Articulating the Sinosphere: Sino-Japanese Relations in Space and Time (review)

Joshua Fogel's book on the history of Sino-Japanese relations will have a long shelf life for students of Japan, China, East Asia, and world history. It combines a macro-historical analysis of Japan-China interactions from high antiquity, a detailed case study (the Senzaimaru trip in 1862), and a mixed case (the prewar Japanese community in Shanghai from 1862 to 1894). Area specialists are familiar with his approach because they too need to balance the breadth and depth of their complex subject matters. But Fogel stands out with his masterful writing that provides both broad strokes for a relationship over two millennia and captivating tales of specific personalities in a short monograph.

Beginners on Sino-Japanese relations should be advised to start with this book. In particular, the first essay in the work, merely 44 pages, is a brilliant narrative of two thousand years of recorded interaction between China and Japan, sprinkled with archaeological finds and stories of colorful figures such as Abe no Nakamaro, Jianzhen, Zhu Shunshui, Zheng Chenggong, and Nagai Unpei. Fogel also engages some controversies in the field.

Those who have studied Japan-China relations would also benefit much from reading this book. What is available on the history of this ancient relationship in Japanese- and Chinese-language literature is simply overwhelming. Intellectual consumers of professional historians' works should find Fogel's book a highly welcome summary of the state of historical research in this area.

As a nonhistorian, I would normally shy away from writing a detailed review of work by a historian. However, Fogel's book is based on his Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures given at Harvard University and is clearly intended for a broad audience. In only 99 pages of main text, he provides an overarching theme for the book, which allows people like me to offer different interpretations and raise related or new questions. I review this book from my disciplinary angle of international relations and leave discussion of archival research, periodization, and historical research controversies to his fellow historians.

From a theoretical perspective, one may walk away from Fogel's book only partially satisfied. Fogel tries to differentiate his "Sinosphere," the main theme of the book, from the conventional term "Chinese world order" by suggesting that the old term does not account for change over time and was only about diplomatic relations. However, as should any other term or label, the Chinese world order should be understood by how it has been used and how it could be utilized. The Chinese world order has often been equated to traditional foreign relations with China at the center of East Asian international relations, which evolved over time and involved military, administrative, cultural, and religious relations as well as diplomatic ones.¹ For international relations scholars, the term "world order" has much explanatory power. It is maintained by common interests, social norms, and institutions. Thus, the Chinese world order could allow variation over time and spatially. More important, the term "Chinese world order" highlights the non-Western Chinese political values that gave it political legitimacy.

Fogel's analogy is astrophysics. China varied in geographic shape and ethnic makeup, but it was at the center and other countries orbited it at different distances. It is not clear in the book what held together the center and orbiting states or drove them apart. If one follows the Sinosphere framework, one trend that can be brought out more sharply is Japan's increasing autonomy from China. As Fogel notes, the Sino-Japanese interaction that began in the Han dynasty was based on a China-centric world assumed by both sides. Japan began to adjust its perception at the turn of the seventh century. In a well-known letter, the 607 Japanese mission to China referred to the Japanese ruler as "the son of heaven in the land of the rising sun" and to the Chinese ruler as "the son of heaven...