Renewal: The Chinese State and the New Global History

Appendix: Tianxia. Perspectives from Outside of China

Appendix: Tianxia Perspectives from Outside of China For centuries, the China seen from the outside was nothing like what the people within China saw. For those within, the early history of Zhongguo as tianxia gave a sacral quality to the dynasties from the Xia (second millennium BC) and Shang (the latter half of the millennium), to the Zhou (most of the first millennium). This was followed by the unified empire of the Qin and Han. By that time, a large cluster of “proto-states” were ruled by people culturally identified as zhuxia (“Chinese”, 諸夏). But there was never one nation called “China” until modern times. The idea that a state be constituted from one nation only emerged in eighteenth-century Europe. In that broader context, the Chinese dynasties of the last millennium , the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, were like feudal empires that showed no signs of evolving into a single identifiable nation. The Han Chinese under the Southern Song dynasty did develop a strong ethnic identity when they defended themselves against the Jurchen and Mongols, and the founding emperor of the Ming were able to revive Han and Tang institutions and emphasize a lineal continuity with the ancients. His success reconfirmed the role of history in shaping a distinct civilization, one that served as the basis of the dynastic state. It led to a sense that historical China was a unique civilization-state but there was nothing to suggest that the Chinese 132 | RENEWAL were about to follow the path of the nation-state formations developed in the European kingdoms. Some of China’s rhetorical continuity came from the concept of tianxia, a vision of universality that was different from the idea of empire as exemplified in the Roman imperium. The word “empire” used in recent years with reference to an imperial superpower like the United States has also been employed when speculating about newly rising China. Of particular interest is the mixture of triumph and anxiety found in the debates in the United States. There is triumph after having destroyed an older land empire like the Soviet Union, but there is also anxiety when considering the perceived rise of China to superpower or empire status, a China that is trying, paradoxically, to shake off its imperial heritage. The latter efforts are of particular interest. There has been in China a revival of interest in ideas of tianxia and empire, how the terms were used in the past and how they may be used in the future. These studies remind me of earlier perspectives of China among some Chinese born outside who became deeply involved in Chinese affairs. The transition in views among those born during the second half of the nineteenth century who have left us their writings is interesting . These represent perspectives about China as tianxia and empire at the time when the idea of nation was also being introduced into China. There have been various kinds of empires in different parts of the world and there have been many histories of their rise, fall, and reemergence. The optimistic view is that territorial empires have come to an end. But it is premature to think that smaller nations are now less vulnerable to the imperial ambitions of larger nation-states, or that larger states will always pass up chances to aggrandize themselves . In the context of China’s growing power, examining the idea of empire together with the ancient Chinese idea of tianxia might reveal the choices that powerful countries will face in the future. Empires stand for conquest, dominance and control, although Tianxia: Perspectives from Outside of China| 133 the degree of actual control may vary from one empire to the next. Tianxia, in contrast, depicts an enlightened realm that Confucian thinkers and mandarins raised to one of universal values that determined who was civilized and who was not. It is not easy to separate tianxia from the Chinese idea of empire because tianxia was also used to describe the foundation of the Qin-Han empire. By itself, tianxia was an abstract notion embodying the idea of a superior moral authority that guided behaviour in a civilized world. The concept could be loosely applied to other universal systems of ideas, even those derived from secular philosophies or from various religions, for example Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. When secular, it could refer to recognized authority that has been legitimized to check and moderate state violence and...