Renewal: The Chinese State and the New Global History

3. Sovereign RelationshipsAre Not Absolute

3. Sovereign Relationships Are Not Absolute For the rulers of China throughout its history, the issue was always legitimacy, not sovereignty. A Heaven-blessed victory on the battlefield settled the legitimacy of each dynasty and the empire’s sovereign power was thereafter confirmed by its capacity to protect its borders and its people from close-by enemies. In order to do that, the dynasty relied on functionaries to help collect taxes and recruit and train armies. Over the centuries, a system of tributary relationships was developed to regulate trade and manage interstate relationships.1 When this worked smoothly, the system provided peaceful evidence of the empire’s sovereignty in China’s world. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the empire was sufficiently content that no other proof of sovereignty was necessary. Foreign relations in modern China experienced a rupture when European national empires undermined the ancient structure of tribute and trade and brought European international law to bear on the Qing court. Chinese reluctance to accept the rules introduced by the Great Powers went through many stages and it is only recently that the government in Beijing is functioning comfortably in the UN state-system that ultimately emerged in 1945. The change was inevitable. In a world of nation-states, China had no choice but to play by the rules that guide the actions of all other states. The regime decided, soon after the People’s Republic of China was admitted into 56 | RENEWAL the UN in 1971, that its best and brightest should master knowledge about international institutions and learn to make them work for China’s interests. Nevertheless, the fact that it took China so long to demonstrate that it is willing to accept key aspects of the international system suggests deep-seated suspicion of a system that it had no say in establishing. The lofty position that Chinese emperors tried to maintain through the centuries when they dealt with foreign rulers was always accompanied by sets of ritual, levels of hierarchy and agreed-upon criteria of authority. However, despite the sense of continuity that Confucian historians have given to Chinese dynastic rule, there was never any immutable structure of external relationships. What seemed unchanging was the language of feudal condescension and the administrative rules drawn up by various Chinese courts to deal with the power realities during different periods of history. Chinese rulers and mandarins had to be flexible in interpreting tribute relations according to the political, economic, security or cultural needs at any one time. They also had to employ terms that appealed to fealty, family or friendship and most of these were interchangeable depending on the circumstances. However, the practical position China has taken since the second half of the nineteenth century is guided by the principles of the law of nation-states. Despite the legal language that shaped modern international behaviour, the Chinese were aware that much of it was subject to close examination and that, for each situation, there were always specific political, economic and security calculations to be made. In inter-state relations, there was always room to challenge and debate concepts like equality, sovereignty, interest, pride, dignity, honour, morality, history, memory and leadership.2 In that context, successive Chinese governments during the twentieth century accepted or rejected the parts of international law that the Great Powers highlighted at different times. But a modern concern for the country’s sovereignty in the face of imperialist competition in Sovereign Relationships Are Not Absolute| 57 China’s neighbourhood emerged and has remained central for most of the century. On other issues, the Chinese have swung back and forth between moralistic and practical positions, and these swings have reflected their struggles to emerge from a century of weakness into the recent decades of growing strength. And, although a largely legalistic framework has replaced China’s feudalistic approach, the reality for the modern Chinese state has never been either one or the other but rather the negotiable areas in between that directly influence actual power relations among the larger nations. For the Chinese, navigating in those areas has been feasible, and even reassuring, because they have always found ways around the hard language of international law by consistently using the rhetoric with which they are more comfortable , the language of family and friendship. During the second month of his Provisional Presidency in February 1912, Sun Yat-sen told...