurchens. In June 1404 the Koreans sent a memorial to the emperor to request governing the Jurchens themselves, claiming that historically the Jurchens had been residing in their territory.128 The focus of the competition was on Menggetimur (猛哥帖木兒), chieftain of the Wu-du-li (吾都里) tribe. In February 1405 Menggetimur rejected Ming overtures. In March, Korea invested him as “Myriarch of Wu-du-li” and bestowed gifts on his tribesmen as well as other Jurchen tribes. In April, Ming envoys arrived at the Choso˘n court, requesting that Korea pressure Menggetimur. But the Korean king, speaking of Menggetimur as “a bulwark in the northeast,” sent his own envoy to persuade Menggetimur not to yield to Chinese pressure.129 In early May, when Ming envoys again came to his tribe, Menggetimur claimed that he had submitted to Korea for more than twenty years, and since Korea had submitted to the Ming, there was no need for him to submit to the Ming too. But he eventually yielded to Ming enticement, backed up by China’s political and economic resources, which Korea could not possibly match, and accepted its request in late May. Hearing this, Korea sent a mission in June to Nanjing to argue that Menggetimur was unable to leave his territory and that he and other Jurchen chieftains whom the Chinese envoys had tried to win over lived in Korean territory, in effect asking the Ming to leave Menggetimur alone.130

  chapter 3

Menggetimur eventually went to the Ming capital in October 1405. A rescript from the Yongle emperor soon arrived at the Choso˘n court, claiming that Menggetimur was a relative of the empress, and thus the request for him to go to the Ming court was for family reunion, not an attempt to incorporate the Jurchen territory. Taking this position, the emperor also scolded Korean envoys in Nanjing for Korea’s defiance and deceitfulness in competing with the Ming.131 In January 1406, a letter from the Ministry of Rites reprimanded Korea’s deceitfulness in covering up its continuing relations with Japan and in pretending to help the Ming pacify Menggetimur.132 Confronting these criticisms, a Korean official told the king: The king counts on the [Yongle] emperor’s favor with his utmost loyalty and integrity of serving the great, but the emperor’s creation of the Jianzhou commandery in the east amounted to strangling our throat and holding our right arm. Outside [of Korea the emperor] establishes vassal polities to entice our people, and inside [of Korea the emperor] favors us with special gifts to make us relax our watchfulness. His intention is hard to gauge.133

The king was aware of the delicacy of Korea’s relationship with Ming China. In May 1407, upon hearing the Yongle emperor’s invasion of Vietnam, he said: The emperor likes doing grandiose things to impress people [好大喜功]. If our country has a little lack of the propriety of serving the great, [he] will send a punitive expedition against us [興師問罪]. I believe the most urgent tasks now are, first, to serve him with utmost integrity [以至誠事之] and, second, to strengthen our fortifications and store our supplies.134

In September 1407, a Chinese embassy came to requisition between three hundred and four hundred eunuchs, a number that startled the Korean king. Late in the month, another requisition was made to trade three thousand fine horses to be used for the war in Vietnam.135 In May 1408 and June 1409, the Ming twice requisitioned virgins from Korea for the imperial harem.136 In November 1409, the Korean king offered ten thousand horses for the emperor’s campaign against the Mongols. One month later a Ming embassy came to press the horse trade while requisitioning more virgins.137 Soon a Ming envoy provoked Korean border officials by crossing the border without explaining his purpose. Facing these incessant and costly demands, the king said to his officials: “My mind fears the Heaven, so I serve the great

Sino-Korean Relations  

with integrity. The Son of Heaven, rather than dispatching court officials, sent to us greedy or brutal eunuchs who act in a willful manner without propriety.”138 He indicated that he would rather prefer to close the border with China, but given that China was again in turmoil as the result of the wars with the Mongols, such an act might vent his anger of the moment but would sow the seed of trouble for the next hundred years. He would therefore try to endure [ren 忍] it.139 Sino-Korean relations in the subsequent years were uneventful, marked mainly by Chinese requisitions—for Korean horses, virgins, eunuchs, paper, and Buddhist artifacts—and Korea’s general compliance. analyzing chinese grand strategy

Was the Chinese grand strategy during this period better characterized by instrumental hierarchy or by expressive hierarchy? Clearly Chinese emperors had important instrumental motives in their relations with Korea. The repeated requests of fine horses from Korea for military use, made by both the Jianwen and Yongle emperors, were perhaps the best indication of instrumentalism. Here the Koreans were right to criticize Chinese rulers for prioritizing material interests above Confucian ethics. Considering that the various requisitions were made in addition to normal tributes, and that many of them, such as oxen, virgins, and eunuchs, exceeded the demands of even the draconian Hongwu emperor, they must have been extremely heavy burdens on Korea, certainly far from evidence of Chinese affection and care for the Koreans. The Yongle emperor’s vigorous pacification of the Jurchens previously under Korean control, to enhance the security of the northeastern frontier, was even better evidence of his maximization of self-interest.140 Even the swift investiture of King T’aejong granted by both the Jianwen and Yongle emperors can be partly explained by their need for legitimacy. Korea’s tribute would buttress the legitimacy of the Jianwen emperor during the civil war, and Korean horses would be very useful for his military struggle with his uncle.141 Korean tribute would also help legitimate the throne of the Yongle emperor that had been usurped from the Jianwen emperor. Indeed, the Yongle emperor was hugely delighted by the prompt arrival of a Korean embassy to acknowledge his rule, and he tried to justify his usurpation by sending rescripts to Korea and by explaining the situation to Korean envoys. But it would be incorrect to characterize Chinese strategy during this period as entirely instrumental. Both the Jianwen and Yongle emperors,

  chapter 3

it seems, wanted to establish an expressive tributary relationship with the Choso˘n kings. The Yongle emperor, in particular, identified Korea as his closest tributary vassal. He showed a good deal of care and affection for a fifteen-year-old Korean prince who had led a tributary visit to the Chinese court in 1408.142 Consistent with the expressive principle of favoring the intimate (i.e., culturally close), the emperor frequently bestowed lavish gifts on Korea, including gifts such as Buddhist songs that were not sent to any other country.143 It is not apparent that such gifts were instrumentally given to achieve some immediate self-interest. The problem was that the emperor’s expressive rationality was overshadowed by his instrumental use of the relationship for legitimation, to purchase Korean horses, to pacify the Jurchens in the Liaodong security order, and to requisition a variety of Korean tributes for various purposes. Overall, instrumental hierarchy is a better characterization of his strategy. However, the emperor’s instrumentality was not as strong as that of the Hongwu emperor. From the 1370s onward, the Hongwu emperor first wanted to threaten the Koryo˘ court and demand restoration of a proper tributary relationship, perhaps believing that such a relationship was salvageable if the Koreans could improve their integrity in ways that he desired. Then, seeing the Koryo˘ as a source of threat to Ming frontier security, restoration of the relationship gave way to compelling the Koryo˘ court to act in his security interest. In the process he lost interest in a close tributary relationship with Korea. The Yongle emperor, in contrast, took such a relationship for granted, and only rarely coerced the Koreans in order to maximize his own self-interest. He did not see Choso˘n Korea as a security threat—indeed, there were few acute conflicts of interest between the two sides, notwithstanding the competition over the Jurchens. analyzing korean grand strategy

I have noted already that a degree of identification began to develop in King T’aejo’s approach to Ming China. I now argue that in the case of King T’aejong, identification was a more prominent strategy than deference—a qualitative change in the history of Sino-Korean relations. The king almost always claimed his “integrity of serving the great,” not just in memorials to the Chinese emperor but also in conversations with his officials.144 And his officials assumed the king’s loyalty and integrity toward the Yongle emperor too, as seen in a 1402 memorial to the king about horse

Sino-Korean Relations  

trade and a 1406 memorial suspecting the Chinese emperor’s intention of weakening Korea, mentioned earlier. Even presenting tributary horses was considered part of the propriety of sadae, provided that doing so did not become too onerous a burden.145 The repeated use of this term sadae and a few related ones suggests that the king and his officials had internalized the Confucian hierarchical scheme of foreign relations between a superior China and a subordinate Korea. China seemed to be unproblematically regarded as the “superior country” (shang guo 上國), deserving the propriety of sadae from Korea, which was considered an appropriate Korean duty. The Koreans apparently assumed that a hierarchical tributary relationship between the Chinese emperor and the Korean king was the norm of foreign relations in a civilizational world defined by Confucianism. This was the result of some genuine cultural identification with China. It also produced in Korea a desire to be as culturally close to China as possible—to become, that is, a “little China” in the east of the Sinic world—so as to distinguish itself from other culturally inferior polities in the East Asian world.146 In the May 1407 statement quoted earlier, even while pointing out the need to strengthen Korean defense against a possible Chinese attack, the king still believed serving the Yongle emperor with utmost integrity to be the foremost task. This might have been compelled by a perceived threat from China. A case can be made that at various times the Korean discourse of sadae, which rose to prominence after the establishment of the Choso˘n dynasty, merely cloaked an instrumental strategy of deference to ensure ­Korea’s survival and autonomy, as well as to obtain Chinese investiture for legitimacy and opportunities for tributary trade.147 Nevertheless, the language, which was used in a court discussion rather than in a memorial to China, suggests an important degree of Korean rulers’ internalization of Confucian hierarchical foreign relations.148 It would be too far-fetched to regard this discourse as all window dressing or entirely a manipulation of Chinese norms and institutions. Still, the Koreans did not always endorse Chinese policies. The king and his officials criticized Chinese requisitions for horse trade and a number of other exorbitant tributes, complained about the impropriety of Chinese eunuch envoys, suspected the true intentions of the Yongle emperor, and criticized the emperor’s projects of imperial conquest. The Choso˘n court also competed with the Ming for control over the Jurchens, as the loyalty of the Jurchens was considered a vital security interest in the northeast.149

  chapter 3

As Henry Serruys has noted, what the Chinese did to the Jurchens (taking them into their service, receiving tribute, giving presents and rewards), the Koreans did too.150 The Koreans considered the Jurchens as living on their soil and saw Chinese penetration of the Jurchens as a threat.151 Furthermore, King T’aejong’s opposition to intermarriage between the Chinese and Korean royal houses suggests an intention to maintain a certain distance from and limit relations with China.152 He seems to have learned the historical lesson that a sensible policy toward China should eschew the extremes of either unconditional dependence or irrational provocation. The Koryo˘ court had gone from one extreme to the other in its relations with the Yuan and Ming. King T’aejong’s new approach was to observe his subordinate obligations to the Chinese emperor as defined by Confucian role ethics and yet maintain a flexible distance, so as to avoid unnecessary involvement or conflict. On the whole, then, King T’aejong identified with China’s Confucian foreign relations, but at the same time he had many complaints about and disagreements with specific Chinese policies. Complaints and disagreements are normal affairs of international politics in the case of conflict of interest, as sometimes occurred in Sino-Korean relations during this period. But they did not strongly suggest Korean manipulation of the relationship with the Ming in order to maximize self-interest. Rather, in criticizing Chinese instrumentality for undermining the relationship, the king and his officials seemed to prefer an even more expressive relationship in strict accordance with Confucian principles. They took a proper expressive relationship to be the end, and they wished the Chinese would do so too. The general character of their strategy was thus identification, not deference.

Conclusion In conclusion I summarize the findings of this chapter by addressing five questions. First, what were the respective grand strategies that Ming China and Korea (both the Koryo˘ and Choso˘n regimes) adopted in their interactions? Second, was expressive rationality an important feature of their relations? Third, was the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship a facilitating condition of specific rationality? Fourth, does the narrative method offer an advantage for understanding the process of Sino-Korean

Sino-Korean Relations  

strategic interaction? And finally, was the Sino-Korean relationship during this period a relationship of hierarchical authority? The empirical analysis shows that Chinese rulers’ policies toward ­Korea displayed different degrees of instrumental and expressive rationalities at different times. In the period 1369–1371, the opening phase of the relationship, the Hongwu emperor tried to resurrect the tradition of great Chinese dynasties of the past by establishing a tributary relationship with the ­Koryo˘ king, Kongmin. He took it to be an expressive relationship of hierarchical but mutual affection and obligation between himself and the king. After 1373, however, as the result of the perceived duplicity of Korean missions and irregularity of Korean politics, the emperor increasingly tried to threaten the Koryo˘ court to restore a proper relationship of Confucian propriety. After 1379, seeing Korea as a security threat to the northeastern frontier, the emperor’s central concern shifted from restoring the relationship to compelling the Koryo˘ court to follow his security demands. His strategy therefore became more and more instrumentally oriented. During the reigns of the Jianwen and Yongle emperors, Chinese instrumentalism was still noticeable, particularly in the requisition of Korean horses for military use. But it was not as intense as during the Hongwu reign, as the Jianwen and Yongle emperors did not see Korea as a threat and in general did not try to coerce Korea in order to maximize their own self-interest. Moreover, taking a close tributary relationship with Choso˘n Korea for granted, the Yongle emperor revealed a degree of expressive rationality, even though it was ultimately overshadowed by his instrumentalism. Table 3.1 shows major shifts in Chinese grand strategy toward Korea. The Koryo˘ dynasty of Korea consistently adopted a strategy of deference toward Ming China for various reasons of self-interest, including table 3.1 Evolution of Chinese strategies toward Korea Period

Strategy

January–August 1369

Instrumental hierarchy (Hongwu)

September 1369–1372

Expressive hierarchy (Hongwu)

1373–1424

Instrumental hierarchy (Hongwu, Jianwen, and Yongle)

  chapter 3 table 3.2 Evolution of Korean strategies toward China Period

Strategy

1369–1398

Deference (Koryo˘ and King T’aejo of Choso˘n)

1399–1424

Identification (Choso˘n)

security, power, political legitimacy, and possibly economic benefits. The new Choso˘n dynasty took sadae (serve the great) as the central policy principle toward China and revealed a high degree of expressive rationality. King T’aejong, in particular, identified himself as the Yongle emperor’s tributary vassal and took his subordinate obligations of loyalty and integrity for granted, despite complaints and disagreements with specific Chinese policies. Table 3.2 presents major shifts in Korean grand strategy toward China. As is clear from Tables 3.1 and 3.2, for about fifty-two years of the early Ming period, Chinese rulers adopted a grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy toward Korea. But this was not to say that expressive rationality was entirely absent. For four years in the opening phase of the relationship, the Hongwu emperor’s preeminent strategy was in fact expressive hierarchy. And even in later periods when instrumental rationality took precedence, expressive rationality did not entirely disappear. The expressive rationality of Korean rulers was even more impressive. The approach of the Choso˘n court after King T’aejong was mainly characterized by the expressive strategy of identification (twenty-four years), the significance of which could rival the deference strategy of the preceding period (thirty years). Considering that Sino-Korean relations further stabilized after the Yongle reign, there is good reason to believe that Sino-Korean relations during the Ming period were marked mainly by an expressive relationship between the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy and the Korean strategy of identification. Expressive rationality, therefore, was an important feature of the relationship, even though it was not always the dominant one. Chapter 2 hypothesized that in the Confucian context, the degree of the conflict of interest in a relationship is a major facilitating condition of instrumental or expressive rationality. This case study shows that the period with the strongest Chinese instrumental rationality was that of 1379 to 1398, and the period with the strongest expressive rationality was that between

Sino-Korean Relations  

September 1369 and 1370. It also shows that the period with the dominance of instrumental rationality in Korean strategy was 1372–1387, and the period with the dominance of expressive rationality was 1399–1424. Thus, from 1370s through the 1380s, instrumental rationality dominated both Chinese and Korean strategies. And this was exactly the period in which Chinese and Korean political and security interests clashed most sharply. Chinese expressive rationality was most pronounced in the period 1369–1372, and Korean expressive rationality most evident between 1399 and 1424. These were also periods when the interests of the two sides had not developed into open conflict (1369–1372) or when such conflict had largely subsided (1399–1424). Thus, there was a strong correlation between the degree of conflict of interest and strategic rationality in the Sino-Korean relationship. But, as Chapter 2 also noted, the degree of interest conflict is a facilitating but not necessary or sufficient condition of strategic rationality. Thus, in the period 1369–1372 when the degree of conflict between the two sides was low, the Ming adopted the expressive strategy of expressive hierarchy, but the Koryo˘ court opted for the instrumental strategy of deference. This was because the Koryo˘’s interests in security, power, and legitimacy called for an instrumental strategy. Moreover, the Ming-Koryo˘ relationship was taking place not entirely in a Confucian context, as the Koryo˘ court was traditionally influenced more by Buddhism than by Confucianism. Thus, the expressive strategy of identification lacked a cultural underpinning in the Koryo˘. In contrast, the Confucianization of Korea considerably facilitated such a strategy in the Choso˘n period by providing a secure cultural foundation, and the low degree of relational interest conflict in 1399–1424 was additionally favorable to its development. This case study has employed the relational-historical narrative method to trace the relational processes of Sino-Korean strategic interaction over time. I have neither posited the dominance of instrumental or expressive rationality a priori nor imputed preconstituted interests and motivations to Chinese and Korean rulers. Rather, the method has been to first describe a chain of interrelated events and then to interpret possible interests and motivations behind specific policies. The empirical narrative that results from this method supports two key theoretical points: grand strategy is a processual outcome with ends and means developing coterminously in contexts that are themselves changing along with changes in the dynamics of

  chapter 3

relational interaction, and the nature of rationality is a relational outcome, so therefore it is unhelpful to specify a priori which one might dominate a given situation. In 1369 when the Hongwu emperor was seeking to open relations with Korea, he appeared uncertain about what kind of relationship—Korea as a vassal or guest—might eventually obtain. Receiving the Koryo˘ court’s tributary mission, however, he quickly clarified his intention to make Korea a tributary vassal based on the expressive rationality of mutual affection and obligation. Thus, initially expressive hierarchy emerged as the emperor’s preferred grand strategy. But this gradually changed after 1373 as a result of several events, including Korea’s attack in Liaodong and the emperor’s mounting dissatisfaction with Korean tributary embassies. As a result, the emperor viewed Korea in an increasingly suspicious and hostile light. Expressive rationality receded to the background, giving way to instrumental rationality in order to ensure Ming security in the northeast. During the Yongle reign, the dynamics of the relationship changed again. The Choso˘n court’s adoption of the sadae principle significantly reduced bilateral tensions. As a result, the Yongle emperor in general did not need to worry about security with Korea, and he revealed a greater degree of expressive rationality than the Hongwu emperor had from 1373 to 1398. Thus, China’s strategies evolved as the dynamics of relational interaction changed, with means and ends adjusted in the process as well. Hierarchy, whether instrumental or expressive, was always the preeminent strategy of early Ming emperors. Did they succeed in creating hierarchic authority as a social structure over the Koreans? Chapter 2 explained that China’s authority over other actors may be more or less complete, and the relationship more or less hierarchical, along a continuum from other actors’ strategies of access and exit (no authority), through deference (some authority), to identification (great authority). The Koryo˘ dynasty’s consistent strategy of deference indicates some Chinese authority over Koryo˘ rulers. The prominence of the Choso˘n court’s identification strategy suggests a much greater degree of Chinese authority. On the whole, early Ming China’s authority over Korea was not complete, as can be expected, given the nature of authority as degree variations. But its degree, especially during the Yongle reign, was impressive enough for one to assert that this was largely a relationship of hierarchical authority.

four

Sino-Japanese Relations

This second case-study chapter of Sino-Japanese relations during the early Ming period continues to evaluate the three main theoretical claims advanced in Chapter 2. The chapter will show that, similar to the Korean case, instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy characterized a good deal of Chinese strategies toward various Japanese rulers. But this case also differed from the Korean one in that both the Hongwu and the Yongle emperors also adopted a strategy of defensive isolation to protect the Ming coast from the threat of Japanese piracy. I use the same methodological criteria to distinguish instrumental hierarchy from expressive hierarchy. Instrumental hierarchy should be evidenced by Chinese rulers’ interest calculation and self-interest maximization, as well as their use of the hierarchical relationship with Japanese rulers to achieve instrumental ends. Expressive hierarchy, in contrast, should involve Chinese rulers’ affection and obligation toward Japan rather than interest calculation. They should establish an expressive relationship with Japanese rulers as the policy end rather than use the relationship for self-interest maximization. The identification of the strategy of defensive isolation is more of an inductive generalization of the Chinese policy of breaking off official relations with Japan and focusing on coastal defense against piracy. Differentiating this strategy from instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy should be fairly easy. My argument is that Chinese rulers adopted the strategy of instrumental hierarchy in 1368–1370, 1376–1386, 1399–1402, and 1409–1417; expressive hierarchy in 1371–1375 and 1403–1408; and defensive isolation in 1387–1398 and 1418–1424. 

  chapter 4

The various Japanese rulers, in contrast, adopted the strategies of exit, access, and deference at different times. As the theoretical discussion in Chapter 2 suggests, a strategy of exit should be evidenced by Japanese rulers’ rejection of a relationship with China, reflected in their indifference to, resistance to, or even confrontation with Chinese demands. They may balk at, defy, or challenge such demands, or simply isolate themselves from China by cutting off official ties with it. Access should involve their entering into relations with China to obtain resources for their self-interest, but without observing the Chinese rules and norms of tributary diplomacy. Deference should suggest Japanese rulers’ establishment of a tributary relationship with China and their use of the relationship to maximize their own self-interest. The relationship should be taken as an instrumental tool, not an expressive end in itself. Both access and deference imply Japanese rulers’ exploitation of Chinese resources for instrumental ends. They differ in the degree of their compliance with Chinese tributary requirements. I argue that three Japanese rulers at different times adopted the strategies of exit (1369, 1372–1375, 1382–1383, and 1409–1424), deference (1370–1371 and 1401–1408), and access (1376–1381). The case study shows that the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy was more prominent in the Sino-Japanese relationship than in the SinoKorean one, but none of the Japanese rulers adopted the strategy of identification. Thus, like the Sino-Korean relationship, expressive rationality was an essential but not dominant feature of the relationship. Again, I find a strong correlation between degrees of conflict of interest and specific rationality. Before proceeding to the empirical analysis, some historical background is necessary for a discussion of Sino-Japanese relations during the early Ming period. Historically, Japanese rulers were reluctant to serve China as a tributary vassal, although for pragmatic reasons they often accommodated Chinese wishes. The reluctance, with the notable exception of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, examined in this chapter, intensified to evolve into Japan’s conception of its own centrality and superiority in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868). National pride, mythology of imperial divinity, and rulers’ idiosyncrasies could all make acknowledging an external authority difficult. A long history of close relations with China notwithstanding, Japan was almost never completely subsumed into a Sinocentric order.1 Japan’s relations with the Asian continent can be partitioned into four phases. First, in very early times it progressively engaged with the Korean

Sino-Japanese Relations  

peninsula and China, culminating in a full integration into the “East Asian world” in the Nara period (710–784). Second, during the Heian period (794–1185) Japan progressively disengaged with the continent by taking a largely isolationist stance. Third, during the Kamakura and Muromachi periods (1185–1573) it again actively engaged with the continent, particularly in terms of trade and Buddhism. Finally, during the Tokugawa (or Edo) period (1600–1868), it again opted for partial disengagement.2 It is often said that Japan earnestly borrowed Chinese culture and political institutions from the Tang dynasty (618–907), assimilating intellectual structures such as the writing system and Buddhism and creating its first legal codes and a central administration.3 Less clear was the extent to which the Japanese submitted to or identified with Chinese authority in international relations in the sense of becoming a willing tributary vassal. Probably only in two cases did Japanese rulers accept investiture by the Chinese emperor as “King of Japan.” The first occurred in the sixth century of the Yamato period (c. 300–710); the second, the Muromachi bakufu (government of a military ruler) under Yoshimitsu in the early fifteenth century. Envoys were dispatched to the Sui (589–618) and Tang dynasties, but no Chinese investiture was requested, because by then Chinese titles had lost their utility for domestic political legitimation, as Japan had achieved political unity.4 Yamato rulers of the seventh and early eighth centuries were anxious to establish the status of Japan as an independent polity outside the Sinocentric order, by trying to simultaneously create a centralized government modeled after that of China and to win foreign recognition as an equal to the Chinese ruler. In the Taiho¯ Code of 702, the Japanese emperor, imitating his Chinese counterpart, was also referred to as “Son of Heaven,” revealing the Japanese intention of establishing a similarly structured Japancentered world order. Japanese dynastic histories tried to show that Japan had vassals of its own by registering delegations from the Korean regimes and some southern islands as tributary missions.5 In the imperial ideology adopted by the Nara state, China was conceived as an equal “neighbor state” (rinkoku), whereas Silla on the Korean Peninsula and Parhae in Manchuria were treated as vassal states (bankoku).6 Thus, although Japan loosely remained within Tang China’s international tributary order by dispatching the famous “emissaries to the Tang” (遣唐使 Kento¯shi), the relationship was not one of submission or identification strictly defined. As Wang Zhenping observes, “Japanese ambassadors to the Sui and later on to the Tang were

  chapter 4

mainly diplomats seeking cultural and economic benefits from China for their country.”7 The decline and collapse of the Tang dynasty further reduced Japan’s incentive to regard China as a superior civilization. In 894, the Heian court canceled an anticipated mission to the crumbling Tang dynasty,8 making its preceding embassy sent in 834 the last official Japanese mission to China before the fourteenth century. It also brought to a close a long era of cultural borrowing from China. But perhaps more important, it signaled the rise of a new era of “Japaneseness,”9 an assertion of Japan’s parity with, and even superiority over, China. Thus, when the Ming dynasty was founded in 1368, China and Japan had lost any significant or sustained official contact for about five hundred years, even though private intercourse, particularly trade and cultural exchanges centered on Buddhism, had remained active. Song China had neither the will nor the means to bring Japan under Chinese influence. In fact, when the Southern Song dynasty fell to the Mongols in 1279, some Japanese began to see China as inferior to Japan.10 And when both of the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 failed, the sense of Japaneseness was renewed, culminating in the conception of a “Japan-centered world” in the Tokugawa period.11 We will see in this chapter that the historical evolution and fluctuation of Japanese attitudes toward China were well encapsulated in Sino-Japanese relations during the early Ming period. The historical analysis is divided into three periods: discord and enmity in the relationship in the period 1368–1400, unprecedented harmony in 1401–1408, and frustration and isolation in 1409–1424.

Discord and Enmity, 1368–1400 The Hongwu emperor dispatched his first envoy to Japan at the end of 1368 to announce his enthronement. The imperial rescript issued for this purpose was very similar to the first one sent to Korea described in the preceding chapter. Mild in tone, it mainly tried to inform Japanese rulers of the founding of the new regime.12 Whether tributary submission was also expected is somewhat unclear, although we can speculate that it was the emperor’s preference.

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The Japanese never replied to the first mission, probably because it failed to reach them.13 In January 1369, news of Japanese pirates (wako) pillaging China’s Shandong Peninsula reached the Ming court.14 Greatly concerned with the wako problem, the emperor dispatched the envoy Yang Zai on a second mission to Japan in March 1369 with a far harsher rescript: Recently [the governor of ] Shandong has informed us that the Japanese pirates [wo bing 倭兵] have frequently raided our coastal areas, resulting in the separation of wives and children from their husbands and fathers as well as the destruction of properties and injuries of people. We are sending this rescript to particularly announce our legitimate succession [zheng tong 正統] [to the Yuan in China], as well as to inquire why the Japanese pirates should come across the sea. On the day you receive this rescript, you should [send envoys] with a memorial to our court if you wish to submit [chen 臣] [to us]; otherwise you should build up forces for self-defense and forever pacify your land so as to celebrate Heaven’s happiness. If you insist upon committing piracy and robbery, I shall order our fleet to sail to the different islands to arrest each of the outlaws and shall proceed into the land to bind their kings with ropes. Would this not be an action taken in the name of Heaven against those not humane? Hope the King can consider this.15

The emperor in effect offered the Japanese two options: submit to the Ming as a loyal tributary vassal or remain autonomous but pacify the wako by developing an adequate military force. Both options were clearly geared toward solving the wako problem. Carrying this rescript, Yang Zai and his mission arrived at Dazaifu in northern Kyushu. Since Nara times (710–784), Dazaifu had been an office of the Japanese central government with authority over foreign relations and trade.16 It would thus be the natural place to start Sino-Japanese relations under normal circumstances. But in 1369 the political situation in Japan was anything but normal. The country was in the middle of a bitter struggle between two imperial houses, the so-called Northern Court at Kyoto buttressed by the newly established Muromachi bakufu (Ashikaga shogunate, 1338–1573) and the Southern Court at Yoshino supported by regional barons. The sixty-year civil war, known as the Nambokucho¯ period (1333–1392) in Japanese history, meant the lack of central authority in Japan. For a long time Kyushu was under the control of Prince Kanenaga (1329–1383), the Southern Court’s Seisei Daisho¯gun (generalissimo for the subjugation of western Japan) in western Japan, who made Dazaifu his headquarters in the

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struggle against the Northern Court. Rather than representing the central government, Dazaifu had instead become the personal power base of Prince Kanenaga.17 Ignorant of the real situation in Japan probably because of the lack of official contact, Yang Zai approached Dazaifu and handed in the emperor’s rescript to Prince Kanenaga, mistaking him as “King of Japan.”18 Kanenaga, greatly annoyed at the tone of the rescript, imprisoned Yang Zai for three months and executed five other envoys.19 The emperor was nevertheless willing to try diplomacy once more. In April 1370, he sent Zhao Zhi to Japan with a new and longer rescript. The rescript ended with an implicit threat: If a small culturally inferior foreign kingdom is not content with its lot and deliberately violates the Way of Heaven by frequently coming to create disturbances, this inevitably incurs the hatred of spirits and men and can hardly be tolerated by Heaven. And punitive forces [zheng tao zhi shi 征討之師] are only waiting to be unleashed. Would it not be well for you to change your mind and obey our orders so that we might mutually keep the peace? . . . To respect Heaven is the norm of the Kingly Way [wang dao 王道]; to cherish the loyal and punish the disobedient [fu shun fa ni 撫順伐逆] are the excellent patterns of the past and present. Be cautious so as to prolong your line of succession.20

While making this threat, the emperor also showed a conciliatory gesture by sending Yang Zai to Japan with fifteen Japanese pirates captured in China.21 This time Kanenaga responded favorably by sending a return mission with a tributary memorial, which arrived at the Ming court in November 1371.22 The mission was composed of Buddhist monks headed by Sorai who took with them letters, gifts, and a number of Chinese who had been captured by Japanese pirates near the Chinese port city of Ningbo on the Zhejiang coast.23 Impressed by the priestly nature of the first Japanese mission to the Ming court, the Hongwu emperor reciprocated by ordering Zuchan and Keqin, two prominent Buddhist priests in China, and six others to accompany Sorai back to Japan with an imperial calendar and silk fabrics as gifts for Kanenaga in 1372,24 possibly also with the intention of gathering intelligence about Japanese politics. Zuchan and Keqin were, however, detained by Kanenaga for one year after arriving in July 1372 at Hakata in northern Kyushu. While there, they gradually learned of Japan’s real political situ-

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ation. Clearly, Kanenaga was never king of Japan, and after 1372, he even had difficulty holding ground in Kyushu. Keqin then wrote a letter to the Tendai zasu (chief abbot) in Kyoto, claiming that Ming China had been attempting to establish contact with “Emperor Jimyo¯” of the Northern Court from the start and that they were kept from going to Kyoto by Kanenaga in Kyushu.25 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), the third shogun (1368–1394) of the Muromachi bakufu, was surprised and immediately sent envoys to receive them. Zuchan and Keqin eventually reached Kyoto in July 1373. This was the first time that a Ming mission had direct communication with the Ashikaga shogunate. Yoshimitsu was so impressed by the Chinese monks that he even asked Zuchan to stay and become the abbot of the Tenryu¯ji, a famous Zen monastery near Kyoto.26 He then sent three Japanese monks to the Ming court in 1374, but the Hongwu emperor refused to receive them on the grounds that they bore only a letter to the Grand Secretariat but no memorial to the emperor.27 This violated the Chinese tributary protocol, which required above all a proper memorial to the emperor accompanied by tributary goods. The emperor was also concerned with finding out who was the legitimate ruler in Japan. In his instruction to the Grand Secretariat, he acknowledged the mistake of taking Kanenaga to be king of Japan, but he attributed the error to the turmoil of Japanese politics and the “arrogance and impropriety” (ao man wu li 傲慢無禮) of Japanese rulers. He said: Now Japan is discarding propriety, slighting our envoys, and creating disorder from within. Can it last long? The Grand Secretariat should send a letter conveying my intention of letting it start with a clean slate and turn disaster into fortune. This is China’s way of cherishing foreign peoples with propriety [fu waiyi yi li 撫外夷以禮] and directing people’s mind-and-heart with goodness [dao renxin yi shan 導人心以善].28

The emperor showed the same emphasis on legitimacy and propriety in a letter of reprimand to Shimazu Ujihisa of southern Kyushu, who in the same year (1374) sent a monk with gifts to the Ming court. The emperor, rejecting the mission because it did not represent the legitimate ruler of the country and thus constituted only an illegitimate private tribute, stated: It is a common rule of propriety that culturally inferior foreign peoples should respect the Central Kingdom [zhong guo 中國]. One principle in both ancient and modern times has been for the small to serve the great. It is difficult for us

  chapter 4 to receive the envoys sent by you . . . [whose letter is] dated according to the Japanese chronology and whose tribute is presented at the expense of your duty as a vassal of your ruler. Rites thus conducted are improper and beyond your position. You, Ujihisa, should strengthen your sense of loyalty to serve your ruler; you should show humaneness and thereby care for your people. Thus you will not be the source of disaster and will enjoy good fortune without end. Other­ wise you shall create disturbance in your country, bring havoc on your family, and will be unable to escape from the punishment of Heaven.29

Clearly the emperor wanted to deal with the legitimate ruler of Japan but was quite unable to tell which person was the legitimate ruler. In any case such a ruler had not yet emerged in Japan, as it was not until 1392 that the Ashikaga shogunate finally ended the civil war between the two imperial houses. For the moment he was content in dealing with Kanenaga until events proved otherwise.30 Meanwhile, the emperor’s attitude toward Japan steadily soured. As the result of continuing Japanese piracy along the Ming coast,31 several “improper” or “illegitimate” Japanese missions to his court, and the perception of political chaos in Japan, what little favor Kanenaga had gained in the emperor’s eyes for the tribute of 1371 was completely lost. In April 1376, another embassy from Kanenaga appeared at the Ming court. Criticizing the memorial as lacking integrity (bu cheng 不誠), the emperor warned: When we peruse your memorial and examine your feelings, though your intentions are obscure, you have revealed hints that make it clear that you do not obey the order of Heaven and rely upon your unassailable and strong position. . . . The distance which separates us from Japan is nothing but the high seas. It takes only five days and nights to sail with favorable winds. It would be a great advantage for you to respect Heaven’s will by practicing a humane rule in order that you may escape internal disasters.32

Kanenaga ceased to send missions for three years. Then he sent three missions to the Ming court in 1379, 1380, and 1381, respectively. The Hongwu emperor received the 1379 mission but rejected the 1380 one for its lack of integrity (bu cheng 不誠) as it failed to present a memorial.33 Yoshimitsu also sent a mission in 1380, but the emperor again rejected it, because its members bore only a letter to the prime minister, no memorial to the emperor. Moreover, the wording of the letter was said to be defiant and provocative.34 In January 1381, the Hongwu emperor became so annoyed

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by erratic Japanese embassies and the worsening wako problem that he felt obliged to draft a letter of reprimand for the king of Japan: You stupid eastern peoples! Your king and courtiers are not acting correctly; you have disturbed countries in all directions. In former years you created dissensions with ungrounded statements, and this year your people come without integrity. We have questioned them and found out that you want to determine which of us is the stronger. . . . Living so far across the sea, you are unmindful of the wonderful land that God has given you; you are haughty and disloyal; you permit your subjects to do evil. Will this not inevitably bring disaster upon you?35

In August 1381, Kanenaga sent a mission with tribute of ten horses and local products. Rejecting the tribute, the emperor ordered the Ministry of Rites to draft two letters of severe reprimand, one for Kanenaga and the other for Yoshimitsu. Both letters “emphasize the advisability of normal tributary intercourse and the serious consequences of a war, and contain the definite threat that war would come sooner or later if Japan did not change her course.”36 The letter to Kanenaga read in part: Beginning with the Han and throughout the Wei, Jin, Song, Liang, Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties, Japan sent envoys to China with memorials and tribute. Emperors at those times either bestowed on them official posts or invested them as kings and established amicable relations with them. Because of the sincerity of the Japanese obedience and admiration [gui mu yi cheng 歸慕意誠], the emperors were generous in their treatment of them. When they were not constant in their submission and created cleavages between themselves and China, then they inevitably suffered disasters, as in the cases of Wu Dadi, Wurong Gui of the Jin, and Yuan Shizu, all of whom dispatched punitive troops and returned with men and women captives. You should look into the events of the past thousand and more years for reference. Examine them carefully!37

The letter to Yoshimitsu first chastised the shogun’s impropriety (wu li 無禮) in treating Chinese envoys and in sending tributary missions. It further pointed out the cupidity (tan li 貪利) of Japanese envoys and the duplicity and lack of integrity (gui zha bu cheng 詭詐不誠) of Japanese rulers and ministers. Recounting the Yuan’s failed attempts to conquer Japan, the letter concluded: In recent years, Japan has been boasting of its power and wealth, and has permitted its subjects to be brigands and disturb neighboring countries. If you really

  chapter 4 wish to find out who would win and lose, which of us is right or wrong, and which side is the stronger or weaker, it would not be to your advantage. Examine this carefully!38

Much to the emperor’s frustration, Kanenaga replied with an extraordinarily provocative document no later than 1382. Revealing Japanese defiance of China that seemed to have been well established by Ming times, it is worth quoting in length: I have heard that the Three Emperors established order and the Five Sovereigns came to the throne each in turn. How should only the Central Civilization [zhong hua 中華] have her master while foreigners did not have their rulers? Heaven and Earth are vast; they are not monopolized by one ruler. The universe is great and wide, and various countries are created each to have a share in its rule. The world [tianxia 天下] is the world’s world; it does not belong to a single person. I live in a distant and weak Japan, which is a remote and small land. Our cities number less than sixty, and our territories are less than three thousand li [one li = one-third of a mile]. Yet still we are satisfied. Your Majesty is the master of the Central Civilization and the owner of ten thousand chariots, with more than several thousand cities and territories exceeding a million li. Yet you are not satisfied and constantly entertain thoughts of conquest and destruction. . . . In the past Yao and Shun possessed moral excellence [de 德], and the Four Seas came to visit. Tang and Wu behaved humanely, and the Eight Directions presented tribute. I have heard that the Celestial Court is making plans for war. This small country too has a plan for meeting the enemy. . . . I have also heard that Your Majesty has selected your best generals and called forth your elite soldiers to invade my territory. . . . We shall meet them with our troops. How could we be willing to kneel down on the road and pay respect to them? Life is not assured if we follow you; death will not necessarily be the outcome if we go against you. . . . If you win and we lose, then your superior country will be satisfied. However, if we win and you lose, this small country will be ashamed of you.39

This was an extremely defiant challenge to Chinese authority in international relations. George Sansom notes that “the Japanese, despite their respect for Chinese culture, had a fierce national pride, stiffened by their defeat of the Mongols. They were not likely to submit to Chinese pressure.”40 This letter, however, was not just a refusal to submit but also a challenge to the very notion of China’s Sinocentric conception of world order. Asserting that the world could not be a Chinese monopoly, the letter argued for the

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sharing of world governance by countries large and small. The idea seems intriguingly “modern,” yet it was neither idiosyncratic nor unique in Japanese history. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, it in fact reflected a larger historical pattern of Japanese attitudes toward China. The provocation of this letter effectively ended official Sino-Japanese relations during the Hongwu reign. The emperor, though outraged,41 did not execute his threat of war, primarily because the memory of the Mongol failures just a century earlier remained alive.42 Instead, he resorted to coastal defense against the wako, adopting an increasingly defensive and isolationist policy of haijin (海禁), or maritime prohibition.43 To prevent the intermingling of merchants with pirates, and so to stamp out the wako, the emperor decided to abolish maritime commerce altogether. The only form of trade that was officially allowed was that under the tributary framework.44 After 1381 Sino-Japanese relations were beyond repair. But the Japanese, though adamantly defiant of Chinese tributary rules, nevertheless continued to send envoys to the Ming court in 1382, 1384, and 1386.45 They were badly treated. The emperor’s antipathy toward Japan finally turned into outrage after discovering Prime Minister Hu Weiyong’s alleged conspiracy to kill him. In the Ming History it is written that Hu had sought the help of Japan for his attempted coup. The emperor was furious upon learning of the plot, and after executing Hu and his followers, he decided to completely break off relations with Japan in 1387.46 Following this isolationist strategy, the emperor’s policy toward Japan was solely focused on coastal defense against the wako. The movement of Chinese ships was restricted, and Chinese subjects were forbidden to go abroad. The 1386 mission was therefore the last Japanese mission to appear at the Ming court during the Hongwu reign. It was not until fifteen years later during the Jianwen reign that Japanese missions reappeared in the Chinese capital. analyzing chinese grand strategy

Sending a mission to various foreign polities to announce his enthronement was a typical practice of the Hongwu emperor in late 1368 and early 1369. His motivation may range from simple political communication to an implicit expectation of foreign tributary submission. No more can be read into his specific motivation until his relationship with a foreign regime came to develop some concrete interactions. As in the Korean case, we can interpret his late 1368 announcement to Japan as mainly a legitimation move.

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The emperor, however, turned more instrumental toward Japan much sooner than in the Korean case. No later than January 1369, he had been preoccupied with the security problem of Japanese piracy and the ability of Japanese rulers to suppress it.47 Although it is not entirely correct to say that Sino-Japanese relations during the Ming were established as the result of piracy,48 it did critically affect the development of the relationship. Judging from his March 1369 rescript, the emperor was seeking a tributary relationship with Japan, but less for its own sake of achieving Confucian propriety than for its function of obliging Japanese rulers to suppress piracy. He revealed no particular affection for the Japanese but rather issued a threat of war. His instrumental rationality was thus much stronger than expressive rationality at this point. And although a tributary relationship with Japan was his preference, he also seemed willing to forgo it, provided that Japanese rulers were able to control the wako. Such an isolationist stance, which eventually became the official policy in the late 1380s, was not incompatible with his penchant for limited contact with foreign countries. In the following two years, the emperor’s attitude underwent an important change. His April 1370 rescript threatened Prince Kanenaga with “punitive forces.” But after receiving Kanenaga’s priestly tributary mission in November 1371, he reciprocated with a priestly Chinese embassy. The year 1371 thus seemed a turning point in his approach toward Japan. In 1369– 1370, he was compelling the Japanese to establish a tributary relationship for the instrumental purpose of suppressing piracy. After 1371, as a result of Kanenaga’s embassy, he began to be interested in developing an expressive relationship with the Japanese prince. His demand of piracy control was also symbolically met by Kanenaga’s return of Chinese captives. Between 1371, when he took interest in developing an expressive tributary relationship with Kanenaga, and 1376, when he again threatened him with invasion, the Hongwu emperor tried to instruct Japanese rulers to improve the propriety of their tributary relationships with him. Thus, he rejected Yoshimitsu’s 1374 mission because it failed to carry a memorial, and he rejected Ujihisa’s mission because Ujihisa was only a regional lord, not ruler of the country. In his 1374 instruction to the Grand Secretariat, he claimed that in asking Japanese rulers to develop tributary propriety and maintain domestic order, he was cherishing them with Confucian expressive rationality. But from September 1369 to 1370 his expressive rationality toward Japan was not

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as strong as his expressive rationality toward Korea, largely because of the wako problem and the lesser degree of cultural affinity between China and Japan. Still, in the period 1371–1375, expressive rationality took precedence in his Japan strategy, as he focused more on the propriety than the instrumental and coercive use of his relationship with Japanese rulers. But as the piracy problem persisted and as Japanese rulers failed to follow his instructions, the emperor became increasingly disillusioned with establishing a proper tributary relationship with them. From 1376 onward, he used increasingly threatening language to compel Japanese compliance with his demands of piracy control and tributary propriety. The castigations of the January and August 1381 rescripts were particularly severe, with strong threats of war. No longer interested in restoring an expressive relationship for its own sake, the emperor was simply coercing the Japanese into meeting his demands. The foregoing analysis shows that the Hongwu emperor mainly adopted a strategy of instrumental hierarchy from late 1368 to 1370, changed to a strategy of expressive hierarchy from 1371 to 1375, but returned to a strategy of instrumental hierarchy after 1376. Neither instrumental hierarchy nor expressive hierarchy, however, completely accounted for the emperor’s strategies, for he also adopted a strategy of defensive isolation after 1387. As the Japanese continued to defy the emperor’s demands, and as he could not execute the threat of war, the emperor resorted to a lesser option mentioned in the 1369 rescript: severing relations with Japan, coupled with coastal defense against the wako. The immediate cause of such a strategy was the Hu Weiyong case—possibly a fabricated one of using Japan in elite Ming politics to discredit possible rivals to the emperor. Long before the case, the surviving forces of his erstwhile rivals Fang Guozhen and Zhang Shicheng had linked up with the wako along the coast, hoping to revive their influence. The emperor thus had a powerful domestic political motive to enforce maritime prohibition and cut off relations with Japan.49 The strategy also has its historical and structural roots. The failure of the Mongol conquests was a potent reminder of the difficulties of invading Japan, and given Japan’s island geography, the emperor must have also been aware of the difficulties of replicating his policies toward Korea, mainly focused on compellence (see the preceding chapter), or the Mongols, mainly focused on conquest (see the next chapter). The relational theory of grand strategy

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developed in Chapter 2 does not identify a strategy of defensive isolation under Chinese hegemony, as it is not an apparent option from a structural perspective. This is a limitation of the structural nature of the theory, a limitation accounted for by the fact that the isolationist strategy arose out of domestic political and historical factors. In all, then, the Hongwu emperor’s strategies toward Japan were characterized by instrumental hierarchy in the periods 1368–1370 and 1376–1386, by expressive hierarchy in 1371–1375, and by defensive isolation in 1387–1398. analyzing japanese grand strategy

It is essential to keep in mind that during this period Japan was not a unified country (in fact neither was Ming China, although the Hongwu emperor had more or less consolidated his regime) and therefore not a “unitary actor.” There was no overall Japanese grand strategy to speak of. Instead, we have the policies and strategies of individual Japanese rulers, among them Prince Kanenaga of the Southern Court, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu of the Muromachi bakufu, and regional powerhouses in Kyushu, who were themselves struggling for power inside Japan. Although Japan was not unified, the contending political leaders did at times adopt a broadly similar strategy toward China: the strategy of access by which to exploit China’s resources for their own instrumental purposes. Beyond that, they resisted Chinese demands in varying degrees by adopting elements of an exit strategy. They only rarely deferred to China, and they never identified with it. Kanenaga’s first act toward China was to imprison and execute Chinese envoys in 1369. Wang Yi-t’ung speculates that because Kanenaga had never seen the first rescript, he was consequently offended by the harsh tone of the second one.50 Cheng Liang-Sheng believes that Kanenaga’s harsh reaction only demonstrated his inability to control the pirates. He might have felt humiliated by the Ming demand to control the wako, whose existence simply exposed his impotence.51 Kanenaga, however, was merely a warlord fighting for survival against the encroaching Ashikaga forces and had no control over the pirates. Even the Muromachi bakufu at the time could do little to influence them. In serious military actions, or the staffing of important bakufu offices, the Ashikaga shogunate relied heavily on provincial constables (shugo), to whom they delegated much local authority.52 Action against pirates therefore depended on the bakufu’s control over the western

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warlords, and before 1400 Yoshimitsu had not yet consolidated his power in western Japan.53 In any case, Kanenaga had no particular reason to follow Chinese demands. The Hongwu emperor’s conception of world order failed to appeal to him. His defiance of Chinese demands in 1369 represented a strategy of exit. The prince, however, changed his attitude during Zhao Zhi’s mission in 1370 and sent a return mission to China in 1371. This might seem surprising since the rescript of this mission was more threatening in tone than the 1369 one. Chinese documents attributed Kanenaga’s about-face to the diplomatic skills of the envoy Zhao Zhi. Zhao was trying to simultaneously compel and persuade Kanenaga by describing Ming military prowess and contrasting Ming humaneness with Mongol aggressiveness.54 Some historians doubt whether Kanenaga would assume such a grave diplomatic responsibility of sending tribute to China.55 But given that by 1371 the prince was under attack by Imagawa Ryo¯shun of the Northern Court, and was already hard put to maintain himself in Kyushu, it might indeed have made sense for him to turn to the Ming.56 Contact with China would strengthen his position in western Japan, thus increasing his odds in the increasingly hopeless struggle against the Northern Court.57 His tributary compliance in 1370 and 1371 thus represented a strategy of deference for enhancing his domestic ­position. Whatever motives were behind his tribute to the Ming, Kanenaga soon found reasons to change his attitude again. His detention of Chinese envoys in 1372 was probably due to his desire to prevent contact between the Ming and the Northern Court.58 At the time the political situation was becoming desperate for the Southern Court. By 1372 the commanding position Kanenaga held in Kyushu had been lost. He was driven out of the Dazaifu region by Imagawa Ryo¯shun, who was to eventually conquer Kyushu in 1381.59 Kanenaga might have wanted to monopolize Japan’s relations with Ming China, if that could help his struggle against the Ashikaga. Concern for his own political survival thus lay at the heart of his opposing attitudes toward China. From his detention of Chinese envoys in 1372 to the dispatching of a new embassy in 1376, his position revealed a strategy of exit. Kanenaga then sent irregular missions to China in 1376, 1379, 1380, and 1381, and ignored the Hongwu emperor’s demand of observing Chinese tributary propriety. These missions may be explained by his hope to use

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contact with China for domestic power struggles. They therefore embodied a strategy of access for gaining Chinese resources—possibly political prestige and economic profits60—for political and military struggles inside Japan. From 1382 until his death in 1383, however, provoked by the Hongwu emperor’s castigation, he again changed to a strategy of exit, and in a much more confrontational way as symbolized by his extremely defiant challenge to China’s Sinocentric conception of world order. Evidence from this period does not permit an adequate analysis of Yoshimitsu’s strategy toward China, as he sent only two ill-fated missions to the Ming court. These were probably overtures to open relations and obtain certain trade privileges.61 The Hongwu emperor’s criticism of the greediness of Yoshimitsu’s envoys gives some credence to the latter interpretation. These missions thus represented an access strategy, although Yoshimitsu did not play any significant role in Sino-Japanese relations during the Hongwu reign. We can generally presume economic profits by way of trade with China to be an important motive behind various Japanese rulers’ missions to China. It seemed to account for their irregular but continuing missions despite Chinese threats. This also helps explain the fact that even after 1387, ¯ uchi Yoshihiro when the Hongwu emperor broke off relations with Japan, O of western Honshu¯, who was in control of much of the Inland Sea and sea routes to China and Korea before 1400, still sent envoys to China.62 Because official relations were impossible, one can only surmise that these missions were sent primarily for the purpose of trade.

Unprecedented Harmony, 1401–1408 In 1400 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu crushed his last powerful rival Yoshihiro in western Japan. Eight years earlier he had ended the civil war between the Northern and Southern courts. Now he was in firm control of Japanese politics and ready to assume responsibility of foreign policy. Indeed, Yoshimitsu was to preside over “the most flourishing era of the Muromachi bakufu.”63 With political consolidation in Japan, Sino-Japanese relations also entered a remarkable albeit brief period of harmony. In 1401, Yoshimitsu sent a mission led by the monk Soa and the merchant Koetomi to the court of the Jianwen emperor. He had apparently learnt lessons from his failed attempts to open relations with the Hongwu

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emperor in 1374 and 1380. This time the envoys bore a deferential memorial appropriately addressed to the Ming emperor. It read in part: Ever since its foundation, the country of Japan has never ceased to communicate with your superior land [shang bang 上邦]. . . . In accordance with the regulations of olden times, I am especially sending Soa, accompanied by Koetomi, to establish friendly relations and to offer native products. . . . I have sought out a number of [Chinese] who have drifted to these islands, and I am returning them herewith. In real fear and dread and kneeling again and again, I respectfully state this.64

Yoshimitsu thus offered his first gesture of a vassal by “kneeling again and again” to the Chinese emperor. The mission signified the beginning of official Sino-Japanese relations during the Ming dynasty. The Jianwen emperor responded with great satisfaction in 1402: You, Minamoto Do¯gi [源道義 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu], King of Japan, with a mind-and-heart ever with the Imperial Household and holding true to your love of your ruler, have sent envoys to come to the court. . . . Japan has always been called a country of poems and books, and it has always been in my mind-andheart. However, we have been so busy with civil and military affairs that we have not yet had the time to make inquiries about you. Now you are able to emulate propriety and appropriateness [mu li yi 慕禮義] and wish to share our feelings about our enemies. How could you achieve this if you were not adhering closely to the way of ruler and subject [jun chen zhi dao 君臣之道]?65

By calling Yoshimitsu the “king of Japan” and by asking him to adopt the Chinese imperial calendar and keep his mind on obedience and loyalty, the emperor was clearly positioning himself as the overlord of Yoshimitsu. Within a year the Jianwen emperor was dethroned by the Yongle emperor, having lost the civil war to his uncle. But before the Yongle emperor even sent out his envoys to announce the victory, a Japanese mission arrived in the capital in October 1403. When it made call at the port of Ningbo early in the month, the Minister of Rites memorialized the emperor to inspect and confiscate private and prohibited merchandise such as swords that the Japanese were believed to have brought with them. The emperor replied that because foreign peoples had to travel long distances to pay tribute to China, it was their natural human feeling (renqing 人情) to trade along the way to cover the expenses. He therefore instructed that the goods be purchased at an official price in order to show the generosity (kuan da 寬大) of the court and facilitate the emulation of far-away peoples.66

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This mission from Japan was unexpected. It was also extraordinary in that the envoys carried a memorial, written in a perfect Chinese literary style, in which Yoshimitsu declared: Your vassal [chen 臣], king of Japan, memorializes [biao 表].67

It was the first document in which a Japanese shogun had called himself a “vassal” of the Chinese emperor. Indeed, never before had the expressions “king of Japan” and “your vassal” been used in Japan’s foreign documents. Their use in this case deviated significantly from the country’s customary diplomatic practice.68 Greatly pleased, the Yongle emperor dispatched a return mission headed by Zhao Juren one month later. The emperor’s rescript to the Japanese shogun read in part: In Heaven and Earth, the Chinese and foreigners are all of the same body [hua yi yi ti 華夷一體], and the way of the Emperor and King is to show the same humaneness to them far and near [yuan er tong ren 遠邇同仁]. You, Minamoto Do¯gi, King of Japan, know the way of Heaven and understand the appropriateness of action. No sooner had I ascended the throne than you came to pay tribute. The speed of your adherence is worthy of praise. For this reason we are bestowing on you a seal that you may keep your domain for generations. Now I am giving you these instructions: only by humility [qian 謙] and diligence [qin 勤] can you advance your studies; only by caution [jie 戒] and fear [ju 懼] can you discipline your mind-and-heart; only by integrity [cheng 誠] and respect [jing 敬] can you cultivate yourself; only by humaneness [ren 仁] can you nurture your people; only by trust [xin 信] can you keep good relations with your neighbors; only by loyalty [zhong 忠] and obedience [shun 順] can you serve your superior; and only by moral excellence [de 德] can you move Heaven and Earth and influence the Spirits and Gods. I observe the way of the Emperor and King and humbly accept the humaneness [ren 仁] of Heaven and Earth. If you strengthen your mind to serve the great [shi da 事大], you too may enjoy good fortunes without end. Keep this always in mind and do not neglect our instructions.69

The gold seal the Yongle emperor bestowed on Yoshimitsu, said to be so heavy that it could hardly be lifted by both hands, completed China’s investiture of Yoshimitsu as “king of Japan.” That the emperor decided to offer Japan a gold seal, which as a seal of investiture was given only to one

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other country—the exalted “model tributary” of Korea—through the history of Ming foreign relations, shows the importance he had attached to his relations with Japan.70 The investiture also ended more than thirty years of discord and enmity in Sino-Japanese relations. Under the Yongle emperor and Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Sino-Japanese relations entered a short period of unprecedented harmony. During this mission, the Chinese envoy Zhao Juren also completed a novel commercial agreement with the Ashikaga shogunate in 1404. This is the so-called official tally trade between China and Japan. The Japanese were permitted to send periodic trading ventures to China under the guise of tribute-bearing missions. Tallies were used to verify the legitimacy of the missions going both ways between the two countries. By establishing such an elaborate system, the Chinese could be sure that they received only bona fide representatives of the Ashikaga, thus contributing to the aim of suppressing the wako; and the shogunate, for its part, could monopolize or at least control all trade ventures to China. The system therefore temporarily satisfied the Japanese desire for trade with China and the Chinese desire for recognition of its superiority over Japan and the management of the wako problem. The agreement stipulated a frequency of once every ten years for Japan’s tributary missions. But in practice, this limitation was completely ignored during the first several years of the successful operation of the agreement.71 The tally system worked remarkably well between 1404 and 1410. In fact, for almost a century and a half—from 1404, when the first official tally mission departed for China, to 1549, when the seventeenth and last mission returned to Japan—the system provided the framework for largely peaceful relations between the two countries.72 analyzing chinese grand strategy

The Jianwen reign was too brief to permit an analysis of the Jianwen emperor’s strategy toward Japan, although we can certainly speculate that he intended to use Japan as a foreign vassal to boost his besieged domestic rule. His mentioning of Yoshimitsu’s supposed wish to share his feelings about his enemies—apparently a veiled reference to his rebellious uncle—in his 1402 rescript may be an indication of this.73 Given the lack of further evidence, I assume that he adopted the same strategy of instrumental hierarchy toward Japan as he did toward Korea.

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It is not hard to find instrumental reasons for the Yongle emperor’s enthusiasm for good relations with Japan. As a usurper of the Ming throne through an internecine civil war, he needed external legitimation as much as the Hongwu or Jianwen emperor. As was his father, he was surely also concerned with controlling Japanese piracy on the Chinese coast. And establishing a tally trade system with Japan, by which official Japanese envoys could be readily distinguished from unauthorized traders and pirates,74 can very well be seen as motivated toward controlling the wako. This was further seen in his several rescripts dispatched to Yoshimitsu between 1406 and 1408, in which he spared no praise for the Japanese shogun’s great virtue, prompt offering of tribute, and success in suppressing piracy.75 The instrumental motives of legitimacy and piracy control seemed to suggest a grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy. Yet one can make a more persuasive argument for a strategy of expressive hierarchy. Because Yoshimitsu voluntarily offered tribute and satisfied the emperor’s demand of suppressing piracy, there was almost no conflict of interest between the two sides, and consequently no need for the Yongle emperor to compel or coerce the Japanese. Did he try to induce them with material benefits? The evidence of the emperor’s bestowing lavish gifts on the Japanese is plenty, but rather than instrumental inducement, this can be seen as an act of imperial grace to enhance an already-excellent relationship, since there was no need for the emperor to induce Yoshimitsu to submit in the first place. There was other evidence for interpreting expressive hierarchy. In rejecting his minister’s memorial of confiscating Japanese merchandise in October 1403, the emperor used the Confucian argument of affection and generosity to facilitate the Japanese mission. In his first rescript to Yoshimitsu in 1403, quoted earlier, he was clearly establishing a set of reciprocal obligations between himself and the Japanese shogun, including the Chinese obligation of humaneness (ren 仁) and the Japanese ones of loyalty (zhong 忠) and obedience (shun 順). He was thus seeking an expressive hierarchical relationship of mutual affection and obligation with Yoshimitsu for its own sake. And evidence of his interest calculation and his use of the relationship to maximize self-interest is weak. From a practical perspective, one can observe that the Yongle emperor’s affection for Yoshimitsu and Yoshimitsu’s obedience in paying tribute and suppressing piracy served the interests of both sides and enhanced a relationship of mutual benefit. This is precisely the kind of relational outcome that can be expected from expressive rationality, and one

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can hardly hope for a better tributary relationship than the Sino-Japanese one of 1401–1408. If this was not a full expressive hierarchy in practice, we should at least acknowledge that expressive hierarchy had a substantial role in it. analyzing japanese grand strategy

Yoshimitsu seemed exceptionally obedient to the Jianwen and Yongle emperors. When the Jianwen emperor’s envoys arrived in Japan in September 1402, he went to Hyo¯go, the present Kobe, to visit the ship that carried them. Moreover, when he received the envoys in his Kitayama Residence in Kyoto, he placed in front of the main hall a high table on which the imperial rescript was placed beside a container of burning incense, and he bowed three times before he took the rescript and then read while still kneeling.76 When the Jianwen emperor’s embassy left Japan in 1403, Yoshimitsu ordered Kenchu¯ Keimi of the Tenryu¯ji and two other monks to accompany them to China. During the Yongle reign, when the Chinese envoy Zhao Juren left Japan in August 1404, he sent the monk Meishitsu Bonryo¯ to accompany him to China. Four months later, another mission led by Eishun reached the Ming court to extend congratulations on the investiture of the crown prince of the Ming ruler.77 In December 1405, a delegation led by Minamoto Michiyoshi arrived at the Chinese court with twenty Japanese pirates.78 Yoshimitsu was thus the first Japanese ruler, probably the only one in a substantial way, to have met the Chinese request of suppressing the wako. Indeed, he may have taken steps to suppress piracy before the dispatch of the 1401 mission, or at least he showed readiness to take action. In any case, he issued his first recorded order in 1402 to the constables of the western provinces, instructing them to inflict drastic punishment on the raiders.79 In 1406 Yoshimitsu sent a mission headed by Kenchu¯ Keimi to China to give thanks for the Ming emperor’s generosity. He sent two further missions, both headed by Kenchu¯ Keimi, along with captured pirates, in 1407 and 1408.80 Thus, in the eight years from 1401 to 1408, Yoshimitsu sent at least eight missions to the Ming court, all of which were well received by the Chinese. Yoshimitsu’s apparent loyalty to Chinese emperors was unusual in Japanese history. His obedience was all the more puzzling given that Japan had been invaded by the Mongol Yuan dynasty just a century earlier. If the defeat of the Mongols had stiffened Japan’s national pride, why would that

  chapter 4

pride fail to affect Yoshimitsu’s policy toward China? After all, this pride was part of what stimulated Kanenaga and Yoshimochi’s hard-line policies toward China before and after Yoshimitsu’s rule. One must also note that Yoshimitsu’s opening to China in 1401 arose purely out of his own initiative; it was not compelled by Chinese threat, lured by Chinese inducements, or persuaded by Chinese discourse. Again, finding instrumental motives is not difficult. The most frequently cited motive is trade and profit. The Ashikaga shogunate’s domestic economic base was shaky, with landholdings only around Kyoto.81 Maintaining a balance of payments was hard for the bakufu, yet Yoshimitsu lived a life of extravagance that far surpassed that of any shogun of the preceding Kamakura bakufu (1185–1333).82 Logically, the bakufu would need overseas sources of revenue to compensate its domestic financial weakness. Resumption of trade with China, which had terminated with the Hongwu emperor’s antipathy toward Japan and his policy of maritime prohibition, would seem especially urgent.83 The fact that Koetomi, a Hakata merchant who had just returned from China, was deputy envoy of the first mission in 1401 demonstrates the commercial nature of the mission.84 According to Sansom, Yoshimitsu was in such financial difficulty that he would sink his pride for a handsome cash revenue from trade.85 The benefits of the tally trade were not just economic but also political.86 Ronald Toby observes that Yoshimitsu’s control of the tally trade “gave him a powerful tool with which to control recalcitrant shugo and religious institutions.”87 This was in turn related to the second possible motive behind Yoshimitsu’s obedience, namely, his need for legitimacy in Japanese politics. Although by 1400 Yoshimitsu was clearly the dominant figure in Japan and had overcome all major opposition, he was not able to reconcile every regional force. He needed to convince the shugo (provincial military governor) of the legitimacy of his position and the benefits he could bring to them.88 A relationship with China would enhance his prestige and boost his legitimacy in Japanese politics. As Bruce Batten argues, Chinese goods were desired not just for their economic value but also because they conferred prestige on those with access to them. Differential access to foreign goods could improve Yoshimitsu’s position vis-à-vis his domestic rivals.89 Monopolization of relations with China itself would be a sign of authority in a decentralized political system, not to mention investiture by the Chinese emperor as “King of Japan.”

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Yoshimitsu may have also sought legitimation from China for a more intriguing reason. Sansom suggests that the title “King of Japan” would be a major step for Yoshimitsu to depose the Japanese emperor and usurp the throne for himself.90 This did not happen, not for his lack of effort, but for his lack of luck. Some Japanese scholars have argued that “Yoshimitsu endeavored to mobilize all of his power, will, and wile to supplant the imperial lineage so that a new Ashikaga dynasty could be begun. His grand design was foiled only by his death.”91 If this was his plan, then his opening to China may indeed have been a design to obtain external legitimation for his future emperorship. Yoshimitsu reached the end of the domestic legitimation process when he became chancellor in 1394, having appropriated imperial prestige and the remaining vestiges of court authority. But as Kenneth Grossberg observes, “The more he adopted traditional imperial authority, the less effective was the puppet emperor as guarantor of shogunal legitimacy, until eventually Yoshimitsu found it expedient to seek other sources of legitimation. Foreign relations between the Muromachi Bakufu and the Ming empire should initially be viewed in this domestic context.”92 It may be that being called “King of Japan” was exactly what Yoshimitsu had wanted. He could at least demonstrate that “the shogun was to be Japan’s head of state and could rule in his own name if he so desired.”93 Historians have speculated a third motive concerning Japan’s international standing. Since the 1220s, Japanese piracy not only had destabilized the coasts of Korea and China but had affected Japan’s international position as well. In effect, piracy contributed to Japan’s political isolation in the region, making it the “orphan of East Asia.” To be a legitimate and effective ruler, Yoshimitsu needed to do something about it. Tanaka Takeo believes that Yoshimitsu’s investiture as “King of Japan” was “not simply a whimsical or wilful act by an upstart military dictator, but rather an important step in the establishment of Japan’s position in East Asia.”94 John Whitney Hall and Jurgis Elisonas concur. Trade with China was a conscious effort by Yoshimitsu to project Japan into the mainstream of East Asian affairs, an effort to gain recognition as a member of the wider East Asian community. Within Japan, the relationship with China was meant to demonstrate that the shogun, as chief of the military estate, also had full control of Japan’s foreign affairs.95 These three possible motives—economic profit, political legitimacy, and international status, which taken together could have contributed greatly

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to the power of the Ashikaga shogunate—all point to Yoshimitsu’s instrumental use of his relationship with the Yongle emperor and thus suggest a grand strategy of deference. Can we therefore conclude that Yoshimitsu was merely strategically exploiting tributary relations with China for his own self-interest? Because Yoshimitsu was so consistent in his loyalty to China, we must also allow for the possibility of a strategy of identification. Even if Yoshimitsu acted to maximize his own self-interest, that self-interest would have been diluted by his real admiration of Chinese culture. The admiration was a direct result of the influence of Buddhist monks in Japan. Yoshimitsu even studied certain Chinese classics under the monk Gido¯.96 These monks were not just ambassadors between China and Japan; they were architects of the relationship itself. In Yoshimitsu’s time, Zen monks exercised an immense influence over Japanese society and culture in general and the shogunate in particular, and they “dominated the diplomatic arena.”97 Some of Yoshimitsu’s closest advisers were monks, among them Zekkai Chu¯shin of the powerful Sho¯kokuji temple, built by Yoshimitsu. Zekkai Chu¯shin went to the Ming to study and received an audience from the Hongwu emperor, and Yoshimitsu entrusted him with foreign relations.98 That Yoshimitsu believed in Chinese cultural superiority was in little doubt. How strongly he identified with Chinese authority in international relations is a more contentious question. Behavioral evidence supports an interpretation of identification as his main strategy toward China, but motivational analysis of his self-interest by leading historians also seems fairly plausible and should therefore be taken seriously. Absent further evidence to decisively challenge this motivational analysis or reveal Yoshimitsu’s identification with China in his own thinking, I here follow the majority view among historians in acknowledging deference as his main strategy. Even so, an element of identification would still distinguish Yoshimitsu’s China’s strategy from any other period in the early Ming—indeed, possibly from any other period in the history of Sino-Japanese relations.

Frustration and Isolation, 1409–1424 The death of Yoshimitsu in 1408 greatly concerned the Yongle emperor, who was particularly keen on finding out whether Yoshimitsu’s successor and son Yoshimochi would be as loyal and cooperative. Piracy was still the dominant concern. In a January 1409 rescript to Yoshimochi, the emperor instructed:

Sino-Japanese Relations   In the past when pirates appeared, your father, the “Respectful and Devoted King,” in response to our orders, was able to dispatch forces to annihilate them. Since the pirates are now active again, you should follow the will of your father and dispatch forces to arrest and execute them, so as to glorify the achievement of the “Respectful and Devoted King.”99

At first, Yoshimochi followed the tradition set by his father. He sent a mission to the Ming court to announce Yoshimitsu’s death in January 1409.100 In 1410, he sent Kenchu¯ Keimi to the Ming court with tribute and a memorial expressing his gratitude for the posthumous name given to his father and China’s imperial approval of his own succession to the Japanese “throne.” He also turned over to the court some captured pirates.101 Yet this mission proved the end of Sino-Japanese harmony in the early Ming period, and it probably was also the last official Japanese mission during the Yongle reign. When the emperor dispatched another envoy to Japan in 1411, Yoshimochi not only declined to give him an audience but also blocked his return to China. His change of attitude was abrupt yet firm, and he ceased to send tribute for the remaining years of the Yongle reign. For the six years from 1411 to 1417, official contact between China and Japan was nonexistent. Then in 1417, Chinese troops captured a number of Japanese pirates and brought them to the capital. The emperor’s courtiers, indignant at the interruption of Japanese tributary missions, demanded their execution. The emperor, however, still hoping to win Japan over by generous treatment, decided to send the captured pirates back to Japan. In his words, “punishing far-away peoples with awesomeness (wei zhi yi xing 威之以刑) is a lesser option than cherishing them with moral excellence (huai zhi yi de 懷之以德).”102 He then dispatched the envoy Lü Yuan with a rescript condemning Yoshimochi for failing to restrain the pirates and asking him to repent and change his attitude. He further ordered Yoshimochi to release those Chinese who had been captured and imprisoned in Japan. This rescript read in part: Your father, Do¯gi, was able to respect Heaven and to serve the great [shi da 事大]. Reverently he performed his duties and presented tribute. . . . Since your succession to his position, you have gone contrary to your father’s behavior. No longer do you present tribute; and repeatedly have you created disturbances on our frontiers. Is this the way to serve the great [shi da 事大]? Though living in a tiny land in the Eastern Sea, you give yourself over to evil and haughty acts, relying on your unassailable position. Our courtiers have repeatedly requested me to dispatch forces to look into your crime. With your

  chapter 4 [transgressions only like the] thieving of a dog or the pilfering of a rat, and mindful of the wisdom of your father, we cannot bear to cut off [relations] abruptly. Twisting the law, we deign to be lenient in the hope that you will repent. You should follow in the footsteps of your father and carefully control and examine yourself so that you may work out a new [start]. You should return to our capital all the coastal people who in recent years have been captured and kept in Japan. If you do not, you will be aggravating your crime and it will be too late for you to repent.103

In May 1418, it was recorded in Chinese sources that an envoy sent by Yoshimochi appeared at the Ming court. The envoy was Shimazu Hisatoyo, ¯ sumi, and Satsuma. Asking the Yongle emperor the governor of Hyu¯ga, O to pardon Yoshimochi, Hisatoyo bore a memorial couched in most humble terms. In it Yoshimochi explicitly called himself a vassal of the Ming, attributed Japan’s failure to pay tribute to the excessive activities of the pirates, and asked for permission to present tribute as before.104 It is, however, quite doubtful whether Yoshimochi could have sent Hisatoyo. To begin with, given Yoshimochi’s lack of any interest in tributary relations in the previous six years, it is improbable that he would have suddenly sent such a humble embassy to China. Second, Hisatoyo was in firm ¯ sumi, control at the time of the three south Kyushu provinces of Hyu¯ga, O and Satsuma. Such a powerful shugo would not have gone as Yoshimochi’s envoy to China. The Ashikaga had trouble controlling regional barons, a difficulty compounded in Kyushu by the fact that the region had a historical separatist tendency and that the dominant military houses there tended to form local coalitions to ward off outside interference.105 The mission, therefore, most likely was Hisatoyo’s own. The shugo and merchants in Kyushu had long sought to trade with China thanks to geographical convenience. The humble memorial may have been written at the instigation of the Chinese envoy Lü Yuan in a desperate effort to minimize the gravity of the failure of his 1417 mission.106 That piracy in no case abated and that Yoshimochi never sent a tributary mission afterward give further credence to this interpretation. Seeing no improvement in Japanese behavior, the Yongle emperor prepared a severe rescript for Yoshimochi in December 1418. This rescript was in fact the longest one ever sent by a Ming ruler to Japan, exposing the emperor’s increasing frustration with Japan’s aloofness and defiance. It read in part:

Sino-Japanese Relations   You have not sent tribute, and from time to time you have dispatched persons to invade and pillage our borderland. Is this the way to serve the great? We will instruct you plainly. Your land is very close to the Central Kingdom. As for our forces, on the sea they are masters of ships and oars; on land they are skilled at riding and shooting. Nothing is too strong to be broken; no place is too unassailable to be entered. They are not like the forces of the Yuan in the past, which were strong in riding and shooting but weak in seamanship. The reason we have been so patient and have not been aroused at you is because we are so magnanimous. . . . We hoped you would repent, but day after day, year after year, you have continued to be self-satisfied. Repeatedly our various courtiers have appealed to me to dispatch forces and to make inquiries into your crimes, but, thinking of the virtues of your late king and of the innocence of the common people of Japan. . . . We really cannot bear [to do that]. Recently pirates came again to raid our coast. . . . Should you continue to create disturbances, you will inevitably call forth upon yourself our expeditionary forces. If you reform your former behavior and dispatch persons, together with our envoy, to repatriate [those Chinese who] have been captured on our coast, and who too have feelings of fathers, mothers, wives, and sons, and whose emotions you may comprehend; if you let envoys pass back and forth; if you keep within your borders and give peace to your people and banish calamities so that you may succeed to the grandeur of your late king, then the spirit of Heaven will look on you with satisfaction and will enable your sons and grandsons to enjoy boundless good fortunes. Would not this be grand? If you are unable to reform your behavior, then, when our envoy arrives in your country, either arrest him or execute him just as you please, and do not send envoys to us.107

The rescript, as Wang Yi-t’ung has put it, is “a mixed product of harsh and mild tones, of threats and cajolery, of praise for the noble deeds of Yoshimitsu and condemnation of the acts of Yoshimochi.”108 Yoshimochi, in his reply, refused to open relations with the Ming and denied all responsibility for Japanese piracy. While preferring isolation from China, he also challenged Chinese superiority by articulating Japan’s national myth and a kind of proto-nationalism. It read in part: When my late father was sick, the fortune-teller said: “The gods have cursed him.” . . . At that time sacred gods said through the agency of a man: “Ever since antiquity our country has never called itself a vassal of a foreign land. Of late, you have changed the way of the former sage sovereigns; you have accepted the [Chinese] calendar and [Chinese] seal and have not declined them. This is why

  chapter 4 you have incurred illness.” Thereupon, my late father was greatly frightened and vowed to the bright gods that henceforth he would never receive envoys or orders from foreign countries. Accordingly, he passed on to his sons and grandsons this admonishment to be strictly observed and never to be forgotten. That I neither received the envoys nor sent a single person is not because I dare rely on the unassailable [position of this country] to refuse submission. I am doing this merely in conformity with the will of the bright gods and in respect of the instructions of my late father. Of old, when the Mongol forces came a second time with one million soldiers aboard their ships, they were entirely without success and drowned in the sea. What was the reason for this? It was not only human strength; in reality the divine soldiers invisibly helped us in our defense. Those who have heard of this afar must deem it incredible. Yet how could we not be in awe of this manifestation of the divine spirits of our country since antiquity? These matters are detailed in our national histories. Now we hear that [the Chinese] are going to send troops to smite us on the pretext that envoys have not been coming. They have told us to heighten our walls and deepen our moats. We do not need to heighten our walls or to deepen our moats; we will merely open our roads and meet them. We do not intend to execute their [the Ming’s] envoy; we only want him not to come, and ours not to go and each of us to preserve our fixed territory.109 analyzing chinese grand strategy

Japanese piracy reemerged as a central issue in Sino-Japanese relations after Yoshimitsu’s death. The Yongle emperor’s 1409 rescript to Yoshimochi clearly demonstrated this concern. Taking a tributary relationship with Yoshimochi for granted, he was urging the shogun to suppress piracy. The relationship was therefore instrumentally used for his self-interest in coastal security. This was a qualitative change from the preceding period of harmony between 1403 and 1408, when piracy was under control and when Yoshimitsu offered exceptional loyalty. For the next several years the emperor wanted to restore a tributary relationship with Yoshimochi, who failed to present tribute after 1410, in order to manage the wako problem. In 1417, he tried to persuade the shogun by returning captured Japanese pirates while instructing him on the propriety and obligation of serving China. Having grown impatient with Yoshimochi’s intransigence, however, he also issued a threat of invasion. He became considerably more frustrated a year later. His 1418 rescript was a severe castigation with a much stronger threat of war than the 1417 one. The emperor

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still wanted to restore a tributary relationship, and he exhorted Yoshimochi to “reform behavior.” But even the language was so cold that it dispensed with even a symbolic gesture of affection for the shogun. Indeed, the rescript revealed that the emperor was ultimately prepared to accept a complete separation from Japan. From 1409 to 1417, then, instrumental hierarchy characterized the emperor’s Japan strategy. After 1418, however, unable to bring Yoshimochi to his tributary fold, he also resorted to a strategy of defensive isolation like the Hongwu emperor. Since the Japanese were stubbornly defiant, and since the emperor, busy campaigning against the Mongols, could not seriously contemplate the use of force against Japan, he had few other options left. analyzing japanese grand strategy

Except for the first two years of his rule in 1409 and 1410 when his strategy may be characterized as deference, Yoshimochi adopted a consistent grand strategy of exit, particularly the isolation aspect, by cutting ties with China. His motive seemed to be partly a particular kind of Japanese pride, expressed as a belief in the country’s divinity.110 His reference to his father’s deathbed admonishment was probably an inconvenient excuse for his decision to sever relations with China. One might think that Yoshimochi adopted a strategy of isolation because he thought of his father as having been too submissive toward China. That interpretation is the view of some later Japanese policy makers and historians. Nationalism aside, Yoshimochi probably could not simply forgo the lucrative trade with China just for the shame of submissiveness. He still needed money to bolster the bakufu’s rule and support his own lavish style.111 The real reason, as some historians suggest, probably lay in his deep resentment against his father for neglecting him in childhood. He therefore tried to banish the memory of Yoshimitsu in his adult life.112 He might also have been influenced by the conservative kuge’s (court noble) antagonism toward tributary relations with China.113 Thus, an overdue rebellion against his late father, an incipient sense of Japanese nationalism, and the conservatism of his advisers led him to defy Ming China in a way nearly as provocative as Prince Kanenaga had done some twenty years earlier. The about-face in Japanese strategies toward China between 1400 and 1424 was remarkable. Between 1401 and 1408, Yoshimitsu not only accommodated China but also acted like a loyal vassal. At least on the surface, he dutifully performed his obligations as a Chinese tributary vassal. In

  chapter 4

­contrast, between 1411 and 1424, Yoshimochi firmly resisted Chinese demands by adopting an isolationist strategy toward the Ming, all while challenging Chinese superiority by evoking Japanese divinity. Rulers’ personalities might have played a great role in these contrasting strategies. The option of isolation, however, was also facilitated by Japan’s felicitous geographical position vis-à-vis the continent.114 This helps account for the fact that, rather than a unique Yoshimochi strategy, Japanese rulers adopted isolation both before and after his time. It was evident after 894, when Heian Japan ceased formal relations with China.115 To some degree, it was also a conscious policy of Tokugawa Japan after the 1620s. Japan’s geographical position, separated from the Asian continent by the sea, made such a strategy possible in the first place.

Conclusion The preceding chapter on Sino-Korean relations addressed five questions to assess the value of the relational theory developed in Chapter 2. I do the same for Sino-Japanese relations. First, what were the respective grand strategies Ming emperors and Japanese rulers adopted in their interactions? Second, was expressive rationality an important feature of their relations? Third, was the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship a facilitating condition of specific rationality? Fourth, does the narrative method offer an advantage for understanding the process of Sino-Japanese strategic interaction? And finally, was the Sino-Japanese relationship during this period a relationship of hierarchical authority? The case study shows that early Ming emperors revealed varying degrees of instrumental and expressive rationalities in their strategies toward Japanese rulers. The Hongwu emperor initially envisaged three approaches: a cooperative tributary relationship if Japan properly submitted as his tributary vassal, a strategy of conquest to punish Japanese defiance, and a strategy of defensive isolation (in the end his default strategy) if the first two approaches were ineffective or infeasible. Almost from the start, his policy was instrumentally geared toward solving the security problem of Japanese piracy (wako) on China’s coast. For a brief period (1371–1375), however, he was prepared to develop an expressive hierarchical relationship with Prince Kanenaga, after he favorably received a tributary mission from the latter. But the persistence of the wako and the perceived impropriety of Japanese

Sino-Japanese Relations  

embassies soon triggered a more instrumental attitude. After 1381, and particularly after 1387, his attitude became downright hostile. His strategies were characterized by instrumental hierarchy in the periods 1368–1370 and 1376–1386, by expressive hierarchy in 1371–1375, and by defensive isolation in 1387–1398. The Yongle emperor’s fortune with Japan changed dramatically between his relationship with Yoshimitsu in 1403–1408 and with Yoshimochi in 1411– 1424. During a period of unprecedented harmony in Sino-Japanese relations when Yoshimitsu ruled Japan, the emperor could happily practice a grand strategy of expressive hierarchy, given Yoshimitsu’s exceptional loyalty and the consequent disappearance of any conflict of interest between the two sides. Although the emperor also had consequentialist motives of political legitimacy and suppressing piracy, expressive hierarchy was a considerably better characterization of his strategy than instrumental hierarchy. But during the rule of Yoshimochi, who was determined to cut off relations with China, conflict of interest reemerged on the wako problem, and the emperor’s instrumental rationality of piracy control overrode the expressive rationality of establishing an ethical relationship. Instrumental hierarchy was therefore a better characterization for this period. After 1418, however, with little instruments left to bring Japan back to the tributary fold, the Yongle emperor had no option but to follow his father’s choice of defensive isolation. Table 4.1 shows the evolution of Chinese strategies. The various Japanese rulers adopted different kinds of strategies toward China. During the Hongwu reign, the strategies of Prince Kanenaga, who table 4.1 Evolution of Chinese strategies toward Japan Period

Strategy

1368–1370

Instrumental hierarchy (Hongwu)

1371–1375

Expressive hierarchy (Hongwu)

1376–1386

Instrumental hierarchy (Hongwu)

1387–1398

Defensive isolation (Hongwu)

1399–1402

Instrumental hierarchy (Jianwen)

1403–1408

Expressive hierarchy (Yongle)

1409–1417

Instrumental hierarchy (Yongle)

1418–1424

Defensive isolation (Yongle)

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was the principal actor in Japanese relations with Ming China during this period, shifted among exit (1369, 1372–1375, and 1382–1383), deference (1370–1371), and access (1376–1381). Yoshimitsu’s strategy toward the Yongle emperor was both interesting and difficult to determine. Historians have identified three possible consequentialist motives behind his exceptional loyalty to China: economic profit, political legitimacy, and international status. But if these were to constitute evidence for a strategy of deference, we should also notice an important degree of Yoshimitsu’s expressive rationality, given his deep appreciation and admiration of Chinese culture. The case of Yoshimochi was straightforward: possibly out of an incipient sense of Japanese nationalism and possibly as a revolt against his father Yoshimitsu, he consistently adopted a strategy of exit, particularly the isolation aspect, by rejecting ties with China. Table 4.2 presents the evolution of these ­strategies. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 show that for most years of the early Ming period, Chinese rulers adopted the instrumental strategies of instrumental hierarchy (twenty-seven years) and defensive isolation (nineteen years). But both the Hongwu and Yongle emperors also adopted the strategy of expressive hierarchy (five and six years, respectively). Moreover, even when their overall strategies were instrumental, their expressive rationality did not entirely disappear. Japanese rulers were very different from Korean rulers in that they all adopted the instrumental strategies of exit (twenty-one years), access (six years), and deference (ten years) at different times, although we must note that Yoshimitsu acquired an important degree of expressive rationality that was unusual among Japanese rulers. Compared with the Sino-Korean table 4.2 Evolution of Japanese strategies toward China Period

Strategy

1369

Exit (Kanenaga)

1370–1371

Deference (Kanenaga)

1372–1375

Exit (Kanenaga)

1376–1381

Access (Kanenaga)

1382–1383

Exit (Kanenaga)

1401–1408

Deference (Yoshimitsu)

1411–1424

Exit (Yoshimochi)

Sino-Japanese Relations  

r­ elationship of this period, the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy was stronger in its relations with Japan than with Korea, but Japanese rulers’ expressive rationality toward China was much weaker than that of the Korean rulers. On the whole, however, expressive rationality was an essential feature of Sino-Japanese relations during this period, but, as in the Korean case, it did not dominate the relationship. Was the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship a facilitating condition of specific rationality? The empirical analysis shows that the period with the strongest Chinese instrumental rationality was the years 1381– 1398 and 1418–1424, and the period with the strongest expressive rationality was 1403–1408. The periods with the strongest instrumental rationality among Japanese rulers were 1369, 1372–1383, and 1411–1424, and the period with the strongest expressive rationality was 1401–1408. Thus, 1381–1383 and 1418–1424 were the periods when instrumental rationality was greatest among both Chinese and Japanese rulers, and in the period 1403–1408 expressive rationality was greatest. We also know that these periods were those in which conflict of interest between the two sides was the greatest and the mildest, respectively. The correlation between the degree of conflict of interest and strategic rationality is thus unmistakable. Again, as with the Korea case, cultural affinity was an additional condition of strategic rationality. Among all the Japanese rulers examined in this case study, only Yoshimitsu can be said to have displayed a certain degree of expressive rationality, and of all these rulers, he was most influenced by Chinese culture. As did the preceding chapter, this chapter has demonstrated the utility of the narrative method to reveal the relational nature of grand strategy formation and the nature of rationality as a relational outcome. Although the Hongwu emperor was concerned with Japanese piracy from the start, he was initially uncertain as to making Japan a tributary vassal or leaving it alone. As the wako problem deteriorated, however, he became more and more threatening and felt less and less affection for Japan as a possible tributary vassal. The potential of a strategy of expressive hierarchy thus came to be suppressed by one of instrumental hierarchy. The dynamics of the relationship changed dramatically after 1387 as the result of the emperor’s perception of a domestic political linkage with the Japanese problem, and he terminated the relationship altogether by adopting a new strategy of defensive isolation. The interaction dynamics changed again—twice—during the Yongle reign. In 1401–1408, Yoshimitsu’s loyalty enabled the Yongle emperor

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to practice a strategy of expressive hierarchy. But in 1411–1424, Yoshimochi’s aloofness, and the consequent reemergence of the wako problem, compelled him to first try instrumental hierarchy and eventually defensive isolation. This analysis further demonstrates the relational nature of rationality, as both emperors were more or less instrumentally or expressively oriented at different times depending on the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship. Finally, was the Sino-Japanese relationship of 1368–1424 one of Chinese hierarchical authority? Judging from the fact that deference and identification were a minor element of overall Japanese strategies toward China, the degree of Chinese authority over Japanese rulers was rather limited.

five

Sino-Mongol Relations

This final case-study chapter, of Sino-Mongol relations during the early Ming period, completes the evaluation of the relational theory developed in Chapter 2. The chapter shows that Chinese strategies were well accounted for by instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy. The Mongol strategies were mainly characterized by exit and deference. These strategies are differentiated according to the same methodological criteria specified and used in the preceding two chapters. A somewhat surprising finding is that the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy was more prominent in this relationship than in the Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relationships, thus making expressive rationality a key feature of the relationship. And although the instrumental rationality of the Mongols was more or less constant, the correlation between degrees of conflict of interest and Chinese strategic rationality was as impressive as that in the Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relationships. It was at the same time more interesting, in that the Yongle emperor’s strategies alternated between expressive hierarchy and instrumental hierarchy, depending on the degree of relational tension. The Sino-Mongol relationship was understandably conflictual: the Ming dynasty was created with the destruction of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The two sides were thus bitter enemies, each seeing the other as a vital threat to its own security and legitimacy, especially during the Hongwu reign, when the Ming tried to consolidate its rule and the Mongols hoped to restore theirs. During the Yongle reign the rivalry attenuated somewhat, both because the Mongols were fragmented into two competing camps after 

  chapter 5

the ­destruction of the Yuan royal house and because the Yongle emperor actively encouraged the Mongols to participate in peaceful tributary relations. But peace proved an elusive goal, and Mongol defiance and plunder prompted the emperor to launch five personally commanded military campaigns into the Mongolian steppe. Sino-Mongol relations in this period were thus consistently characterized by a pattern of intermittent conflict and accommodation. Although the immediate cause of rivalry between Ming China and the Mongols was the Yuan-Ming dynastic transition, the dynamics of the relationship also reflected a greater pattern of Sino-nomadic interactions in Chinese history and were thus not entirely unique to Sino-Mongol relations during the early Ming period. The pattern of intermittent conflict and accommodation was revealed in relations of the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C.–A.D. 220) with the Xiongnu, Qiang, Wuhuan, Xianbei, and various nomadic polities in the Western Region; relations of the Sui and Tang dynasties (581–907) with the Turks, Tibetans, and Uighurs; and the relations of the Song (960–1279) with the Liao (907–1125), Jin (1115–1234), Xi Xia (1038–1227), and the Mongols. The two major exceptions to when a ruling dynasty in China did not have a severe and persistent nomadic problem are the Yuan (1206–1368) and to a lesser extent the Qing (1644–1911), perhaps unsurprising given the dynasties’ origins as nomadic conquests of agrarian China. The Yuan conquered almost the whole of Eurasia with its extraordinary military machine. The Qing, by impressive conquest as well as skillful diplomacy and inclusive ideology, established a new kind of transcendent universal empire centered on the Manchu emperor.1 The Sino-Mongol relationship during the early Ming may not reveal the whole of the problems and patterns of Sino-nomadic interactions in Chinese history, but it does encapsulate some of the central characteristics of a very important part of imperial Chinese history. The empirical analysis in this chapter is divided into two parts: relations of conquest and resistance during the Hongwu reign, and those of accommodation and confrontation during the Yongle reign. The Sino-Mongol relationship obviously cannot be viewed as one between two unitary entities with fixed boundaries. Both the early Ming and the Mongols were “moving”: the Ming was expanding and consolidating the empire not only on the northern frontier but also in the south and the west; the Mongols, needless to say, returned to their nomadic lifestyle after ejection from the Chinese

Sino-Mongol Relations  

heartland. It appears that the early Ming emperors intended to keep the northern frontier open, so as to demonstrate Chinese inclusiveness and receive Mongol submission. In any case, the idea of clear boundaries was not a particularly strong one in the Chinese tradition.2 The term frontier, closer in meaning than boundary or border to the Chinese word sai (塞), is used to refer to the steppe transition zone where most of the Ming’s interactions with the Mongols took place. Because both China and Mongolia are vague and anachronistic terms, they are used here only in a geographical sense for the sake of convenience—China, for the administrative realm of the Ming regime, and Mongolia, for the steppe region encompassing modern Inner and Outer Mongolia.

Conquest and Resistance, 1368–1398 When Zhu Yuanzhang enthroned himself as the Hongwu emperor of the Ming dynasty in Nanjing on January 23, 1368, his regime had only consolidated its base in the lower Yangtze. The vast territories to the north and south had yet to be incorporated. The year 1368 saw intensive Ming campaigns against Yuan loyalists and regional rebels on both the South China coast and the North China plain. Naturally, the emperor ordered his best generals—among them the celebrated Xu Da and Chang Yuchun—to wage the northern campaign to deal a final blow to the crumbling Yuan dynasty.3 Xu took the Yuan capital Dadu (present-day Beijing) on September 14. The Yuan emperor Toghon Temür (r. 1332–1370), and the crown prince, Ayushiridara (r. 1370–1378), escaped with some of the court barely in advance of the Ming armies and fled first into Shangdu (Kaiping) and then into Yingchang in Inner Mongolia.4 The Yuan dynasty remained only in name, referred to as the Northern Yuan as it was in exile in Mongolia. By 1370 Ming armies had conquered Shanxi and Shaanxi. The emperor, determined to eliminate the remaining Mongol forces, ordered a twopronged offensive against them. Li Wenzhong and Feng Sheng would attack the Yuan emperor at Yingchang through the Juyong Pass, and Xu Da would march from Xi’an in search of Kökö Temür, the best Yuan general at the time. In May 1370 the Yuan emperor Toghon Temür died at Yingchang. The legitimate Mongol line, however, managed to continue through his sons Ayushiridara and Toghus Temür and represented a rival claim to Ming rule through most years of the Hongwu reign.5 In July 1370 Li Wenzhong’s

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army took Yingchang by surprise. Ayushiridara escaped and fled across the Gobi to Outer Mongolia, accompanied by only a few dozen horsemen. His young son Maidiribala was captured, and more than fifty thousand Mongol warriors surrendered. Li’s victory ended the Mongol threat in the regions of Inner Mongolia bordering on Beiping and Shanxi and led to more than three decades of Ming military dominance in eastern Inner Mongolia. Meanwhile, Xu Da defeated Kökö Temür in Gansu in the same month. The latter also fled across the Gobi to Karakorum, the old Mongol capital in Outer Mongolia, some four hundred miles north of Beiping. Xu’s victory broke Kökö’s hold on the northwest, confirming Ming rule over the agricultural sector of Shaanxi and the Gansu corridor.6 At this difficult moment, important Mongol generals, rather than surrender to the Ming, pledged loyalty to the Yuan. Kökö Temür, despite his troubled relationship with Ayushiridara, offered his support and joined forces with him in Karakorum. Ayushiridara demonstrated his determination to continue Yuan rule by adopting a new reign title of Xuanguang, thus posing a rival claim to the legitimacy of Ming rule in China. In 1370 Ayushiridara received three rescripts from the Hongwu emperor urging him to surrender, but he held his ground and did not respond.7 The Northern Yuan competed with the Ming politically as well as militarily, expanding the battleground even to Korea. During the 1370s, as described in Chapter 3, it succeeded in making the Korean king acknowledge its reign title rather than that of the Ming, hoping to use the Koreans to restore Yuan rule in the south.8 While fighting the Mongols for a new dynastic rule, the Hongwu emperor acknowledged the legitimacy of the Yuan dynasty that he had brought down, announced that there was “no gulf between the hua (Chinese) and yi (culturally inferior foreign peoples)” (hua yi wu jian 華夷無間), and promised favorable treatment of those who came to surrender.9 After the 1370 campaigns, he granted Maidiribala, Ayushiridara’s young son who had been captured by Li Wenzhong, the title “Marquis of Chongli,” and he gave the deceased Yuan emperor the posthumous title “Shundi” and drew up a eulogy himself.10 In July and November 1370 he twice sent a rescript urging Ayushiridara to submit. Late in December he sent another rescript, this one addressed to the remaining Mongol leaders as well as to Ayushiridara himself, persuading and threatening them to submit.11 He was thus acting like a legitimate successor

Sino-Mongol Relations  

to Yuan rule in China. Although many lesser Mongol princes defected to the Ming, Kökö Temür and Ayushiridara remained defiant. A year of calm followed in 1371. The Mongols put the calm to good use and recovered from their defeats quickly. Soon they assembled a large army from various remnants of the Yuan in the steppe.12 Underestimating renewed Mongol power, in 1372 the Hongwu emperor ordered Xu Da to march with 150,000 cavalry from Yanmen Pass in Shanxi across the Gobi to Karakorum; Feng Sheng had 50,000 cavalry to conquer the rest of the Gansu corridor, and Li Wenzhong had the same number to attack the Mongols of Inner Mongolia and Manchuria from Yingchang.13 The campaigns ended in a major failure for the Ming. Xu Da was defeated by Kökö Temür in June 1372. Li Wenzhong scored some victories but had to return from Outer Mongolia after a Mongol attack. Only in the west was the Ming successful: Feng Sheng’s army marched as far as Dunhuang without any recorded setback.14 The failure of the 1372 campaigns put the Ming on the defensive for the following fifteen years, encouraging the Mongols to take the offensive. They quickly undertook a number of raids on Chinese border provinces, including northern Shanxi, southern Manchuria, and Liaodong,15 raids “often of a scale large enough to be called invasions.”16 In response the Hongwu emperor ordered his generals to prepare for defense on the northern frontier and to undertake several expeditions to ward off Mongol incursions in 1373 and 1374.17 Meanwhile, the emperor intensified diplomatic efforts. Dispatching an envoy to the Northern Yuan court in January 1373, he reminded Ayushiridara of the preponderance of Chinese power and advised him of the necessity for and desirability of opening relations. He also offered Ayushiridara an opportunity to take back his captured son, Maidiribala, on the condition that he acknowledge Ming rule. As usual, the advice of peaceful relations was followed by threat of war. Hearing no positive response, the emperor nevertheless sent Maidiribala back to Mongolia in October 1374, probably believing that four years of life in the Ming capital would instill a pro-Ming inclination in the heir to the Mongol throne. Dispatching the return of Maidiribala with heavy gifts, the emperor also gave Ayushiridara silk clothing, and then requested again that he submit.18 But Ayushiridara once again ignored him.

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The emperor saw another chance of diplomatic settlement when Ayushiridara died in 1378. His bet on the successor was Maidiribala, but in fact Ayushiridara was succeeded by his younger brother Toghus Temür (r. 1378–1388/89), presumably because Maidiribala’s stay in the Ming capital of Nanjing discredited him. The emperor nevertheless took the chance to show courtesy anew by sending a special envoy to attend the mourning ceremonies and deliver his personal eulogy.19 Kökö Temür, the Northern Yuan’s most effective general and the biggest threat to the Ming, died in 1375, ending any immediate prospect of Mongol unity and Yuan restoration.20 When Toghus Temür acceded to the Yuan throne in 1378 and changed the reign title to Tianyuan, he tried to gather Mongol strength around him and began frequent raids into the Ming frontier. In response, the Ming resumed military expeditions in the period 1379–1381, successfully alleviating the Mongol threat in the north. But a more pressing threat, represented by Naghachu in Manchuria, quickly emerged on the northeastern frontier. Naghachu was the most prominent Mongol general following Kökö Temür, with a traditional base in southern Manchuria. By 1371 he had built up Jinshan, some seventy miles north of Shenyang, as his base and was thus in a position to threaten Liaodong. By the mid-1380s Naghachu’s forces, said to number two hundred thousand, were large enough to threaten invasion as well as small raids. In 1386 the Hongwu emperor decided to conquer Naghachu and to pacify southern Manchuria. Feng Sheng, commissioned as grand general, managed to receive Naghachu’s surrender in July 1387.21 This was the Ming’s first real triumph over the Mongols since the generally disastrous year of 1372.22 With Naghachu surrendered, the whole of Liaodong was secure, and the emperor was finally able to sever Korea’s relations with the Mongols, a relationship the Koreans had ambiguously maintained since 1369. The Northern Yuan’s base in Manchuria and its hope of using the Koreans against the Ming were thus completely lost. Encouraged by the surrender of Naghachu, the emperor decided to take on the remaining Mongol resistance—that of the Northern Yuan emperor Toghus Temür in the Mongolian steppe, the focal point of Mongol loyalties. He ordered Lan Yu to take 150,000 men across the Gobi to crush the Yuan remnants. With perseverance and luck, Lan’s army took the Mongol camp near Buyur Lake completely by surprise on the morning of May 18, 1388. The Yuan emperor escaped and fled into Outer Mongolia, and he was

Sino-Mongol Relations  

assassinated within a year. His death disrupted the always-fragile succession practices of the Mongol royal house, fragmenting Mongol tribes and leaving them without effective leadership for more than a generation thereafter.23 With royal succession destabilized, powerful Mongol chieftains rose to assemble their own hordes and to continue harassing the Chinese. In the 1390s the most prominent Mongol leader was Nayur Buqa. Hearing that formerly scattered Mongols after Toghus Temür’s death were gathering around Nayur Buqa, the emperor sent him and other Yuan loyalists a rescript in 1390. In it he cited his favorable treatment of Naghachu as an example to demonstrate his generosity and humaneness. He warned, as usual, that hesitation would bring about the arrival of Ming expeditionary forces.24 Receiving no response, the emperor ordered a successful attack on Nayur Buqa. Following this victory, he placed his two sons, the prince of Yan (the future Yongle emperor) and prince of Jin, in a position to manage frontier affairs in the north, and he sent generals to supervise frontier defense and military farming.25 Apparently the emperor wanted to have an enduring foothold in the steppe to ward off Mongol raids and destroy any dangerous concentration of Mongol power. At least two more campaigns were waged in the remainder of his reign. analyzing chinese grand strategy

The Hongwu emperor’s Mongolian strategy was characterized by persistent attempts to establish instrumental hierarchy over the Northern Yuan court and other Mongol chieftains. His inducement and acceptance of Mongol surrender was in the first instance geared toward ensuring security on the northern frontier and enhancing the legitimacy of Ming rule in China. When the surrender was not forthcoming, as in the case of the Northern Yuan court, his interest in security compelled him to establish Ming military dominance in the Mongolian steppe by large-scale conquests and periodic expeditions, which were supported by the building of offensively oriented garrisons for force projection. The Hongwu emperor started the imperial project by rebelling against the Mongol Yuan dynasty, positioning himself as the legitimate successor to Yuan rule—and inheritor of China’s great imperial tradition—after founding the new Ming regime in 1368. But although he drove the Mongols out of the Chinese heartland, he had failed to eliminate the threat. The presence of Yuan remnants north, west, and east to Beiping posed a serious threat to

  chapter 5

the new regime. Moreover, Sichuan, in the upstream Yangtze, was still unconquered, as were Yunnan in the south and Manchuria in the northeast.26 The Mongols remained threatening in two ways. First, their incursions into the Ming frontier constituted a physical security threat, and in the 1370s the Northern Yuan still vaguely hoped to restore dynastic rule in the south. Second, the Mongol pretension to continuing Yuan rule posed a threat to the legitimacy of the Ming regime. As long as the Northern Yuan existed, the Hongwu emperor’s claim to legitimate rule of China could be challenged. And since it was unwilling to surrender, only conquest could achieve the Hongwu emperor’s objective of eliminating the political and security threat of the Northern Yuan to Ming rule. The campaigns of 1370 were military conquests motivated by frontier security concerns, referred to as bian huan (邊患 frontier threat) in Chinese sources.27 The campaigns of 1372 were even more oriented toward conquest, as at the time the Mongols did not pose a visible threat, given their defeat by the Ming two years earlier. Rather, the emperor was encouraged by the victories of Li Wenzhong and Xu Da against Yuan forces in the north and west in 1370 and the conquest in 1371 of Sichuan, to attempt a complete conquest of Mongolia and eliminate the Mongol threat once and for all. This was thus an example of the expansion of war aims as the result of prior success. The fact that he ordered Xu Da to attack the traditional Mongol capital Karakorum, as Arthur Waldron observes, “suggests that he may have hoped to take that city, win submission from the remaining nomads, and thereafter to govern the Mongol steppe as part of his empire, just as his Yuan predecessors had.”28 Similarly, Edward Dreyer argues that in 1372 the emperor “was attempting to establish himself as the heir to the whole Yuan political tradition, in the nomadic areas as well as in the areas of Chinese habitation.”29 After the defeat of 1372, however, the Ming adopted a largely defensive posture, establishing a frontier garrison system to gain a foothold in the conquered territories north of Beiping. Military expeditions were taken primarily to repel Mongol raids. What drove the emperor to moderate his ambitions? Certainly the defeat of 1372 was crucial. A more important cause was the inadequacy of Ming resources to sustain further attacks on the Mongols.30 The emperor also needed to spend resources elsewhere consolidating his expanding empire. Rebellions were mounting in newly conquered areas of Guangxi, Huguang, Sichuan, and Shaanxi. Yunnan, ruled by the Yuan

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prince of Liang, and the far southwest were still unconquered. And as we saw in Chapter 4, Japanese piracy was growing into serious proportions that required troops to strengthen coastal defense.31 Thus, the emperor might well have applied a cost-benefit analysis to his Mongolian policies, an analysis based on instrumental rationality. By the same token, such an instrumental analysis may have also informed his decision to conquer Naghachu in 1387, as fifteen years of renewal must have strengthened Ming military capabilities. But the best evidence of his grand strategy of instrumental hierarchy was perhaps the decision to take on the remaining Mongol resistance that was centered on the Northern Yuan court after the pacification of Naghachu. As an excellent example of how success in conquest invites the expansion of war aims, the decision was consistent with instrumental rationality but incompatible with the Confucian theory of punitive expedition. Indeed, Chinese sources give the impression that at that point the emperor, believing that the Northern Yuan “would ultimately constitute a frontier threat” (zhong wei bian huan 終為邊患), was no longer willing to tolerate its continued existence.32 Furthermore, the conquest of Naghachu, the Northern Yuan court, and newly emerging chieftains suggests the objective of preventing the rise of Mongol power in the steppe—another instrumental calculation geared toward ensuring the security and legitimacy of Ming rule. Even if the emperor had no ultimate ambition to annex Outer Mongolia, as some scholars claim,33 he had apparently tried to gain a permanent foothold in the steppe in order to prevent any dangerous concentration of Mongol power that might challenge Ming supremacy. To this end, periodic military expeditions were supported by the building of an offensively oriented garrison system in Inner Mongolia and Manchuria for control of the steppe. Waldron points out that the garrisons were comparable in intent to the fortifications the Han dynasty built in the Gansu corridor to support conquest of the Western Region. Importantly, these garrisons, often called the “eight outer garrisons,” were mainly constructed in the 1380s and 1390s when Ming armies were marching deep into the steppe. From the far north of Liaodong to the westernmost in Shanxi, the garrisons of Kaiyuan (1388), Guangning (1392), Kaiping (1369), Daning (1387), Quanning (1389), Yingchang (1392), Xinghe (1397), and Dongsheng (1371) gave the Ming a firm base to project its interest in the steppe,34 symbolizing a kind of “early Ming expansionism.”35 The emperor enfeoffed his sons at the major garrisons as “fences” to protect the

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imperial court (fan ping wang shi 藩屏王室). Whenever the Mongols became nonsubmissive (bu ting 不廷), the princes would launch military expeditions from their garrisons.36 In addition, in 1397 the emperor approved a plan for a vast military signaling system that involved placing beacon towers deep into Mongolia, a plan that was tantamount to military occupation of the area covered.37 The objective of the Hongwu emperor’s Mongolian strategy was thus a very consequentialist one of military conquest and domination of the steppe. But he also tried diplomacy to win over the Mongols by peaceful means, symbolized by his favorable treatment of Maidiribala and Naghachu. At times he permitted the existence of Mongol power in the steppe, on the condition that the Mongols acknowledge the legitimacy and superiority of Ming rule.38 Yan Congjian, a sixteenth-century Ming official and author of one of the few specialized texts on Ming China’s foreign relations, asserted that the Hongwu emperor treated the Mongols with “heavy grace” (en shen hou 恩甚厚). As evidence of this he cited the emperor’s dispatching of rescripts of persuasion to Yuan rulers while they were alive and his sending of envoys to eulogize after they died, in addition to granting the Mongol prince Maidiribala an honorary title and returning him to Mongolia.39 But although we may leave some limited room for the emperor’s expressive rationality, an instrumental interpretation would make much better sense. Obtaining Mongol submission was simply the cheapest way to ensure the security and legitimacy of Ming rule. The conflict of interest between the Hongwu emperor and his Mongol enemies was simply too great for expressive rationality to take hold. Indeed, given the fundamental clash of the political and strategic objectives of the Hongwu emperor and the Northern Yuan emperor—both claimed legitimate rule over China, although the latter held the claim more tenuously—conquest seemed an inevitable outcome of Ming policies. analyzing mongol grand strategy

The Mongol strategy toward Ming China was consistently characterized by exit, particularly the confrontational aspects of defying and challenging. The greater picture of Sino-Mongol relations during the Hongwu reign was one of gradual Chinese advance into the steppe and Mongol retreat and resistance against Chinese encroachment. The Hongwu emperor aimed to establish his rule over the Mongols through both conquest and diplomacy.

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Large numbers of Mongols surrendered, possibly more than eight hundred thousand during the Hongwu and Yongle reigns.40 Most of them were ordinary men, and with the exception of Naghachu, they were petty chieftains, lesser among the Mongol ruling elite. The most prominent ones and surely the primary targets of the emperor’s Mongolian policies, such as the Yuan royal house and Kökö Temür, stood firm in resisting China’s military and diplomatic pressures. They defied the Ming by refusing to acknowledge its superiority, rejecting its demands, detaining or killing its envoys, putting up active defense, and meeting and on several occasions defeating its attacks. They challenged the Ming militarily with frontier raids and politically by posing a rival claim of legitimacy to Ming rule, even pressing the Koreans to accept their rather than the Ming’s reign title.

Accommodation and Confrontation, 1403–1424 The Hongwu emperor’s offensives destroyed Mongol unity. But in name at least, Yuan dynasts continued to be proclaimed as rulers of the steppe even after the Hongwu reign. In the Mongolian world, formal leadership was traditionally restricted to the descendants of Chinggis Khan because only they had the right to hold the title of khan or khaghan. Non-Chinggisid power holders, who dominated steppe politics after 1400, had to name a Chinggisid as khan and generally adopted for themselves the title of tayishi, a kind of lieutenant to the great khan.41 The continuation of the Chinggisid khanate indicates the appeal of Yuan legitimacy among the Mongols, or rather its usefulness for powerful chieftains to pursue their own interests in the steppe. Between 1388 and 1400, five Yuan emperors quickly followed one another—each was assassinated after a short rule.42 Mongol sources indicate that just then hostilities broke out between the Eastern Mongols (dada 韃靼) in central and southern Mongolia and the Oirats (Wala 瓦剌), or Western Mongols, in the area of the Altai Mountains.43 Their hostility was understandable. The Eastern Mongols, holding the legitimate heir of Chinggis Khan, claimed to rule the whole of the Mongolian steppe. The Oirats, challenging the authority of the Eastern Mongol khan, wanted to expand their power eastward and unify the steppe from the west. Their struggle produced a bipolar steppe at the beginning of the Yongle reign. Despite frequent fighting, some of which was carried out near the Ming frontier,

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neither the Eastern Mongols under their powerful chieftain Arughtai, nor the Oirats led by their three chieftains Mahmud, Taiping, and Batu Bolod, were able to destroy the other.44 Chinese sources indicate that in the early years of the Yongle reign, the Eastern Mongols were on the offensive against the Oirats.45 The Eastern Mongols also posed a greater threat to the Ming because of their geographical proximity to the Ming frontier. Although they had by then abandoned the Yuan reign title, their refusal to acknowledge Ming rule nevertheless posed a problem for the Ming. The Oirats, though from farther west, were a potential threat as they wanted to establish their steppe hegemony from the west and were frequently in conflict with the Eastern Mongols throughout the Yongle reign. Upon his accession, the Yongle emperor dispatched envoys to urge both the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats to open “friendly relations” (tong hao 通好).46 Claiming that “the world is one family” (tianxia yijia 天下一家) and that all foreign peoples had sent tribute except the Mongols, he urged them to do the same, promising the continuation of Mongol settlements along the Ming frontier and the free flow of trade.47 The ultimate purpose of such a tributary relationship, as he repeatedly declared to foreign rulers, was to “share the fortune of peace” (gongxiang taiping zhifu 共享太平之福).48 In 1405, a Mongol chieftain presented tributary horses to the Ming court, informing the emperor that a Ming envoy previously dispatched to the Eastern Mongols had been detained by Guilichi, khan of the Eastern Mongols. The emperor rewarded the chieftain with paper money and an official title, asking him to “live in peace in his own land” (an ju ben tu 安居本土) and to “nurture his people with efficacy” (shan fu qi zhong 善撫其眾). He also sent gifts to a few other chieftains believed to be willing to submit.49 Toward Guilichi, who had earlier earned the emperor’s wrath by poisoning the prince of Hami, who had been invested by the Ming,50 he remained patient, continuing diplomacy while ordering his generals to tighten frontier defenses, as the fighting between the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats often extended into the frontier region.51 In 1407, an Eastern Mongol mission headed by the envoy Eryichi came to the Ming court. The emperor instructed his frontier generals to treat the embassy generously, explaining in a secret edict: Eryichi is the master [shi 师] of Guilichi and is possibly sent by him. As Guilichi wants to fight the Wala [the Oirats] westward, he will have to move his families

Sino-Mongol Relations   southward but fears the attack of our troops. So he has sent Eryichi to delay the march of our troops. It is also possible that Guilichi wants to submit but has not yet decided. So he has first sent the envoy to probe our intentions. It is also heard that the Mongols would soon raid the frontiers; you should carefully prepare for that.52

Although it may not be correct, the emperor’s analysis demonstrates a certain understanding of steppe politics at the time. In November 1407, he dispatched a rescript to Guilichi requesting an explanation of the detention of his envoy. Explaining that his original intention of sending the envoy was to “open friendly relations” (tong hao 通好) and “mutually share peace” (gong xiang tai ping 共享太平), he asked the khan to examine the “chance of disaster and fortune” (huo fu zhi ji 祸福之机).53 Guilichi, however, was murdered in 1408 by Arughtai, who quickly started installing as khan a new puppet, a descendant of Chinggis Khan named Bunyashiri.54 After dispatching an envoy to explore Bunyashiri’s intentions in February 1408, the emperor sent a long rescript in April 1408 to outline his positions: Since the downfall of the Yuan dynasty, after Shundi from Ayushiridara to Kun Temür [the Mongol khanate] was inherited six times very quickly. None of them has had a good death. This can validate the Way of Heaven, and you should carefully examine the ways of your own preservation. . . . Our Imperial father Taizu Gaohuangdi [i.e., the Hongwu emperor] cared for and protected the Yuan progeny especially favorably [cun xu bao quan 存恤保全]. Those reverting for submission [gui 歸] he ordered immediately to go back to the north. For instance, everyone north and south knows that he sent Toghus Temür back to succeed as khan. Our attitude is exactly the same as our Imperial father’s. Now the line of ancestors of the Yuan being uninterrupted like a thread, there is a chance to throw it away or to retain it, and [the ways] of good or back luck are still separating. You ought to examine and judge it. If you change [your attitude] quickly and completely and come to submit [gui 歸], we will grant you noble titles with generous gifts, allow you to select a good place to live near our frontier, and do whatever you want. If you are misled by your followers and crave for the nominal title [of the Mongol khan], there will be disaster before you and you may not have time to attend to it. My integrity of loving people [ai ren zhi cheng 愛人之誠] is like the bright sun.55

Bunyashiri sent no reply, but the Oirats in the west came to the court. The emperor’s first envoy to the Oirat camp was sent in 1403, but the envoy was briefly detained by the Oirat leader Mahmud. Undeterred, the emperor

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dispatched embassies in 1404 and 1407 with usual gifts.56 Finally, in October 1408, Mahmud sent tributary horses to the Ming court and requested investiture.57 In April 1409, the emperor dispatched another rescript to Bunyashiri, along with the return of twenty-two Eastern Mongols captured on the Ming frontier as a gesture of sincerity and goodwill, stating, “Is it not excellent that I rule the Central Kingdom, the Khan rules the desert, and we mutually keep the peace?” He believed that a relationship of hierarchical tributary propriety between himself and the khan would fulfill both the mind-and-heart of the Way of Heaven (tian xin 天心) and the appropriateness of human affairs (ren shi 人事).58 On July 22, 1409, however, he heard that Bunyashiri, who had been reported to be planning an imminent attack on the Ming frontier, had killed his envoys. Two days later (July 24, 1409), he granted the titles of Shunning Wang (“King of Shunning”) to Mahmud, Xianyi Wang (“King of Xianyi”) to Taiping, and Anle Wang (“King of Anle”) to Batu Bolod,59 and he ordered the intensification of frontier defenses and the preparation of expeditions against the Eastern Mongols. According to him: I have treated [Bunyashiri] with utmost integrity [zhi cheng 至誠], dispatching envoys to return his followers. But he killed the envoys and wanted to plunder [the frontier]. How dare he be so wantonly willful! The disobedient must be exterminated [niming zhe bi jianchu zhi er 逆命者必殲除之耳].60

On August 5, 1409, the emperor heard that the Oirats had defeated the encroaching Eastern Mongols and driven them to the Kerülen River area. Seeing an opportunity, he commissioned Qiu Fu one month later as grand general to conquer the Eastern Mongols. Describing the purpose of Qiu’s expedition as to “inquire into the reason of killing the envoys,” the emperor warned in a rescript to Bunyashiri: “I will personally command an expedition to rectify your crime [zheng er zui 正爾罪] next year.”61 Falling into a feigned retreat of the Mongols, however, Qiu’s army was wiped out in a battle by the Kerülen River in September 1409. One month later the emperor decided to lead a personal campaign. In an edict to the crown prince, he said that Qiu’s defeat had damaged the power and prestige of the Ming. Unless exterminated, the Mongols and their rampancy would not bring fortune to the frontier.62 His campaign edict of March 1410, which announced the objective of “clearing up the desert” (sao qing sha mo 掃清沙漠), read in part:

Sino-Mongol Relations   With the Mandate of Heaven and on the grand foundation established by Taizu Gaohuangdi [i.e., the Hongwu emperor], I rule Ten Thousand Directions, and the Four Foreigners [si yi 四夷], however remote they are, have all come and transformed themselves [cong hua 從化]. Only the Northern Caitiffs in barren corners are still committing violence. I have sent envoys to explain [our position] and exhort them several times, but they were detained and killed. Once some caitiffs raided our frontier and were captured by our generals. I again sent envoys to return these intruders; yet again the envoys were killed. Since our grace has been betrayed again and again [en ji shu bei 恩既數背], how can I cherish them with moral excellence [de qi ke huai 德豈可懷]?63

Meanwhile, the emperor bestowed gifts on the Oirats and reminded them of the Eastern Mongols’ treacherousness,64 presumably to urge them to keep pressure on the Eastern Mongols. Thus securing the western front, the emperor began his first Mongolian campaign (with four more to follow) in March 1410. This campaign split and weakened the Eastern Mongols for a time but failed to capture either Bunyashiri or Arughtai. The defeated Arughtai then sent an envoy to present tributary horses to the Ming court in January 1411. The Yongle emperor responded: I inherited the Mandate of Heaven to become ruler of the world, only wish to let people in the Ten Thousand Directions all have their proper places. Whoever comes [to submit], I will nurture them generously [hou fu 厚撫], there being no gulf between those who are near and far, Chinese and non-Chinese [wu yuan jin bi ci zhi jian 無遠近彼此之間].

According to the emperor, the envoy suggested to him that the Oirats’ submission was not sincere, for they had failed to hand over to the Ming the imperial seal of the Yuan.65 Interestingly, when the Oirat leader Mahmud sent tributary envoys in March 1411, the envoy also emphasized Arughtai’s deceitfulness and the need to deal with him quickly.66 Although Arughtai was sending regular tributary missions to the Ming, Mahmud, having benefited from years of tributary relations with the Ming and the defeat of Arughtai, became restless. Seeing no further Chinese action against the Eastern Mongols, in 1412 he moved to kill their khan Bunyashiri, who had been in flight westward as the result of the Ming’s 1410 campaign. Installing Delbek as new khan in the old Mongol capital of Karakorum, Mahmud began to move east against Arughtai, with the obvious intent of uniting the Mongols and achieving hegemony in the steppe.67 Then

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in June 1412 he asked the Yongle emperor to destroy Arughtai, explaining that he wanted to present to the emperor the Yuan imperial seal recovered from Bunyashiri, but he feared Arughtai’s interception; he also further requested Ming rewards and weapons for his tribesmen.68 In February 1413, Mahmud again presented tributary horses. Claiming that many Eastern Mongols of Gansu and Ningxia who submitted to the Ming were close to him, he requested control over those Mongols as his rewards. There were many other requests, and the memorial was said to be arrogant. Moreover, Mahmud began to detain Chinese envoys. The emperor warned: “If you can repent and apologize for your crime [xie zui 謝罪], I will treat you as before. Otherwise, I will assemble an army to punish your crime [tao zui 討罪].”69 In June 1413, Arughtai sent an envoy to request revenge against Mahmud’s killing of his former khan Bunyashiri, and he offered to lead such an army.70 Later in the month, a certain Boyan Buqa complained to the Ming court: Since murdering Bunyashiri, Mahmud has been arrogant without propriety [jiao ao wu li 驕傲無禮]. He wants to resist and compete with the Central Kingdom. It is not out of sincerity but for valuable goods such as gold and silk that he has sent envoys to the court. He frequently led his warriors into the frontier region and intercepted other tributary envoys, thus obstructing the passage in the north. It is better to exterminate him by force.71

The emperor’s ministers memorialized that because Mahmud had betrayed imperial grace and failed the emperor’s moral excellence (bei en fu de 背恩負德), it would be proper to exterminate him by force. Now comparing Mahmud with jackals and wolves, the emperor stated that should Mahmud fail to apologize for his crimes (xie zui 謝罪) in the autumn, he would launch an army to punish (tao 討) him.72 In July 1413 the emperor granted Arughtai the title of Hening Wang (“King of Hening”), with additional titles for his mother and wife.73 In December 1413, hearing that Mahmud had led his horde near the Kerülen River to prepare to raid the Ming frontier, the emperor decided to launch a personal campaign. Marching to the steppe in April 1414, his campaign edict read in part: “Now the Four Directions are trouble-free. Only the remaining caitiffs constitute a threat [huan 患], particularly the Wala. Repel them and the Central Kingdom will be secure.”74 In June the Ming army defeated but failed to capture Mahmud.75 At this point Arughtai sent an

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envoy to announce his illness.76 This was almost certainly an excuse to avoid meeting with the emperor. Arughtai had avoided participating in the campaign itself, quite sensibly waiting to see the Oirats greatly weakened and Ming military resources again spent in the steppe. In July 1414 the emperor declared in his victory edict: I inherited the Mandate of Heaven to nurture and govern the Chinese and the non-Chinese alike [fu yu hua yi 撫馭華夷], only wish to ensure peace and [let them] have their proper places [wei yu yi an xian de qi suo 惟欲乂安咸得其所] . . . . Upon my accession to the imperial throne, I nurtured and cared [fu mo cun xu 撫摩存恤] [for the Oirats], granting them noble titles. Within a few years, having depended on our court for rest, [they] reassembled a horde and immediately became arrogant and wanton, betraying [my] moral excellence and failing [my] grace [gu de fu en 辜德負恩], violating trust and appropriateness [weibei xin yi 違背信義], willfully killing their ruler, detaining our envoys, pillaging our frontier, rapacious like jackals and wolves. They have left me no choice but to lead the Six Armies to punish [tao 討] them.77

For the following few years the emperor could feel that he had succeeded in reestablishing Ming authority in the steppe. In February 1415, the three Oirat chieftains Mahmud, Taiping, and Batu Bolod sent envoys to present tribute horses and offer an “apology.” Although criticizing the apology as “cunning language to cover up wrongdoings” (qiao yan wen guo 巧言文過), the emperor nevertheless agreed with his ministers’ suggestion to show inclusiveness by accepting the tribute.78 Meanwhile, Arughtai continued to present uninterrupted tribute until 1421. In the period 1415–1421, then, the emperor could again claim to be the overlord of Mongolia. However, with the Oirats defeated and weak, trouble arose with the Eastern Mongols. In 1419 a Ming official reported that Arughtai’s unruly envoys plundered Chinese markets in the Ming capital.79 Reports also came in that Arughtai had attacked and defeated the Oirats. On this occasion the emperor remarked that Arughtai was just as cunning as the Oirats.80 Extending his influence westward to the Oirat tribes, Arughtai began to have disputes with the Ming court about the reception of his envoys and the amount of his rewards. Meanwhile, his envoys and tribesmen began pillaging even when they had just received gifts from the Ming court. Arughtai was also accused of spying, presumably with the intention of selecting the best time and place for an invasion.81 After February 1421 Arughtai simply

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stopped sending tribute to the Ming.82 He also sought to expand his influence in eastern Inner Mongolia, subjugating the Uriyanghkha at this time. The Uriyanghkha Mongols had supported the emperor during the civil war, and to reward them he had moved the Ming garrison away from Daning in the heart of their grazing lands. This left the Uriyanghkha in control of a large portion of the Inner Mongolian steppe. Overcoming the strategically located Uriyanghkha territory, Arughtai plundered into Xinghe in the spring of 1422.83 Between April 1422 and May 1424, the emperor launched three personal campaigns against Arughtai. The first campaign of April–September 1422 defeated Arughtai, but the emperor declined to pursue him into Outer Mongolia. His return edict announced: Heaven and Earth are vast; under Heaven’s cover and on Earth’s hold there is no outer-separation [wu wai 無外]. The rule of the Emperor and King treats [all peoples] equally [yi shi yi tong ren 一視以同仁]. I respectfully inherited the Mandate of Heaven to become emperor and rule the Chinese and non-Chinese alike [zhu di hua yi 主帝華夷] . . . with no other purpose but to let the lives and souls of the world have their proper places [tianxia shingling xian de qi suo 天下 生靈咸得其所]. Previously, the caitiff Arughtai lived poorly in the north of the desert and dragged out an ignoble existence in rat caves. Pursued by the Oirats and unable to protect his wife, he led his tribe to come to submit [lai gui 來歸]. Considering his anxiety and loss of dependence, I especially treated him with favorable care [te jia you xu 特加優恤], granting him noble titles and allowing him to return to his own land [reng ju ben tu 仍居本土] to live in peace and happiness [an sheng le ye 安生樂業]. But this caitiff, with deceitfulness in his mindand-heart, has become willful and arrogant, breached the [Way of ] Heaven [wei tian 違天], betrayed [my] moral excellence [fu de 負德], failed [my] grace [gu en 辜恩], violated [my] orders [ni ming 逆命], killed [my] envoys, and invaded the frontier. For the purpose of ensuring security and protecting people [bao an sheng min 保安生民], I led the Six Armies to punish [tao 討] him.84

The second campaign, from August to November 1423, returned on the rumor of Arughtai’s defeat by the Oirats. During this campaign Esen Tügel, who claimed to be a prince of the Eastern Mongols, came to offer submission because of his conflict with Arughtai. The emperor, probably seeing Esen as cunning as Arughtai and knowing that his submission was driven by his practical difficulties rather than identification with the Ming, nevertheless accepted his submission on the grounds of the need to “cherish him

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with grace” (huai zhi yi en 懷之以恩), so as not to fail the mind-and-heart of submission of faraway peoples (bu gu yuan ren lai gui zhi xin 不辜遠人來 歸之心). His rescript to Esen stated: “You submitted to me with the integrity of your mind-and-heart [cheng xin 誠心], and I will treat you with the integrity of my mind-and-heart, so that we—the ruler and the subject— can mutually share the fortune of peace for a long time.”85 On another occasion the emperor tried to dispel Esen’s misgivings by declaring: “The hua and yi were originally of one family [hua yi ben yi jia 華夷本一家]. I inherited the Mandate of Heaven to become the Son of Heaven. All those who are covered by Heaven and held by Earth are my subjects. There is no gulf between the Chinese and non-Chinese.” When his ministers hailed his achievements, the emperor explained that his ambitions were to “let all peoples of the world follow their own lives, keep the frontier secure, and disuse military force.”86 During the third and final campaign, from May to August 1424 (the fifth of his Mongolian campaigns if counting the 1410 expedition against Arughtai and the 1414 one against Mahmud), the emperor again declined to pursue Arughtai deep into the steppe. One likely reason for this was that provisions were exhausted. The emperor, however, claimed to be following China’s ancient way of managing nomadic threats—“repellence rather than extended pursuit” (qu zhi er yi, bu qiong zhui ye 驅之而已, 不窮追也).87 On August 12, 1424, before reaching the modern Great Wall from the steppe, the Yongle emperor, perhaps China’s most famous “emperor on horseback,” died in camp.88 analyzing chinese grand strategy

In the beginning of his reign, the Yongle emperor hoped to establish an expressive tributary relationship with Mongol chieftains. His initial position was not a military conquest of the entire Mongolian steppe.89 Instead, assuming the role of “overlord of the world” and announcing his intention to treat the Mongols equally and favorably, he wanted a friendly, albeit hierarchical, relationship with them. The embassies to the Mongol tribes in the early years of his reign were tasked with persuading the Mongols to acknowledge Ming rule. But his intended rule over the Mongols was not direct governance in the sense of administering their internal affairs, but rather indirect or even nominal rule in the sense of receiving Mongol acknowledgment of his political superiority. This passive “hegemony without

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actual rule” was in accord with the advice of ancient Chinese statecraft that the yi did not deserve direct Chinese rule because of their cultural inferiority,90 and in marked contrast to the aggressive modern Western practice of taking over the culturally inferior or materially weaker, and either exterminating them or trying to raise them to the “standard of civilization.”91 He made it clear that so long as the Mongols were willing to submit, they would be allowed to live in their own places without Chinese interference. In fact, by asking Mongol chieftains to “nurture and pacify their people,” such self-governance was not only what the emperor approved of but also what he actively encouraged. The emperor seemed to genuinely believe in the desirability of an expressive tributary relationship of mutual affection and obligation between himself and various Mongol chieftains. At this point, neither the Eastern Mongols nor the Oirats openly challenged the Ming, and security was not yet the dominant calculation in the emperor’s Mongolian policy. He was only too happy to allow tributary exchanges—“rejecting none who came to submit” (lai zhe bu ju 來者不拒), as he put it.92 He showed a certain degree of expressive rationality by permitting Mongol settlements and trade along the Ming frontier and by encouraging Mongol chieftains to live in peace and to nurture their tribesmen. Again, one may point out that as a practical outcome, such a hierarchical tributary relationship would benefit Chinese security and legitimacy. But arguably it would also profit those Mongols who wanted peaceful trade relations with the Ming. The relationship would therefore serve the interest of both sides, as would an expressive relationship. One may note that the emperor’s inclusive and confident approach stood in striking contrast to the exclusive and narrow approach of the midto late Ming.93 The emperor gradually became impatient with the intransigence of the Eastern Mongols and intensified diplomatic efforts after 1407. Although his 1407 and 1408 rescripts to the Eastern Mongols contained an implicit threat, the general approach was still peaceful tributary relations. His claim of humaneness in the 1408 rescript had some factual basis, as in 1409 he returned some captured Eastern Mongols to demonstrate his sincerity. The rescript of April 1409 tried to persuade the khan of the Eastern Mongols to establish an expressive relationship in accordance with the mind-and-heart of the Way of Heaven and the ethics of human relationships. His assumption of the appropriate mode of his relationship with the khan was rooted

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in Confucian expressive rationality, as was clear from his evocation of the mind-and-heart as the fundamental drive of human behavior and relational ethics as the normative propriety. From 1403 to April 1409, then, the emperor was mainly adopting a strategy of expressive hierarchy by trying to create a hierarchical tributary relationship of Confucian propriety with the Mongols. His attitude changed dramatically in July 1409 after hearing that the Eastern Mongols had killed his envoys. He then wanted to destroy the Eastern Mongols for the killing and for the plundering of the Ming frontier. After Qiu Fu’s defeat in September 1409, he gave an additional reason to restore the prestige of the Ming. These justifications for military expedition revealed his self-interest in frontier security and military glory. His campaign edict of March 1410 claimed to punish the “crime” of the Eastern Mongols. If the purpose of his expedition was solely to punish the killing of his envoys and thus to restore the Eastern Mongols’ obligation of loyalty, it may be justifiable on Confucian grounds. But he also had strong instrumental objectives of frontier security and military glory. The campaigns of 1409 and 1410 are therefore better seen as instrumental war rather than expressive punishment. Between July 1409 and December 1410, instrumental hierarchy dominated his strategy toward the Eastern Mongols. After receiving the defeated Eastern Mongol chieftain Arughtai’s tribute in January 1411, however, the emperor again seemed willing to establish an expressive tributary relationship with Arughtai. He claimed his humaneness toward the Eastern Mongols and rewarded them with generous titles and gifts. Was he using the relationship with Arughtai to maximize his own interest in security, or did he take the relationship to be the end in itself? Between 1411 and 1418, Arughtai voluntarily and enthusiastically sent frequent tribute to the Ming (discussed later here) and caused no major trouble between the two sides. The emperor did not need to use the relationship to induce or compel Arughtai to comply with his tributary requests. One can argue that, to a certain degree, the emperor was fulfilling his obligation of humaneness and grace toward his erstwhile enemy by accepting and rewarding Arughtai’s tributary submission and protecting him against the threat of Oirat Mongols in the spirit of Confucian inclusiveness. Indeed, such treatment was hard to reconcile with instrumental rationality. An instrumental calculation would suggest that nurturing Arughtai in this way would inevitably enhance his power and create a potential threat in the future. Given

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past conflict and the uncertainty of Arughtai’s future intentions, the logic of self-interest maximization would at least suggest keeping a lid on Arughtai’s power. Seen in this light, the emperor’s claim to treat the Mongols with special care in order to protect Yuan progeny also appeared understandable in terms of the Confucian principle of protecting human progeny in the context of the decline of the Yuan royal line. There is one challenge to this argument, however. Many scholars claim that the Yongle emperor tried to divide and rule the Mongols to split their strength and manage them separately.94 The investiture of Mahmud in July 1409 was granted two days after learning the Eastern Mongols’ intention to attack the Ming. Similarly, the investiture of Arughtai in July 1413 occurred shortly before the expedition against Mahmud. The emperor generally rewarded the weaker side in the balance of power between the Oirats and the Eastern Mongols. These may be seen as his attempts to use one Mongol tribe as an ally to check the advance of the other, dividing and weakening them serially in a changing balance. Realists in international relations would certainly say that it makes good strategic sense to strengthen one Mongol faction to check the other.95 Divide-and-rule suggests a consequentialist motive of power dominance by preventing and destroying the unity and rise of Mongol power,96 which had been the strategic objective of the Hongwu emperor’s Mongolian policies. If it were the conscious strategy of the Yongle emperor, then the expressive argument described earlier here would be wrong and instrumental hierarchy should be seen as characterizing the emperor’s grand strategy toward Arughtai during this period of peaceful tributary trade. The Yongle emperor’s approach, however, was not consistent in the objective of preventing the rise of Mongol power. In fact, it had the opposite effect of strengthening it. He was not greatly concerned with the possibility of rising Mongol power until such power posed a threat to the frontier. He thus rewarded Mongol tributary embassies, from both Mahmud and Arughtai at different times, with generous gifts and titles, only later to discover the need of destroying their power that had partly been abetted by his own policies. There were long periods of time (1411–1413 and 1415–1421) during which he rewarded both the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats and strengthened their power at the same time. These policies did not align with the realist logic of divide-and-rule.

Sino-Mongol Relations  

Taking an instrumental perspective to assess the efficacy of the Yongle emperor’s strategy, one may fault his strategic folly, which was certainly possible. Taking an expressive perspective, however, one may find that the rise of Mongol power was a predictable outcome of the strategy of expressive hierarchy, since the practical outcome of such a strategy was precisely mutual benefit of the relationship—Chinese authority and security and Eastern Mongol security and power. Moreover, the emperor’s investiture of Mahmud and Arughtai can be given an expressive explanation too. Investiture of Mahmud may have been simply a demonstration of his grace. And the investiture of Arughtai, according to Chinese authors of Ming times, was a reward for Arughtai’s appropriateness (yi 義) in requesting revenge against Mahmud’s killing of his former khan Bunyashiri.97 For these considerations, I would characterize the emperor’s strategy toward the Eastern Mongols in the period 1411–1418 as more one of expressive hierarchy than one of instrumental hierarchy. After 1419, however, conflict reemerged in the relationship as the result of Arughtai’s challenge to Ming authority and security. The emperor responded with three personally commanded military expeditions, all justified in terms of Confucian “punishment.” But as with the expeditions of 1409 and 1410, his strong instrumental motives of frontier security and military glory also overrode expressive rationality in the three campaigns of 1422 to 1424. They are therefore better seen as instrumental war. In the period 1419–1424, then, instrumental hierarchy again characterized the emperor’s strategy toward Arughtai. A very similar analysis can be applied to the emperor’s strategies toward the Oirat leader Mahmud. I will avoid repetition of reasoning by only summarizing the analysis. From 1403, when the emperor sought to establish a tributary relationship with the Oirats, through 1408–1409, when he received their tribute and granted them investiture, to 1412, when he began to be challenged by Mahmud, he was largely adopting a strategy of expressive hierarchy. Between 1413, when he warned Mahmud of punitive expedition, and 1414, when he executed the threat, his strategy changed to instrumental hierarchy. From 1415 to 1424, when the Oirats again came to present tribute, his strategy returned to expressive hierarchy. Overall, then, an interesting pattern emerges: the Yongle emperor’s strategies toward the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats alternated between

  chapter 5

i­nstrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy conditioned by the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship. Toward the Eastern Mongols, he adopted expressive hierarchy from 1403 to April 1409, changed to instrumental hierarchy from July 1409 to 1410, returned to expressive hierarchy from 1411 to 1418, and again changed to instrumental hierarchy from 1419 to 1424. Toward the Oirats, he adopted expressive hierarchy from 1403 to 1412, changed to instrumental hierarchy from 1413 to 1414, and returned to expressive hierarchy from 1415 to 1424. analyzing mongol grand strategy

When the Mongols, including both the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats, refused to enter into a tributary relationship with the Ming, either by political defiance or by military challenge, they were adopting a strategy of exit. In the early years of the Yongle reign, both tribes detained or killed Chinese envoys who had been dispatched to persuade them to submit. They also defied the Ming after becoming more powerful as the result of tributary relations with the Ming, not only ignoring the emperor’s demand of restraint but also detaining envoys and bargaining for tributary payments. Beyond defying, they also challenged the Ming militarily. In an important sense and in many cases, such challenge was a logical corollary of the strategy of deference, to be discussed later in this chapter. Strengthened by exploiting Chinese resources through deference, they next tried to expand their own power at the expense of the Ming. In 1413 Mahmud led his horde near the Kerülen River to prepare, most likely, to attack both the Ming and Arughtai. Arughtai raided the Ming frontier after 1422. These raids, as will be explained in this section, were intended to support expansion in the steppe by plundering Chinese resources. Arughtai also subjugated the Uriyanghkha Mongols, nominal Ming vassals, thus openly challenging Ming rule in eastern Inner Mongolia. This was fairly clear evidence of the defying and challenging aspects of the strategy of exit. On the whole, the exit strategy was adopted by the Eastern Mongols in the periods 1403–1410 and 1419–1424, and by the Oirats in 1403–1407 and 1413–1414. Yet the Mongols also sought tributary relations with the Ming (in the period 1411–1418 in the case of the Eastern Mongols, and 1408–1412 and 1415–1424 in the case of the Oirats)—often enthusiastically. The nature of this approach requires some analysis.

Sino-Mongol Relations  

Why did Mahmud, after five years of refusal (from 1403 to 1407), finally decide to send tribute and request investiture in October 1408? The most likely reason was the offensive of the Eastern Mongols, as indicated in Chinese sources. His tribute thus represented a strategy of deference, trying to ensure survival and preserve power against the encroaching Eastern Mongols. By mid-1409, Mahmud had apparently strengthened his tribe with Chinese tributary rewards, for he defeated the invading Eastern Mongols and captured their livestock.98 This interpretation challenges some historians’ claim that Mahmud repaid the emperor’s investiture by attacking Arughtai or that the emperor encouraged him to do so.99 On the defensive, Mahmud defeated Arughtai only when attacked. His victory resulted more from his own defense and expansion against Arughtai than from his loyalty to the Ming. Mahmud’s deference was intended not only to ensure survival but also to establish hegemony in the steppe. Both the Oirats’ and the Eastern Mongols’ behaviors during the Yongle reign suggest such an objective, an understandable ambition since hegemony would enable them to better organize nomadic life internally and deal with China externally.100 In addition to reducing intertribe hostility and demonstrating a chieftain’s power, steppe hegemony would also put the chieftain in a favorable position to benefit from China’s resources by controlling trade routes.101 These benefits could not only help the nomads develop a more secure economic base but also enable their leader to deal more effectively with Chinese power and to pursue greater ambitions. With the Ming defeat of Arughtai in 1410, Mahmud swiftly moved to Eastern Mongol territories. As noted, his envoys urged the emperor to take further actions against Arughtai, hoping that the Ming might deliver them easy hegemony in the steppe by eliminating Arughtai. One Mongol tribe’s accusation of the other revealed an important aspect of Mongol relations with the Ming. That is, they would attempt to monopolize tributary relations and eliminate steppe rivals in order to control all tributary and trade relations for their own benefits by intercepting other tribes’ missions, robbing their goods, or preventing them altogether from traveling to China. This appeared to be exactly what Mahmud did after Arughtai’s defeat. His increasing demands for Ming rewards were additional attempts to exploit Chinese resources in order to strengthen his power and unite the steppe, ambitions that were revealed by Boyan Buqa’s complaint to the Ming court

  chapter 5

in 1413. Indeed, Mahmud resented the emperor’s investiture of Arughtai, as it would substantially strengthen the Eastern Mongols. The resentment may have been an important cause of his confrontation with the Ming.102 Still, the confrontation needs an explanation. Given the benefits that would accrue from a continuous tributary relationship and given his strategic priority of crushing the Eastern Mongols and establishing Oirat hegemony, the prudent course of action would be to attack Arughtai while maintaining good relations with the Ming. Yet he decided to raid the Ming frontier while preparing to fight Arughtai. Five possible explanations are available in the literature.103 The first one, favored by many Chinese in imperial times, emphasizes the nomads’ greedy nature and insatiable desire. Long discredited, this theory of greed cannot explain the varied nomadic responses to Chinese power, including both peaceful trade and violent raid. The second theory, stressing the objective needs of the nomads, argues that raiding would be necessary for maintaining nomadic livelihood if trade were not allowed. The nomads could never exist on their own without the sedentary world, and they needed to obtain essential products from sedentary peoples by either trade or raid.104 Applying this theory, one can argue that Mahmud challenged the Ming because he was not meeting the economic necessities of his tribesmen. But this theory is also inadequate for explaining nomadic raids into China.105 Mahmud could have easily obtained essential commodities from tributary relations with the Ming, if he was content with just maintaining his tribe. A pure economic analysis focusing on the dependency of the nomads on Chinese products can help explain the Mongols’ willingness to present tribute to the Ming court as well as their raids when tribute was not allowed, but it cannot explain Mahmud’s hostility toward the Ming. The third explanation, proposed by Thomas Barfield, argues that nomadic “imperial confederacy,” the state structure by which Inner Asian nomads organized themselves, could be maintained only by extracting resources from outside the steppe. The nomads’ strategy was one of extortion for trade rights and subsidies from China while avoiding conquering Chinese territory.106 But this extortion theory is also problematic. Barfield includes the Oirats and the Eastern Mongols as those nomads wishing to develop what he calls imperial confederacy. His theory would suggest that Mahmud decided to attack and extract resources from the Ming because the

Sino-Mongol Relations  

Chinese were not offering enough for him to develop his imperial confederacy and establish hegemony in the steppe. But while such extortion may be effective in dealing with a weak Chinese polity, it could not really work in the early Ming because of the superiority of Chinese military capabilities, which the Mongols could not have failed to notice. Mahmud’s rush to offend the Ming when his power was not yet strong enough to mount a serious challenge would remain a puzzle. The fourth explanation, developed by Nicola Di Cosmo, focuses on the weakness of nomadic rulers in restraining their warriors.107 In his 1415 “apology” to the Ming after the defeat, Mahmud indeed attributed the raids to his inability to constrain his tribesmen.108 But before the 1414 expedition, Ming intelligence reported that Mahmud had himself led the Oirats into the Kerülen River area.109 And he at least provoked the emperor by sending “arrogant” memorials with “excessive” requests. Moreover, when in 1417 a Ming envoy returned from his mission to the Oirats, he actually reported to the emperor that the Oirats’ past defiance was a result of Mahmud’s own plan, not the unruliness of his subordinates.110 Finally, it has been suggested that Mahmud’s hostility was partly precipitated by his fear of a Ming-Eastern Mongol alliance against him.111 One wonders whether the fear should have been the other way around. Arughtai succeeded in obtaining a relationship with the Ming in 1411, but Mahmud had maintained a warm one since 1408. Before the 1414 defeat, it was Mahmud, not Arughtai, who was holding the upper hand in the steppe power struggle. Indeed, fearing Mahmud’s increasing power, Arughtai had tried hard to alienate the Oirats and the Ming. And the Ming generally regarded the Eastern Mongols as more threatening because of their geographical proximity. Before Mahmud became “arrogant,” the emperor showed no inclination to fight him. I suggest that Mahmud challenged the Ming because he believed that the emperor’s Mongolian polices were undermining his objective of establishing steppe hegemony. The year 1413 was a crucial one for this objective. Internally, five years of tributary intercourse with the Ming had enriched the Oirats. Externally, the Eastern Mongols were at their lowest moments. Arughtai in fact had to nestle under the protection of the Ming. But ominously for the Oirats, the emperor gradually increased his bestowals on Arughtai, making him Hening Wang (“King of Hening”) in 1413. The Ming investiture of his mortal enemy was the most consequential in

  chapter 5

changing Mahmud’s attitude.112 Should the emperor’s favor continue, Arughtai would almost certainly regain his strength and pose a new threat to the Oirats, an intolerable development for Mahmud.113 Thus, the time around 1413 was really optimal for Mahmud to start an offensive against Arughtai, for thereafter he would lose his relative power over the Eastern Mongols. Yet his drive for hegemony conflicted sharply with the Yongle emperor’s objective to establish Ming superiority in the steppe. Earlier the emperor had rejected Mahmud’s plea for the Ming to eliminate Arughtai and his requests for more rewards. Mahmud might well have felt that the Ming, as well as Arughtai, was an obstacle to achieving his hegemony in the steppe. In fact, eliminating Arughtai while maintaining good relations with the Ming was an impossible task. From the emperor’s perspective, Mahmud’s betrayal of his generosity was reflected in his “arrogant” missions, which were hard to ignore. From Mahmud’s perspective, the Ming was determined to prevent Oirat hegemony by protecting and rewarding Arughtai. Hostility or even conflict between the two was almost inevitable if neither side was willing to modify its objectives. Mahmud turned hostile because he felt that the Ming was not offering enough for him to destroy Arughtai and establish steppe hegemony. Defeated by the Ming, however, he again had to defer to the Ming through tributary relations so as to hold his feeble position by exploiting China’s economic and military resources. A similar analysis can be applied to Arughtai’s changing relations with the Ming. The motive behind his January 1411 tribute was all too apparent. Severely defeated by the Ming in 1410, he was in no position to continue his challenge. Assembling another horde from the scattered Mongols would take some time. Deference was thus necessary for the recovery of his strength, which was exactly Mahmud’s calculation slightly more than two years earlier. Moreover, he was conscious of the consequence of his defeat for the balance of power in the steppe. Fearful of Oirat hegemony, he tried to alienate the quasi alliance between his Oirat rivals and the Ming by accusing the Oirats of lacking sincerity in their submission. Indeed, if Arughtai had not sought Ming support, his tribe would probably have been destroyed by a much stronger Mahmud, who was eager to establish Oirat hegemony in the steppe. Deference to the Ming served the crucial purpose of potentially bringing Ming protection, given Arughtai’s status as the emperor’s outer vassal. This motive could not escape the attention of the

Sino-Mongol Relations  

emperor, who observed that Arughtai “submitted” because of Oirat pressure rather than his “true mind-and-heart” (ben xin 本心).114 In the long run, Arughtai was hoping not only to use Ming power for revenge against the Oirats but also for his hegemonic ambition in the steppe.115 Arughtai’s tributary missions to the Ming court continued in earnest, and the benefits he and his tribesmen accrued from this relationship justified his deference to the Ming. Between 1411 and 1424, Arughtai sent twenty-seven missions, more than the normal allowance of once every year; in 1413 and 1414, he sent a total of eleven missions.116 His tribute consisted mostly of horses. In return, the Ming court rewarded him and his envoys with paper money, silver, silk textiles, and supplies, gave them official titles, and paid handsomely for the tributary products as well. In 1413 Arughtai was invested as Hening Wang (“King of Hening”). As Henry Serruys observed, Ming titles or ranks were themselves a matter of prestige, as well as of material interest, since the higher the Mongols’ ranks, the richer the presents they received in return for tribute.117 In November 1413, Arughtai requested Ming titles for 2,962 subordinates.118 In February 1414, he requested titles for 129 subordinates, followed by two similar requests in October 1414 and February 1415,119 all of which were satisfied by the Yongle emperor. Apparently, Arughtai was helping his subordinates share in the benefits of tributary relations with the Ming in order to strengthen their position in the steppe. The intention was revealed early. As noted, in 1411 he tried to alienate the Ming and the Oirats. In 1412 he requested that the emperor accept him as overlord of the Jurchens and Tibetans.120 In 1413 he offered to lead a Ming army for revenge against Mahmud. He was thus not only exploiting tributary relations for material benefits but also trying to manipulate Ming power to weaken his rival and enhance his own position. During those years he waited quietly to gather strength, avoiding, for example, participation in the emperor’s 1414 campaign against Mahmud. After 1416 he began to plunder Oirat territory and, after 1419, to challenge the Ming too. Why did he turn hostile toward the Ming? Hostility broke out between Arughtai and the Ming because the two sides’ strategies in the steppe were in fundamental conflict with each other. A strong Arughtai bent on steppe hegemony was bound to find rewards from the Ming insufficient for his cause, whereas a confident Yongle emperor determined to maintain Ming superiority in the steppe was bound to find Arughtai’s challenge unacceptable.

  chapter 5

The preeminent strategy of the Mongols was thus deference—taking advantage of tributary relations with China and exploiting China’s economic and military resources to enrich, strengthen, and/or protect themselves for self-interested ends, including survival, protection, power, and hegemony. Of the three relationships examined in this study, the exploitative nature of the strategy of deference was most evident in Mongol relations with the Ming. It can in fact subsume what Barfield has identified as the strategy of extortion while also conveying the meaning of the Mongols’ use and abuse of Ming power.121 At core, it is a self-strengthening strategy for the maximization of self-interest.122 Exploitative self-strengthening was possible because Chinese resources had interrelated economic, political, and military functions. Chinese wealth was useful for the Mongols for an important reason found only in the nomadic world. The Mongols themselves rested on animal wealth, and the animals had to be pastured extensively and could not be concentrated in a governmental center of power; but Chinese wealth, represented by rewards such as paper money (which could be used in trade with Chinese merchants, among other things), silver, textiles, grain, and so on, could be stored. This wealth, which the Mongols could not obtain by themselves, could moreover enable tribal rulers to buy their followers’ obedience, which was critical for the tribe’s overall power.123 Wealth therefore had direct economic and political functions for ambitious chieftains. In addition, tribute could bring not only Chinese wealth but also political prestige and military advantage. Ming official titles could enhance a chieftain’s prestige among his followers and other tribes. Some chieftains attached such importance to them that they passed down Ming seals and edicts through generations, in some cases until Qing times.124 Being a nominal Ming vassal could in principle bring Ming military protection. In fact, this was what Arughtai came close to achieving around 1413. The Ming regime was reluctant to provide direct military support, but nor was it willing to see him destroyed by Mahmud. Ming power could also be used to play intertribe politics. Both Arughtai and Mahmud tried to manipulate their relations with the Ming to damage the other. Finally, it is important to note that Mahmud explicitly requested weapons from the Ming because of his inability to produce sufficient numbers for military expansion. No wonder, then, that the Mongols simply ignored Chinese protocols about the frequency and size of their tributary missions.

Sino-Mongol Relations  

Was there any possibility of using the identification strategy? The answer is no, for it was not so much China’s culture or moral superiority as its economic resources that had attracted the Mongols to the Chinese court. Cultural appeal, observed Henry Serruys, was never the decisive factor for the Mongols: profit was.125 One marvel during the Yongle reign was that no sooner had conflict ended than the Mongols came to the Ming court to present tribute, as Arughtai did in 1411 and Mahmud did in 1415.126 From the Mongol point of view, tribute to the Ming appeared as the routine confirmation of a customary right to trade.127 Indeed, Mongol chronicles “reflect a tradition among the Mongols that return gifts for their tribute were a tribute paid to them, non-payment of which was apt to trigger instant retaliation.”128 Serruys further remarked that for other nomads as well, “there is no basis to think that they considered themselves in any way obligated to send tribute as an expression of submission or vassality.”129 Deference was therefore the dominant strategy of the Eastern Mongols in the period 1411–1418 and the Oirats in the periods 1408–1412 and 1415–1424.

Conclusion Like the chapter case studies of Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relations, this chapter also concludes by addressing five questions in relation to the theoretical claims of Chapter 2. First, what were the respective grand strategies that early Ming emperors and Mongol rulers adopted in their interactions? Second, was expressive rationality an important feature of their relations? Third, was the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship a facilitating condition of specific rationality? Fourth, does the narrative method help us understand the process of Sino-Mongol strategic interaction? And finally, was the Sino-Mongol relationship during this period a relationship of hierarchical authority? Again, as in their relations with the Koreans and the Japanese, early Ming emperors also developed varying degrees of instrumental and expressive rationalities toward the Mongols, particularly in the case of the Yongle emperor. The Hongwu emperor’s strategy was consistently characterized by instrumental hierarchy, based on a very high degree of instrumental rationality. His reign was marked by the conquest of the Northern Yuan court and other Yuan loyalists in the Mongolian steppe, an understandable outcome given the Yuan-Ming dynastic transition and his status as the founding emperor.

  chapter 5 table 5.1 Evolution of Chinese strategies toward the Mongols Relationship

Period

Strategy

Hongwu-Northern Yuan

1368–1398

Instrumental hierarchy

Yongle-Eastern Mongols

1403–April 1409 July 1409–1410 1411–1418 1419–1424

Expressive hierarchy Instrumental hierarchy Expressive hierarchy Instrumental hierarchy

Yongle-Oirats

1403–1412 1413–1414 1415–1424

Expressive hierarchy Instrumental hierarchy Expressive hierarchy

The pattern of the Yongle emperor’s strategies toward the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats was considerably more interesting. They alternated between expressive hierarchy when his relations with the Mongols were relatively amicable and instrumental hierarchy when relational conflict broke out. Thus, his strategy toward the Eastern Mongols shifted between expressive hierarchy (1403–April 1409), instrumental hierarchy (July 1409–1410), expressive hierarchy (1411–1418), and instrumental hierarchy (1419–1424). And his strategy toward the Oirat Mongols similarly shifted between expressive hierarchy (1403–1412), instrumental hierarchy (1413–1414), and expressive hierarchy (1415–1424). Table 5.1 shows the trajectory of Chinese strategies toward the Mongols. On the whole, the Mongols were on the defensive against Chinese encroachment on the steppe. During the Hongwu reign they had to ensure political and military survival. Although the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats attempted to achieve hegemony in the steppe during the Yongle reign, survival was still a basic task. All of the main Mongol leaders during both reigns tried the strategy of exit by defying and challenging Ming authority. A more prominent strategy adopted by the Eastern Mongol leader Arughtai and the Oirat leader Mahmud during the Yongle reign was deference—­exploiting Chinese resources through tributary relations for self-strengthening. In contrast to the strategies of Korean and Japanese rulers toward the Ming in which elements of identification existed, the Mongols could not have entertained such a notion, because the overriding motive of their tribute to the Ming was material benefit rather than cultural borrowing. Table 5.2 shows the evolution of the Mongols’ strategies toward Ming China.

Sino-Mongol Relations   table 5.2 Evolution of Mongol strategies toward China Actor

Period

Strategy

Northern Yuan

1368–1398

Exit

Eastern Mongols

1403–1410 1411–1418 1419–1424

Exit Deference Exit

Oirats

1403–1407 1408–1412 1413–1414 1415–1424

Exit Deference Exit Deference

Tables 5.1 and 5.2 show that while instrumental hierarchy dominated the Hongwu emperor’s strategy (for thirty-one years), the Yongle emperor adopted expressive hierarchy more often than instrumental hierarchy. Toward the Eastern Mongols, he practiced expressive hierarchy for fourteen years and instrumental hierarchy for eight years, and toward the Oirats, he adopted expressive hierarchy for twenty years and instrumental hierarchy for two years. Thus, expressive hierarchy stands out as the more prominent strategy of the Yongle emperor toward both the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats. And the strategy was overall more impressive in Sino-Mongol relations than in Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relations. Although none of the Mongol rulers adopted the strategy of identification toward Ming China, the prominence of the Chinese strategy of expressive hierarchy demonstrates the significance of expressive rationality in the relationship. Did the degree of conflict of interest in the relationship condition actor rationality? The Mongols constantly based their approaches to China on instrumental rationality. The degree of their instrumental rationality varied very little between the more confrontational strategy of exit and the more accommodationist strategy of deference. Apparently, the Mongols did not develop expressive rationality toward China at all, making their strategic rationality more or less constantly centered on instrumental rationality. One can easily explain this by pointing out that Confucianism had little influence on the Mongols. Expressive rationality, rooted in the Confucian paradigm of relational social life, was therefore alien to them. This confirms the hypothesis that cultural affinity conditions strategic rationality, especially for non-Confucian polities. At the same time, there was a strong correlation

  chapter 5

between the degree of conflict of interest and Chinese strategic rationality. The strategy of expressive hierarchy always took place when the Chinese and the Mongols were on relatively good terms, and instrumental hierarchy always came to the fore when relational conflict broke out, as the foregoing empirical analysis has made clear. As with the preceding chapters on Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese relations, this chapter uses the method of contextualizing historical narrative to trace the relational process of grand strategy formation and the relational nature of rationality. The Hongwu emperor’s strategy was consistently consequentialist as a result of the continual presence of the Mongol threat. The Yongle emperor’s initial thinking was expressive, facilitated by the fact that in the beginning of his reign the Mongols were fragmented into competing camps without posing an immediate threat to China. Gradually, however, the emperor revealed varying degrees of expressive and instrumental rationalities, depending on the severity of the Mongol threat. When the Mongols came to submit, he was a humane Confucian ruler. But when they challenged his authority and raided the frontier, he became substantially more instrumental, even though his discourse was still couched in Confucian terms. The case of the Yongle emperor is interesting because rather than a linear evolution of his strategy from expressive hierarchy to instrumental hierarchy, it alternated between the two as his relationship with the Mongols alternated between peaceful tributary exchange and violent raid and conflict. Grand strategy formation and rationality are thus endogenous to relational dynamics. Finally, was the Sino-Mongol relationship of the period 1368–1424 a relationship of Chinese hierarchical authority? The Eastern Mongols adopted the strategy of deference toward the Yongle emperor for eight years, and the Oirats adopted the same strategy toward the Yongle emperor for fifteen years. For the rest of the early Ming period, their strategy was dominated by exit. Thus, judging from the place of deference in their overall approach, Ming China possessed some authority over the Mongols. Interestingly, it was of a greater degree than Chinese authority over Japanese rulers during the same period. But it was never as great as Chinese authority over Korean rulers. The prominence of the Mongol strategy of exit exposed the considerable limits of Chinese authority.

six

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony

The case studies of Sino-Korean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Mongol relations during the early Ming period have examined the processes of grand strategic interactions in these relationships. They have evaluated my relational theory and demonstrated its explanatory power and insights into strategic patterns in regional relations. Did these strategic processes also reveal the fundamental institutional practices that sustained regional order? This chapter, in deducing the institutional implications of the theoretical and empirical analyses of the preceding four chapters, will answer that question. The existing literature provides a ready answer to the institutional question. The famous paradigm of the tribute system, invented by historians a long time ago and adapted by international relations (IR) scholars in more recent research, asserts that the tribute system is the fundamental institution of regional order. Yet this paradigm has come under mounting attack in historical scholarship since the 1980s. Arthur Waldron has gone so far as to declare it “a discredited theory” and an “utterly false” interpretation.1 In IR, existing institutional approaches have not demonstrated the causal processes whereby the tribute system exercised its supposed institutional effects on actor behavior. Their structural insights come at the expense of explaining the origin and change of the institution of the tribute system at the agential level. In this chapter, I make a twofold argument on the tribute system. On the one hand, one may usefully conceptualize the tribute system as a distinct international society. Such a conception, however, demands a t­heoretical and empirical demonstration of the causal processes whereby the social 

  chapter 6

structure of the tribute system applied its structural effects on actor behavior. The theory and case studies in this book, I suggest, have implicitly provided such an analysis by explaining the causal processes by which the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy affected actor strategy and behavior. The agency in regional relations lay in part in the grand strategic interactions between early Ming China and its neighbors. This analysis is a contribution to existing institutional approaches, complementing their structuralism by adding the agential side of the story. On the other hand, I argue that an exclusive focus on the tribute system is unlikely to capture the full institutional dynamics of regional politics. Other fundamental institutions worked alongside tributary diplomacy to sustain regional order. The practical importance of these institutions varied historically, but tributary diplomacy was not always dominant. The paradigm of the tribute system thus contains inherent limits in accounting for historical East Asian politics, because tribute was far from the totality of regional relations. This argument is embedded within a larger analysis of the institutional structure of the East Asian international society of Chinese hegemony. Chapter 1 established Chinese material primacy in the region during the early Ming period. The case studies then assessed the degree of China’s hierarchical authority over regional actors, suggesting that early Ming China possessed incomplete hegemony in the region. It was at the same time, though, a distinct international society with its own rules, norms, and institutions. I develop a relational framework of the constitutional structure of the society of Chinese hegemony by applying my relational approach and by drawing on English School and constructivist theories of international institutions. The findings offer a more sophisticated account of regional institutions and reveal their normative and strategic underpinnings. Although tributary diplomacy was an extremely consequential institution, it was not always the most important one. This chapter explains the institutional manifestations of tributary diplomacy while also observing other fundamental institutional practices. The society of Chinese hegemony, as we will see, was broader and more dynamic than the tribute system.

Early Ming China’s Incomplete Hegemony Chapter 1 provided some quantitative data to show that the East Asian order during the early Ming period was one of Chinese primacy or unipolar-

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony  

ity, understood in terms of the dominance of China’s material capability. Did this Chinese primacy also mean Chinese hegemony? Hegemony entails the additional component of international authority, as noted in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 suggested that China possesses no authority over other actors when those actors adopted strategies of access and exit, some authority when they adopted a strategy of deference, and great authority when they adopted a strategy of identification. If we use these criteria to measure the degree of Chinese authority, it becomes clear that the East Asian order during the early Ming period, judging from Korean, Japanese, and Mongol strategic responses to Chinese power, was an incomplete Chinese hegemony. Identification stood out as the major strategic approach of the Choso˘n court of Korea but did not dominate the strategies of Japanese and Mongol rulers. But nor were access and exit on the whole, even though at times they were salient in Japanese and Mongol strategies. The major strategy, adopted simultaneously by the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Mongols, was deference for their varied self-interest by exploiting Chinese resources, particularly in the cases of the Mongols and the Koreans. Indeed, deference was the only secondary strategic response to Chinese power present in all three case studies examined in this book. Thus, early Ming China possessed a reasonable, though far from complete, degree of regional hegemony. That it was incomplete is hardly surprising given the nature of political authority as a matter of degree. In fact, every hegemony is incomplete, even in the case of contemporary US hegemony.2 Hegemons confront challenges not only from their rivals but also sometimes from their closest supporters, even if they fundamentally set the rules of the game. The extent of Chinese hegemony and the rules of the game China set for East Asian politics are considerable when viewed against the conventional assumption of anarchy in international relations.3 It was particularly impressive in the relationship between Ming China and Choso˘n Korea. True, early Ming China encountered some resistance and challenge from its neighbors as reflected in those neighbors’ strategy of exit, thus suggesting the anarchic dimension of regional politics too.4 But it never had to confront a systemic, antihegemonic response in the form of, say, a counterbalancing coalition characteristic of modern European politics. Even the Mongols, with whom the Ming maintained the most unstable and conflictual relationship of all of its foreign relations, had abandoned their ambition of overthrowing the Ming regime by the end of the Hongwu

  chapter 6

reign. On the whole, then, Chinese primacy in early Ming East Asia was also a Chinese hegemony accepted by its neighbors to varying degrees.

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony What were the foundations of this Chinese hegemony understood as a broadly legitimate Chinese leadership in the region? How was it maintained in practice? In asking these questions, we are entering the realm of English School theories of international institutions as the fundamental source of international order. Hedley Bull defined institution as “a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realisation of common goals,” as “an expression of the element of collaboration among states in discharging their political functions—and at the same time a means of sustaining this collaboration.”5 Expanding Bull’s classical argument, Barry Buzan views primary institutions “as durable and recognised patterns of shared practices rooted in values held commonly by the members of interstate societies, and embodying a mix of norms, rules and principles.”6 One of the most important attempts to explain institutional formation is Christian Reus-Smit’s theory of the constitutional structure of international society. Starting from the English School perspective of seeing institutions as agents for achieving and sustaining international order, Reus-Smit defines fundamental institutions as “the elementary rules of practice that states formulate to solve the coordination and collaboration problems associated with coexistence under anarchy.”7 Developing a historically informed constructivist theory of fundamental institutional construction, Reus-Smit disassembles the constitutional structures of international society into three normative components: “a hegemonic belief about the moral purpose of the state, an organizing principle of sovereignty, and a systemic norm of procedural justice.”8 Although Reus-Smit’s case studies focus on European history, the theory may be applied to other historical contexts, such as the East Asian one, as Zhang Yongjin and Barry Buzan have done recently.9 But such application is not unproblematic. The key limitation is the fundamentally European experience of sovereign statehood from which the theory draws its inspiration, reflected in such key terms as state, sovereignty, and justice in its typology of constitutional structure. Reus-Smit himself seems to acknowledge its limitation in cases of “suzerain or heteronomous forms of political or-

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony  

ganization.”10 Not to judge its applicability a priori, I propose a different framework by drawing on Reus-Smit’s framework while applying my own relational perspective. Yet theorizing fundamental institutions of Chinese hegemony may at first sight seem unnecessary, for Ian Clark has recently stressed the utility of conceptualizing hegemony itself as an international institution. Defining hegemony as “an institutionalized practice of special rights and responsibilities, conferred by international society or a constituency within it, on a state (or states) with the resources to lead,” Clark theorizes hegemony as a primary institution of international society with distinct institutional forms.11 Yet the definition of hegemony adopted here—the conjunction of material primacy and international authority—requires seeing it as first and foremost a social structure rather than an institution in itself. The institutionalized practices that the social structure of hegemony enables need to be examined at a lower level of analysis and in their own light. In other words, hegemony must have its own fundamental institutions that are distinct from the social structure of legitimate authority itself. Accordingly, I conceptualize Chinese hegemony as a primary international society—rather than an international institution—in the history of East Asian international relations. the constitutional structure of chinese hegemony

A relational perspective suggests three primary normative components parallel to those of Reus-Smit’s framework: a hegemonic belief about the moral purpose of international relationships, a central principle of relational rationality, and a systemic norm of procedural appropriateness (see Figure 6.1). Two revisions to the framework in my relational approach are important. First, in place of Reus-Smit’s somewhat state-centric conception of legitimate statehood and rightful state action is a relational view of the moral purpose of international relationships; and in place of his concern with the organization of state sovereignty is an emphasis on stable relationships as reflecting relational rationality in international relations. In general, imperial China had only a weak conception of ethnicity and territoriality, which are among the requisites of modern nation-states.12 A historical Chinese and East Asian conception of sovereignty would have differed substantially from the modern European nation-state model. China organized its foreign relations not around a legally binding principle of sovereign territoriality, but around a vague ethical notion of its continuously radiating political and

  chapter 6 Moral purpose of international relationships

Central principle of relational rationality

Systemic norm of procedural appropriateness

figure 6.1 A relational framework of the constitutional structure of international society source: Reus-Smit 1999, 31. Copyright © 1999 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

cultural authority.13 The concept of sovereignty must be given a rigorous analytical specification in order to apply it to historical East Asia without losing considerable analytical insights.14 Second, the concept of justice, a term rooted in Western political theory, is replaced by appropriateness (yi 義), more neutral and reflective of the East Asian experience.15 Although yi is related to justice, it lacks the latter’s overtones of an absolute moral standard. In the Chinese view, yi is an outcome of expressive rationality, and its context-dependent achievement is considered a higher principle than justice based on some absolute standard.16 China’s hegemonic belief about the moral purpose of international relationships can be summarized as the promotion of a universal ethical world order based on Confucian propriety and underpinned by China’s relational authority. This moral purpose derives from the central focus of Confucian politics on ethical education.17 As Joseph Chan puts it, “If the Greek conception of political community is political or collective, then the Chinese conception can be called ethical. In the Chinese conception, the importance of politics lies not in collective participation in collective decisions, but in its promotion of the highest moral good in individual lives (ren), and its accompanying moral order, a harmonious order of social relationships.”18 The normative universality of China’s world order is encapsulated by such terms as wu wai (無外 no outer-separation)19 and tianxia (天下 literally “all under heaven”) that the early Ming emperors used repeatedly. In practice, Chinese rulers usually recognized the limits of their power,20 and they harbored no intention to rule the entire world. Even the boundaries

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of an ideologically constructed Sinocentric world—the tianxia—varied in different times and even in the mind of the same ruler.21 But the pretense of universalism was nonetheless strong, and the stated intention was to create with all peoples of the known world a hierarchical authority relationship in political and familial terms according to emperor-vassal and father-son role differentiation (see Chapter 2). In practice, again, the degree of hierarchy could vary greatly from a very substantial emperor-vassal relationship with close tributaries such as Korea to a nominal contact-only relationship with remote peoples. Such ethically based relationships were believed to be able to cultivate the moral excellence of all peoples while bringing security, peace, and order to the world, thus fulfilling the moral purpose of Chinese authority in the world. The structure of world order was always conceived of relationally in terms of the emperor’s distinct bilateral relationships with his subjects, inside and outside the empire, rather than in the interstate terms that have come to dominate modern international relations. Indeed, the “state” as such had no moral purpose in the traditional Chinese case, imagined as it was by elites “as a patrimonial household bound together by artificial kinship.”22 And the term zhong guo (中國) that is now translated as “China” was used more in a cultural sense as an acknowledgement of cultural excellence than in a statist sense as “nation-state.”23 The empire of “China” was in practice neither a territorial state nor a homogeneous community. The Chinese “state” thus bore no obligation of promoting Chinese civilization, but the emperor’s role as the embodiment of the Central Kingdom (Zhong Guo 中國) or Central Civilization (Hua Xia 華夏) entailed the profound moral purpose of bringing propriety, order, and peace to the world as one universal family presided over by the emperor as patriarch.24 Thus, as we have seen, early Ming emperors repeatedly announced that the nature of the world was as one family (tianxia yijia 天下一家). They positioned themselves as rulers of this world family, rejecting any gulf between the hua (culturally Chinese) and yi (culturally inferior non-Chinese) (hua yi wu jian 華夷無間). They emphasized the hierarchical differentiation of the Chinese emperor as the superordinate ruler and all other peoples as his subordinate subjects (junchen shangxia zhifen 君臣上下之分). They stressed the intention to ensure peace and enable all peoples to have their proper places (wei yu yi an xian de qi suo 惟欲乂安咸得其所), and they declared the goal of sharing the fortune of peace (gongxiang taiping zhifu 共享太平之福) with them.

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China’s central normative principle of relational rationality has already been suggested by the concept of expressive rationality, posited in Chapter 2. We can now be more specific: it was almost perfectly captured by the Confucian concepts of li (禮), propriety in roles and relations, and yi (義), optimal appropriateness, grounded on expressive rationality. Indeed, in Confucian role ethics li is seen as the essential cement of society, the universal principle of relational interaction, and the fundamental basis of world order.25 Reus-Smit notes that organizing principles define the mode of differentiation.26 How li differentiated political units in East Asian history was also explained in Chapter 2: li embodied the logic of hierarchical differentiation, producing an international network of distinct bilateral relationships between the Chinese emperor and non-Chinese rulers, their strength or intimacy determined and differentiated according to foreign polities’ cultural affinity with China. What, specifically, did the Chinese conception of the propriety in roles and relations refer to? The central component, as we have observed in the historical case studies, was the propriety of serving the great by the small (yi xiao shi da zhi li 以小事大之禮). This entailed a set of reciprocal obligations between the Chinese emperor and foreign rulers centered on the mutual principle of integrity (cheng 誠). Foreign rulers were required to observe the subordinate integrity of loyalty (zhong 忠), obedience (shun 順), and trustworthiness (xin 信) for serving China as the great and superior polity; the Chinese emperor, the superordinate integrity of moral excellence (de 德), humaneness (ren 仁), and grace (en 恩) for loving smaller and inferior polities (zi xiao 字小). Thus, early Ming emperors repeatedly emphasized the importance of observing the propriety of serving the great and reprimanded foreign rulers for lacking propriety or integrity when they were seen as failing in this key obligation. Lacking integrity or propriety was considered a serious offense, and offenders were often accused in terms of deceitfulness (zha 詐) and lack of gratitude (bu huai en 不懷恩), to be rectified by improving moral excellence and changing behavior (xiu de gai xing 脩德改行). The third normative component of the constitutional structure of Chinese hegemony—the systemic norm of procedural appropriateness—is well encapsulated by the Chinese term muyi guixiang (慕義歸向). That is, foreign rulers were expected to emulate Chinese standards of appropriateness in relational conduct, submit to Chinese authority, and transform themselves along the lines of Chinese culture and custom—or emulative

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­submission for short.27 Informed by the moral purpose of promoting an ethical world order and based on the relational rationality of the propriety of serving the great by the small and loving the small by the great, the Chinese conception of procedural appropriateness in the relationship between the Chinese emperor and foreign rulers promoted the emperor’s cherishing of all those who came to submit as his vassals. His love of foreign peoples would thus be demonstrated by such cherishing, and foreign rulers’ serving of China by their submission. The relationship that resulted from this procedural appropriateness was highly asymmetric in form: unidirectional, it was always non-Chinese rulers or their envoys who came to offer emulative submission to the emperor, never the other way around. Chinese envoys were dispatched only to perform ad hoc diplomatic functions that would supposedly demonstrate Chinese humaneness, rather than purposefully maintaining diplomatic relations on a regular basis. Regular tributary relations were expected from abroad once initial contacts were established, not consciously or actively maintained by China. Indeed, the Hongwu emperor’s attempts to regulate tributary embassies by stipulating their frequencies, scales, and routes reflected an intention to control and limit, rather than to enhance and increase, contact with foreign peoples. the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy

The constitutional structure of Chinese hegemony—characterized by the moral purpose of promoting a universal ethical world order, the relational rationality of serving the great by the small, and the procedural appropriateness of emulative submission—shaped distinct institutional practices. The most significant of these was the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy. What are the essential institutional manifestations of tributary diplomacy in East Asian history? In the most obvious sense, tributary diplomacy refers to a diplomatic process whereby non-Chinese rulers or, most often, their representatives established official relations with China by coming to the Chinese court and offering tribute in the form of native products to the Chinese emperor in token of their submission as the emperor’s outer vassals. Such tributary embassy was variously referred to in Chinese sources as chaogong (朝貢), zhigong (職貢), and laigong (來貢). The translation of the Chinese term gong as “tribute” is useful (though not unproblematic)28 for conveying the

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­ ierarchical gift-exchange aspect—foreign tribute presentation and Chinese h bestowals in return—of the diplomatic process. But tribute should not be seen as the only or even the main point of the tributary embassy. The main point was diplomatic communication, primarily affirming the mutual but unequal authorities of the Chinese emperor and foreign rulers, sometimes also carrying out specific tasks of foreign policy, and accompanied almost always by trade in the Chinese capital and en route.29 Tributary embassy constituted a fundamental institutional practice of Chinese hegemony because, as explained already, China’s norm of procedural appropriateness required foreign rulers’ emulative submission as the essential mechanism for establishing official relations. In other words, emulative submission by way of tributary embassy was the only normatively sanctioned means of establishing and sustaining official relations with China. In reality, of course, norm did not always translate into practice, and Chinese rulers in certain circumstances may have been willing to conduct foreign relations on a different basis. During periods of division or weakness, such as the Han (206 B.C.–A.D.220) and the Song (A.D. 960–1279), Chinese rulers in effect approached foreign policy toward powerful nomadic rulers from a position of Chinese equality or even inferiority. Even in times of Chinese unity and strength, hierarchy was not always the exclusive principle. According to Joseph Fletcher, even the Yongle emperor was willing to compromise his claim of world authority by addressing the ruler of the Timurid empire in Central Asia as an equal monarch. And outside of China, Chinese ambassadors at different times accepted the equality of Herat, Lhasa, Kokand, and Moscow as “the unseen side of a long-established tradition.”30 But tributary embassy was nonetheless China’s hegemonic conception of international relations, and under the condition of Chinese hegemony such as during the early Ming, it was substantially, though not completely, realized in practice. When Japanese and Mongol leaders refused to pay tribute, we can say that the dynamics of their interactions with China were reflected not in tributary diplomacy, but perhaps in other institutions, such as war, trade, and communicative diplomacy, to be discussed later in this chapter. Conceiving of tributary diplomacy only in terms of foreign tributary embassy is, however, too narrow, for it describes only the initiatives of non-Chinese rulers and not those of China at all. On the Chinese side, at least two other institutional practices need to be seen as important compo-

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nents of tributary diplomacy: Chinese investiture and directive embassy. Investiture, known in Chinese as ce (册), feng (封), ceming (册命), or cefeng (册封), refers to a political-diplomatic process whereby the Chinese emperor acted to confer the authority and symbols of a high office (e.g., king, lord, general) on a foreign ruler, either in the Chinese court on the occasion of a foreign ruler’s visit or on foreign soil during a Chinese diplomatic mission abroad.31 Early Ming investitures of Korean, Japanese, and Mongol rulers all took place outside of China because none of those rulers visited the Ming court in person. Chinese investiture and foreign tribute were not reciprocal in the sense that tributary embassy was necessarily returned with investiture.32 In fact, Chinese investiture, reflecting the logic of hierarchical differentiation discussed in Chapter 2, was discriminatively given only to rulers of political units that China perceived as culturally close, politically important, or strategically useful. For example, the early Ming investiture of Korean rulers was mainly based on Korea’s cultural affinity with China, but at times it was also strategically motivated, as in the Hongwu emperor’s withholding and granting of investiture to King U. Historically, Chinese investitures were granted to rulers of Korea, Vietnam, Japan, some Inner Asian tribes, and a few Southeast Asian kingdoms—a very wide range indeed.33 Although perhaps not as noteworthy as tributary embassy, Chinese investiture played the important role of establishing and confirming the varied political statuses of polities within the international society of Chinese hegemony, thus contributing to the creation of a hierarchically differentiated Sinocentric world order. Even if not singled out as a distinct institution itself, investiture should be considered an important practice related to the institution of tributary diplomacy.34 But tributary embassy and Chinese investiture still do not represent the full institutional dynamics of tributary diplomacy. We have seen in the case studies that when a tributary relationship was in operation, China occasionally dispatched envoys for specialized tasks. All of the early Ming emperors, for example, requisitioned horses from Korea. In the case of the Yongle emperor, the requisition list also included eunuchs, virgins, paper, and Buddhist artifacts. And the Koreans frequently resented the Chinese envoys on those missions, usually eunuchs from the emperor’s inner court. We would need a concept such as directive embassy to describe the institutional practice of China’s dispatching envoys to perform specific superordinate

  chapter 6

diplomatic tasks as part of the institutional complex of tributary diplomacy.35 The Chinese ambassador was always appointed only for an ad hoc task and stayed temporarily at a guest lodge in the capital of his host country, never as a permanent representative of the court with an official residence abroad.36 The institution of resident diplomats for permanent representation abroad is a modern European invention, reflecting a very different understanding of the nature of diplomacy. Tributary diplomacy was, then, a political and diplomatic process whereby non-Chinese rulers and the Chinese emperor established and sustained a hierarchical relationship symbolized by the former’s tributary submission and the latter’s investiture and injunctions for realizing their respective aspirations and interests. On the whole, consistent with the nature of the procedural appropriateness of emulative submission, it was asymmetric in form, running more from the non-Chinese to the Chinese side than the other way around, and often finding more enthusiasm in foreign polities than in the Chinese court. The precise institutional composition of tributary diplomacy may vary historically. We have discussed three main components—tributary embassy, Chinese investiture, and directive embassy—suggested by the early Ming experience. Other forms may be found beyond the Ming, such as hostage taking during the Han and Tang.37 Informed by the constitutional structure of Chinese hegemony, tributary diplomacy in all those manifestations was always hierarchical, asymmetric, and bilateral. communicative diplomacy, war, and trade

Even with the establishment of proper tributary relations, China’s international relations cannot be exclusively described or explained by tributary diplomacy in terms of foreign tributary embassy and China’s investiture and directive embassy. There was, to start with, another type of diplomacy conducted when Chinese hegemony was incomplete or broken down. This is what I call the institution of communicative diplomacy, the function of which was to establish contacts, probe intentions, gather intelligence, and perform other kinds of nonhierarchical and nontributary diplomatic tasks when proper tributary relations had yet to be established or had collapsed. Thus, we have seen that early Ming emperors dispatched envoys to announce their enthronement to Korea, Japan, and Mongol tribes before the

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establishment of official relations with them. They urged Japanese rulers to take a particular policy stance, such as suppressing piracy, when proper tributary relations were nonexistent. And they threatened Mongol chieftains with war once they discontinued tributary missions. And we should not preclude the possibility of foreign rulers’ sending communicative rather than tributary embassies, particularly the Mongols and other Inner Asian peoples. Second, war was also an important institutional practice of Chinese hegemony. Bull noted “a dual aspect” of war in international society. Although it is a manifestation of disorder and therefore must be limited and contained, war also has a positive role in maintaining international order.38 In principle such a dual aspect should also manifest itself in East Asian history. War is a threat to international peace and stability when fought for aggression, conquest, and colonization. But it may become an enforcer for peace and order when fought in self-defense, on behalf of the victims of aggression, to restore a status quo ante, or to maintain propriety and appropriateness. In this regard, one may posit the Confucian understanding of punitive expedition—Confucianism’s own theory of just, or, more accurately, “appropriate” war (yi zhan 義戰)—as one possible institution for maintaining the international society of Chinese hegemony. The theory had apparently influenced the early Ming emperors. The Hongwu emperor, for example, declared matter-of-factly to Japanese rulers that the loyal must be cherished while the disobedient must be punished (fu shun fa ni 撫順伐逆). Their policies suggested the condition of waging an “appropriate war” as when foreign rulers failed to observe the propriety of serving the great and thus destabilized the ethical order based on such propriety. And they implied the purpose of such wars as the restoration and promotion of an appropriate ethical order. Thus, the Yongle emperor announced that “the disobedient must be exterminated” (niming zhe bi jianchu zhi er 逆命者必殲除之耳) while justifying his wars as attempts to punish (tao 討) or rectify (zheng 正) the “crimes” (zui 罪) committed by the Mongols. The Mongols’ accused lack of integrity (bu cheng 不誠), betrayal of his grace (bei en 背恩), failing of his moral excellence (fu de 負德), and violation of trustworthiness and appropriateness (weibei xin yi 違背信義) were sometimes deemed sufficient grounds for launching punitive forces. We can neither believe such discourse at face value nor take for granted the alleged motivation of maintaining a

  chapter 6

­ onfucian ethical order, since the theory of punitive expedition was just C a cultural theory reflecting the normative assumptions of Chinese rulers. “Punitive expeditions,” as viewed by imperial Chinese rulers, were by no means inherently appropriate or justifiable. In fact, Chapter 5 argued that none of the Yongle emperor’s campaigns into Mongolia could be justified purely on the grounds of Confucian punishment. We may, however, allow for the possibility of war understood as China’s punitive expedition being an institution of the society of Chinese hegemony. But even if war is not so understood, it can still be an important institution for maintaining East Asian order. The best example of this is perhaps the Imjin War (1592–1598) of the late Ming period, fought on Korean soil by joint Korean and Chinese forces to repel Japanese invasion of the peninsula.39 Third, trade also appeared as a supplementary institution of Chinese hegemony in five different forms. First, the presentation ceremony of foreign “tributary goods” (gong pin 貢品) and Chinese gifts in reply carried out at the Chinese court as the most formal part of official diplomacy was seen by many foreign envoys as a particular form of trade.40 From the perspective of the Ming court, however, it was simply gift exchange, and the political significance of the rite far outweighed the commercial value of the transaction. Second, the Ming court also purchased the “private goods” (si wu 私物) imported by tributary missions at a rate usually higher than the market value. Such transaction can certainly be seen as a distinct form of trade, as suggested by the Chinese term geijia (給價 giving value).41 Third, foreign envoys also traded their private goods inside China with Chinese merchants and private persons alike, especially at the Hui Tong Guan (會同館 College of Interpreters) in the capital and at the Shi Bo Si (市舶司 Office of Merchant Ships) in the coastal cities of Ningbo, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou. Fourth, occasionally the Ming court directly dispatched international trade missions, as was partly the purpose of Zheng He’s expeditions.42 These four forms of trade may be seen as “tributary trade” embedded within the institution of tributary diplomacy discussed earlier.43 In the fifth form—and beyond tributary trade—the Ming government also established specialized tea and horse markets on its frontiers for mutual trade between peoples on both sides, such as with Korea, the Jurchens, and the Uriyanghkha Mongols in the northeast and with other Mongols and Inner Asian peoples in the northwest.44 In addition, private maritime trade on the southern coast still took place despite official maritime prohibitions.45

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Thus, trade was also frequently practiced outside tributary diplomacy, 46 even eclipsing it at times.47 But it is true that while the Yongle emperor seemed to understand the role of trade, in general trade was a marginal element in early Ming foreign relations and was viewed unfavorably as a policy instrument. It is therefore appropriate to characterize trade as a supplementary institution of early Ming Chinese hegemony. In all, then, the international society of Chinese hegemony was characterized by at least four distinct institutional practices informed by its constitutional structure: tributary diplomacy, communicative diplomacy, war, and trade (see Table 6.1). Tributary diplomacy was the most significant and fundamental—though not the only noteworthy—institution. How did these institutions contribute to order in the society of Chinese hegemony? Buzan identifies five potential functions of primary institutions in international society: defining membership, facilitating authoritative communication, establishing limits to the use of force, allocating property rights, and maintaining sanctity of agreements.48 Tributary diplomacy helped define the membership of China’s hegemonic society and assign differential political statuses to its tributary vassals in this hierarchical society. It sustained authoritative communication between the Chinese emperor and foreign rulers. It routinely affirmed their unequal relationships, facilitated adjustment to changing realities, and resolved policy issues as they arose, thus contributing to the health and solidity of relationships.49 It at times restrained the use of force by promoting an ethical world order, by encouraging relational propriety, by mediating disputes, and by offering security protection.50 And it either allowed trade and commerce within limits

table 6.1 Institutional structure of the international society of Chinese hegemony constitutional structure 1. Moral purpose of international relationships

Promotion of a universal ethical world order

2. Central principle of relational rationality

Propriety of serving the great by the small and loving the small by the great

3. Systemic norm of procedural appropriateness

Emulative submission

fundamental institutions Tributary diplomacy, communicative diplomacy, war, and trade

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(as during the Ming and Qing) or encouraged and expanded them (as during the Tang, Song, and Yuan). Communicative diplomacy played the more prosaic role of carrying out normal, nontributary relations between China and its neighbors. War to varying degrees served to defend against aggression, preserve peace, punish transgressors of propriety, and restore order and stability. For people in need, trade played the straightforward but very important function of exchanging material goods. In the middle to late Ming, for example, trade was the key institution—indeed, the sine qua non—for keeping peace between the Chinese and the Mongols.51 It also helped satisfy the commercial desires of merchants and even state authorities. the strategic and normative foundations of international institutions

One more point needs to be made. In studying international institutions, scholars have commonly focused on the analytical tasks of explaining institutional formation,52 as well as differentiating institutional forms and functions.53 These questions are implicitly addressed here in this chapter and can certainly receive a more detailed treatment. Rather than reinforcing them, however, it may be more useful to emphasize a different question: that of actors’ varied use of international institutions. Even fundamental institutions do not always constitute actor identities or define the “rules of the game” in a given era. The early Ming experience suggests that fundamental institutions can be normatively constitutive but also instrumentally strategic. If the argument makes sense that tributary diplomacy, communicative diplomacy, war, and trade were durable and fundamental institutions, then it would appear that while they generally defined the rules of the game of China’s hegemonic international relations, they did not always—or even usually—constitute the identities and interests of the players. The point was made clear enough in the case studies. Only in the grand strategies of expressive hierarchy and identification can one say that the institution of tributary diplomacy constituted China and its neighbors. Instrumental hierarchy and deference were strategic manipulations of tributary diplomacy for the maximization of self-interest. The adoption of all of these four strategies in the form of tributary diplomacy revealed the strategic as well as normative use of this fundamental institution by both China and its neighbors, and its regulative as well as constitutive roles.54 Since instrumental hierarchy

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and deference were more frequently employed than expressive hierarchy and identification, the strategic use and regulative role of tributary diplomacy as a fundamental institution appears to have been more prominent than its normative and constitutive role. This suggests a broader theoretical point: the constitutive and regulative roles of norms and institutions are never absolute. They always come in degrees, just like the distinction between instrumental rationality and expressive rationality, or between the strategies of instrumental hierarchy and expressive hierarchy, and of deference and identification. In practice, strategic interests and norms, instrumental rationality and expressive rationality, typically asserted themselves in greater or lesser degrees.

The Tribute System in Chinese Hegemony What, then, is the contribution of this institutional analysis to the existing literature on historical East Asian politics? Until the 1980s, the field of East Asian diplomatic history had been dominated by the paradigm of the tribute system, established by John K. Fairbank and his associates from the 1930s to the 1960s.55 This paradigm proposed “Chinese world order” as the overarching concept for understanding regional relations—a world order established and maintained through the tribute system as “the medium for Chinese international relations and diplomacy.” The tribute system was seen as having dominated regional relations as “a scheme of things entire.”56 It was, asserted Mark Mancall, “a total system for the conduct of all international relations.”57 This paradigm has been the foundational framework for our understanding of historical East Asian politics, and it has provided a major inspiration for recent international relations research, too. David Kang, a constructivist scholar, and Zhang and Buzan, in the English School tradition, are most notable for having taken an institutionalist perspective on the tribute system.58 Conceptualizing it as a distinctive set of international rules and institutions, Kang argues that the East Asian order from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century “encompassed a regionally shared set of formal and informal norms and institutions that guided relations and yielded substantial stability. With the main institution of the ‘tribute system,’ this international system emphasized formal hierarchy among nations while allowing considerable informal equality.”59 In comparing the tribute system in East Asia

  chapter 6

with the Westphalian system in Europe,60 Kang takes the tribute system to be an international order in itself. Similarly, Zhang and Buzan conceptualize the tribute system “as a particular historical social structure in East Asia, or as a particular set of institutional and discursive practices that define, govern and regulate the so-called Pax Sinica.”61 In another place they simply see it “as an international society.”62 It is certainly possible and useful to see the tribute system—understood as a set of habitual and durable practices of international relations among China and its neighbors—as forming a distinct international society. Tributary diplomacy, as discussed herein, would constitute the tribute system’s fundamental institution, embodying its primary norms, rules, and principles. The case studies of early Ming Sino-Korean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Mongol relations have illustrated in great detail how the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy actually operated during this period. Indeed, the theory and case studies revealed the varying constraints that tributary diplomacy brought to bear on members of the international society of Chinese hegemony. In this regard, one contribution of this book is that it provides the actual causal processes whereby tributary diplomacy exerted its institutional effects on actor behavior. The causal processes are theorized and analyzed in terms of the grand strategic interactions between early Ming China and its neighbors. The relational theory of grand strategy developed in Chapter 2 is a structural theory, but the grand strategic possibilities that have been deduced reveal the agential side of regional relations. No contradiction exists in saying that the theoretical approach is relational-structural, in that it takes relations as the primary structural component, and that relationalism provides insights into agency and process. Agency is sorely needed; existing institutional approaches tend to focus too much on the social structure of the tribute system, to the neglect of strategic processes that involve the agents creating and shaping that structure in the first place. They lack causal mechanisms to explain the origins and operations of international institutions and societies. The lack of sustained attention to agency makes it difficult to explain where the powerful social structure of the tribute system emerged in the first place and, equally important, why and how it changed over time.63 The fundamental questions of “how to construe the relationship between institutions and behavior and how to explain the process whereby institutions originate or change”64 are ignored.

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony  

The approaches of Kang and Zhang and Buzan tend to produce a picture that is skewed more toward the social structure of the tribute system that ordered relations, less toward the practical agents who sustained those relations, and still less toward the mutual constitution of structure and agency by way of those relations. Addressing these questions is not the main focus of this book, but the theoretical and empirical analyses here have provided some answers to them, if indirectly. The institutional effects of tributary diplomacy are reflected in four strategies that China and other actors adopted. These were the Chinese strategies of expressive hierarchy and instrumental hierarchy, and other actors’ strategies of identification and deference. Expressive hierarchy and identification embodied the constitutive effects of the institution of tributary diplomacy; instrumental hierarchy and deference, the regulative effects. In expressive hierarchy and identification, actors accepted the rules and norms of tributary diplomacy as legitimate. In instrumental hierarchy and deference, they exploited them for self-interest maximization. The processes in which these four strategies came about were also the processes whereby the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy originated and developed. The effects of the three other fundamental institutions—communicative diplomacy, war, and trade—were reflected in the other two strategies of exit and access that other actors adopted toward China. They represented attempts to twist, resist, ignore, or challenge the Chinese conceit of tributary diplomacy, demonstrating the changes in institutional practices as actors’ interests and strategies changed. The relational processes of grand strategic interactions detailed in the case studies at the same time embodied the agency of institutional origination and change. They illustrated empirically how the co-constitution of structure and agency worked in early Ming East Asian society. Clearly, tributary diplomacy was an extremely consequential institution. The norms, rules, and principles it embodied, and the strategies by which it exercised its practical effects, were historically distinctive and significant. Indeed, conceiving of the tribute system as an international society, as Kang suggests, offers the advantage of comparing it with other international societies such as the modern Westphalian one. Such comparison will make us far more sensitive to the variety of international societies and more aware of the contingent nature of the contemporary international society. Yet the limits of the tribute system as an international society in East Asian history should also be recognized. Kang as well as Zhang and Buzan

  chapter 6

recognize these limits. Kang identifies a core of “Confucian society” within the tribute system, and a different international society of the nomadic world with a different set of rules.65 “It is best,” he advises, “to view the tribute system as the starting point for international relations, and all the states modified, changed, and sometimes ignored these basic ideas as circumstances dictated.”66 Similarly, Zhang and Buzan differentiate between a core of the tribute system among the Sinicized states and a peripheral power-political society between China and its nomadic neighbors as two structurally different international societies of the inner and outer circle of a concentric Chinese world order. In this regard, the complexity that existed within an overarching set of institutional and normative ideals defined by the tribute system, particularly the ways in which these ideals were followed, ignored, and modified in particular times and places, becomes especially interesting. Again, such complexity is in part captured by the variety of secondary strategic responses to China explored in this book, including identification, deference, access, and exit. Like modern Westphalian sovereignty, which Stephen Krasner famously characterized as “organized hypocrisy,”67 the historical East Asian tribute system was also an incomplete yet significant system of international relations. From the perspective of this study, the tribute system cannot be seen as encompassing the whole gamut of historical East Asian politics, for tributary diplomacy was not the only fundamental institution of regional relations. The strategic choices and institutional practices analyzed in this book show that the regional international society of Chinese hegemony was much broader and more multifaceted than the tribute system. Historical research on regional politics of other periods confirms that the great variety of China’s power relations with its neighbors cannot be portrayed simply as tributary relations.68 Tribute, however conceived, could not encompass the totality of diplomacy in East Asian history,69 not to mention all other interaction dynamics. In short, one needs to delimit the scope or boundary of the tributary system in a given historical period quite carefully in order to avoid the misleading impression that it was coterminous with East Asian society as a whole.

Conclusion Drawing on the preceding chapters, this chapter has provided a theoretically informed and empirically grounded institutional analysis of the early Ming

Fundamental Institutions of Chinese Hegemony  

East Asian society of Chinese hegemony. The analysis serves to delimit the scope of the much-noted tribute system in East Asian history. The tribute system was a very important part of the society of Chinese hegemony, but was not all of it. Nor was the fundamental institution of tributary diplomacy always dominant in regional relations. Other institutions, including communicative diplomacy, war, and trade, were more significant during various periods of Sino-Japanese and Sino-Mongol relations. Delimiting the historical scope of the tribute system also exposes the limits of the Chinese world order as conceived by Fairbank. The tribute system was far from “a scheme of things entire,” and an all-encompassing “Chinese world order” was more imaginary than real.70 Chinese hegemony is a more defensible concept for describing a good part of historical East Asian politics because hegemony suggests China’s regional primacy and authority while also implying the limits of those.

seven

The Value of Relationalism

This book has sought to provide a new relational explanation of international relations in East Asian history under the condition of Chinese hegemony. The two central questions of grand strategic interactions and international institutional maintenance are answered by examining SinoKorean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Mongol relations during the early Ming period. The three case studies form a nice comparison that allows for variation on both the independent (relational international structure) and the dependent (grand strategic choices) variables posited by my relational theory of grand strategy. They provide a full spectrum of regional relations from both the Chinese perspective and the perspective of other political units in the system. In theoretical innovation, historical explanation, and overall characterization of regional politics, the argument differs from both traditional diplomatic history and recent international relations (IR) scholarship. In this final chapter, I explain the value of my relational approach by stressing the importance of exploring relationality in international relations. I claim that this relational approach is more satisfactory than substantialist ones such as neorealism in accounting for the motivational, strategic, and institutional formations of historical East Asian politics. I also highlight the key empirical finding of expressive rationality in regional relations. Expressive rationality accounted for more than one-fifth of the total strategic outcomes in early Ming East Asian politics examined in the case studies. This finding broadens our conception of human rationality, revises our understanding of Confucianism’s role in foreign policy, qualifies the instrumental

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ist assumption of rationalist and realist IR theories, and challenges existing perspectives on the role of ethics in foreign policy. A more important purpose of this chapter, however, is to outline ethical relationalism as a distinct critical and normative IR theory and apply its perspectives to evaluate contemporary Chinese strategy. The theory provides the link between the past and present and suggests policy implications of this study. It emphasizes relationality understood as relationships of affection and obligation and their contribution to the formation of a humane international community. Contemporary Chinese foreign policy falls short on two key normative dimensions of ethical relationalism. It is still highly self-interested, and it is devoid of a moral purpose. Yet relational thinking is on the rise, and the outside world needs to reciprocate with a relational response too in order to cement that thinking. Ethical relationalism can contribute to reestablishing humaneness as the central moral purpose of international relations. It is a critical and normative theory with practical foundations.

Relationality in International Relations My relational approach suggests a strong need for us to make sense of ­relationality—the dynamic processes of connections and transactions, as opposed to substances and isolated actors1—in international relations. The focus on relationality differs substantially from most mainstream IR paradigms. It is, however, congruent with some of the emerging approaches, particularly Richard Ned Lebow’s cultural theory based on ancient Greek philosophy, which also highlights the importance of relational affection for international cooperation.2 It is also compatible with a few existing approaches, such as that of the English School, to the extent that they stress the obligation and propriety of state actions in achieving common interests.3 Relationalism rejects preconstituting actor identities, roles, and interests, since these only grow out of actors’ relational interaction with other actors. Eschewing motivational assumptions, it examines motivational variance and strategic flexibility by analyzing strategic interaction as a process of relational adaptation and adjustment. In analyzing the grand strategic interactions between early Ming China and its neighbors, I have not assumed some essential nature of China (e.g., an inward-looking “Middle Kingdom,” a domination-driven empire) and its neighbors (e.g., China’s

  chapter 7

servile tributaries, realpolitik bandwagoners). The analysis did not proceed from their assumed interests of security, power, or wealth, even though such assumptions may make analysis easier. Rather, it was grounded in the relational processes of their strategic interactions as marked by a series of unfolding and interconnected events, examining how those events revealed the evolution of their interests and policies, leading to grand strategies as an outcome. Such a relational analysis showed that Chinese strategies embodied varying degrees of ethical aspirations and instrumental interests at different times depending on the degree of relational tension. Had I assumed a particular motivation in advance of actual analysis, I would have committed the error of essentialization by producing a misleading and at best partial picture of the multifaceted nature of regional politics. Contrast this approach with a possible neorealist one that assumes survival as the fundamental motivation of state behavior. As far as the early Ming experience is concerned, although Korean, Japanese, and Mongol leaders did at different times and to varying degrees fear Chinese power, their strategies were not just motivated by security considerations. In fact, security was not the main motivation, since none of the major strategic options—identification, deference, access, and exit—could be explained by security alone. This was obvious in the case of identification, where Chinese power was embraced rather than feared. It was also apparent in the cases of deference and access, where exploiting Chinese resources for various selfinterested gains appeared a much more prominent motivation than a simple desire for ensuring security against a putative Chinese threat. The security motivation makes sense only within a relational structure of threat, which needs to be concretely examined rather than abstractly assumed. A different relational structure may produce a different kind of motivation. To be sure, most realists, the extreme neorealists excepted, would not claim that the security motivation explains everything. How much it can in fact explain thus becomes the key evaluative question. In our case, its explanatory power is considerably limited by the very low number of secondary actors’ strategies toward China that it can explain.

Expressive Rationality in International Relations Expressive rationality is virtually unheard of in the Eurocentric IR literature. Yet the case studies in this book found it to be an essential feature

The Value of Relationalism  

of historical East Asian politics. Rationality, it thus appears, needs to be conceived of broadly so that it reflects a wide range of human nature, and it should include conceptions about both the means and the ends of social action. Instrumental rationality based on a consequentialist means-end calculation is inadequate for capturing multiple principles of social action, however important it might have been in the modern world.4 In fact, “egoistic, autonomous actors are a fiction of Enlightenment philosophy.”5 The incorporation of the Confucian expressive rationality of relational affection and obligation into human rationality has proved vital for understanding the nature of historical East Asian politics. Table 7.1, based on the empirical findings, calculates the duration of various strategies adopted by early Ming China and its neighbors in their interactions (in the case of Sino-Mongol relations, I have summed the duration of strategies in both Yongle-Eastern Mongols and Yongle-Oirats relationships). The instrumental strategies of instrumental hierarchy, defensive isolation, deference, access, and exit accounted for 279 years of the total number of 354 years, or 79 percent. The expressive strategies of expressive hierarchy and identification accounted for 75 years, or 21 percent. It is clear that in terms of duration, instrumental rationality was on the whole more prominent than expressive rationality in regional politics. But note first that this is an empirical judgment, not a theoretical assumption of the dominance of instrumental rationality in international politics. Second, the fact that the expressive strategies actually accounted for 21 percent of the total duration shows that expressive rationality was an essential, though not dominant, feature of regional politics. For the existing literature, which has table 7.1 Duration of strategies during the early Ming period Nature of strategy

Strategy

Instrumental

Instrumental hierarchy Defensive isolation Deference Access Exit

Expressive

Expressive hierarchy Identification

Duration (number of years) 118 19 63 6 73 279 49 26 75

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no conception of expressive rationality at all, the mere presence of its role presents a challenge to our understanding of rationality in international relations. To be sure, there is plenty in the Western literature on international legitimacy and norms that seem to cover some similar grounds. In particular, the relational thought of ancient Greece as examined by Lebow bears a notable resemblance to expressive rationality.6 Nevertheless, I contend that expressive rationality as conceptualized in this book contains a distinctive Chinese-Confucian cultural mark that is not fully appreciated by the Western IR literature. That expressive rationality accounted for more than one-fifth of the total strategic outcomes is also an important finding against conventional views that take Confucianism to be either dominant in Chinese foreign policy or causally irrelevant. Confucian pacifism—the notion that Confucianism determined a uniquely peaceful and benevolent foreign policy in imperial China—is clearly mistaken. But the realist approach of reducing Confucianism to a residual variable is also inadequate.7 The adoption of expressive strategies by both early Ming China in all of the three relationships with Korea, Japan, and the Mongols (expressive hierarchy) and by Choso˘n Korea toward Ming China (identification) was clear evidence of the causal role of Confucian ethics in strategic formation. In these cases Confucianism was the main, not the residual, variable. When expressive rationality ruled, regional relations embodied a value system of practical significance, not an instrumental exchange of self-interest.8 The finding is also a useful corrective to the common assumption of rationalist and realist IR theories that all actions are instrumentally oriented. The historical East Asian experience modifies that belief by demonstrating the variability of instrumental rationality in international relations. It also challenges existing perspectives that either dismiss the role of ethics in foreign policy or view it in instrumental terms. In an important reformulation of classical realism, Lebow argues that “ethics are not only instrumentally important, but . . . it is impossible to formulate interests intelligently outside of some language of justice.”9 In our case, the instrumental importance of Confucian ethics was reflected in the strategy of instrumental hierarchy, which took place within the justificatory and legitimating discourse of Confucianism. But while Lebow stresses the practical importance of ethics in foreign policy making from classical realists’ perspective, this study shows that ethics not only had an instrumental function but also could causally

The Value of Relationalism  

determine actual policy. And even when its role was instrumental, ethics still applied constraints on realpolitik simply by virtue of rulers’ need to use it. Confucianism had a dominant causal role in early Ming foreign policy under the condition of relational amity. This argument would not surprise Confucius, for he understood that his idea of humaneness (ren 仁) could achieve its maximum effect only under the condition of an established order of li (禮), that is, propriety in social relations as he envisaged it.10 And in the absence of this condition, Confucius was himself a political failure in his own days.11 We may call this condition the Confucian dilemma, noting that it was no less pronounced in domestic politics than in foreign affairs.12 It is, then, not surprising that “Chinese history has never (and probably never will) live up to the lofty vision laid down in the canonical Confucian texts.”13 Finally, I wish to suggest that no less important than its actual policy role was the inspiration of the Confucian vision for generations of Chinese literati (shi 士) as they interpreted it.14 Without such a moral vision Chinese politics and society would have been much more brutal, chaotic, and estranged. This insight establishes the basis for developing ethical relationalism as a critical and normative theory of international relations in the next section.

Ethical Relationalism as a Critical IR Theory A good theory can—and should—be empirical, critical, and normative at the same time. As Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal put it, ­“Every international relations theory is simultaneously about what the world is like and about what it ought to be like,” and therefore “all international relations theories already have empirical and normative dimensions.”15 So far relationalism has been used as an empirical theory and as a method for analyzing historical East Asian politics. I now suggest its potential as a critical and normative theory distinct from critical IR theories based on Western intellectual traditions. The potential comes as no surprise, since Confucianism—whether pre-Qin classical Confucianism or post-Song neo-Confucianism—always had a profound critical and normative dimension.16 What follows is an attempt to synthesize the empirical, critical, and normative aspects of this study by applying relationalism to the contemporary policy issue of China’s rise.17

  chapter 7

Existing critical theory of the Frankfurt School persuasion focuses on the themes of human freedom and emancipation, themes with distinct Western origins in the intellectual projects of Kant, Hegel, and Marx.18 In the vision of Andrew Linklater, a critical IR theory should examine the problem of community, defined as the ways in which members of bounded communities—states in the modern world—determine the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in the international system. Such a project entails three tasks: a normative inquiry into the meaning of emancipation and universalism, a historical sociological inquiry into the conditions of emancipation, and a praxeological inquiry into the means of emancipation in a given order.19 A critical theory drawn from Chinese relationalism would emphasize a different set of analytical themes and priorities. The major themes are coexistence, interdependence, and cooperation among international actors. These themes stress how the achievement of individual self-interest is predicated on ensuring coexistence, managing interdependence, and enhancing cooperation among actors to a relationship in the first place. Such a theory would focus on the problem of relational rationality, understood as how actors can enhance the quality of mutual relations and ensure long-term relational interest upon which individual interest is based. The project can also be seen as requiring three analytical tasks: a normative clarification of the meaning of relational rationality, an empirical specification of the conditions of relational rationality, and a praxeological inquiry into the means of relational rationality in international relations. The ultimate social good that such a theory hopes to advance is harmony in mutual relations—and in world politics in general. Thus, in contrast to Western critical theory’s focus on “individual human freedom and its relationship to political community,”20 Chinese relationalism emphasizes relationality understood as relationships of affection and obligation and their contribution to the formation of a humane international community. Both have a humanitarian spirit. But whereas modern Western humanitarianism stresses individual freedom, relational humanitarianism highlights mutual affection and support in an interconnected web of community relationships.21 Indeed, the normative commitment of Chinese relationalism to relationality is new for most contemporary IR theories,22 and it is thus a contribution to the global field of IR today. Understood in this way, this book has already outlined in a preliminary fashion the normative and empirical dimensions of a critical IR theory of

The Value of Relationalism  

ethical relationalism, although much work remains to be done in these areas. The normative position of relational rationality is that we need more commitment, empathy, affection, and obligation, and less consequentialist calculation to maximize self-interest, in the relationships among states and in their approaches to common world problems. Mutual and relational interest needs to take precedence over individual self-interest, not because we can ignore individual interest but because individual interest and relational interest are interdependent.23 Relational interest establishes the limits for the realization of individual self-interest. This is not to say that self-interest should not be pursued—clearly a counterproductive notion too dismissive of a big part of human motives. It is to say that the pursuit of self-interest should observe the principle of the minimization of mutual harm and be carried out within the limits set by the need for ensuring long-term relational interest. In other words, self-interest should not be exclusively or unilaterally maximized; short-term gains often need to give way to long-term rewards. Interests lie at the heart of much social action, but “rational interests presuppose ethical commitments.”24 In effect, we need an ethical foreign policy sensitive to the interest of others.25 Confucian relationalism has much to contribute to such a theoretical enterprise.26 Such a theory would start by stressing the importance of envisaging appropriate ends in international relations apart from developing efficient means to achieve those ends. A vision of ends helps reclaim the purpose of international political life as the proper site of theoretical inquiry. This was actually a central concern of classical Western thought, but it is lost to the modern “scientific” mind.27 In China, almost all intellectual schools through the ancient and imperial ages shared the belief that “problem-solving without useful purpose is a pointless frivolity.”28 Ends are important because “we cannot analyze means without knowing something about the ends they are intended to achieve.”29 But even for means, efficiency is not the only evaluative criterion because “a means is fully rational to adopt only if it can be shown not only to be efficient (that is, practically acceptable) but also valuable (that is, axiologically acceptable).”30 The theory would suggest that the most proper ends are not exclusive self-interest, but sustainable long-term ethical relationships. This does not mean the abnegation of self-interest altogether, but the requirement of enlightened, rather than narrow, self-interest alongside ethical considerations.31 Confucianism acknowledges the legitimacy of self-interest but

  chapter 7

tries to restrain it to an acceptable level in order to minimize the conflict that self-interest may engender.32 Indeed, it is the general normative position of Confucianism for the expressive to constrain the instrumental, for “appropriateness and principle” (yi li 義理) to contain “consequences and advantages” (gong li 功利).33 To this end it emphasizes the importance of interpersonal affection, mutual help, and human obligation in social conduct. There is no intrinsic reason such ethical principles should not also be reflected, even if only to a circumscribed degree, in international relations, which are, after all, carried out by persons as agents. Such a theory would also suggest that the means for achieving relational ends are not instrumental strategies of consequentialist calculation, but ethical actions informed by the same principles of affection and obligation. The theory would further propose that states must strive for the standard of yi (義)—“an achieved sense of appropriateness that enables one to act in a proper and fitting manner, given the specifics of a situation.”34 Ultimately, acting with yi would also require the discovery of dao (道)—the proper Way informed by “the values all should share”35—in a given order. Indeed, the terms dao and yi are often combined to form a single term dao-yi (道義), to express a sense of ultimate value and purpose. And it was the ultimate project of Chinese intellectuals after the rise of neo-Confucianism in the Song to find and promote what they referred to as daotong (道統 succession to the Way), the Chinese cultural core believed to have reigned in a mythical antiquity.36 To the Confucians, cultural order always comes before political order,37 and political order is never just a phenomenon of sheer power or a set of institutional arrangements; it is also guided by cultural norms.38 These concepts and assumptions are also relevant to modern international relations, for the simple reason that a state must have international values and purposes to prevent its foreign policy from falling into amoral real­politik, which is ultimately unsustainable. Realpolitik, geared toward extreme maximization of self-interest, disrupts long-term relational stability. Relationalpolitik, as an ethically more defensible alternative, may lead international relations toward a more cooperative and harmonious direction. Notice that ethical relationalism as outlined here is purged of its premodern, hierarchical quality. To a skeptical Western eye, perhaps, the whole idea of relationalism may have a decidedly premodern feel to it. It may be viewed as what (Western) modernity has set out to replace with meritocracy and rationalism. It is thus easy to associate Chinese relationalism with cronyism,

The Value of Relationalism  

nepotism, and corruption. But this is to misconstrue the entire enterprise of this book. Although the extraordinary importance of guanxi (connections) in Chinese society does breed these social ills, this book takes relationalism to be a theoretical tradition, an analytical approach, and a method for studying social behavior from a structural perspective. Relationalism can surely be used to study guanxi in the real world, but to equate relationalism with guanxi is to confuse the explanans with the explanandum. Moreover, beyond China, relationalism is a prominent sociological approach in the West too, as noted in Chapter 2. Is ethical relationalism a theory for hierarchical foreign relations? Traditional Chinese foreign policy indeed presupposed a hierarchical political order between the Chinese emperor and foreign rulers, as this book has demonstrated in detail. But the historical and intellectual contexts of international relations have obviously changed dramatically from that era, and modern international relations rest on the norm of sovereign equality. Ethical relationalism is suggested here as a critical theory for modern international relations. It takes from Confucian relationalism the key insight of the importance of relational affection and obligation for achieving a humane international community, not normative hierarchy in the relationships between political actors. It is not a justification for hierarchy, but a plea for humaneness. These are some of the normative dimensions of ethical relationalism. The theory also has empirical and practical relevance. We have argued in this book that Confucian expressive rationality was more likely to prevail under the condition of relational amity. It would thus seem that for ethical relationalism to guide actual policy, a state’s foreign relations must be relatively amicable in the first place. Let us note that this condition is by no means unobtainable. The traditional realist charge against idealism for its failure to recognize the constraints of power politics cannot be made against the relational theory developed in this book since it has fully documented the general relational conditions of different strategies by paying “attention to the relation between the ethical and empirical.”39 In other words, it has clearly specified the limits and possibilities of a Confucian ethical foreign policy in the historical Chinese experience.40 The possibility in the contemporary world is also evident because the striking fact—striking from the instrumentalist perspective—of much of post–Cold War international relations, as of a big part of historical East Asian politics, is general peace rather

  chapter 7

than constant war, habitual cooperation rather than calculated confrontation. Viewed from the long-term perspective of world history, the competitive and violent nature of modern international relations, upon which nearly all IR theories have been built, may turn out to be an anomaly to be explained in terms of the relational peculiarities of the modern world. But even within this overall realpolitik world, relational amity cannot be said to be entirely absent. The policy utility of the critical theory of ethical relationalism can be demonstrated by exploring its praxeological dimension as applied to contemporary Chinese foreign policy. From another perspective, this will be a discussion on the policy implications of this study. But rather than basing policy implications on some immutable theoretical postulates, a still customary practice among many IR scholars and historians in the positivist tradition,41 the approach here rejects any theoretical, historical, or cultural determinism. Rather, recognizing that strategic rationalities are in the final analysis relational outcomes, it assumes the variability of contemporary Chinese strategy. This is not to deny that history holds valuable lessons for the present. Brantly Womack, for example, argues that the traditional Chinese posture of “principled action, impartiality, and inclusiveness” is still relevant for contemporary China’s relations with other states.42 I agree with this position, and I would also point out that the variety of the historical regional responses to Chinese power examined in this book suggest that the current debate on balancing versus bandwagoning with respect to regional responses to China’s rise is much too simplistic. But the link of history to the present can be provided in different ways. My approach is to understand the possibilities of contemporary Chinese strategy and evaluate their merits on the basis of the normative as well as empirical inquiries of this study.43

The Relational Potential of Contemporary Chinese Strategy Chinese foreign policy in the reform era (1978 to the present) may be broadly seen as having undergone a qualitative change in policy principles and initiatives since the late 1990s. Between the 1980s and the mid-1990s, policies were defensive of narrow self-interest and reactive to outside pressures. They embodied an instrumental strategy of single-minded economic development that made use of whatever international opportunities may provide for the economy. The Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 and the

The Value of Relationalism  

disintegration of the Soviet bloc at the end of the Cold War compelled an even more instrumental strategy for overcoming international diplomatic isolation. Deng Xiaoping’s “twenty-eight characters” strategic injunction developed during this period, among them the famous notion of tao guang yang hui (韜光養晦 conceal one’s capability from outward display), was almost entirely self-interested in trying to navigate China out of its post-1989 isolation.44 This highly instrumental approach was undermined in the 1990s by widespread unease about China’s rising power among its neighbors. In response, Beijing developed a three-pronged strategy of neighborhood diplomacy, great-power diplomacy, and regional multilateralism for allaying regional concerns. The new strategy was not based on principles wholly different from instrumentalism. Indeed, the self-interest of maintaining a stable regional environment by mitigating the suspicion of its neighbors, constraining America, and increasing Chinese influence was its central strategic motivation. But it was also apparent that the instrumentalism of the 1980s and early 1990s had been attenuated somewhat. And a new understanding of the legitimate concerns and interests of other countries began to emerge. China realized the need to shoulder responsibilities by developing an image of a responsible rising power and demonstrate benign intentions by exercising self-restraint.45 One purpose of great-power diplomacy by establishing various levels of “strategic partnerships” with key countries after 1996 was to forge long-term cooperative relationships in order to ensure sustainable mutual interests.46 China’s participation in various multilateral forums related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its leadership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) embodied regional multilateralism. The new multilateralism reflected the recognition of the need to embed China’s development within a broader multilateral and regional framework of common development and cooperative security. These initiatives were the results of a new “inclusive diplomacy.”47 Between 2000 and 2008, Chinese foreign policy generally embodied a more proactive approach in consciously trying to shape and create its own international environment, even though a lingering defensive-reactive quality still remained. Compared with the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese officials then placed a much stronger emphasis on the benefits of China’s rise for the whole world in a new economic discourse on China’s opening-up ­strategy

  chapter 7

of mutual benefit and common win. At the same time, a new general policy discourse of “harmonious world” stressed the principles of cultural tolerance, political inclusiveness, respect for diversity, and common development.48 These seemed to reflect policy makers’ greater recognition of the importance of promoting mutual and wider interests rather than a singleminded focus on the narrow self-interest of economic development. This overview of contemporary Chinese foreign policy reveals its flaws on two key dimensions of the critical theory of ethical relationalism outlined here. First, the theory suggests policy ends and means to be mutually entailing affective relationships rather than exclusive self-interest maximized through instrumental strategies. Yet Chinese foreign policy during the 1980s and early 1990s focused rather heavily on narrowly defined national interests of development and stability. While the more recent policy since the late 1990s has exhibited a keener concern with mutual interests, it is still inadequate given the disjuncture between a sometimes very relational discourse and actual behavior. Even today, China’s global strategy remains heavily conditioned by domestic development needs, and some notable recent initiatives such as energy diplomacy are still primarily motivated by economic, security, or political self-interest. David Shambaugh argues that “China is, in essence, a very narrow-minded, self-interested, realist state, seeking only to maximize its own national interests and power.”49 The view is partial, but it does capture a central dimension of Chinese foreign policy today. Deng’s post-1989 axiom of tao guang yang hui, which has dominated official thinking until recently, is a highly self-interested principle with inherent limits to ethical relationalism. As long as the principle rules, Chinese foreign policy will not be fully relational. Second, internationally, the inability to develop the dao—the ultimate proper way of conduct informed by a value system—for China’s international role is debilitating for its moral appeal. Contemporary China cannot answer such fundamental questions as its ultimate purpose in the world and its culturally significant preference for the character of international relations. In contrast to imperial China, which stood for the Confucian civilization, and Maoist China, which stood for world proletariat revolution, today’s China is unclear as to its international purpose and unable to clarify what it stands for. Indeed, prominent Chinese intellectuals have decried contemporary China’s loss of civilizational grounding and its consequent crude reliance on “sovereignty” as its international subjectivity.50 And,

The Value of Relationalism  

without the dao, it is also impossible to know the yi—acting with optimal appropriateness in a particular situation—on many issues that require attention and decision. The question of China’s international dao-yi is ultimately about the cultural, as well as material, impact of China’s rise. Traditional Chinese intellectuals had persistently sought to establish a cultural order based on Confucian ideals. The search for such a cultural-political order was the underlying motivation and ultimate purpose of the neo-Confucian project in particular.51 Has contemporary China proposed a new distinct international cultural-political order? Nothing of significance has come out of a government preoccupied with domestic challenges. A recent notable development among Chinese intellectuals is the promotion of “humane authority,” interpreted from the traditional concept of wang dao (王道) but dressed as an IR theory of hegemony, as China’s goal in world politics.52 It remains to be seen whether this cultural concept can be given policy specificity. Unless the Chinese have successfully synthesized their traditional values with contemporary needs, “the cultural implications of China’s rise are likely to be peripheral and unconvincing.”53 Despite these problems, however, we should acknowledge the significance of the growing degree of relational rationality in Chinese foreign policy, especially given China’s century-old materialist and self-centered quest for wealth and power in the modern world.54 This relationalism has gone largely unnoticed or misunderstood by observers. But if we want greater Chinese contribution to global governance, we should identify and welcome it. Although the relational logic has not been fully realized in practice, and the extent to which it will be realized in the future is unclear, it should be able to provide a healthy antidote to the more instrumental underpinnings of Chinese foreign policy. One may think that the more prominent it is in Chinese thinking, the more beneficial rising Chinese power will be. From a relational perspective, a major concern of the outside world should be whether China can continue and enhance an international strategy based on ethical relationalism. The perception of China’s “assertiveness” since 2008 has reduced confidence in its willingness to do so.55 Intellectual debates inside China indeed suggest at least three policy schools with an assertive and even aggressive bent. The school of nativism or leftism is marked by a distrust of the outside world, an insistence on China’s absolute sovereignty and autonomy, and a belief in the necessity of waging struggles

  chapter 7

against the West.56 The school of assertive nationalism argues that China should actively prepare for struggle and conflict with other, particularly Western, states.57 And the school of realpolitik, including the geopolitical, offensive-realist, and defensive-realist variants, assesses Chinese foreign policy in terms of self-interest and necessity. The defensive-realist view that China needs to pursue security cooperation rather than confrontation with other states is a reasonable and moderate position.58 And it seems to have been the position of the majority of Chinese analysts as well as the government.59 But many other elements of leftism, assertive nationalism, and realpolitik are based on excessive instrumental maximization of self-interest, and leftism has an additional xenophobic and ideological quality. A policy liaison among them could make for an isolationist and aggressive China. Fortunately, China’s intellectual and policy discourse also contains two other schools that can moderate this instrumentalism. The school of exceptionalism claims that a rising China will strive to build a peaceful and harmonious world and provide a new ideal for the common development and security of all countries in the world.60 The liberal school, in contrast, stresses the role of international institutions and norms, economic interdependence, and globalization in China’s engagement with international society.61 From the critical and normative perspective of ethical relationalism, we would prefer a judicious blend of exceptionalism and liberalism to guide future Chinese strategy for a peaceful and cooperative regional order that can absorb the impact of China’s rise. Exceptionalism and liberalism are, of course, not without their own problems. The central problem of exceptionalism is its mythical and ideological quality.62 Nevertheless, its emphasis on political and cultural inclusiveness, mutually beneficial cooperation, and common development and security embodies an important degree of relational thinking. Chinese exceptionalism is one policy idea—a very prominent and sometimes dominant one in the official discourse—among many competing ones. Although its problems are real, it seems at least more palatable as an intellectual guide for Chinese foreign policy than some combination of leftism, assertive nationalism, and realpolitik, which has the real danger of producing great power hubris and excessive ambitions particularly during this time of China’s rise. It would be highly unsettling if Chinese foreign policy were to be reduced to a crude instrumental logic of power politics and selfinterest narrowly defined. We would want a more ethical policy informed

The Value of Relationalism  

by relationalism, in behavior as well as in discourse.63 One may hope that Chinese intellectuals will begin to recognize and interrogate the problems of the current exceptionalism and turn to an intellectually congenial but empirically and normatively more promising project of ethical relationalism, and recognize that this ethical relationalism needs to occupy a central place in China’s strategic thinking. Even if some instrumentalism is inevitable in Chinese foreign policy, the endurance of relational thinking may check its excesses while placing necessary ethical constraints. The responsibility of developing a more relational strategy, however, does not rest entirely on China’s own efforts, even though they are of primary importance. The response and reciprocity of the outside world are also crucial. We have emphasized that strategic rationalities are relational outcomes conditioned by situational specificities, not a direct cultural or intellectual product determined by a country’s historical experiences and traditions. A more relationally oriented Chinese strategy will require the reciprocity of a more relationally oriented outside response as well. A containment strategy of exclusion toward China, for example, will only galvanize leftism and assertive nationalism inside China while suppressing exceptionalism and liberalism. An excessively instrumental approach of realpolitik, such as balancing against rising Chinese power for maximizing security interests, is likely to elicit a similarly instrumental and realpolitik strategy from China for maximizing its own security interests. Indeed, although overt balancing against China has not occurred, the United States’ so-called rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific region by tightening its alliance system in the region has already provoked a sharp debate among Chinese intellectuals on a Chinese strategy of counterbalancing based on strategic alliances.64 Balancing and alliance are highly instrumental strategies of exclusive self-interest maximization. They are normatively less preferable to a relational strategy for ensuring mutual, rather than individual, security interests. One can only hope that China will deepen and expand ethical relationalism and that the outside world will help the relational cause of the wise segment of China’s policy and intellectual communities by reciprocating with a similarly relational response. The condition of a relational foreign policy— amity in foreign relations—is obtainable for China as for other countries. The relationship between China and the United States, a crucial example given its geopolitical significance, is currently marked by cooperation as well as competition, but not by intense confrontation and conflict.65 The

  chapter 7

condition of relational amity can be made more or less substantial. If states can observe the Confucian principle of shu (恕 do not impose on others what you yourself do not want), they will have made a major step toward creating relational amity among themselves and thus making their foreign relations more conducive to ethical relationalism. From this point of view, the future of East Asian stability rests not on a material balance of power or economic interdependence, but on the actual forging of a new type of relationship between China and its neighbors in accordance with ethical relationalism. These policy perspectives embody the value of ethical relationalism as a critical and normative IR theory. The value applies not only to China’s foreign relations but also to those of many other countries—indeed, in some sense, to international relations as a whole. Confucianism’s role in foreign policy is often faulted for being ideological, moralistic, and mythical. During its long history as a major intellectual school, Confucianism was no doubt vulgarized, distorted, and exploited by imperial Chinese rulers. But political Confucianism in that ideological sense cannot be equated with the teachings and aspirations of either preQin classical Confucianism or post-Song neo-Confucianism as intellectual thought. As a way of life involving faith and spiritual values, Confucianism had, within its own limits, exerted practical and profound influence on Chinese politics and society.66 And purged of the premodern, hierarchical quality, the relational principles derived from the historically evolving Confucian tradition contain real promises for enhancing international relations as a discourse and practice. Assuming differentiated yet interdependent interests, Confucian relationalism prioritizes mutual relations. It embodies, observes Roger Ames, an “intrinsic, constitutive, and productive” framework of international relations for achieving common goods by harmonizing concrete relationships and optimizing the productivity of these relationships.67 It asks the central question of the conditions under which a given situation (e.g., China’s rise) comprising particular relations (e.g., China’s relations with the United States and its Asian neighbors) might be made more cooperative and mutually beneficial. Its ideal of world harmony may be too beautiful a vision. But a mutually beneficial, cooperative, and accommodating framework based on a proper combination of enlightened and justified self-interest and affective and communal obligation is distinctly achievable in contemporary international relations. Karl Popper wrote at the beginning of The Open

The Value of Relationalism  

Society and Its Enemies that one of the chief goals human civilization should strive for is humaneness.68 In the modern world, this humaneness has been suppressed by realpolitik, imperialism, and colonialism that marked the rise of the West. The inclusive humanism embodied by Chinese relationalism can contribute to reestablishing humaneness as the central moral purpose of international relations. It provides a distinguished intellectual resource and can at the same time apply practical ethical constraints on realpolitik, as is the case to some extent already in Chinese foreign policy.

appendix i

Major Periods in Ancient and Imperial China

Spring and Autumn Warring States Qin Earlier Han Later Han Period of North-South Disunion Northern Wei Sui Tang Northern Song Southern Song Yuan (Mongols) Ming Qing (Manchus)

770–475 B.C. 475–221 B.C. 221–206 B.C. 206 B.C.–A.D. 8 A.D. 25–220 220–589 386–535 589–618 618–907 960–1127 1127–1279 1279–1368 1368–1644 1644–1911



appendix ii

Translation of Key Chinese Terms and Expressions

an ju ben tu安居本土: to live in peace in one’s own land bian huan 邊患: frontier threat biao 表: memorial bin 賓: guest bu cheng 不誠: lack of integrity bu fen hua wai 不分化外: to make no distinction between the civilized and uncivilized bu huai en 不懷恩: a lack of (or to lack) gratitude bu ting 不廷: nonsubmissive cefeng 册封: investiture chaogong 朝貢 and laigong 來貢 and zhigong 職貢: to pay tribute to the Chinese court chaxu geju 差序格局: the differential mode of association chen 臣: vassal cheng 誠: integrity; sincerity cong hua 從化: to come and transform dao 道: the ultimate proper Way daotong 道統: succession to the Way; cultural core de 德: moral excellence en 恩: grace fu fu 夫婦: husband and wife fu ren zhe, ji yu li er li ren, ji yu da er da ren 夫仁者，己欲立而立人，己欲達而達人: humane persons establish others in seeking to establish themselves and promote others in seeking to get there themselves



  appendix ii fu shun fa ni 撫順伐逆: to cherish the loyal and punish the disobedient fu yu 撫育: to nurture and foster fu yu hua yi 撫馭華夷: to nurture and govern the Chinese and the non-Chinese fu zi 父子: father and son gan en mu yi 感恩慕義: to appreciate grace and emulate appropriateness gong 貢: tribute gongjuxing yuanze 工具性原則: instrumental principle gongxiang shengping zhizhi 共享昇平之治: to share the governance of peace gongxiang taiping zhifu 共享太平之福: to share the fortune of peace haijin 海禁: maritime prohibition heqin 和親: peace through kinship relations hou fu 厚撫: nurture generously hua xia 華夏: florescent civilization; Chinese civilization hua yi ben yi jia 華夷本一家: the Chinese and culturally inferior non-Chinese peoples are originally of one family hua yi wu jian 華夷無間: no gulf between the Chinese and non-Chinese huai 懷: to admire; to cherish huai rou yuan ren 懷柔遠人: to win the admiration of men from afar through kindness huai zhi yi en 懷之以恩: to cherish with grace Hui Tong Guan 會同館: College of Interpreters hushi 互市: mutual market trade jian bi qing ye 堅壁清野: strengthening of walls and clearing of fields jiang he 講和: to negotiate peace jiao hua 教化: to change through education and example jimi 羈縻: loose rein jun chen 君臣: sovereign and vassal ken 懇: sincerity lai gui 來歸: to come to China to submit lai zhe bu ju 來者不拒: to reject none who comes (to submit) li 禮: propriety in roles and relations; social-ritual norm li 理: principle li 力: force; coercion li 利: advantage; benefit Li Bu 禮部: Ministry of Rites Lifan Yuan 理藩院: Department of Frontier Management meng 盟: covenant mu li yi 慕禮義: to emulate propriety and appropriateness na gong chen chen 納貢稱臣: to offer tribute and declare vassalage

Translation of Key Chinese Terms and Expressions   niming zhe bi jianchu zhi 逆命者必殲除之: the disobedient must be exterminated peng you 朋友: friends qian 虔: reverence qingganxing yuanze 情感性原則: expressive principle qinqing yuanze 親親原則: the principle of favoring the intimate qinqing 親情: kinship affection qinshu 親疏: intimacy-distance ren 仁: humaneness ren 人: person renqing 人情: interpersonal affection; humanized affection; human emotions and feelings sai 塞: frontier sao qing sha mo 掃清沙漠: to clear up the desert shan fu qi zhong 善撫其眾: to nurture one’s people with efficacy shi 士: literati; scholar-officials; intellectuals Shi Bo Si 市舶司: Office of Merchant Ships shi da 事大: to serve the great; to serve the superior shi ruo sun wei 示弱損威: to reveal weakness and damage awesomeness shi zhu ji er bu yuan, yi wu shi yu ren 施諸己而不愿，亦勿施於人: do not treat others as you yourself would not wish to be treated si yi 四夷: culturally inferior foreign kingdoms and/or peoples shu 恕: to put oneself in another’s place shun 順: obedience tao fa zhi shi 討伐之師: punitive expeditions tao guang yang hui 韜光養晦: to conceal one’s capability from outward display tao zui 討罪: to punish crime tianxia 天下: all under heaven; the world; the empire tianxia yijia 天下一家: the world is one family tong gong 通貢: to accept tribute tong hao 通好: to open friendly relations wang dao 王道: kingly way; humane authority wei 威: awesomeness wu li 無禮: lack propriety wu wai 無外: no outer separation xin 信: making good on one’s word; trustworthiness xin 心: mind-and-heart xing 刑: penal law xiong di 兄弟: elder brother and younger brother xiu de gai xing 脩德改行: improve moral excellence and change behavior

  appendix ii xiu shen 修身: self-cultivation of the mind-and-heart of the person xiu shen, qi jia, zhi guo, ping tianxia 修身，齊家，治國，平天下: to cultivate the person, to establish harmony in the family, to govern the country, to bring peace to the world yao suo 要索: coercion and extortion yi 義: optimal appropriateness; rightness; duty; obligation yi 夷: culturally inferior foreign peoples yi shi tong ren 一視同仁: to treat all equally; to treat all with impartiality; to treat all with the same humaneness yi xiao shi da zhi li 以小事大之禮: the propriety of serving the great by the small (countries) you suo zuo wei 有所作為: to make some contributions yue 約: pact zha 詐: deceitfulness; duplicity zheng tong 正統: legitimate succession zhong 忠: doing one’s utmost; loyalty zhong guo 中國: central states; central kingdom; middle kingdom; the Chinese polity; China zhong hua 中華: central cultural florescence; central civilization zi wei sheng jiao 自為聲教: to improve one’s own reputation and cultivation zi xiao 字小: to cherish the small zongfan 宗藩: suzerain-vassal zui 罪: crime zunbei 尊卑: superiority-inferiority zunzun yuanze 尊尊原則: the principle of respecting the superior

Notes

Chapter 1 1.  See some bold estimates in Jacques 2012, 5, 490, 631. 2. Legro 2007; Leonard 2008. 3. Evans 2010, 55. 4. Yan 2011; cf. Callahan 2008. 5. Jacques 2012, 496. 6. Friedberg 2011a, 157; also see Friedberg 2011b. For earlier views, see Huntington 1996, 229; Dibb 1995, 13–14; Mosher 2000; Terrill 2004. 7.  See Waltz 2008, 89–90; Lebow 2001, 133. 8. Mearsheimer 2001, 400. 9. Ruggie 1998, 121. 10. Popper 2002. 11.  On the desirability of doing so, see Johnston 2012; Kang 2013. 12. Reus-Smit 2008; see also Shapcott 2004. 13. Lebow 2012 is a major exemplar. 14.  Pachucki and Breiger 2010, 208. 15.  See, for example, Jackson and Nexon 1999; Lebow 2003, 2008, 2012; Nexon 2009; Maoz 2011. 16. Lake 2007, 50; see also Lake 2009a. 17.  For a fuller discussion on conceptions of hierarchy in IR and their relevance to historical East Asia, see Zhang 2014. 18. Kang 2003, 2007a, 2010. 19. Clark 2009, 214; 2011, 4, 34, 51; see also Lebow and Kelly 2001, 595. 20. Mastanduno 2003, 145.



  Notes to Chapter 1 21. Johnston 1995; Wang 2011. 22.  Both are discussed in Wang 2011. 23. Fairbank 1968b; Fairbank and Teng 1941. 24. Kang 2010; Zhang and Buzan 2012. 25.  See, for example, Shambaugh 2004–2005, 95. 26. Harding 2009, 128; see also Womack 2010; Khong 2013. 27.  Bull and Watson 1984, 1; Buzan 2004, 7. 28. Krasner 1999. 29.  Wang G. 2004, 312. 30.  Fairbank and Teng 1941, 140–41. 31. Zhao 1997, 15–19. 32. Wang 2011, 150. 33.  For the realist debate, see Waltz 1979; Van Evera 1990–1991; Walt 1987; Schroeder 1994; Schweller 1994; Powell 1999; Sweeney and Fritz 2004. 34.  Cf. Xu 1987. 35. Chun 1997, 13–14; Li 2004, 70–72. 36.  Wang Z. 2005, 219. 37. Nylan 2001, 3; Loewe 2012, 2. 38. Nivison 1959, 3; Van Norden 1996, 5. 39. Yü 1992, ix. 40. Tucker 2003, 2. 41. Nivison 1959, 4. 42. Berthrong 1998, 5. 43.  On the historical development of the changing Confucian tradition, see Tucker 2003, 8; Berthrong 1998, 8. 44.  On neo-Confucianism, see Yü 2011; Bol 2008; de Bary 1981, 1989. For some comments on the differences between classical Confucianism and neoConfucianism, see Wang 2008, 121 and 151. 45.  See Wang 2008, 234. 46. By traditional I mean East Asian politics before the mid-nineteenth century, when modern European-style international relations began to affect the region. By East Asia I mean a political region bordered by Mongolia and Manchuria to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Tibetan Plateau to the west, and overland and maritime Southeast Asia to the South. The term international relations is used not in the restrictive sense of relationships among nation-states or even national states, which is problematic for traditional East Asia, where the constituent units were not modern European-style states, but in the sense of all kinds of interaction dynamics among significant actors in the international system, which can apply to the traditional East Asian context.

Notes to Chapter 1   47.  On fundamental institutions of international society, see Buzan 2004, 181. 48.  A recent statement is Tanigawa 2009; see also Holcombe 2001, 2011; Han 2009. 49. Kang 2007b. 50.  Fairbank and Teng 1941, 137; Mancall 1984, 13; Wills 1984, 14; Wang 1994, 239; Chun 1997, 159; Li 2004, 14, 61; Finlay 2008, 334; but see Wan 2011, 205. 51. Ge 2011, 12–13. 52.  Ikenberry, Mastanduno, and Wohlforth 2011, 7; see also Brooks and Wohlforth 2008, 27–35. 53. Ikenberry 2011, 43–44. 54. Johnston 1995, 233. 55. Wang 2011, 111. 56. Rossabi 1975, 23. 57.  A recent assessment is Dreyer 2007. 58. Abu-Lughod 1989, 322. 59.  It goes without saying that China, Korea, Japan, and Mongols are anachronistic terms. I employ them only for their ease of use. 60.  See, for example, Kelley 2005; Womack 2006; Vuving 2009. 61.  Brooks, Ikenberry, and Wohlforth 2012–2013, 11. 62. Dueck 2006, 11. For earlier work, see Rosecrance and Stein 1993; Kennedy 1991; Posen 1984. 63. Zhang 2012a, 319. 64.  Emirbayer and Mische 1998, 967. 65. Emirbayer 1997, 296; Pizzorno 1991, 219–20. 66.  Emirbayer and Mische 1998, 967–68. 67.  See Narizny 2007, 9. 68. Tilly 2005, 21. 69.  Somers and Gibson 1994, 59 (emphasis in original). See also Somers 1994a, 72; 1994b. 70.  Somers and Gibson 1994, 67. 71. Somers 1998, 770. 72.  See George and Bennett 2005; Bennett and George 2001; Gaddis 2001. 73. Kang 2010, 14. 74.  Some studies also define state expansively, well beyond the confines of the modern European state model, which may be defensible in some cases. See, for example, Buzan and Little 2000, 442; Buzan 2004, 92. 75. Osiander 2007. 76. Lake 1999, 18. 77. Ibid., 19.

  Notes to Chapter 2

Chapter 2 1.  See, for example, Johnston 1995; Zhang 2001; Kang 2010; Wang 2011; Zhang and Buzan 2012. For an important approach that cannot be easily categorized, see Womack 2006, 2010. 2. Hevia 1995, 247–48. 3. Fiske 1991, 1992. 4. Emirbayer 1997. 5.  Jackson and Nexon 1999. 6. Maoz 2012, 249. 7.  McClurg and Young 2011, 39. 8.  See in particular Lebow 2003, 2008, 2012; see also Jackson 2006; Nexon 2009; Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery 2009; Maoz 2011; Ward, Stovel, and Sacks 2011; McClurg and Young 2011. 9. Hsu 1985, 33. 10. Tu 1989, 110. 11. Ames 2011, 213. 12. Fei 1992. 13. Ibid., 78. 14. Ho 1991, 1993, 1998; Ho and Chiu 1998. 15. Ho 1998, 3. 16. Hwang 1987, 1997–1998, 2000, 2001. 17. Ames 2011, xiv; see also Rosemont 1991, 2006. 18. Ames 2011, 73. 19. Ibid., 265. 20. Zhao 2005. 21. Zhao 2008a, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012. 22.  On methodological individualism, see Udehn 2002; Kydd 2008. 23. Qin 2009, 2011; Shih 2014. 24.  Hall and Ames 1987, 15; 1995, 40; Tian 2005, 12. 25. Emirbayer 1997, 281. 26. Fuchs 2001, 3. 27.  Wasserman and Faust 1994, 3–4; Knoke 1990, 8. For an earlier view on social structure on which network analysis initially drew, see Nadel 1957. 28.  Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994, 1418 (emphasis in original); see also Wellman 1983, 157. 29. Wellman 1988, 20. 30.  Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994, 1416. 31. Wellman 1988, 31. 32. Lebow 2003, 2008, 2010, 2012.

Notes to Chapter 2   33. Pizzorno 1986, 370. 34. Waltz 1979, 81. 35. Hwang 2000, 169. 36.  See Boudon 1998, 2003. 37.  See, for example, Lake and Powell 1999. 38.  Instrumental rationality itself—and rational choice theory that it underpins—need not be materialist. See Fearon and Wendt 2002, 59; Snidal 2002, 75. 39. Hwang 1987, 950. 40.  Many Western theorists will emphatically agree. See Boudon 2003; Sen 1986; Macneil 1986. In fact, instrumentality reflects, as Albert Hirschman (1977) and Richard Ned Lebow (2003, 354) have observed, an impoverished concept of human nature in modern Western intellectual history. 41.  See Liang 1999, 2005. 42. Liang 1999, 133. 43.  March and Olsen 1998, 951. 44.  On the relationship between altruism and egoism, see Elster 2007, chap. 5, and the many essays in Mansbridge 1990. 45.  Hall and Ames 1998, 259. 46. Tu 1989, 117. 47.  Cf. Elster 2007, 81. 48. Hwang 1987, 950. It is noteworthy that outside of Confucian ethics and from an ancient Greek perspective, Lebow (2003, 354) has also observed that “relationships and the commitments they entail are not simply instrumental means to selfish ends, but important ends in their own right.” 49. Hwang 2001, 187. 50. Hwang 2000, 168. This is sometimes described as the principle of “differentiated love”; see Tu 1989, 63. 51. Alexander 1988. 52. Donnelly 2009, 50, 54. 53.  See Lebow 2012. 54.  For a general treatment on differentiation in classical Confucianism, see Chen 2011. 55. Ho 1991, 89. 56.  These are the relationships between father and son (fuzi 父子), sovereign and subordinate (junchen 君臣), husband and wife (fufu 夫婦), elder brother and younger brother (xiongdi 兄弟), and friends (pengyou 朋友). 57. Knoke 1990, 7. 58.  The translations of all Confucian terms such as en, ren, li, yi, and de in this book are adopted from Ames 2011.

  Notes to Chapter 2 59. Wang 1991b, 172. 60. Gao 2008, 12–13, 20. 61.  Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994, 1447; Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery 2009, 563, 565; Wasserman and Faust 1994, 178. 62.  Nexon and Wright 2007, 260. 63. Knoke 1990, 9. 64.  Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery 2009, 570. 65. Waltz 1979. 66.  See Zhang 2014. 67.  For an argument that anarchy and hierarchy are not actually ordering principles, see Donnelly 2009. 68. Ruggie 1983; Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993. 69.  Goddard and Nexon (2005) argue that Waltz should have allowed a more explicit role structure in his theory. 70. Wellman 1983, 163. 71. Wendt 1992, 396; see also Wendt 1999. 72.  Cf. Lebow 2003, 367. 73. Epstein 2011, 338. 74. Waltz 1979, 69. 75.  On authority and legitimacy, see Weber 1978, 36–38; Blau 1963, 307; Flathman 1995, 527; Merelman 1966, 548; Hurd 1999, 381; 2007, 20. 76.  See Ruggie 1998, 22–25. 77. Hurd 2005, 2008; Fearon and Wendt 2002; Snidal and Thompson 2003; Checkel 1997. 78.  This is noted in somewhat different ways by Johnston (1995, 247) and Wang (2011, 186). 79.  See Reus-Smit 2009, 222–23. 80.  In practice, the Chinese emperor had various relational connections with different foreign rulers. None of these necessarily stood as a model for any other; each was conceived as distinct in itself (see Elliott 2009, 127; Wills 1974, 205). One may note that this Chinese penchant for bilateralism is still strongly with us today. 81. Tu 1989, 103. 82. Hevia 1995, 24. 83. Kelley 2005, 197. 84.  See Weber 1978, 212. 85.  Psychology provides possible evidence; see Goldgeier and Tetlock 2008, 471. For a relational sociological perspective, see Somers 1994b, 627. 86. Fuchs 2001, chap. 3; see also Hall and Ames 1995, 115. 87. Lake 2009b, 265. 88. Ibid., 264.

Notes to Chapters 2 and 3   89. Jervis 1997, 44. 90.  See Fairbank 1974, 7–13. 91. Tu 1989, 65. 92.  See Waldron 1994, 101; 2011, 1147; Hall and Ames 1987, 168–73. 93.  See Schwartz 1985, 104. 94.  Hall and Ames 1998, 274. 95. Gao 2008, 4, 11–12, 144–45. 96.  See Wang 2011; Johnston 1995. 97.  See in particular Iwaii 2008. 98. Mancall 1984, 32. 99. Johnston 1995. 100. Wang 2011. 101. Ibid., 180. 102. Bevir 2008, 57. 103. Somers 1998, 756. 104.  See Bevir 2008, 51.

Chapter 3 1. Kim 1980, 3. 2.  For overviews, see Lee 1984; Lee 1997; Chen 1997. 3. Walker 1971, 315–16. 4. Ye 1991, chap 1. 5.  Yi has usually been translated as “barbarians.” Beckwith (2009, 355–62) argues persuasively that this is a hugely misleading translation. Moreover, as Liu (2004) points out, such a translation automatically builds in the Sinocentric assumption (see also Holcombe 2011, 8). The Chinese might have simply used yi to mean “foreigners” of a lower cultural attainment, not necessarily in a pejorative sense. (For a practical example during the Qing, see Wang 2008, 694). A better translation of yi is “culturally inferior foreign peoples,” as it allows more room than “barbarians” for different interpretations of the historical meanings of the term and is thus more useful analytically. Hevia (1995, 120–21) also renders yi as “the foreign peoples,” and Joseph Fletcher (1968, 206) translates it as “foreigners.” Here I use “foreign kingdoms” to translate yi for the flow of language. 6.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 37.749–50; GLS, 796. 7. Wan 2011, 72. 8.  See ibid., 73. 9.  For the original text, see ibid. 10.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 41.815; GLS, 796–97. 11. LCSL, 14; GLS, 796.

  Notes to Chapter 3 12.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 44.858. 13.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 44.866–67. 14. SYZZL, 9. 15.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 45.883. 16.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 46.907–09. For a slightly different version, see GLS, 798–99. See also Clark 1978, 39–42. 17.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 48.954–55. 18.  My counting from MSL, Taizu shi lu. 19. Dreyer 1982, 66. 20. Huang 1994, 186–90. 21. Wang 1991a, 112; 1998, 303. 22. Ye 1991, 36. 23.  The Chinese character of xin was originally a picture of the aorta, but it came to mean “thoughts and feeling” in Chinese thought, and then derivatively and metaphorically, the organ with which these experiences are to be associated (Ames and Rosemont 1998, 56). 24. Clark 1978, 38. 25. DMB, 1083. 26.  See Ledyard 1983. 27. Clark 1978, 46. 28.  See Wang Z. 2005, 116–17. 29. Clark 1978, 22. 30. Walker 1971, 161. 31. Clark 1978, 26; DMB, 1598–99. 32. Clark 1978, 19–20. 33. Ye 1991, 8. 34. Clark 1978, 27–28; Ye 1991, 9. 35. Clark 1978, 35–36. 36. DMB, 1083. 37. Clark 1978, 46. 38. LCSL, 13, 15. 39.  MGHJSL I, 5; Huang 1994, 207. 40. Ye 1991, 43. 41. Huang 1994, 215. 42. Clark 1978, 48–54. 43.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 76.1400–01. 44. GLS, 812–17. 45.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 85.1518. For a slightly different version of the story, see GLS, 822.

Notes to Chapter 3   46.  Serving the great by the small is one of the major principles of traditional Chinese foreign relations. China is “the great,” and all the other polities are referred to as “the small.” The principle embodies the hierarchical nature of traditional Chinese foreign policy. 47.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 85.1518–19. 48.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 89.1574–75; GLS, 822. 49. GLS, 823. 50. Ibid., 821. 51.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 98.1672; Ye 1991, 45. 52.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 111.1842–43. 53.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 116.1903–05; GLS, 831. 54.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 121.1966–67; GLS, 830. 55. GLS, 832–34. 56.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 124.1991, 125.2000–01. 57. Clark 1978, 163. 58. GLS, 832, 840. 59.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 128.2040. 60.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 129.2043. 61.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 131.2090–91. 62.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 132.2101–03. 63. GLS, 835. 64.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 140.2210. 65.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 151.2378, 157.2435; MS, 320.8281; GLS, 842. 66.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 162.2518, 163.2528. 67.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 165.2543. 68.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 170.2584–85; GLS, 854. 69.  Kongmin is the posthumous name of the king given by the Hongwu emperor, which historians have used as the reign title of his rule. The king’s birth name is Wang Zhuan in Chinese, which the Hongwu emperor used in one of his rescripts written after the king’s murder in 1374. MSL, Taizu shi lu, 174.2648–49; GLS, 848–49. 70. GLS, 855–61. 71. Ibid., 863–64. 72.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 187.2807–08. 73. MS, 320.8282. 74.  See Clark 1978, 91. 75. Huang 1994, 244. 76. Clark 1978, 91. 77.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 190.2867–68; MS, 320.8282.

  Notes to Chapter 3 78. LCSL, 107. 79.  For the above chain of events, see also DMB, 1600–1601. 80.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 195.2927 and 199.2985; Clark 1978, 105. 81. Clark 1998, 276; Lee 1984, 189. 82.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 221.3233–35. 83.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 228.3324–25. 84.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 229.3345. 85.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 231.3383. 86. LCSL, 115; Clark 1978, 136–37. 87.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 234.3422–23. 88.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 235.3432, 240.3486. 89.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 243.3533. 90.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 244.3538. 91. Clark 1978, 82; Ye 1991, 42. 92. Clark 1978, 134–35. 93. Lee 1997, 76. 94.  Approximate counting from the MLS, Taizu shi lu. 95. Clark 1978, 68–70; Ye 1991, 42. 96. Clark 1978, 274; 1998, 274. 97.  It is worth pointing out that imperial sanction from China through investiture was an important factor in propping up Koryo˘’s weak kingship throughout its dynastic history. See Duncan 2000, 51. 98. Chun 1997, 162. 99. Kim 1980, 12. 100. Ye 1991, 47. 101. Huang 1994, 226. 102.  See, for example, Clark 1978, 85; 1998, 281. 103.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 57.1116, 62.1197; LCSL, 270. 104. Chun 1997, 228. 105.  See Clark 1978, 95, 98; see also Park 1978, 18; Robinson 1992, 96. 106. Deuchler 1992, 91. 107. Clark 1978, 130; 1998, 276. 108. Larson 2008, 33. 109. Walker 1971, 204–5. 110. LCSL, 149. 111. Ibid., 150. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid., 156–57. 114. Ibid., 157.

Notes to Chapter 3   115. Ibid., 158–59. 116. Ibid., 161. 117. Ibid., 167. 118. Ibid., 169–70. 119. Ibid., 174. 120. Ibid., 176–77. 121. Ibid., 183. 122. Ibid., 184–85. 123. Ibid., 195. 124. Ibid., 189. 125. Ibid., 193, 224–25. 126. Ibid., 195, 199–200. 127. Clark 1998, 284. 128. LCSL, 201. 129. Ibid., 206–7. 130. Ibid., 208–9. 131. Ibid., 212–14. 132. Ibid., 216. 133. Ibid., 221; see also Serruys 1955, 56. 134. LCSL, 223. 135. Ibid., 225–26. 136. Ibid., 233, 237–38. 137. Ibid., 239. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid., 240. 140.  For fuller treatments of Chinese policies toward the Jurchens, see Rossabi 1975, 1982; Serruys 1955. 141. Clark 1998, 278. 142. LCSL, 230–32. 143. Ibid., 279. 144.  See, for example, LCSL, 242, 254, 257, 258. 145.  See LCSL, 254. 146. Sun 2007; Zheng 2006. 147.  See Deuchler 1992, 91; Park 1978, 18; Larson 2008, 28. 148.  Cf. Chun 1997, 159. 149.  See Robinson 1992. 150. Serruys 1955, 50–58. 151. Ibid., 47. 152.  See Larson 2008, 27.

  Notes to Chapter 4

Chapter 4 1. Batten 2003, 227. 2. Ibid., 147. 3.  See Hall 1970, 35–36; Shively and McCullough 1999, 3; Batten 1986. 4.  Takeo with Sakai 1977, 159–60; Wang Z. 2005, 222. 5.  See Verschuer 1999, 3, 9. 6. Batten 2003, 29; see also Haruyuki 1995, 51. 7.  Wang Z. 2005, 222. 8. Borgen 1982, 24–25. 9. Pollack 1986, 56. 10. Ibid., 12. 11. Toby 1977, 1984; see also Chen 2002, 432–40. 12.  See Wang 1953, 10. 13.  Ibid. Pirates may have killed the Chinese envoys en route; see Sho¯ji 1990, 425. 14.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 38.781. 15.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 39.787; SYZZL, 51. 16. Hall 1990, 205. 17.  For Japan’s political situation at the time of Yang Zai’s mission, see Hall 1990; Sansom 1961. 18. Cheng 1981, 151–52. 19. Wang 1953, 11; Cheng 1981, 152; Takeo with Sakai 1977, 163. 20.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 50.988. 21. Wang 1953, 11. 22.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 68.1280–82. 23. Sansom 1961, 168. 24.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 68.1282. 25. Wang 1953, 13; Cheng 1981, 161. 26. Wang 1953, 13; Cheng 1981, 162. 27.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 90.1581. 28.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 90.1582. 29. Ibid. 30. Wang 1953, 15. 31.  See MS, 322.8342–43. 32.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 105.1755–56. 33.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 125.1997, 131.2092. 34.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 133.2112. 35.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 134.2135–36. 36. Wang 1953, 18.

Notes to Chapter 4   37.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 138.2174. 38.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 138.2174–77. 39. MS, 322.8343–44. 40. Sansom 1961, 167. 41. MS, 322.8344. 42. Ibid. 43.  See Langlois 1988, 168; Wang 1953, 20. 44. Cheng 1985, 21. 45. MS, 322.8344; MSL, Taizu shi lu, 179.2713; Wang 1953, 19–20. 46. MS, 322.8344. 47.  On Japanese piracy, see Takeo with Sakai 1977, 161–62; Elisonas 1991, 239–45; Hazard 1967; So 1975. 48.  See Sho¯ji 1990, 398. 49. Cheng 1985, 25; Sho¯ji 1990, 430. 50. Wang 1953, 11. 51. Cheng 1981, 152. 52. Hall 1990, 189. 53. Sansom 1961, 178. 54.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 68.1280–82. 55. Elisonas 1991, 241. 56. Sho¯ji 1990, 425. 57. Cheng 1981, 158. 58.  Zhang and Guo 2006, 301. 59. Hall 1990, 206; Sansom 1961, 109–13. 60. Cheng 1985, 153. 61. Cheng 1981, 190. 62. Wang 1953, 21–22. 63. Hall 1990, 189. 64. Cheng 1981, 233–34. 65. Ibid., 244–45; Wang 1953, 22–23. 66.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 23.426–27. 67. Cheng 1981, 250–51. 68.  Takeo with Sakai 1977, 165. 69. Cheng 1981, 254. 70. Ibid., 251. 71.  See Wang 1953, 37; Sansom 1961, 170; Takeo with Sakai 1977, 165–67. 72. Elisonas 1991, 236–37. 73.  See Cheng 1981, 244–45; Wang 1953, 22–23. 74. Wang 1953, 38–39.

  Notes to Chapter 4 75.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 50.751–54, 67.941–42, 79.1061–62. 76. Cheng 1981, 239; Wang 1953, 22–23, 62. 77.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 36.619. 78.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 48.732–33. 79. Sansom 1961, 169. 80.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 67.941–42, 79.1061–62. 81. Cheng 1981, 355; Hall 1990, 219–25. 82. Sansom 1961, 151–53. 83.  Zhang and Guo 2006, 307. 84. Grossberg 2001, 35–36. 85. Sansom 1961, 172–73. 86.  On economic benefits, see Verschuer 2002, 419; Sho¯ji 1990, 408–9; Yamamura 1990, 358–60; Totman 2005, 109, 155; Hurst 1999, 636–37; Hall 1990, 223. 87. Toby 1977, 331–32; see also Grossberg 2001, 36–37. 88.  See Grossberg 2001, 28. 89. Batten 2003, 147. 90. Sansom 1961, 172. 91.  Akira and Yamamura 1992, 48. 92. Grossberg 2001, 34. 93. Ibid., 36. 94.  Takeo with Sakai 1977, 177. 95. Hall 1990, 193; Elisonas 1991, 242. 96. Sansom 1961, 160–61. 97. Kang 1997, 22. 98. Ibid., 35. 99.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 86.1147. 100.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 86.1141. 101.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 103.1339. 102.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 193.2035. 103.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 193.2035–36. 104.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 199.2077. 105. Hall 1990, 201. 106. Wang 1953, 49; Cheng 1981, 353. 107. Wang 1953, 49–51. 108. Ibid., 51. 109. Ibid., 52–53. 110.  For the historical context of that belief, see Toby 1984, 213–16; Haruyuki 1995, 4–41. 111. Cheng 1981, 355. 112. Ibid., 356; Sansom 1961, 174.

Notes to Chapters 4 and 5   113. Kang 1997, 39. 114.  See Pollack 1986, 5, 21, 27; Hall 1970, 4–9; Iriye 1980, 3. 115.  However, private trading with the continent intensified and generated a wealth of revenues for the Heian court. See Hurst 1999, 632–33.

Chapter 5 1. Rowe 2009; Hevia 1995. 2. Waldron 1990, 42. 3. MS, 1.16. 4. MS, 2.20; Dreyer 1982, 63; 1988, 97. 5. Waldron 1990, 74; Dreyer 1988, 96. 6. MS, 327.8463–64; Dreyer 1982, 72–74. 7. SYZZL, 512–16; DMB, 16. 8. DMB, 16; Mao and Li 1994, 115. 9.  Mao and Li 1994, 91–92. 10. MS, 327.8464; SYZZL, 516. 11. SYZZL, 512–16; DMB, 16; Dreyer 1982, 74; Pokotilov 1976, 7. 12. Pokotilov 1976, 7. 13. MS, 327.8464; SYZZL, 522–23. 14. MS, 327.8464; Dreyer 1982, 75; 1988, 102–3. 15. MS, 327.8464; Pokotilov 1976, 9. 16. Dreyer 1982, 75–76. 17. MS, 327.8464; SYZZL, 524, 526. 18. MS, 327.8464; SYZZL, 525–26; DMB, 16. 19. MS, 327.8464; SYZZL, 527; DMB, 1293. 20. Dreyer 1982, 102. 21. MS, 327.8465; SYZZL, 530–31. 22. Dreyer 1982, 142. 23. MS, 327.8466–67; SYZZL, 532; Dreyer 1982, 143. 24.  MSL, Taizu shi lu, 199.2990–91. 25. MS, 327.8467; SYZZL, 535. 26. Dreyer 1982, 64, 71. 27. MS, 327.8463. 28. Waldron 1990, 74. 29. Dreyer 1988, 103, 106. 30.  On this point, also see Wang 2011, 107–8. 31. Dreyer 1982, 75. 32. MS, 327.8465. 33. Dreyer 1982, 103; Barfield 1989, 232.

  Notes to Chapter 5 34. Waldron 1990, 76–78. 35. Lovell 2006, 189. 36. FADYJ, 1–2. 37. Serruys 1982, 14–15. 38. SYZZL, 515, 522, 527; Mao and Li 1994, 91–92. 39. SYZZL, 537. 40. Ma 2003, 225. 41. Barfield 1989, 232. 42. MS, 327.8467. 43. Pokotilov 1976, 14. 44. MS, 328.8497. 45.  See MSL, Taizong shi lu, 65.921. 46. MS, 328.8497; MS, 327.8467; MGHJSL II, 500. 47.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 14.0262. 48.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 17.0306–07, 30.0533–34; MGHJSL I, 195. 49.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 43.681–82. 50. DMB, 12. 51. MS, 327.8467. 52.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 65.921. 53.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 72.1004. 54. MS, 327.8467. 55.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 77.1043–44; MS, 327.8467. 56. DMB, 1036. 57.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 84.1117–18. 58.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 90.1186; MGHJSL I, 196. 59. MS, 328.8497; MSL, Taizong shi lu, 93.1235. 60.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 93.1234–35. 61.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 94.1243–44. 62.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 96.1271. 63.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 101.1313. 64.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 96.1272, 102.1327–28. 65.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 111.1419–20. 66.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 113.1441–42. 67. Chan 1988, 226. 68.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 128.1591. 69.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 136.1659. 70.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 140.1684. 71.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 140.1687. 72. Ibid.

Notes to Chapter 5   73.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 141.1691. 74.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 149.1739. 75.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 152.1764–65. 76.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 152.1768. 77.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 152.1768–69. 78.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 160.1816–17. 79.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 218.2165. 80.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 218.2168. 81. DMB, 14. 82.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 233.2248. 83.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 247.2313. 84.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 250.2343. 85.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 264.2406. 86.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 264.2408. 87.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 272.2464; MGHJSL I, 63. 88.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 273.2469. 89.  For a contrary view, see Waldron 1990, 76. 90.  MGHJSL II, 512. 91.  On the “standard of civilization,” see Gong 1984. 92.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 15.0278. 93.  See Waldron 1990. 94. Waldron 1990, 76; Rossabi 1975, 43; 1998, 227; Perdue 2005, 55–56; Chan 1988, 228; DMB, 1037; Bai 2006, 30–32. 95.  See Mearsheimer 2001. 96.  For such an interpretation, see Barfield 1989, 236. 97.  MGHJSL II, 578. 98.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 93.1238. 99. Pokotilov 1976, 28; Barfield 1989, 236; Perdue 2005, 55. 100.  See Barfield 1989. 101.  See Du and Bai 2008, 82. 102.  MGHJSL II, 578. 103.  A concise summary can be found in Waldron 1990, 35–36. 104. Khazanov 1984; Jagchid and Symons 1989. 105.  See Di Cosmo 1994, 1093. 106. Barfield 1981, 1989. 107.  Di Cosmo 2002, 217–24. 108.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 160.1816. 109.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 145.1714. 110.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 187.1999. 111. DMB, 1036; Perdue 2005, 55.

  Notes to Chapters 5 and 6 112.  See MGHJSL 1:315. 113.  See SYZZL, 546. 114.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 247.2313. 115.  Mao and Li 1994, 170. 116. Chan 1988, 265. 117. Serruys 1967, 99. 118.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 145.1713. 119.  MSL, Taizong shi lu, 155.1790, 159.1811–12. 120. SYZZL, 545; DMB, 13; Mao and Li 1994, 176, 182. 121. Barfield 1989. 122.  On self-strengthening, see Hui 2005. 123. Fletcher 1986, 14–15. 124.  Mao and Li 1994, 98–99. 125. Serruys 1967, 19. For similar views, see also Barfield 1989; Rossabi 1975; Jagchid and Symons 1989. 126.  This was not a unique phenomenon in Sino-Mongol relations. Tributary missions also came when the Ming dynasty was in open hostility with some other peoples, such as the oasis state of Turfan. See Rossabi 1972, 206–25. 127.  See Di Cosmo 2003, 362. 128. Serruys 1967, 25. 129. Ibid.

Chapter 6 1. Waldron 2005, 10. 2. Layne 2006, 4. 3. Waltz 1979; for critiques, see Milner 1991; Hobson and Sharman 2005; Donnelly 2006; Lake 2007, 2009a, 2009b. 4.  On this point, see also Zhang 2014. 5. Bull 2012, 71. 6. Buzan 2004, 181. 7. Reus-Smit 1999, 14. 8. Ibid., 6. 9.  Zhang and Buzan 2012; see also Zhang 2001. 10. Reus-Smit 1999, 31. 11. Clark 2011, 4. 12.  The major exception is the Song; see Ge 2011, chap. 1; Standen 2007. Other exceptions such as the Ming and Qing also exist: see Tsai 2012, 132; Wan 2011, 193–96; Wang 2008, 1580–81. Also see Lary 2007 for a related treatment on the issue of border in Chinese history.

Notes to Chapter 6   13.  See Gan 2007, 30–32; Wang L. 2009, 58–60; Liu and Jin 2006, 110–11. 14.  For a conception of ethnic sovereignty in the case of the Qing empire, see Elliott 2001. 15.  On the differences between yi and justice, see Cheng 1997. 16.  See Li 2010, 120–21, 178, 190. 17. Tu 1989, 48. 18. Chan 2008, 70 (emphasis in original). 19.  The translation is taken from Wang 1968, 54. 20. Whitney 1969, 30. 21.  See Brook 2010. Tianxia literally means “all under heaven.” In practice it can mean either “the world of China” or “the world” more broadly construed. See Ames 2011, 267; Xing 2011, 95. 22. Skaff 2012, 15. 23. Wang 2003, 178; see also Whitney 1969, 26. 24.  On Confucian familism in politics, see Wong 2011, 777; Chan 2008, 64–66. 25.  See Hall and Ames 1998, 270–72; Schwartz 1985, 67. 26. Reus-Smit 1999, 32. 27.  See, for example, MSL, Taizong shi lu, 14.0262. 28.  See Elliott 2009, 128–29; Millward 2007, 73; Wan 2011, 130; Brook 2010, 5; Luo 2007, 203. 29.  See Elliott 2009, 127. 30. Fletcher 1968, 206–24; Reid 2009, 5. See also Rossabi 1998, 250. 31.  Investiture itself, however, should not be seen as a unique Chinese institution. It was in fact a common diplomatic institution in the wider Eurasian region. See Skaff 2012. 32. Wan 2011, 81. 33. Gao 2008, 20, 22, 60, 137, 219. 34.  See Ren 2010, 103; Li 2004, 1. 35.  Cf. Wan 2011, 124. 36.  Wang Z. 2005, 34. 37. Skaff 2012, 197–98. 38. Bull 2012, 181–83. 39.  See Swope 2009. 40.  See Rossabi 1975, 71. 41. Zhao 2013, 103; cf. Rossabi 1998, 240. 42. Wan 2011, 15. 43.  For a concise discussion of tributary trade during the early Ming, see Chao 2005, 50–57. For a more comprehensive discussion on the Ming trade system, see Li 2007. 44. Serruys 1967, 171; Rossabi 1975, 20; Perdue 2005, 36.

  Notes to Chapters 6 and 7 45. Deng 1997, 267; Lee 1999, 14; Chao 2005, 62; see also Abu-Lughod 1989, 317. 46. Millward 1998; Di Cosmo 2003. 47.  See Fairbank 1953, 23–28. 48. Buzan 2004, 188–89. 49.  See Womack 2010, 32; Wills 2012. 50.  For example, the Hongwu emperor tried to mediate conflicts between Annam and Champa and among the three kings of Liuqiu (Ryukyu); the Yongle emperor tried to restrain Siam from threatening Melaka, Champa, and Samudera, to protect Melaka and Brunei from the threat of Java, and even to mediate conflicts within the ruling house of the powerful Timurid empire. See Wang 1998, 309; Wan 2000, 69–70; 2011, 85; Zhang 2006, 227. 51.  See Waldron 1990. 52.  See, for example, Reus-Smit 1999. 53.  See, for example, Buzan 2004. 54.  On constitutive and regulative rules, see Ruggie 1998, 22–25. 55. Fairbank 1942, 1953, 1968a, 1968b; Fairbank and Teng 1941. 56.  Fairbank and Teng 1941, 137, 139. 57. Mancall 1984, 20 (emphasis in original). 58.  It should be noted that Fairbank also referred to tribute as an institution in a general sense; see Fairbank 1953, chap. 2. For a realist view, see Wang 2013. 59. Kang 2010, 54. 60. Ibid., 14. 61.  Zhang and Buzan 2012, 7. There is a clear continuity in recent English School conceptions of traditional East Asian international society; see Zhang 2001; Suzuki 2009. 62.  Zhang and Buzan 2012, 23. 63.  See Checkel 1998, 339. 64.  Hall and Taylor 1996, 937. 65. Kang 2010, 10. 66. Ibid., 55. 67. Krasner 1999. 68.  Wang Z. 2005, 219. 69. Wan 2011, 124. 70.  For a critique of the concept, see Vuving 2009. Fogel (2009) suggests a model of the Sinosphere as a more satisfactory alternative.

Chapter 7 1.  Pachucki and Breiger 2010, 208. 2. Lebow 2003, chaps. 7–8.

Notes to Chapter 7   3.  Cf. Evans and Wilson 1992, 339. 4.  Frankfurt School critical theorists have argued that under modern conditions all reason had been reduced to technical, instrumental means-end rationality. See Shapcott 2008, 329; see also Lebow 2008, 45. 5. Lebow 2003, 360. 6. Lebow 2003, 2008. 7.  See Wang 2011. 8.  See Han 2010. 9. Lebow 2003, 16. 10. Yü 2011, 914. 11. Berthrong 1998, 120. 12.  See Metzger 1977. 13. Ames 2011, 19. 14.  See Gan 2008, 6. 15.  Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008, 6, 20 (emphasis in original). 16. Yü 2004, 172. 17.  On the desirability of such synthesis, see Lebow 2012, 44–45; Adler 2005, 181. 18.  See Devetak 2009; Shapcott 2008. 19. Linklater 1992. 20. Shapcott 2008, 342. 21. Li 2009, 315. 22.  See the typology developed by Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008, 23. 23.  See Wong 2011, 778. 24. Lebow 2003, 346, 365, 367. 25. Brown 2001, 19, 21. 26.  See Womack 2010, 216. 27. McCourt 2012, 34. In this context, Lebow’s (2008) major attempt at a cultural theory of human motives and preferences is particularly welcome. 28. Graham 1989, 7. 29. Lebow 2008, 47. 30. Stenmark 1995, 36 (emphasis in original). 31. Brown 2001, 25. 32. Zhao 2008b, 170. 33. Yü 2006b, 11. 34. Ames 2011, 205. 35. Ibid., 66, 69; Bol 2008, 79. 36. Yü 2011, 16; Ames 2011, 45. 37. Yü 2003, 129. 38. Chan 2008, 72. 39. Price 2008b, 7.

  Notes to Chapter 7 40.  See Price 2008a. 41.  For a recent unashamedly deterministic approach, see Luttwak 2012. 42. Womack 2010, 180. 43.  See Reus-Smit 2008, 57. 44.  See Zhang 2012a, 324. 45.  Zhang and Tang 2005, 52. 46.  See Yahuda 2003. 47. Womack 2012, 52. 48.  See Zhang 2012a. 49. Shambaugh 2013, 310. 50. Xu 2010, 74. 51. Yü 2011. 52. Yan 2011. 53. Wang 2004, 322. 54. Yü 2006a, 218. 55.  Johnston (2013) provides a recent assessment. 56.  This is also discussed in Shambaugh 2011, 2013. 57.  Wang X. 2009. 58.  For an example, see Wang J. 2005. 59.  For a general discussion see Tang 2008; also see Shambaugh 2011, 22; Lynch 2009. 60.  See Zhang 2013a, 2013b. 61.  See, for example, Wang Y. 2005; Qin 2005. 62.  See Zhang 2013a, 2013b. 63.  See Lebow 2003, 391–92. 64. Zhang 2012b. 65.  See Saunders 2013. 66. Yü 2004, 172. 67. Ames 2011, 11. 68. Popper 2003, xvii.

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Index

Page numbers followed by “f ” or “t” indicate material in figures or tables. access strategy: conferring prestige, 106; defined, 22; depriving China of authority, 155; during early Ming, 177t; effects of institutions on, 171–72; Japanese strategy of, 86, 98, 100, 116 (116t); not motivated by fear, 176; reasons for, 39; and relationalism, 32, 37t; versus strategy of exit, 34; through trade, 34; as tributary strategy, 10 actor as “event,” not “thing,” 23 actor degree centrality, 21, 30, 31t affection and obligation, 35, 56, 183 affective feelings (qing hou 情厚), 61, 104, 183 agency, 8–9, 170–71 ambassadors, 87–88, 108, 164 Ames, Roger T., 23–24, 190 anarchy: anarchic relationships, 6, 155; and hierarchy, 31; institutions enabling coexistence under, 156; limited in Chinese relationships, 155; self-help and, 32 anticategorical imperative, 26 appropriateness (yi 義), 27, 62, 141, 158 appropriateness and principle (yi li 義理), 182 appropriate war (yi zhan 義戰), 165 Arughtai (Eastern Mongols): attacking

Oirats, 147; clashes with Mahmud, 133–34, 141–49; contacts between Yongle emperor and Mongols, 130; deference strategy, 150; disputes with Yongle about his treatment, 135; intermittent tribute to Yongle emperor, 133, 135–36, 139, 147, 149; investiture as Hening Wang, 134, 140, 144, 145, 147–48; murdering Guilichi, installing Bunyashiri, 131; Yongle expeditions against, 132–33, 136–37, 141, 143 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408): attempts to send envoys to Hongwu emperor, 91–93, 108; contacts between Yongle emperor and, 100–103, 105–6; death of, 108; grand strategy of, 105–8; influence of Buddhist monks on, 91, 108; “kneeling again and again” to Jianwen ­emperor, 101, 105; Muromachi bakufu under, 87, 98, 100; needing revenue and prestige from China, 106; suppressing wako, 105; uniting Japan (1400), 100 Ashikaga Yoshimochi, 108–12 assertive nationalism, 188 authoritative communication, facilitating, 167



  Index authority, hierarchical, 84 authority as variable, 38–39 balancing against China, 184, 189 bandwagoning with China, 9–10, 184 Barfield, Thomas, 144, 148 Batu Bolod, 130, 132, 135 “becoming” rather than “being,” 23 bei en (背恩 betrayal of his grace), 165 bian huan (邊患 frontier threat), 126 bilateralism, 204n80 bilateral relationships, network of, 35, 159 “both-and” versus “either-or” solutions, 28 Boyan Buqa, 134, 143–44 bu bao yuan wu (不寶遠物 not valuing goods from distant places), 61 bu cheng (不誠 lack of integrity), 60, 165 Buddhism, 83 bu huai en (不懷恩 lack of gratitude), 61, 160 Bull, Hedley, 156, 165 Bunyashiri, 131–34, 141 bu ting (不廷 nonsubmissive), 128 bu wei kua zha (不為誇詐 not allowing exaggeration or duplicity), 61 Buzan, Barry, 8, 156, 167, 169–72 case selection, 11–15 (13t, 14f ) Central Civilization (Hua Xia 華夏), 159 centrality: actor degree centrality, 21, 30, 31t; Japan modeling government after China, 87; Japan’s conception of its, 86, 88; measuring, 30 centralization as Chinese strategy, 21–22, 34–36, 39, 54 Central Kingdom (Zhong Guo 中國), 91, 159 central principle of relational rationality, 157, 158f chaxu geju (差序格局 “differential mode of association”), 23 cheng (诚 integrity), 29, 41, 160 cherishing the small (zi xiao 字小), 160 China as rising power, 180; evolving Confucian tradition, 190; exceptionalism and liberalism, 188–89; flaws in foreign

policy, 186–87; foreign policy in reform era (1978–present), 184–86; growing relational rationality, 187; “harmonious world” discourse, 186; instrumental strategy of economic development initially, 184–85; moderating instrumentalism, 185, 188; participation in multilateral forums, 185; post-2008 assertive nationalism, 187–88; reestablishing humaneness, 191; response of outside world to, 189; and theory of ethical relationalism, 186–87, 189–90; three-pronged strategy, 185; and United States, 185, 189–90 Chinese grand strategy: toward Japan, 115t; toward Japan (1368–1400), 95–98; toward Japan (1401–1408), 103–5; toward Japan (1409–1424), 112–13; toward Korea (1369–1371), 54–57; toward Korea (1372–1398), 67–69; toward Korea (1399–1424), 77–78; toward Korea (summary), 81–82 (81t); toward Mongolia (1368–1398), 125–28, 150t; toward Mongolia (1403–1424), 137–42, 150t Chinese hegemony: belief about moral purpose of relationships, 158; institutional structure of, 167t; as a society not an institution, 157 Choso˘n dynasty (1392–1910), 48–49, 71; abdications (1398–1400), 73; China requesting pressure on Menggetimur, 75–76; Chinese grand strategy toward, 77–78, 81; Chinese horse trade requests (1401–1402), 74; competing with Ming over Jurchens, 79; early (1392–1424), 48, 70; grand strategy toward China, 82–84, 155, 178; writ of investiture from China, 74; Yi So˘ng-gye (1392–1398), 72–73 Clark, Ian, 6, 157 classical Confucianism, 11, 179, 190 coercion and inducement, 40–42 communicative diplomacy, 164–65, 168. See also contacts between . . . conflict of interest, degree of, 7; instrumental versus expressive hierarchy,

Index   142; instrumental versus expressive rationality, 37–38, 43, 83, 86; in SinoJapanese relations, 104, 115, 117–18; in Sino-Korean relations, 78, 80; in SinoMongol relations, 119, 128, 142, 151–52; and strategy of exit, 39 Confucianism: versus Buddhism, 83; causal role of, 7–8, 178–79; in Chinese grand strategy, 40–42; classical, 11, 179, 190; Confucian dilemma, 179; critical and normative dimension of, 179; expressive rationality in, 7, 27, 55, 139, 160; Hongwu emperor and, 54; as imperial ideology, 33–34; internationalization of by Korean rulers, 79; as invented Western term, 10; legitimacy of restrained self-interest, 181–82; li (禮) and yi (義), 160; limits and possibilities of ethical foreign possibility under, 183; little influence on Mongols, 151; pacifism in, 7, 40–41, 43, 178; post-Song neo-, 190; pre-Qin classical, 190; protecting human progeny, 140; relationalism in, 22–25, 27–30, 37; relationalism within, 190; and sadae, 73; term as used in this book, 11; theory of punitive expedition, 127; and universal ethical world order, 158. See also ­classical Confucianism; neo-Confucianism “consequences and advantages” (gong li 功利), 182 consequentialism: China toward Japan, 115; China toward Mongols, 128, 140, 152; divide-and-rule as motive of, 140; Japan toward China, 116; means-end calculation, 7, 26, 37, 42, 177, 181–82 constitutional structure of Chinese hegemony, 157–61 (158f ), 169 constitutive effects, 171 constructivism, 20, 27; English school perspective, 156, 169; rational choice and, 33; “thin,” 32 contacts between Hongwu emperor and Ayushiridara Temür: Hongwu naming Temür’s captured son “Marquis of Chongli,” 122; Hongwu rescripts

urging surrender (1370), 122; Hongwu sending envoys after military reversals (1373), 123; Hongwu returning captured son (1374), 123; resumption of military clashes (1379–1381), 124; death of Toghus Temür (1388), 124–25; Hongwu rescript to Nayur Buqa (1390), 125; victory over Nayur Buqa, 125 contacts between Hongwu emperor and Japan, 88–90; isolation policy toward Japan (1369), 97; prisoner exchange and gifts (1371–72), 90–91, 99–100; Hongwu rejecting most envoys, threatening war (1374–1381), 91–94; Kanenaga defiant response (1382), 94, 100; isolation policy toward Japan (1387), 95; Hongwu receiving tributary mission (1371), 96; Hongwu instructing Kanenaga on propriety (1374), 96–97; Hongwu threats (1376–1381), 97 contacts between Hongwu emperor and King Kongmin: rescript (Jan. 1369), 49–50, 54, 55; rescript (May 1369), 50–51; Kongmin declaration of vassalage (June 1369), 50–52, 55, 59, 84; investiture rescript (Sept. 1369), 51–52, 55, 56; rescript (Oct. 1369), 52–53, 55, 56; rescript (1374), 50; sacrifices sent to Korea (Feb. 1370), 53–54; accusing envoys of deceit, lack of propriety (1372–1374), 60–61, 67–68; death of Ming envoy and Kongming (Apr. 1375), 61 contacts between Hongwu emperor and King T’aejo, 65–67, 69 contacts between Hongwu emperor and King U, 61–64, 69, 163 contacts between Jianwen emperor and King Cho˘ngjong, 73 contacts between Jianwen emperor and King T’aejo, 73 contacts between Jianwen emperor and King T’aejon, 73–74 contacts between Jianwen emperor and Yoshimitsu, 100–101 contacts between Yongle emperor and King T’aejong, 73–80, 163

  Index contacts between Yongle emperor and Mongols: envoys to Eastern Mongols and Oirats, 130; Mahmud refusal to send tribute (1403–1407), 130; Yongle envoy detained by Guilichi (1405), 130; Eastern Mongol (Guilichi) envoy to Yongle (1407), 130–31; rescript to Guilichi (1407), 130–31, 138; Mahmud tribute, investiture request (Oct. 1408), 132, 143; Guilichi dead, replaced by Bunyashiri (1408), 131; rescripts to Bunyashiri (1408, 1409), 131–32, 138; Bunyashiri kills envoys, 131–32; Yongle threat against Bunyashiri (1409), 132, 139; Yongle investiture of Mahmud (July 1409), 140; Yongle expeditions against Bunyashiri, Arughtai (1409–1410), 132– 33; Mahmud tributary relations (1411), 133; Arughtai sends tribute (1411), 133, 139, 146, 149; Oirats send envoys, warn against Arughtai (1411), 133; Arughtai requests lordship over Jurchens and Tibetans (1412), 147; Yongle investiture of Arughtai as Hening Wang (July 1413), 134, 140, 144, 145, 147–48; Mahmud detains envoys, makes demands (1414), 134, 141, 148; Yongle expedition against Mahmud (1414), 134–35, 141; Arughtai sending frequent tribute (1411–1424), 139, 147, 149; Arughtai pleads illness, avoids meeting, continues tribute (1414), 135, 147; Yongle victory edict (July 1414), 135; Oirats send tribute and apology (Feb. 1415), 135; Arughtai’s disputes and pillaging (1419), 135, 147; Arughtai ceases tributes (1421), 135–36, 147; Yongle pursues Arughtai (1422– 1424), 136–37, 141; Esen Tügel offers submission (1423), 136–37; rescripts to Esen (1423), 137; Yongle final campaign against Arughtai (1424), 137, 141; Yongle statement that “disobedient must be exterminated,” 165 contacts between Yongle emperor and Yoshimitsu, 101–3, 105–6 contacts between Yongle emperor and Yo-

shimochi, 108–12; Jan. 1409 rescript on piracy, 108–9, 112; last envoy to China (1410), 109; letter and captured pirates to Japan (1417), 109; Hisatoyo purporting to bear message from Yoshimochi (1418), 110; rescript to Yoshimochi (Dec. 1418), 110–11; response from Yoshimochi (Dec. 1418), 111–12 “crimes” (zui 罪), 165 cultural affinity conditioning strategic rationality, 151 cultural realism, 43–44 cultural similarity, degree of, 38 dada (韃靼 Eastern Mongols), 151t dao (道 proper Way), 182 daotong (道統 succession to the Way), 182 dao-yi (道義 sense of ultimate value and purpose), 182 Dazaifu, Japan, 89–90 de (德 moral excellence), 160 deceitfulness (zha 詐), 60, 160 defensive strategy: China toward Japan, 85, 98, 113; China toward Mongols (1372), 126; Mahmud against Arughtai, 143 deference strategy: actors exploiting rules, 171; and Chinese authority, 155; Eastern Mongols toward China, 142, 146, 148, 149–50; versus identification strategy, 42, 59; Japan toward China, 86, 99; Japan under Yoshimoto, 108; Korea under King Kongmin, 57–59; Korea under King T’aejo, 72, 83; Korea under king U, 70; as matter of degree, 38–39; not always in tributary relationships, 10; not motivated by fear, 176; not necessarily accepting hierarchy’s legitimacy, 22, 33; Oirats under China, 149; present in all three cases, 155; as regulative effect, 171 degree centrality, 30 Deng Xiaoping, 185, 186 “differential mode of association” (chaxu geju 差序格局), 23 “differentiated love” principle, 203n50 differentiation, hierarchical, 35

Index   diplomacy, communicative, 164–65 directive embassy, 163 distribution of ties: versus distribution of capabilities, 31–32; instrumentalism coupled with, 34 divide-and-rule, 140 DMB, xv “doing” rather than “is,” 23 do not impose on others what you yourself do not want (shu 恕), 190 dual aspect of war, 165 early Ming dynasty: Chinese unipolarity during, 154–55; choice of for study, 12–15 (13t, 14f ); East Asian order not a complete hierarchy, 6; geographical extent of, 13–15; hierarchy as preeminent strategy of, 7; Korea as “fence country” for security, 56; little official contact with Japan prior to, 88; no systemic, antihegemonic response against, 155; population and GDP during, 12–13 (13t) Eastern Mongols (dada 韃靼), 151t; Bunyashiri, 131–34, 141; deference strategy toward China, 142, 146, 148, 149–50. See also Arughtai; contacts between Yongle emperor and Mongols economic profit motive, 107–8, 144 efficiency as criterion for means, 181 efficiency as evaluative criterion, 181 “eight outer garrisons,” 127–28 “emissaries to the Tang” (Kento¯shi 遣唐使), 87 emperor as sovereign and father, 29 emulative submission, 160–61 en (恩 grace), 35, 40–41, 139, 160 ends, importance of, 181 English School, 20, 156, 175 en shen hou (恩甚厚 “heavy grace”), 128 equality in international relations, 162 Eryichi, 130–31 essentialism, 25, 32 ethical and empirical, relation between, 183 “ethical coercion,” 41 ethical education in Confucianism, 158

ethical relationalism, 3–4, 181–84 ethics as central field of inquiry, 4 eunuchs, requisition of, 76–77, 163 Eurocentric IR literature, 7, 156 event-substance opposition, 25 exit strategy: attempts to thwart tributary diplomacy, 171; and conflict of interest, 39–40; defying and challenging aspects of, 142; depriving China of authority, 155; implausible under expressive rationality, 36; Japan toward China, 86, 98–99, 113, 116; Mongols toward China, 128–29, 142–43, 150–52 (151t); not a tributary strategy, 10; types of, 22, 34 expansionism of early Ming, 127 exploitative self-strengthening, 148 expressive action, 28 expressive and instrumental strategies, 7, 9 expressive hierarchy, 7; actors accepting rules as legitimate, 171; as Chinese strategy toward Japan, 85, 97–98, 104–5; as Chinese strategy toward Mongols, 137– 39, 141–42, 150–51 (150t); as Chinese strategy under expressive rationality, 21, 36, 83; Confucianist constitutive role in, 22, 35, 40; as constitutive effects, 171; of Hongwu emperor toward Korea, 54, 56, 69, 84; as ideal choice of Confucianism, 41–42; versus instrumental hierarchy, 39, 42; of Jianwen and Yongle emperors toward Korea, 77–78 expressive principle (qingganxing yuanze 情感性原則), 26 expressive punishment, 41, 139 expressive rationality, 27–28; of affection and obligation, 35, 56; in Confucianism, 7, 27, 55, 139, 160, 183; coupled with role differentiation, 35; and degree of conflict of interest, 37–38, 43, 83, 86; duration of as strategy, 177–78 (177t); in East Asia, 37, 43; exit strategy implausible under, 36; expressive hierarchy as Chinese strategy under, 21, 36, 83; humaneness (ren 仁) as foundation of, 27; humaneness (ren 仁) based on, 35, 41; not practiced by Mongols, 151; ­

  Index expressive rationality (continued) principle of action in, 28; serving interest of both parties, 42; in Sino-Japanese relations, 96–97, 104, 117; in SinoKorean relations, 47–48, 55, 67–68; in Sino-Mongol relations, 128, 138, 152 expressive relational grand strategies, 34–36 extortion theory, 144–45, 148 Fairbank, John K., 8, 169, 173 father-son relationships, 29, 35 favoring the intimate (qinqing yuanze 親親原則), 28, 29 fei cheng (非誠 lack of integrity), 61 Feng Sheng, 121, 123–24 Fletcher, Joseph, 162, 205n5 Frankfurt School, 219n4 fu de (負德 failing of his moral excellence), 165 functional differentiation, 31 functions of primary institutions, 167 fundamental institutions of Chinese hegemony, 156–57, 167–68 (167t); communicative diplomacy, war, trade, 164–67; constitutional structure, 157–61 (158f ); tributary diplomacy, 161–64 garrisons against Mongols (1380s, 1390s), 127–28 GDP of China (1500), 13 GDP of East Asia (1500), 13, 14f geijia (給價 giving value), 166 gongjuxing yuanze (工具性原則 instrumental principle), 26 gong li (功利 “consequences and advantages”), 182 grace (en 恩), 35, 40–41, 139, 160 grand strategies, 15–17; of Chinese and of other actors, 21–22, 34, 40–42; conditions of, 36–40 (37t); depending on others’ strategies, 39; expressive hierarchy, 35–36; expressive relational, 34–36; of identification, 36; instrumental relational, 32–34; as processual outcome, 39, 83–84

Greek thought, 25–26, 158, 178 guanxi (connections), 183 gui (歸 submit/submission), 131 Guilichi Khan, 130–31 haijin (海禁 maritime prohibition), 95 hegemony/hegemonies: all not alike, 2; as an international institution, 157; Arughtai objective of, 147; belief about moral purpose of the state, 156; versus conquest, 2; defined, 6, 157; early Ming China incompleteness as, 154–56; Mahmud objective of, 143, 145–46; “without actual rule,” 137–38 Hening Wang (“King of Hening”). See Arughtai (Eastern Mongols) Hevia, James, 20, 35, 205n5 hierarchical authority, 152 hierarchy: always Ming preeminent strategy, 84; and anarchy, 31; establishing and maintaining, 164; instrumental versus expressive, 38; matter of degree, 159; as means to an end, 33; of reciprocal relationships, 29; as relational structure versus international strategy, 5–6; role differentiation versus instrumentalism on, 32–33, 35; subordinates accepting as legitimate, 36 historicism, 2, 4 history versus theory, 3, 169–72 Hongwu emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang): establishing legitimacy of rule, 54; on loyalty and disobedience (fu shun fa ni 撫順伐逆), 165; needing Koryo˘’s support initially, 49; period of reign, 12; utilizing both conquest and diplomacy, 128. See also contacts between Hongwu emperor and King Kongmin horse markets on frontiers, 166 horses, requisitions and tributes of, 68, 74, 76–77, 163 hostage taking, 164 hua (culturally Chinese), 122, 159 Hua Xia (華夏 Central Civilization), 159 humaneness (ren 仁), 29; based on expressive rationality, 35, 41; as foundation of

Index   collective decisions, 158; as foundation of expressive rationality, 27; of obligation of Chinese emperor, 160; of Yongle emperor toward Arughtai, 139; of Yongle emperor toward Yoshimitsu, 104 humanized affection (renqing 人情), 26 Hu Weiyong, 95, 97 identification strategy, 22; actors accepting rules as legitimate, 171; and Chinese authority, 155; Choso˘n dynasty using, 155; as constitutive effect, 171; versus deference strategy, 42; grand strategy of, 36, 39; of King T’aejong, 80; not always tributary strategy, 10; not possible for Mongols, 149; power embraced not feared, 176; of Yoshimoto, 108 identity: essentializing, 32; social nature of formation, 26 Imjin War (1592–1598), 166 “imperial confederacy” among nomads, 144–45 imperial Confucianism, 11 imperial divinity, mythology of, 86, 113 imperial grace (en 恩), 29 impropriety (wu li 無禮), 64, 66 improving moral excellence and changing behavior (xiu de gai xing 脩德改行), 160 “inclusiveness humanism,” 27 inclusivity, 138 institution, defined, 156 institutions of Chinese hegemony, 153–54; as constitutive and strategic, 168; incomplete hegemony of early Ming China, 154–56; tribute system, 169–72 instrumental deference, 83, 108 instrumental hierarchy, 7; actors accepting rules as legitimate, 171; actors exploiting rules, 171; as Chinese strategy, 21, 33, 39, 67; as Chinese strategy toward Japan, 85, 97–98, 103, 113; as Chinese strategy toward Mongols, 125, 141–42, 150–51 (150t); Confucianism’s constraining role in, 22, 40, 44; versus expressive hierarchy, 42, 67, 77; and Hongwu emperor, 69; ignoring interest of other

actors, 42; Jianwen and Yongle emperors toward Korea, 77–78; as regulative effect, 171 instrumental principle (gongjuxing yuanze 工具性原則), 26 instrumental rationality, 26–27, 37; of Chinese toward Japan, 117; of Chinese toward Mongols, 127–28, 152; and conflicts of interest, 48; duration of as strategy, 177 (177t); and Hongwu emperor, 54, 69, 84, 96; of Mongols toward China, 151; need for overseas revenue, 106; not in Yongle emperor toward Arughtai, 139–40; in SinoKorean relations, 48, 68–69, 78; Yongle emperor to Yoshimochi, 112 instrumental relational grand strategies, 32–34 instrumental war, 41, 139, 141 integrity (cheng 诚), 29, 41, 160 “integrity of serving the great,” 78 intellectual Confucianism, 11 international authority, 155, 157 international institutions, 167–69 international relations, meaning of, 200n46 international society, tribute system as, 170 international structure, components of, 31–32 intimacy-distance (qinshu 親疏), 28, 29, 35 investitures, 79, 163–64, 217n31; acceptances of by Japan, 87, 102–3, 106–7; of Arughtai by Yongle emperor, 134, 140–41, 144, 145, 147–48; by China conferring legitimacy, 71, 102–3, 106; importance of for Korea, 208n97; of Kongming by Hongwu emperor, 51–52, 55, 56; of Mahmud by Yongle emperor, 132, 140–41, 143; sought from China and Yuan, 71; of T’aejo (Yi So˘ng-gye) by Jianwen emperor, 72–73; of T’aejong by Jianwen and Yongle emperors, 73–74, 77; of U by Hongwu emperor, 62, 64, 68, 70–71, 163 IR (international relations) scholarship, 2; assuming competition and violence,

  Index IR scholarship (continued ) 184; criticism of Western, 24–25; empirical and normative dimensions of, 179; ethical relationalism in, 179–81, 190; expressive relationality in, 176; “human authority” in, 187; poor at useful predictions, 2; positivism in, 184; relationality in, 175–76, 180; substantialism in, 21; tribute system paradigm in, 153, 169. See also relationalism isolationist relationships, 96, 114 Japan: civil war preventing China from contacting, 91–92; Heian period (794–1185), 87; Kamakura and Muromachi periods (1185–1573), 87; Nara period (710–784), 87; registering Korean tributary missions, 87; Tokugawa (Edo) periods (1600–1868), 87 Japanese grand strategy: toward China (1368–1400), 98–100; toward China (1401–1408), 105–8; toward China (1409–1424), 113–14, 116t “Japaneseness,” 88 Jianwen (建文) emperor (1399–1402), 73–74, 103 Johnston, Alastair Iain, 7, 43–44 Jurchens, 75, 79–80, 166 justice replaced by appropriateness, 158 just war, Confucianist theory of, 41 Kanenaga (Prince), 96; rescripts from Hongwu emperor (1368–1369), 88–89; imprisoning and executing Chinese envoys (1369), 98–99; envoy Zhao Zhi from China (1370), 90, 99; sending tribute (1370, 1371), 99; mistakenly given rescript to “King of Japan” (Apr. 1370), 90–91, 96; receiving envoys with Hongwu letters (1374, 1376), 91–92, 96–97; sending tribute to China (1376, 1379, 1380, 1381), 93, 99; tribute rejected by Hongwu (1381), 93–94, 97; defiant letter to Hongwu (1382), 98 Kang, David, 6, 8, 169–72 Kenchu¯ Keimi, 105, 109

Kento¯shi (遣唐使 “emissaries to the Tang”), 87 Keqin, 90, 91 Kerülen River, 132, 134, 142, 145 Kingly Way (wang dao 王道), 90 “King of Japan,” investiture as, 87, 90–91, 101–2, 106–7 Koetomi (merchant), 100–101, 106 Kongmin (King)/Wang Zhuan, 81, 207n69; anti-Mongol campaign into Liaodong, 49, 57–58, 59; deference as strategic and security-related, 57–58; Hongwu emperor rescripts to (1369–1371), 49–54, 55; investiture writ, 51–52, 55; maintaining contacts with Naghachu and Northern Yuan, 58–60; maintaining independence from Yuan, 57–58; murder of (Oct. 1374), 61–63, 70–71; not an identification strategy, 59; posthumous name, 64 Korea: as China’s “model tributary,” 48; Koryo˘ dynasty (1369–1392) strategy of deference, 48; and Mongol Yuan dynasty, 49; and Northern Yuan, 122; periods of resistance and mixed response, 48–49; Yi So˘ng-gye coup d’état, 65. See also Choso˘n dynasty Korean relations with China: period of resistance (109 B.C.–A.D. 677), 48–49; opening of relations (1369–1371), 49–54; grand strategy (1369–1371), 57–59; amity to enmity (1372–1398), 59–67; grand strategy (1372–1398), 70–73; stabilization and rapprochement (1399–1424), 73–77; grand strategy (1369–1424), 82 (82t) lack of gratitude (bu huai en 不懷恩), 61, 160 lack of integrity (bu cheng 不誠), 60, 92, 165 Lebow, Richard Ned, 25–26, 175, 178, 203nn40, 48, 219n27 legitimacy of rule: Chinese investiture conferring, 71; external, 104; Hongwu emperor establishing, 54, 95; King U

Index   establishing, 70; Mongols establishing, 129; required for hegemony, 6; Yoshimoto establishing, 107–8 li (禮 propriety in roles and relations), 41, 63, 159–60 Liaodong region, 55, 59; Hongwu emperor conquest of (1387), 124; Hongwu emperor fears of anti-Ming alliance, 55–56; Hongwu emperor warning Kongmin about, 53; Hongwu reprimanding T’aejo regarding, 66; Hongwu warning commanders about Korea, 63, 68; Hongwu warning Korea not to cross Yalu, 65; Kongmin 1370–71 campaign into, 59–60; Kongmin envoys traveling through, 60; Kongmin trying not to commit to Ming or Yuan, 58–59; Koreans accused of spying on, 65; Yi So˘ng-gye refusal to attack, leading coup d’état, 65 Li Wenzhong, 121–23, 126 logic of hierarchical differentiation, 160 logics of action in Confucian relationalism, 30t loyalty (zhong 忠), 29, 41, 104, 160 Mahmud (Oirats): clashes with Arughtai, 133–34, 141–49; defensive strategy, 143; investiture as Shunning Wang by Yongle emperor, 132, 140–41, 143; objective of hegemonies, 143, 145–46; relationship with Yongle emperor, 130, 132–35, 141, 143, 148 Mancall, Mark, 43, 149 map, Northeast and Inner Asia, early Ming Period, 46f maritime trade, private, 166 material interest, 42, 75 materialism, 26–27 material primacy, 6, 157 means, evaluating, 181 means-end calculation, 26, 181; hierarchy strategy and, 33 membership in international society, defining, 167 Menggetimur (猛哥帖木兒), 75–76

methodological individualism, 24 methodological relationalism versus individualism, 23, 26 methodological versus maximization relationalism, 24 MGHJSL I, xv MGHJSL II, xv military glory, 139 Minamoto Do¯gi, 101. See also Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408) mind-and-heart (xin 心), 27, 55, 206n23 Ming dynasty. See early Ming dynasty Ming History (Zhang Tingyu), 95 minimization of mutual harm, 24 Mongol grand strategy: internecine warfare, 143–45; toward China (1368–1398), 128–29; toward China (1403–1424), 142–49 Mongol Yuan dynasty, 49, 57, 58, 149 moral excellence (de 德), 160 moral purpose of international relationships, 156, 157, 158f MS, xv MSL, xv Muromachi bakufu under Yoshimitsu, 87, 91, 98, 100 mutuality, 24, 35 muyi guixiang (慕義歸向 to emulate Chinese appropriateness and submit to Chinese authority), 160, 162 Naghachu: conquest of by Hongwu emperor, 124, 127; Hongwu need for Korean neutrality toward, 69; Korea ties with, 55–56, 59; raids on Korean border (1362), 58 Nara state (710–784), 87, 89–90 narrative method, 17, 117 national pride, 86, 105–6, 113 neo-Confucianism, 11 neorealism, 31, 176 network of bilateral relationships, 35 nomadic lifestyle, 144 nomads, 120 nominal tribuary relationships, 10 nonsubmissive (bu ting 不廷), 128

  Index norms and institutions, strategic adoption of, 33–34 Northeast and Inner Asia during early Ming period, 46f Northern Yuan, 121–22, 126, 151t obedience (shun 順), 104, 160 offensive realism, 2, 44 Oirats (Wala 瓦剌): exchanging warnings against Arughtai with Yongle, 133; hostility with Eastern Mongols, 129–30, 132, 135–36, 147; sending tribute and apology to Yongle emperor, 135; strategy regarding China, 142–49, 150t; Yongle emperor defeat of, 134–35; Yongle emperor strategy toward, 140–42, 150–52, 177; Yongle envoys to, 130. See also Mahmud (Oirats) one family (tianxia yijia 天下一家), 159 ordering principles of relational networks, 26–28 organizing principle of sovereignty, 156 pacifism, association of Confucianism with, 40–41 paternalism, 55–56 Pax Sinica, 170 penal law (xing 刑), 41 period of mixed response (pre-Ming SinoKorean relations), 48–49 period of resistance (pre-Ming Sino-­ Korean relations), 48–49 person (ren 人), 23 political community, Greek versus Chinese conceptions, 158 polity versus state, 17 population: 1500s East Asia, 14f; China (1500), 13; East Asia (1500), 13 power and influence, centrality as, 30 pre-Qin classical Confucianism. See classical Confucianism primacy, 6 “private goods” (si wu 私物), 166 private maritime trade, 166 procedural justice, 156 process: and relationalism, 170; as relations in motion, 25; tracing of, 17

property rights, allocating, 167 proper Way (dao 道), 182 propriety in roles and relations (li 禮), 41, 63, 159–60 punish (tao 討), 165 punishment versus war, 41, 141 punitive expeditions (tao fa zhi shi 討伐之師), 60, 165–66 qingganxing yuanze (情感性原則 expressive principle), 26 qing hou (情厚 affective feelings), 61, 104, 183 qinqing yuanze (親親原則 favoring the intimate), 28, 29 qinshu (親疏 intimacy-distance), 28, 29, 35 Qiu Fu, 132, 139 rational choice and constructivism, 33 rational choice theory and instrumental rationality, 37 rational interests presuppose ethical commitments, 181 rationalism, means-end calculation in, 26, 181 rationality: expressive versus instrumental, 7, 37–38; relational, 24, 38 realist scholarship on China, 1–2, 20, 178 realpolitik grand strategy, 43–44, 72, 182, 188 rebalancing by United States, 189 reciprocal obligations, 29, 35, 104, 160 reform era renunciation of hegemony, 2 regional hegemony, 2, 7, 11–12, 155 regional multilateralism by China, 185 regional responses to Chinese hegemony, 9–10 regulative effects, 171 relational affection and obligation, 7, 34–35, 175, 177, 183 relational grand strategies, 37t, 42, 170 relational-historical narrative method, 83 relational interest, maintaining long-term, 181 relational international structure, 5, 175–76; differentiation of roles, 28–30; distribution of ties, 30–32; ordering

Index   principles, 26–28; in traditional East Asia, 31t relationalism, 5, 20; Chinese and Western variants of, 22–26, 37, 181; Confucian, 40, 181; and grand strategy, 16, 37t, 42; insights into agency and process, 170; in political science, 21; in sociology, 20; synthesizing Chinese and Western, 21 relational-politik, 182 relational potential of contemporary Chinese strategy, 184 relational rationality, 24, 157–61 (158f ), 167t, 180–81, 187 relational-structural approach, 170 relational ties as means versus end, 35–36 relationships: as end in themselves, 36, 181; as means to end, 27, 78; specificity of dynamics of, 39 ren (忍 endure), 77 ren (人 person), 23 renqing (人情 humanized affection), 26 rescripts. See contacts between Hongwu emperor and King Kongmin respecting the superior (zunzun yuanze 尊 尊原則), 28 restorative coercion, 41 Reus-Smit, Christian, 4, 156–57, 160, 179 ritual integration/domination/hegemony, 43 role differentiation, 28–30; expressive rationality coupled with, 35; instrumentalism coupled with, 32–34 role ethics, Confucian, 24 sadae (“serving the great”), 65, 72–73, 79 sai (塞), 121 sanctity of agreements, 167 Sansom, George, 94, 106, 107 scholarship: East Asian diplomatic history, 169. See also IR (international relations) scholarship security as motivation, 55–59, 69, 77; Hongwu emperor concerns about Mongols, 125–26; Hongwu emperor concerns about wako, 96; Kongmin deference, 57–58; Korea as “fence country,” 56; not sufficient to explain strategies, 176;

relational security, 24; Yongle emperor concerns about Mongols, 139 self as open system, 23 self-interest: maximization of by Hongwu emperor, 69; maximization versus methodological relationalism, 24; needs to have limits, 181 self-other relationship, 27 Serruys, Henry, 80, 147, 149 serving the great by the small, 60, 65, 160, 207n46 shang guo (上國 “superior country”), 79 Shi Bo Si (市舶司 Office of Merchant Ships), 166 shu (恕 do not impose on others what you yourself do not want), 190 “Shundi” (Hongwu name for Yuan emperor), 122 Shunning Wang (Mahmud), 132–35, 141–42 Sino-Japanese relations: discord and enmity (1368–1400), 88–100; unprecedented harmony (1401–1408), 100–108; frustration and isolation (1409–1424), 108–14 Sino-Korean relations: opening of relations (1369–1371), 49–59; amity to enmity (1372–1398), 59–73; stabilization and rapprochement (1399–1424), 73–80. See also Hongwu emperor; Kongmin (King)/Wang Zhuan Sino-Mongol relations: conquest and resistance (1368–1398), 121–29; accommodation and confrontation (1403–1424), 129–49 Soa (monk), 100–101 social behavior, relationality among Chinese, 22–23 social legitimacy, 6; required for hegemony, 6 social network analysis, 21, 30 social psychology, 23 sociology, 20 Song-Ming. See neo-Confucianism “Son of Heaven,” Japanese emperor as, 87 Sorai, 90 Southern Song dynasty, 88

  Index sovereign-subordinate relationships, 29, 35 sovereignty, organizing principle of, 156 state: meaning of, 201n74; moral purpose of, 156, 157, 159 strategic adoption of norms, 33 strategic and normative foundations of international institutions, 168–69 strategic rationality, 83, 117, 151–52 submit/submission (gui 歸), 131 substantialism, 20–21; and error of essentialism, 25; versus relationalism, 25, 32 succession to the Way (daotong 道統), 182 Sui dynasty (589–618), 49, 87 Sui-Tang period, 12, 87 “superior country” (shang guo 上國), 79 superiority, Japan’s conception of its, 86 superiority-inferiority (zunbei 尊卑), 28 symbolic domination, 43 systemic norm of procedural justice, 156, 157, 158f SYZZL, xv T’aejo (King)/Yi So˘ng-gye, 65–66, 72, 73–74, 78 T’aejong (King), 73–74, 77, 78, 80, 82 tally trade between China and Japan, 103–4, 106 Tang dynasty: Japan’s attitudes toward, 87–88; military invasions of Korea, 49; no Japan investiture requested from, 87 tao (討 punish), 165 tao fa zhi shi (討伐之師 punitive expeditions), 60, 165–66 tao guang yang hui, 186 tea markets on frontiers, 166 Temür, Ayushiridara, 121–24, 131. See also Xuanguang (Ayushiridara Temür) Temür, Kökö, 121–24, 129 Temür, Maidiribala, 122–24, 128 Temür, Toghon, 121 Temür, Toghus (Tianyuan), 121, 124 theory building, purpose of, 45 “thin” constructivism, 32 tianxia (天下) system, 24, 158–59, 217n21 tianxia yijia (天下一家 one family), 159 Tianyuan. See Temür, Toghus (Tianyuan) Timurid empire, 162

tong hao (通好 “friendly relations”), 130 trade: as access strategy, 34; as institution of Chinese hegemony, 166–67; responsible for peace between China and Mongols, 168 translation of key Chinese terms and expressions, 195–98 tributary diplomacy, 71–72, 161–64, 167, 170 tributary embassy, 161–62 tributary goods (gong pin 貢品), 166 tributary relationships: Mongol attitude toward, 149; Sino-Japanese, 86, 96–97, 105, 112–13; Sino-Korean, 78–79, 81, 163; Sino-Mongol, 130, 137–39, 141, 142, 144; typologies of, 10 tribute system, 8–10; as an international society, 170; in Chinese hegemony, 169–72; a core of “Confucian society” within, 172; limits of, 171–72; in Ming China, 12; refusals to participate in, 162; as theory, 153–54, 169–72; “tributary trade,” 166 trustworthiness (xin 信), 160 Tu Wei-ming, 23, 27–28 typical tribuary relationships, 10 U (King), 68, 70–71, 74, 163 Ujihisa, Shimazu, 91–92, 96 unipolarity, 154 United States: as incomplete hegemon, 155; percent of world GDP, 13; relationship with China, 185, 189–90 universal ethical world order, 158 Uriyanghkha Mongols, 142, 166 use of force, establishing limits to, 167 utility, maximizing, 26–27 value as criterion for means, 181 vassal states (bankoku), 87 violation of trustworthiness and appropriateness (weibei xin yi 違背信義), 165 virgins, eunuchs, requisition of, 76–77, 163 wako (Japanese pirates), 89, 93, 95–96, 98, 103, 107, 112 Waldron, Arthur, 126, 127, 153

Index   Waltz, Kenneth, 31–32 wang dao (王道 Kingly Way), 90, 187 Wang Yi-t’ung, 98, 111 Wang Zhuan, 207n69. See also Kongmin (King)/Wang Zhuan war: dual aspect of, 165; versus punishment, 41; punitive expedition, 166 Way of Heaven, 90, 102, 132 weibei xin yi (違背信義 violation of ­trustworthiness and appropriateness), 165 Westphalian sovereignty, 8, 169–72 world: Chinese world order, 169; structure of world order, 158–60; tianxia (天下), 94 wu li (無禮 impropriety), 64, 66 wu wai (無外 no outer-separation), 158 Xianyi Wang (Taiping), 132 xin (心 mind-and-heart), 27, 55, 206n23 xin (信 trustworthiness), 160 xing (刑 penal law), 41 Xuanguang (Ayushiridara Temür), 122 Xu Da, 121, 123, 126 Yamato period (c. 300–710), 87 Yan Congjian, 128 Yang Zai, 89–90 yi (義 appropriateness), 27, 62, 141, 158, 160, 182 yi (culturally inferior foreign peoples), 122, 138, 159, 205n5 yi li (義理 appropriateness and principle), 182

Yi So˘ng-gye (King T’aejo), 65–66, 72, 73–74, 78 yi zhan (義戰 appropriate war), 165 Yongle (永樂) emperor: addressing Timurid emperor as equal, 162; civil war with Jianwen, 73–74; encouraging self-government among Mongols, 138; invasion of Vietnam, 76; period of reign, 12; promising favorable treatment of Korea, 74; relations with Mongols, 129; role of trade for, 167; soldiers and garrisons under, 13. See also contacts between Yongle emperor and Mongols Yuan-kang Wang, 7, 43–44 Zen monks, 108 zha (詐 deceitfulness), 60, 160 Zhang Shicheng, 97 Zhang Yongjin, 8, 156, 169–72 Zhao Juren, 102–3, 105 Zhao Tingyang, 24 Zhao Zhi, 90, 99 Zheng He, 15 zhong (忠 loyalty), 29, 41, 104, 160 zhong guo (中國 China, Central Kingdom), 91, 159 Zhu Di, 73. See Yongle emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. See Hongwu emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang) zi xiao (字小 cherishing the small), 160 zui (罪 crimes), 165 zunbei (尊卑 superiority-inferiority), 28 zunzun yuanze (尊尊原則 the principle of respecting the superior), 28