1. See Ge Zhaoguang, Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), a translation of Ge’s Zhai zi Zhongguo: Chongjian youguan “Zhongguo” de lishi lunshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011); and An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief before the Seventh Century BC, trans. Michael S. Duke and Josephine Chiu-Duke (Leiden: Brill, 2014), a translation of a condensed version of the first volume of Ge’s Zhongguo sixiang shi [An intellectual history of China], 3 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1998). Articles that Ge has published in English include “A Stranger in a Neighbor’s Home: Western Missionaries in Beijing, as Seen by Korean Envoys in the Mid-Qing Period,” Chinese Studies in History 44, no. 4 (2011): 47–63; “Costume, Ceremonial, and the East Asian Order: What the Annamese King Wore When Congratulating the Emperor Qianlong in Jehol in 1790,” Frontiers of History in China 7, no. 1 (2012): 136–151; and “A Dialogue on ‘What Is China’: Problems in Modernity, State, Culture,” Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia 6 (2015): 79–90.
2. Li Zhiting, “Xuezhe ping ‘Xin Qing shi’: ‘Xin diguozhuyi shixue’ biaoben” [A scholar’s assessment of the “new Qing history”: A specimen of “neo-imperialist historiography”], Chinese Social Sciences Net, March 20, 2015, http://www.cssn.cn/zx/201504/t20150420_1592588.shtml. An English translation of an extract of the article was published by the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong at http://cmp.hku.hk/2015/04/22/a-righteous-view-of-history/. See also “Why a Chinese Government Think Tank Attacked American Scholars,” National Public Radio, May 21, 2015, http://www.npr.org/2015/05/21/408291285.
3. An oft-cited essay in Chinese on this question is “Shenme keyi cheng wei sixiang shide ziliao?” [What can serve as sources for intellectual history?], Kaifang shidai 2003, no. 4: 60–69. A portion of this essay is incorporated into Ge’s An Intellectual History of China, 58–67. For further discussion, see Benjamin Elman, “The Failures of Contemporary Chinese Intellectual History,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 43, no. 3 (2010): 371–391.
4. See, for example, Michelle Yeh, “International Theory and the Transnational Critic: China in the Age of Multiculturalism,” in Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, ed. Rey Chow (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 251–280, as well as Rey Chow’s introduction to the volume, esp. 1–7. For earlier discussions in the North American context, see Modern China 19, no. 1 (1993), which published a “symposium” on theory in literary studies, as well as Modern China 24, no. 2 (1998), a special issue on “theory and practice in modern Chinese history.”
5. See Lydia Liu, The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World-Making (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 75–81; and Arif Dirlik, “Born in Translation: ‘China’ in the Making of ‘Zhongguo,’ ” Boundary 2, July 29, 2015, http://www.boundary2.org/2015/07/born-in-translation-china-in-the-making-of-zhongguo/.
6. See Liu, The Clash of Empires, 31–69.
1. Ge Zhaoguang, Zhai zi Zhongguo: Chong jian youguan “Zhongguo” de lishi lunshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011). This work has appeared in English under the title Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017). All subsequent citations will be to the English edition.
2. In a section titled “China in 1895” in the final chapter of volume 2 of Zhongguo sixiang shi [An intellectual history of China], I point out that the 1894 defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War and the 1895 signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki constituted the single most important turning point in Chinese intellectual history and even Chinese history. See Ge Zhaoguang, Zhongguo sixiang shi, 3 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1998), 2:531–550.
3. See the biography of the Qin Shi Huangdi, Shi ji [Records of the grand historian], 6:239. All subsequent citations from the twenty-four dynastic histories and the Qing shi gao [Draft history of the Qing] are from the standard punctuated editions from Zhonghua shuju. For the English, see “The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin,” in Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty, trans. Burton Watson (Hong Kong: Renditions, 1993), 45. The Doctrine of the Mean summarizes this ideal in its lines, “Over the kingdom, carriages have all wheels of the same size; all writing is with the same characters; and for conduct there are the same rules.” See “Zhong yong” [Doctrine of the mean], trans. James Legge, http://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong/.
4. In 134 BCE, Dong Zhongshu advised Emperor Han of Wu (Han Wudi) to “follow Confucian ideas and no others.” According to the biography of Dong in History of the Han, Dong wrote that “Nowadays people study different versions of the Way and engage in different discourses, and the hundred schools of all different places are all speaking of different ideas. For these reasons, the ruler has no way to maintain unity. Your humble servant submits that all that is not within the Six Arts and the learning of Confucius should be rejected and not allowed to develop” (Han shu, 2515). This recommendation, which came to be known as “rejecting the Hundred Schools and esteeming only Confucianism,” was adopted to a marked degree by Emperor Han of Wu and became part of the mainstream of Chinese thought. The latter remark is from Emperor Xuan of Han: “Emperor Xuan changed color and said: ‘The Han dynasty has its own institutes and laws, which are variously [taken from] the ways of the Lords Protector and the [ideal] Kings. How could I trust purely to moral instruction and use [the kind of] government [exercised by] the Zhou [dynasty]?” (Han shu, 277; translation modified from The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 3 vols., trans. Homer H. Dubs [London: Kegan Paul, 1944], 2:301).
5. In the twenty-four dynastic histories, it is not until the Song shi (History of the Song) that we first see chapters such as “Biographies of Foreign States” (Waiguo zhuan) or “Biographies of Barbarians” (Man Yi zhuan), which make clear distinctions between “inner” and “outer” and possess a sensibility that is similar to that of the modern nation-state.
6. The Song dynasty was surrounded on all sides by powerful neighbors, as is discussed in a volume of essays on Song-era foreign relations, China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries, ed. Morris Rossabi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). As these essays show, it was not until this era that China recognized that it lived among other powerful neighbors.
7. See Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 29–52.
8. The “Biographies of Japan” (Wo guo zhuan) in the History of the Sui records that letters of state from Japan at that time contained phrases like “the Son of Heaven from the Place Where Sun Rises sends greetings to the Son of Heaven from the Place Where the Sun Descends.” See Nihon shoki [Chronicles of Japan] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1965), 189–191. Some Japanese scholars have also argued that, during the reign of Emperor Tenmu (673–686), the term Tennō (Ch. Tianhuang, Heavenly Emperor) was used in place of Daiō (Ch. Da wang, great king) to refer to the Japanese ruler as a way to demonstrate parity with China’s emperor (who, as in the case of Tang Gaozong, was also referred to as Heavenly Emperor in 674), to secure a position higher than the King of Silla, who had also had titles conferred by the Chinese emperor, and to establish fully Japan’s status as a state unto itself. See Shōsetsu Nihonshi kenkyū [A detailed study of Japanese history] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2012), 59.
9. Kawazoe Shōji points out that although these incursions did not result in extensive capture of territory or colonization, they did have an important effect on the psychology of Japan; see Mōko shūrai kenkyū shiron [A historical treatise on studies of the Mongol invasions] (Tokyo: Yūzankaku, 1977), 26–28. As a result, after 1293, many documents and writings in Japan contain stories and visions of Mongol invasions. Naitō Konan once argued very strongly for the significance of the Mongol invasions in spurring the progress toward unification under Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408); Naitō argued that “the Ōnin war (1467–1477) was a turning point for the independence of Japanese culture.” The reformist vision of Emperor Go-Uda (r. 1267–1324) and later members of the Southern Court were an important internal factor that pointed Japan toward cultural independence, while the Mongol rule of Japan and failed attempt to conquer Japan—which, in turn, led Japan to believe in its special role as the country of the gods (Shinkoku)—served as an important external factor toward cultural independence. See Lian Qingji, Riben jindaide wenhua shixuejia: Neiteng Hunan [Modern Japanese cultural historians: Naitō Konan] (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 2004).
10. In the Hongwu reign of the early Ming dynasty (1368–1398), the case of Hu Weiyong, who was executed in 1380, led to strained relations between the Ming dynasty and Japan. Of course, practical considerations took precedence over such grievances, and the Ming still allowed Japanese emissaries and scholars to visit China. By the time of the Jianwen (r. 1398–1402) and Yongle emperors (r. 1402–1424), Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408) sent emissaries to communicate with the Ming, adopting a very humble posture of “submitting” (cheng chen) before the Ming court, but the Ming always kept a cool attitude toward them, conferring on Ashikaga only the title of “King of Japan” (Riben guowang); the Ming also, quite logically, referred to Japan, which had had hostile relations with the Yuan dynasty, as a “state that shall not be conquered” (bu zheng zhi guo). The History of the Ming records that “Fifteen states were designated as those that were not to be conquered, and Japan was among them. From this time forward, they did not pay tribute, and sea defenses were gradually reduced” (Ming shi, 8:344).
11. The year of the founding of the Joseon dynasty was also the eighth month of the twenty-fifth year of the Hongwu reign (1392). The Joseon sent emissaries to the Ming, and although the Ming Taizu emperor indicated that he accepted the change in political power in Korea, he also found reason to remind the rulers of Korea condescendingly that “in all affairs, you must be righteous and honest.” See Wu Han, Chaoxian Li chao shilu zhongde Zhongguo shiliao [Materials related to Chinese history found in the veritable records of the Joseon dynasty] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 1a, juan 1:111–113, 140.
12. Although titles of nobility were conferred on Annam during the Yuan dynasty, “When the king [of Annam] received the letter from the Son of Heaven, he stood with hands folded across his chest, not paying homage. When he met with ambassadors or ate with them, his seat was always placed in a position of superiority.” See the “Annan zhuan” [Chronicles of Annam], in Yuan shi [History of the Yuan], 4644, 4637. It was not until the third year of the Hongwu reign that they accepted the titles bestowed on them by the Ming and begrudgingly became a part of the tribute system. They continued, however, to refer to their ruler as “The Emperor of Greater Yue” (Da Yue huangdi), which caused constant conflict with the Ming.
13. In 1516, a Portuguese explorer named Rafael Perestrello arrived in China by boat, raising the curtain on a long history of Western movement toward the East. In his Zhongguo jin shi shi [History of early modern China], Deng Hesheng named this day as the beginning of China’s early modern history, stating, “From the Ming onward, sea traffic greatly expanded and European and American civilization flooded toward China. As a result, problems concerning international relations cropped up everywhere, and all actions could not but involve the many countries of the world.”
14. Lynn Struve has pointed out that the effective control of the Ming was limited to the fifteen provinces of China proper, while Mongolia, Muslim-majority regions, Tibet, Manchuria, and parts of Mongolia were regularly ignored; it was not until the Qing dynasty that this fact changed. See Lynn Struve, “Introduction,” in The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, ed. Lynn Struve (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asia Center, 2004), 2–3.
15. According to “Suzhou tu shuo” [Comment on a map of Suzhou], which is included in a 1544 copy of “Ganzhou zhen zhanshou tu lüe” [Maps of defenses of Ganzhou district] that is held in the Palace Museum in Taipei, “The Suzhou garrison is part of Jiuquan prefecture, and is an important defensive post on China’s frontier … the lands outside of Jiayuguan are not our possessions.” Quoted in Menggu shan shui di tu [Maps of the terrain of Mongolia], ed. Lin Meicun (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2011), 2.
16. Following the pacification of Xinjiang, in 1820 Gong Zizhen wrote an essay in favor of incorporating Xinjiang into the Qing state as a full-fledged province. In 1877, Zuo Zongtang also wrote a memorial to the emperor recommending that Xinjiang “be established as a province with prefectures and counties, thereby creating for Xinjiang a policy of lasting peace and enduring governance.” In 1884, Xinjiang was finally made a province; as with the conversion of other peripheral territories into regular administrative regions (gaitu guiliu), the Qing government at last brought Xinjiang formally into its territory.
17. The first section of the chapter on geography in the Draft History of the Qing states that the Great Qing Empire “stretched from Sakhalin, which belonged to the Sanxing region, in the east, and from to Shule county in Xinjiang to the Pamir Mountains in the west and from Stanovoy mountain range in the north and to Mount Ya in Guangdong in the south.” “All of these places paid obeisance to the central lands and were certainly a part of the dynasty” (Qing shi gao, 1891).
18. Zhang Taiyan produced a number of anti-Manchu writings, and Sun Yat-sen also gave consideration to calls to exclude Manchuria and Mongolia from China. Many scholars have researched these issues, so I will not go into detail here. See Chapter 3.
19. From 1895 on, China was brought fully into the histories of the world, of Asia, or of East Asia, and therefore one cannot avoid considering questions of identity, territory, and race, among others. In traditional times, these questions were not particularly prominent, but from 1895 onward, all of these questions rose to the surface. During and after the Second World War, China’s many weaknesses, along with the movements for “national liberation,” covered over the complexities of these questions. From the year 2000 onward, however, these questions became ever more difficult to avoid as a number of changes occurred in China’s politics, culture, and economy, all of which were set against the international environment. This is the reason why we need to take up the question of “China” for discussion.
20. Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 23–25.
21. The following is only a simple overview. For a more detailed discussion, see ibid., 3–22.
22. Bai Shouyi, “Lishi shang zuguo guotu wentide chuli” [Resolving the historical problem of China’s territoiries], in Xue bu ji [Steps in learning] (Beijing: Sanlian, 1978), 2. This article originally appeared in Guangming ribao [Guangming daily] on May 5, 1951.
23. The Japanese term Shina (Ch. Zhina) is often regarded in the Chinese context as a derogatory term, although its various historical meanings have been the subject of some debate.—Trans.
24. He argues that, as China has changed over the past eight hundred years, it is important to consider (1) internal developments within each region; (2) migrations between regions; (3) organization of government; and (4) the changes in elites’ social and political activities. His research concentrated on the Tang-Song era through the Mid-Ming. Rather than focus on China as a whole, he focused on different regions, concentrating not on a single gentry elite (shidaifu) but rather a founding elite, professional elite, and local elite, placing particular emphasis on local elites. See Robert Hartwell, “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformation of China, 750–1150,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42, no. 2 (1982): 365–442.
25. William Skinner, “Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China,” in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977), 211–249.
26. See Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 150–171.
27. For example, Fukuzawa Yukichi’s “Jūyonnenmae no Shina bunkatsuron” [The partition of China fourteen years ago] (1898), Nakajima Tan’s “Shina bunkatsu no unmei” [China’s destiny of partition] (1912), and Sakamaki Teiichirō’s “Shina bunkatsuron” [The partition of China] (1917) all expressed similar views. Although Naitō Konan’s famous essay “Shina ron” [On China] (1914) rejected these arguments, Naitō also argued that the idea of “Five Nations under One Republic” was an illusion.
28. Yano Jin’ichi, Kindai Shina ron [Theory of modern China] (Tokyo: Kōbundō Shobō, 1923), and Dai Tōa shi no kōsō [Imagining a history of greater East Asia] (Tokyo: Meguro shoten, 1944). See below for further discussion.
29. One of the earliest works in this vein was Yano Jin’ichi, Dai Tōa shi no kōsō. The Japanese government also commissioned the writing of a “history of greater East Asia” in 1942. More recently, many books concerned with “East Asia” have been published in Japan; one example is Higashi Ajia shi nyūmon [Introduction to East Asian History], ed. Nunome Chōfū and Yamada Nobuo (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 1995).
30. Mizoguchi Yūzō and the monograph series “Ajia kara kangaeru” [Reconsiderations from Asia] series published in the 1990s.
31. Tu Cheng-sheng is a Taiwan political figure and scholar. He has served as minister of education, director of the National Palace Musem in Taipei, and has taught at many universities in Taiwan.—Trans.
32. Tu Cheng-sheng [Du Zhengsheng], “Xin shixue zhi lu—jianlun Taiwan wushi nian laide shixue fazhan” [The path of new historiography—with a discussion of the development of historiography in Taiwan over the past fifty years], Xin shixue 13, no. 3 (2002): 39.
33. Richard von Glahn has pointed out that the latest scholarly trend is to treat the Qing Empire as a consciously multinational, colonial empire, as compared with the closed and isolated Ming dynasty, and thereby to determine the unique aspects of the Qing and to reject the idea of the Qing’s “Sinification” into “Chinese culture.” See his foreword in Struve, The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, xi–xiii.
34. See Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); and New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde, ed. James Millward, Ruth W. Dunnell, Mark C. Elliott, and Philippe Forȇt (New York: Routledge, 2004). For a very clear overview, see Wei Zhou’an [Joanna Waley-Cohen], “Xin Qing shi” [New Qing history], Qing shi yanjiu 2008, no. 1.
35. Problems arise immediately when this type of theory is applied wholesale to China. Under British colonialism, South Asia was forcibly divided into India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and even today it is unclear to which state places such as Kashmir belong. I suspect, then, that the experiences of India and such places makes it relatively easy for some scholars to accept postcolonial theories of the state. Drawing on their own feelings, experiences, and perspectives, they elucidate their ideas and reasoning concerning a postmodern historiography of the nation-state. They are correct to argue that attempts to reconstruct nations and states that had been torn apart did in fact draw from the model of the Western nation-state. This set of theories may not be applied to China, however, because China, with is long historical continuity, is not a new nation-state that was only reconstructed in the early modern period.
36. For further discussion of Hua-Xia, see Chapter 2.
37. See Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). I accept that Duara’s arguments have a grounding in theory and his personal experience, and that his desire to go beyond the historical framework of the nation-state is significant. But what are the results of this approach? Does it give us a better understanding of “China”?
38. During World War II, the Japanese Tōa Kenkyūjo (East Asia Research Institute) prepared a text called Iminzoku no Shina Tōchishi [A history of foreign nations ruling China], which sought to understand “from the national perspective” the history of the rule of China by the Northern Wei, the Liao, the Jin, the Yuan, and the Qing, as well as the rise and fall of these rulers. It concluded that the most important factor was the extent to which the spirit of the ruling nation could be relaxed—in other words, the Sinicization of the foreign dynasty. See the Chinese translation of this text: Yi minzu tongzhi Zhongguo shi (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1964), 20.
39. See my discussion in Chapter 5.
40. Fengjian has also been translated as “feudalism,” which may evoke too many associations with Western historical categories. For an extensive discussion, see Li Feng, “ ‘Feudalism’ and Western Zhou China: A Criticism,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 63, no. 1 (2003): 115–144.—Trans.
41. These historical phenomena can all be compared with Japan and Korea, but the situation with China was clearly different. Religion (for example, Catholicism, Buddhism, and so on) occupied a position higher than what was seen in ancient China. Likewise, regional powers (whether feudal lords, kings, or military generals) had much more power in Europe and Japan than they had in ancient China, just as the limitations that officials and powerful individuals could place on the king (or the emperor) was much greater.
42. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1991).
43. See Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation.
44. See Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 25.
45. Regarding this point, we can look at the many different versions of “China,” large and small, that are found in Zhongguo lishi ditu ji [A collection of historical maps of China], edited by Tan Qixiang. We cannot, therefore, look back on China across history while using the modern political boundaries of China. It is not necessarily the case that Goguryeo was a “local power under the control of the Tang dynasty,” just as it is not the case that Tubo [an ancient name for Tibet—Trans.] was not a part of “the territory of China (the Great Tang Empire).” Although the northeastern China of today and the Tibet of today falls within the domain of the control of the government of the People’s Republic of China, they were not necessarily a part of the territory of ancient China. Moreover, we need not use a simple version of Chinese history to understand modern China, or feel that it is impossible to tolerate or understand Vietnamese independence, the separation of Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, or that the Ryukyu Islands fell under Japanese control because, at some point in history, Annam fell under the rule of a Chinese court, Mongolia had been under the control of the Qing, or that the Ryukyu kingdom had offered tribute to a Chinese imperial court. Likewise, we need not be concerned about hurting the national sentiments (minzu ganqing) of the Korean people because parts of northeastern China that had once been under the control of the Goguryeo kingdom are now a part of China’s territory.
46. This quotation is from the “Doctrine of the Mean” section of the Li ji, trans. James Legge, paragraph 29, http://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong.—Trans.
47. At least since the beginning of the Song dynasty, China had formed into a cultural “community”; this community, however, was real, not imagined.
1. See Hong Weilian (also Hong Ye), “Kao Li Madoude shijie ditu” [An investigation into Matteo Ricci’s map of the world], in his Hong Ye lun xue ji [Scholarly essays by Hong Ye] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981). For recent detailed research on this map, see Huang Shijian and Gong Yingyan, Li Madou shijie ditu yanjiu [A study of Matteo Ricci’s map of the world] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2004).
2. For discussions of “All-under-Heaven” in ancient China, see Xing Yitian, “Tianxia yi jia: Chuantong Zhongguo Tianxia guande xingcheng” [All-under-Heaven is one family: The formation of the idea of All-under-Heaven in traditional China], in his Qin Han shi lungao [Manuscripts on Qin and Han history] (Taipei: Dadong tushu gongsi, 1987), 1–41. See also Luo Zhitian, “Xian Qinde wufu zhi yu gudaide Tianxia Zhongguo guan” [The pre-Qin system of Five Zones and the idea of All-under-Heaven in ancient China], in his Minzu zhuyi yu jindai Zhongguo sixiang [Nationalism and early modern Chinese thought] (Taipei: Dadong tushu gongsi, 1998), 1–34; and Ge Zhaoguang, “Tianxia, Zhongguo yu si Yi” [All-under-Heaven, China, and the Four Barbarians], in Xueshu jilin no. 16, ed. Wang Yuanhua (Shanghai: Yuandong, 1999), 44–71.
3. For a translation of the “Yu gong” or “Tribute of Yu,” see Bernard Karlgren, The Book of Documents (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950), 12–18.—Trans.
4. See Shang shu [Book of documents], in Shisan jing zhushu [The thirteen classics with commentaries and subcommentaries] (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 153. See also Guoyu [Discourses of the states] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988), 4. Additionally, see Ge Zhaoguang, An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief before the Seventh Century BC, trans. Michael S. Duke and Josephine Chiu-Duke (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 106–119.
5. Here the translation follows the summary and terminology used in Yü Ying-shih, “Han Foreign Relations,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, The Ch’in and Han Empires, ed. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 379–381.—Trans.
6. Zhou li zhu shu [Rites of Zhou, annotated] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), juan 29:835. The Zhou li, a text believed to be of pre-Han origin, gives an extensive summary of what is said to be the governmental structure of the Zhou state. For a brief overview, see William G. Boltz, “Chou li,” in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Michael Lowe (Berkeley, CA: Society for the Study of Early China, 1993), 24–32.—Trans.
7. Yuan Ke, Shan hai jing jiao zhu [Classic of mountains and seas, annotated] (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 1993), 257, 153, 416. The translations of place names are borrowed from The Classic of Mountains and Seas, trans. Anne Birrell (London: Penguin, 1999), 115, 71, 162.
8. Tao Yuanming, Tao Yuanming ji [Collection of works by Tao Yuanming], ed. Lu Qinli (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), juan 4:133. Translation borrowed from James Hightower, The Poetry of T’ao Ch’ien (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 229.
9. Zhou bi suan jing [A mathematical classic of Zhou gnomon], second juan, in Suan jing shi shu [Ten classics of mathematics], ed. Qian Baocong (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 2:54; Lü shi Chunqiu [Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lü] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1985), 726.
10. See Wu Hung, The Wu Liang Shrine: The Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 245–247.
11. Zou Yan’s phrasing comes from the Shi ji [Records of the grand historian], juan 74:2344.
12. Huang Huaixin et al., Yi Zhou shu huijiao jizhu [The remaining documents of Zhou, collated and annotated], juan 7:985.
13. Mu Tianzi zhuan [The tale of King Mu, son of Heaven], in Congshu jicheng [Comprehensive collection of collectanea] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), vol. 3436.
14. “Dayuan liezhuan” [Annals of Dayuan], in Shi ji, 3157–3160; Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty II, trans. Burton Watson, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 231–252.
15. “Jiang Tong zhuan” [Biography of Jiang Tong], in Jin shu [History of the Jin dynasty], juan 56:1529–1534.
16. Kuwabara Jitsuzō, “Bukkyō no tōzen to rekishichirigakujō ni okeru bukkyō to no kōrō” [The eastward shift of Buddhism and the achievements of Buddhism in relation to historical geography], in Kuwabara Jitsuzō zenshū [Complete works of Kuwabara Jitsuzō], 6 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968), 1:293–334.
17. “Tian wen” [Astronomy], in Yuan shi [History of the Yuan dynasty], 999.
18. Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (New York: William Morrow, 2003).
19. This text is from an inscription on a bronze mirror. See Lin Suqing, “Liang Han jing ming suo jian jiyu yanjiu” [A study of inscriptions of auspicious phrases observed on Han dynasty bronze mirrors], in Han dai wenxue yu sixiang xueshu yantaohui lunwenji [A collection of essays on a conference on Han-dynasty literature and thought], ed. Guoli zhengzhi daxue Zhongwen xi (Taipei: Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1991), 172.
20. This quotation comes from the Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals. Translation modified from James Legge, The Ch’un Ts’ew, with the Tso Chuen, in The Chinese Classics, 5 vols. (repr., Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 5:355.—Trans.
21. See Lu Jiuyuan, Lu Jiuyuan ji [Collection of writings by Lu Jiuyuan] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 273.
22. Li ji zheng yi [True meanings of the Book of Rites], in Shisan jing zhushu, 1338. Translation borrowed from James Legge’s version of the Book of Rites, paragraph 36 (http://ctext.org/liji/wang-zhi).
23. See Ge Zhaoguang, “Zhou Kong heyi bu yan: Zhongguo Fojiao, Daojiao dui Rujiao zhishi shijiede kuochong yu tiaozhan” [Why the Duke of Zhou and Confucius did not speak: The ways in which Buddhism and Taoism expanded and challenged the Confucianist world of knowledge], in Zhongguo shi xin lun: Sixiang shi fen ce [New perspectives on Chinese history: Volume on intellectual history], ed. Chen Ruoshui (Taipei: Lianjing, 2012), 251–282.
24. See the Western Jin translation by Fa Li and Fa Ju, Da lou tan jing [Sutra of the great conflagration], in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō [Taishō Tripiṭaka], ed. Takakusu Junjiro and Watanabe Kaigyoku (Tokyo: Taishō Issaikyō Kankōkai, 1924–1932), juan 1:277; and Fa yuan zhu lin [A grove of pearls in the garden of the dharma], in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, juan 53:280–281.
25. See Paul Pelliot, “La théorie des quatre Fils du Ciel,” T’oung Pao 22, no. 2 (May 1923): 97–125. Pelliot pointed out that the Shi’er you jing did not seem to be included in recent editions but was found in the Jin lü yi xiang [Variant phenomena of Sutra and Vinaya] (completed in 516 CE) and in the forty-fourth juan of the Fayuan zhulin [Precious grove of the dharma garden] (completed between 668 and 671).
26. See the “Xuanzang zhuan” [Biography of Xuanzang] in the fourth juan of Daoxuan’s Xu gaoseng zhuan [Supplement to the biographies of eminent monks], in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, juan 50:454. Daoxuan also refers to “four rulers” in his Shijia fangzhi, but these refer only to the land of the Hu, the Turkic peoples, China (Zhendan), and India.
27. Fozu tongji [Chronicle of the Buddhas and Patriarchs], juan 31, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, juan 49:303.
28. There is another painting, now held in Japan, that was printed during the early Ming dynasty in Joseon-dynasty Korea. These maps have their origins in Yuan-dynasty China, but the geographical knowledge they convey may also come from the Consolidated Map of Territories Including Capitals of Past Dynasties (Hunyi jiang li lidai guodu zhi tu), which came from Arab peoples. These maps show that Chinese people already possessed extensive knowledge of the world. The map of this “world” included Korea and Japan to the east, islands such as Luzon and Palawan to the southeast, Sumatra and Borneo to the southwest, the Arabian Peninsula and a cone-shaped depiction of the African continent to the west, and Lake Baikal to the north. In other words, it nearly covered much of the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Miya Noriko, Mongoru teikoku ga unda sekaizu [The world map born of the Mongol Empire] (Tokyo: Nihon Kaizai Shinbunsha, 2007); prior to this, we also have Takahashi Tadashi’s research on this map. See “Hunyi jiang li lidai guodu zhi tu zai kao” [A reexamination of Consolidated Map of Territories Including Capitals of Past Dynasties] and “Hunyi jiang li lidai guodu zhi tu xu kao” [Further examination of Consolidated Map of Territories Including Capitals of Past Dynasties], in Ryūkoku shidan [Journal of history of Ryukoku University] (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1966), nos. 56–57, and Ryūkoku Daigaku ronshū [Collected theses of Ryukoku University] (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1973), nos. 400–401.
29. Just before the arrival of Western missionaries, a man of letters named Ou Daren (1516–1595) was still writing harsh criticisms of the Buddhist worldview. “The Five Sacred Mountains [Taishan in the east, Huashan in the west, Hengshan (Hunan) in the south, Hengshan (Shanxi) in the north, and Songshan in the central plains] are the markers of All-under Heaven, while there are those who argue … that China is but one corner of Jambudvīpa. When I hear of them I laugh at nine out of ten, am shocked by one in three, wonder about one in ten, and believe not even one in a hundred.” See Ou Yubu ji: Wenji [A collection of prose by Ou Daren] (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 2007), juan 7:659.
30. See Unno Kazutaka, Minshin ni okeru Mateo Ricchi kei sekaizu: Omo to shite shinshiryō no kentō [Chinese world maps of the Ming and Qing dynasties derived from the work of Matteo Ricci: An examination of new and neglected materials], in Shinhatsugen Chūgoku kagakushi shiryō no kenkyū (ronkōhen) [Research into newly discovered materials in the history of Chinese science], ed. Yamada Keiji (Kyōto: Kyōto Daigaku jinbunkagaku kenkyūsho, 1985), 512. See also Funakoshi Akio, “Kon’yo bankoku zenzu to sakoku Nihon” [Kunyu wanguo quantu and isolated Japan], Tōhō Gakuhō 41 (1970): 595–709. Zou Zhenhuan has pointed out that there were three sources for Ricci’s maps, “including fifteenth- and sixteenth-century copperplate engravings and related materials; Chinese maps and gazetteers; and his own personal experiences and records. The Western sources he used largely came from the Flemish school, such as the world maps of Gerard Mercator, Abraham Ortelius, and Peter Plancius.” See Zou Zhenhuan, Yingxiang Zhongguo shehuide yibaizhong yizuo [One hundred translations that influenced Chinese society] (Beijing: Zhongguo duiwai fanyi chuban gongsi, 1996), 4.
31. See the section on si Yi in Huangchao wenxian tongkao [Imperial compendium of documents] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang shuju, 1882), juan 298:4. See also Siku quanshu zongmu [Bibliography of the Emperor’s Four Treasuries] (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), 633.
32. For a discussion of the influence of Ricci’s maps, see Chen Guansheng, “Li Madou dui Zhongguo dilixuede gongxian jiqi yingxiang” [Matteo Ricci’s influence on and contribution to geography in China], Yu Gong 5, no. 3–4 (1936). For the social significance of Ricci’s maps, see Lin Dongyang, “Li Madou shijie ditu jiqi dui Mingmo shiren shehuide yingxiang” [Matteo Ricci’s maps of the world and their influence on late-Ming scholarly society], in Jinian Li Madou lai Hua sibaizhounian Zhong-Xi wenhua jiaoliu guoji huiyi lunwenji [Papers from a conference on East-West cultural exchange in honor of the four hundredth anniversary of Matteo Ricci’s arrival in China], ed. Ji nian Li Madou lai Hua sibai zhounian Zhong-Xi wenhua jiaoliu guoji xueshu huiyi mishuchu (Taipei: Furen daxue chubanshe, 1983), 311–378.
33. Henri Bernard, Li Madou pingzhuan [Chinese translation of Père Matthieu Ricci et la société chinoise de son temps (1552–1610)], trans. Guan Zhenhu, 2 vols. (Beijiing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1993), 2:559. Ricci also realized that many educated elites were unhappy with his work and would resist his ideas.
34. “Dong Yi liezhuan” [Biographies of the eastern barbarians], in Sui shu [History of the Sui], 1827.
35. See Alain Peyrefitte, The Immobile Empire, trans. Jon Rothschild (New York: Knopf, 1992), 223–231.
36. For a discussion of the complex shifts that took place during the early modern period in China’s view of the world and self-consciousness as China, see Chapter 3 of this volume.
37. Joseph R. Levenson argued, “In large part the intellectual history of modern China has been the process of making a guojia [nation] of Tianxia [All-under-Heaven].” See Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 103.
1. Du Fu, “Chun wang” [A spring scene], in Pu Qilong, Du Fu xin jie [Understanding Du Fu] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), 363.
2. According to Gu Yanwu, “losing the state” was different from “losing All-under-Heaven.” When a “different clan” “changed the name of the dynasty,” this was merely “losing the state”; in other words, a change in dynasties was simply the change in political rulers. “Losing All-under-Heaven” meant an “end to benevolence and righteousness” (ren yi chong se)—if civilization itself were lost, and if people no longer maintained a sense of propriety, justice, honesty, and humility, then All-under-Heaven itself would fall to pieces. There are obvious differences here between a spatial understanding of the state and a political understanding of the government (or dynasty), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a cultural understanding of community. Gu Yanwu believed that protecting the state (the government or dynasty) was the responsibility of politicians, but protecting civilization was the responsibility of all. See Gu Yanwu quanji [Complete works of Gu Yanwu], 22 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2011), 18:527.
3. “Diversity in unity” is an idea put forward by Fei Xiaotong. See Fei Xiaotong, “Zhonghua minzude duo yuan yiti de geju” [The Chinese people’s pattern of diversity in unity], Beijing daxue xuebao 1989, no. 4: 1–19.
4. For a discussion of this debate, see Nan Liming, “Hanguo dui Zhongguode wenhua kangyi” [Korea’s cultural resistance against China], and Qian Wenzhong, “Gaojuli shi Zhong-Han gongtong wenhua yichan” [Goguryeo is the shared cultural inheritance of China and Korea], Yazhou zhoukan (Hong Kong edition), July 25, 2004, 16–20.
5. See Ge Zhaoguang, Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 150–171.
6. Yano Jin’ichi, “Shina mukokkyōron” [Treatise on a borderless China], in Yano Jin’ichi, Kindai Shina ron [Theory of modern China] (Tokyo: Kōbundō Shobō, 1923), 1. This book also has a chapter titled “Manmōzō ha Shina honrai no ryōdo ni soshiru ron” [Refutation of the idea that Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet are intrinsically Chinese territories], 92–112. See Goi Naohiro, “Dongyang shixue yu Makesi zhuyi” [Oriental studies and Marxism], in Zhongguo gudai shi lungao [Papers on the history of ancient China], trans. Jiang Zhenqing and Li Delong (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2001), 58. Goi has pointed out that Japan’s occupation of China during the period leading up to World War II spurred the enthusiasm for Oriental studies, and Yano’s ideas on these topics became more and more popular. Works such as the twenty-six volume Sekai rekishi taikei [A systematic overview of world history] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1933–1936) and the eighteen-volume Iwanami kōza Tōyō shichō [Iwanami lectures on Eastern thought] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1934–1936) are examples of this trend.
7. Yano Jin’ichi, Daitōashi no kōsō, 31. For a critique of this argument, see Fu Sinian, Dongbei shigang [Outline history of the northeast], in Fu Sinian wenji [Collected prose of Fu Sinian], vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2012). Fu Sinian argues that Yano deliberately misrepresented the issue, and that his argument “served as an excuse for Japan to invade the northeast”; his argument was clearly written in response to the foreign aggression that China suffered in the 1930s. See my discussion in Chapter 3 of this volume.
8. Bai Shouyi, “Lishi shang zuguo guotu wentide chuli,” in Bai Shouyi, Xuebu ji [Steps in learning] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1978), 2.
9. Is it necessarily the case that states made up of many different nations and regions are traditional empires, and not modern nation-states? Must they be governed under a system of federation and not a unified government? This is a question worth discussing in depth. Yu Fengchun has pointed out that “Early modern China, as a multi-national state, presents a theoretical challenge to the great powers of the United States, Europe, and Japan, which formed ‘a state built on a single nation.’ … Today, it is common sense to see argue that ‘many nations can make up a modern nation-state,’ but this idea was not accepted in the world of the first half of the twentieth century.” See Yu Fengchun, Zhongguo guomin guojia gouzhu yu guomin tonghe zhi licheng—yi 20 shiji shangbanye dongbei bianjing minzu guomin jiaoyu wei zhu [The formation of the Chinese national state and the path toward unifying the citizenry: Civic education of nationalities on the borders of the northeast in the first half of the twentieth century] (Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 2006), 7.
10. Sun Zuomin, “Zhongguo gudai shi zhong youguan zuguo jiangyu he shaoshu minzude wenti” [Questions related to borders of the motherland and minority peoples in ancient Chinese history], Wen hui pao, November 4, 1961. See also Sun Zuomin, “Chuli lishi shang minzu guanxide jige zhongyao zhunze” [Important standards for understanding historical relations between nationalities], in Zhongguo minzu guanxi shi lunwenji [Essays on the history of relations of China’s nationalities], 2 vols. (Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 1982), 1:157.
11. Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China, 2nd ed. (New York: American Geographical Society, 1951), 238–242.
12. Nicola Di Cosimo has shown that ancient China had varying borders; see his Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 313–317. His discussion of different types of borders may not be entirely without problems. Borders between ancient China and its peripheries existed in terms of cultural differences between Chinese and foreigners and as ideas drawn out on maps; there were also divisions between administrative regions determined by military control; and there were borders negotiated between states, such as the mid-Tang-era borders negotiated between the Tang state and the Tubo.
13. See Shao shi wenjian lu [Things seen and heard by Master Shao] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1983), juan 1:4. This sense of helplessness about the state’s territory plagued the gentry elites for generations. For example, an inscription that accompanies a “Map of Lands” (Dilu tu), which was carved during the Southern Song in 1247, takes a similar tone. The author, Huang Chang, could not help but describe an incomplete All-under-Heaven: even if “the dynasty and the emperor had fought off every hardship to bring peace to the land,” “the Son of Heaven’s troops had been dispatched [to the north] many times,” the land and troops of Youzhou and Ji [areas in northern China in and around contemporary Beijing] were held by the Khitan and could not be regained. Therefore, “when looking at the lands of the north and south, one can be saddened or enraged.” Quoted in the appendix prepared by Qian Zheng and Yao Shiying on the “Dilu tu bei” for Zhongguo gudai ditu ji (Zhanguo zhi Yuan) [A collection of maps from ancient China: From the Warring States era to the Yuan] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1990).
14. See Chanyuan zhi meng xin lun [A reassessment of the covenant of Chanyuan], ed. Zhang Zhixi et al. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2007).
15. “Fan yi er” [Second entry on foreign barbarians], in Song hui yao ji gao [Draft collection of fragments of Collected Documents of the Song Dynasty], comp. Xu Song (1957; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua, 1997). [“One China with different interpretations” makes a slightly irreverent reference to the so-called 1992 consensus between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, which agreed to the principle of “one China” with “different interpretations.”—Trans.]
16. See Tao Jinsheng, Song Liao guanxi shi yanjiu [Researches on the history of relations between the Song and the Liao] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2008), 84–85.
17. Even though the Tang dynasty and the Tubo had signed a treaty or covenant (meng shu) to indicate “Han territory” (Han jie), this document did not state that the other side of the border belonged to Tubo, but rather said that the Tang and Tubo states were like “uncle and nephew.” They definitely were not considered equal to one another, but more important is that the document laid out lines to separate areas of authority. See Jiu Tang shu [Old book of Tang], 5247.
18. For a discussion of these issues, see Wang Gungwu, “The Rhetoric of a Lesser Empire: Early Sung Relations with Its Neighbors,” in China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, ed. Morris Rossabi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 47–65.
19. See Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 29–52.
20. See Ge Zhaoguang, Zhongguo sixiang shi [An intellectual history of China], 3 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1998), 2:253.
21. Because of this type of phenomenon, in recent years some scholars have argued that rather than use this idea of political space (which evolved out of later historical understandings) to narrate history, it is more effective to weaken the basic unit of this narrative. Thus we see a new fashion for postcolonial theories such as those related to “imagined communities” and “border-crossing histories.” See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1991).
22. See Ge, Here in “China” I Dwell, 29–52; see also Chapter 3 of this volume.
23. See Nishikawa Nagao, “Kokumin kokkaron kara mita ‘sengo’ ” [The postwar era seen from the perspective of nation-statism], in Nishikawa Nagao, Kokumin kokkaron no shatei [The striking range of nation-statism] (Tokyo: Kashiwa shobō, 1998), 256–286.
24. For example, Eric Hobsbawm noted that the nation is “the product of particular, and inevitably localized or regional historical conjunctures,” and therefore, in his discussion of China, points out that China may be an important exception to the general trend toward choosing a national vernacular over and above the prestigious languages of the elites. See Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 5, 56.
25. Recently Yoshimoto Michimasa, in an article titled “Chūgoku kodai ni okeru kaishisō no seiritsu” [The formation of the Chinese / barbarian dichotomy in ancient China], discussed ideas about differences “Chinese and barbarians” from the Western Zhou down to the Warring States period. Yoshimoto points out that prior to the middle of the Warring States period, there were three methods of dealing with foreigners: assimilation (tonghua), casting out (yiqi), and “loose reins” (that is, indirect rule, jimi). Tsuji Mashahiro, in an essay on “Kikushi Kōshōkoku to Chūgoku ōchō” [The Qu-Shi Gaochang kingdom and Chinese dynasties], took up the example of the Gaochang (or Karakhoja) Kingdom to discuss the various policies employed by China in the medieval period to handle neighboring states and peoples, including tribute, “loose reins,” enfeoffment, and conquest. Tsuji also compares the fate of Gaochang with others states, such Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, noting that Chinese dynasties’ perspectives on foreign policies often changed along with the international environment. See Fuma Susumu, ed., Chūgoku Higashi Ajia gaikō kōryūshi no kenkyū [Studies of the history of diplomatic exchanges between China and East Asia] (Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku gakujutsu shuppanka, 2007).
26. Zhang Guangda, “Cong Anshi zhi luan dao Chanyuan zhi meng” [From the Wang Anshi rebellion to the Chanyuan covenant], in Jidiao yu bianzou: Qi zhi ershi shijide Zhongguo [Themes and variations: China from the seventh through the twentieth century], ed. Huang Kuanzhong (Taipei: Zhengzhi daxue lishi xi, 2008), 18.
27. We should not take “All-under-Heaven” to mean that there was no sense of “China” in ancient China. The Han dynasty referred to itself in terms of All-under-Heaven, but inscriptions on bronze mirrors from the Han frequently use the term Zhongguo (China or the Middle Kingdom), often in contrast with “Xiongnu.” Japan also referred to itself as All-under-Heaven: as Sadao Nishijima has pointed out, Japan’s version of All-under-Heaven referred only to territory under Japanese political control. For China, it appears that All-under-Heaven refers to a world with China at the center, whereas for Japan, All-under-Heaven refers to Japan itself. See Sadao Nishijima, Nihon rekishi no kokusai kankyō [The international environment of Japanese history] (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985), 77–78.
28. See Gu Jiegang’s essay from 1926, “Qin-Han tongyi youlai he Zhanguoren duiyu shijiede xiangxiang” [The origins of the Qin-Han unification and understandings of the world in the Warring States period], in Gu Jiegang quanji [Complete works of Gu Jiegang], 62 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2010), 6:33.
29. Diao Shuren, “Zhong-Chao bianjie yange shi yanjiu” [A study of changes in the China-Korea border], Zhongguo bianjing shi di yanjiu 2001, no. 4. See also Yang Shaoquan and Sun Yumei, Zhong-Chao bianjie shi [History of the China-Korea border] (Changchun: Jilin wen shi chubanshe, 1993).
30. For a discussion of another side of this history, see Chapter 3 of this volume.
31. Regarding this discussion, see Chapter 3 of this volume. In fact, this question was addressed some time ago in a book coauthored by Gu Jiegang and Shi Nianhai, Zhongguo bianjing yange shi [A history of changes in China’s borders] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1938). However, it was written during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and is mostly interested in defending the legitimacy of China’s territory as a multinational state. It therefore emphasizes the unity of “Chinese” territory since ancient times. Later, we have Ge Jianxiong’s Lishi shangde Zhongguo: Zhongguo jianyude bianqian [China in history: Changes in Chinese territory] (Shanghai: Jinxiu wenzhang chubanshe, 2007), which works along similar lines to provide a good summary.
32. Nishijima Sadao has argued that the East Asian cultural sphere, which originally included Japan, was marked by four characteristics: Chinese characters, Confucianism, Buddhism, and a legal system with a shared structure. However, the rise of a sense of separate states in East Asia and the formation of a Japanese subjectivity were related to the decline of the Tang dynasty in the ninth and tenth centuries. Nijishima also points out that because of the conquest of territories by the Khitan and the Xixia, who saw themselves as states equal to that ruled by the Song emperor, international relations in East Asia changed greatly from the times of the Tang dynasty, when the Tang emperor was the only acknowledged sovereign who enfeoffed rulers on the periphery. From this point onward, a new international order arose in East Asia, one in which many did not recognize Chinese dynasties as the sole center.
33. Qing shi gao, 1891. Recently an American scholar at Rice University has found a Qianlong-era map, Jingban tianwen quantu, which was based on a Kangxi-era official map. The colophon on the bottom left-hand side is quite interesting and is worth quoting here. The colophon says that in the Kangxi-era version of the map, “every river, mountain, territory, city, district, county, fief, and boundary was placed artfully into an ordered position, like a piece of embroidery.” However, by the time the later map was made, “Taiwan and Dinghai were not included in the territory on the map, and offices for registering households have not been established for the protectorate forty-nine banners of Mongolia, the Red Miao, Kangding [also Dardo or Dajianlu], Hami, the Khalkha, Hetao [the upper reaches of the Yellow River] and the lands to the west, and Qinghai Lake.” In other words, between the Kangxi and the Qianlong reigns, the Great Qing Empire used military conquest or conversion of peripheral territories into regular administrative regions (gaitu guiliu) to grow its territories by “twenty thousand li.” This expansion was exactly the opposite of the long-term shrinking of state territories that took place during the Song and Ming dynasties. The result was that the territories and borders of “China” would be faced with a host of new problems for many years to come. The version of the Jingban tianwen quantu housed in the Rice University libraries was printed between roughtly 1780 and 1790 (see http://exhibits.library.rice.edu/exhibits/show/jingban-tianwen-quantu/history-of-the-jingban-tianwen).
1. Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 103. See also Immanuel Hsü, China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).
2. This theory, put forward by John Fairbank and Joseph Levenson in the 1950s, has come under fierce attack for the last few decades. I would argue, however, that although this modernist “stimulus-response” model has many problems, with further revision and elaboration it can continue to have significant explanatory power for historians.
3. If we do not notice the overlap of these two historical processes, then we have no way to understand why “China” today still resembles both a modern nation-state and a traditional empire; we also cannot explain why China is still dealing with dilemmas related to drifting apart from or being at odds with neighboring states, the challenge of Western influence, and internal issues related to the identity of different national groups and geographical regions. We are even less able to explain why scholars and thinkers in China continue to pursue transformation toward a modern state while insisting that the state maintain “unity in diversity” even as they are unwilling to abandon ways of describing China that depend on ideas of Sinicization and acculturation.
4. Regarding this question, see Yoshikai Masato’s “Byōzokushi no kindai” [The modern era of the history of the Miao], 1–7, published serially in Hokkaidō Daigaku bungaku kenkyūka kiyō, nos. 124–134 (2008–2011), esp. parts 1–3. I learned a great deal when writing a review of this work. See my essay, “Zai lishi, zhengzhi yu guojia zhijiande minzu shi” [The history of nationalities: Between history, politics, and the state], Nanfang zhoumo, September 7, 2012.
5. Zhang Taiyan, “Tao Manzhou xi” [Condemning the Manchus], in Zhang Taiyan quanji [Complete works of Zhang Taiyan], 6 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), 4:190.
6. Zhang Taiyan, “Bo Kang Youwei lun geming shu” [A refutation of Kang Youwei’s thoughts on revolution], in Zhang Taiyan quanji, 4:173.
7. Zhang Taiyan, “Zhong-Xia wangguo er bai si shi er nian jinian huishu” [Letter written in commemoration of the 242nd anniversary of the loss of the Chinese state], in Zhang Taiyan quanji, 4:188.
8. Zou Rong’s anti-Manchu tract called for China to “sweep away millennia of despotism in all its forms, throw off millennia of slavishness, annihilate the five million and more of the furry and horned Manchu race, and cleanse ourselves of two hundred and sixty years of unremitting pain.” See Zou Rong, Geming jun (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1971), 1. Translation borrowed from Tsou Jung (Zou Rong), The Revolutionary Army: A Chinese Nationalist Tract of 1903, trans. John Lust (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), 58. Chen Tianhua, “Jue ming shu” [Suicide note] (1905), in Xinhai geming qian shi nian shilun xuanji [Collection of political writings from the decade leading up to the 1911 revolution], 3 vols., ed. Zhang Zhan and Wang Renzhi (Beijing: Sanlian, 1960), 1:153.
9. Fan Zuyu, Tang jian [Mirror of the Tang] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981), juan 6.
10. Zhang Taiyan, “Bo Kang Youwei lun geming shu,” in Zhang Taiyan quanji, 2:174. In his “Zhonghua Minguo jie” [The meaning of the Republic of China], Zhang stated that he did not advocate nationalism in and of itself but as a means to an end. See Zhang Taiyan quanji, 2:256.
11. Zhang, “Zhonghua Minguo jie,” 2:256.
12. Liang Qichao, Zhongguo shi xulun [Overview of Chinese history], in Yinbingshi he ji [Collected works from the ice drinker’s studio], 12 vols. (1936; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), wenji pt. 6: 5–7.
13. Liang Qichao, “Guojia sixiang bianqian yitong lun” [On changes in ideas about the state], in Yinbingshi he ji, wenji pt. 6: 20–21.
14. Guan Yun [pseud. Jiang Zhiyou], “Zhongguo shang gu jiu minzi zhi shi yin” [Traces of ancient nationalities from Chinese history], Xinmin congbao 31 (1898), “lishi” section 1–13.
15. Here Liang’s ideas about the Chinese nation are slightly different from those found in Zhongguo shi xu lun. See Zhongguo zhi xin min [pseud. Liang Qichao], “Lishi shang Zhongguo minzu zhi guancha” [An examination of the Chinese nation across history], Xinming congbao 56 and 57 (1905).
16. Guan Yun [pseud. Jiang Zhiyou] “Zhongguo ren zhong kao” [An investigation into the Chinese race], pt. 1, Xinmin congbao 35 and 37 (1903).
17. Liang Qichao, “Zhongguo dili da shi lun” [On the general trends of the geography of China], Yinbingshi heji, wenji 10:77–78.
18. Many studies have been written about this question. See, for example, Yang Tianshi, “Cong ‘pai Man geming’ dao ‘lian Man geming’ ” [From anti-Manchu revolution to revolution in unity with Manchus], in Minguo zhanggu [Anecdotes of the Republic], ed. Yang Tianshi (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1993), 20; Huang Xingtao, “Xiandai ‘Zhonghua minguo’ guanniande lishi kaocha—jianlun xinhai geming yu Zhonghua minzu rentong zhi guanxi” [A historical investigation of the “Republic of China,” with a discussion of the relationship between the 1911 revolution and the identity of the Chinese people], Zhejiang shehui kexue 2002, no. 1: 129–142; Zhang Yong, “Cong ‘shiba xing qi’ dao ‘wu se qi’—xinhai geming shiqi cong Hanzu guojia dao wu zu gongtong jianguo moshide zhuanbian” [From the eighteen-starred flag to the five-colored flag: The shift from the Han-ethnic nation model of nation-building to the five-nation model], Beijing daxue xuebao 2002, no. 2: 106–114; Zhou Jinghong, “Cong Hanzu minzu zhuyi dao Zhonghua minzu zhuyi: Qingmo Minchu Guomindang jiqi qianshen zuzhide bianjing minzu guan zhuanxing” [From Han nationalism to Chinese nationalism: Changes in the late Qing and early Republic in attitudes held by the Guomindang and its predecessor organizations toward nationalities on the borders], Minzu yanjiu 2006, no. 4: 11–19, 107; and Sun Hongnian, “Xinhai geming qianhou zhibian linian jiqi yanbian” [Ideas about governing the border regions before and after the 1911 revolution], Minzu yanjiu 2011, no. 5: 66–75, 109–110.
19. The multiple translations and reprints of these two essays or speeches show the degree to which people in China followed this issue. See, for example, “Zhina miewang lun” [On the annihilation of China], Qing yi bao 75 and 76 (1901), as well as the full-length book Bingtun Zhongguo ce [A strategy for annexing China], trans. Wang Jianshan (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1903). The latter essay was reprinted many times, as in Wai jiao bao 29 (November 1902) and Jing shi wen chao, August 8, 1903.
20. Ariga Nagao was deeply involved in Chinese politics, serving for a time as an adviser to Yuan Shikai. His ideas about China were also influential in Japanese politics.
21. See Sakeda Masatoshi, Kindai Nihon ni okeru taigaikō undō no kenkyū [Studies on the strong foreign policy movement in Japan] (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1978), 113; and Banno Junji, “ ‘Tōyōmeishuron’ to ‘datsua nyūō ron’: Meiji chūki Ajia shinshutsuron no niruikei” [Eastern hegemony or leaving Asia to join Europe: Two theories on Asian expansion in the middle Meiji era], in Kindai Nihon no taigai taido [Attitudes toward the outside world in modern Japan], ed. Satō Seizaburō et al. (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1974), 39.
22. Egami Namio, ed., Tōyōgaku no keifu [A geneaology of Oriental studies], 2 vols. (Tokyo: Taishūkan shoten, 1992–1994), 1:3.
23. In “Tōyōshijō yori mitaru Meijijidai no hatten” [Development of the Meiji era from the perspective of the history of Asia] (1913), Kuwabara Jitsuzō expressed the enthusiasm among scholars in Japan, using phrases like “annexing Korea,” “the supremacy of East Asia,” “a nation of the first rank,” “exporting culture,” and “the awakening of the Asian people” as signposts to describe Japan’s rise. See Kuwabara Jitsuzō zenshū [Complete works of Kuwabara Jitsuzō], 6 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968), 1:551–563.
24. “Baoquan Zhina lun” [Keeping China whole], in Qing yi bao quanbian [Complete reprint of the China Discussion] (Yokohama: Xin min she, n.d.), vol. 5, “Lun Zhongguo” section, 7. This essay was translated from the newspaper Gaikō Jihō [Revue diplomatique].
25. Ozaki Yukio, “Zhina zhi mingyun” [China’s fate], in Qing yi bao quanbian [Complete reprint of the China Discussion], ed. Liang Qichao (Yokohama: Xin min she, n.d.), vol. 5, “Lun Zhongguo” section, 92–93.
26. In the beginning of the Republican era, the term “Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu) was widely used, a fact that shows that the idea of “bringing the Four Barbarians into China” gained broad acceptance. See Chen Liankai, Zhonghua minzu yanjiu chutan [Preliminary investigation of the concept of the Chinese nation] (Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe, 1994).
27. Lacouperie’s Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization and The Languages of China before the Chinese, which came to China via Japan, had a deep influence on Chinese scholars, including Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Liang Qichao, Jiang Zhiyou, and others. This popularity, of course, was related to other major trends in late-Qing thought, but I will not go into detail here.
28. Gu Jiegang, “Da Liu Hu liang xiansheng shu” [A reply to Messrs. Liu and Hu] (1923), reprinted in Gu shi bian, 7 vols. (repr., Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1982), 1:96–102.
29. See the reports included in Hu Shi’s diary, Hu Shi riji [Diary of Hu Shi], ed. Cao Boyan (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001), 380–382.
30. See Kawashima Naniwa, “Qing kan Woren bingtun Zhongguo shu” [A letter on how the Japanese are swallowing China], trans. Gong Debai, Liu Ri xuesheng ji bao 1, no. 1 (1921).
31. A relatively early example is “Jingxin dongpo zhi Riben Man-Meng jiji zhengce: Tianzhong Yiyi shang Rihuang zouzhe” [The shocking truth about Japan’s policy in Manchuria and Mongolia: Tanaka Giichi’s memorial to the Japanese emperor] printed by the Society for Research in Political Thought (Dangyi yanjiuhui) of the Suzhou Middle School in July 1927. Many versions of this memorial were published between 1927 and 1931.
32. Here the author refers to works translated from the Japanese into Chinese, and so the present translation refers to their titles in Chinese. In some cases, there is no direct correspondence between a Japanese title and the Chinese translation, which suggests that some of these translations may have been compiled from multiple sources or were given new titles that differ from the source.—Trans.
33. Beginning in 1920, Chinese newspapers regularly published articles that exposed Japanese surveys of Manchuria, Mongolia, the Hui, Tibet, and the Miao, reminding readers of the ambitions that lie behind these studies. See, for example, “Ri ren tumou Man Meng zhi yanjiu re” [A wave of Japanese studies with an eye on Manchuria and Mongolia], Chen bao, November 18, 1920; “Ri dui Hua wenhua ju zuzhi Man Meng tanxian dui,” Shen bao, August 30, 1926; “Wuwu Longzang fu Menggu diaocha renlei kaogu xue” [Torii Ryūzō visits Mongolia to examine anthropological and archaeological studies there], Zhongyang ribao, October 19, 1928; “Riben xuesheng kaocha Man Meng” [Japanese students inspect Manchuria and Mongolia], Yi shi bao, August 15, 1928. Another article reminded readers to be cautious: “Kuitan Man Meng, Ri ren shi cha dong sheng zhe he duo” [How many Japanese are observing the eastern provinces as part of inspections of Manchuria and Mongolia], Yi shi bao, October 19, 1928.
34. Gu Jiegang, “Yu Gong xuehui yanjiu bianjiang xue zhi zhiqu” [The Yu Gong society’s interest in studying borders and frontiers], in Gu Jiegang quanji [Complete works of Gu Jiegang], 62 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2010), 36:215–216. This essay was originally published in January 1936 under the title “Yu Gong xuehui yanjiu bianjiang jihua shu” [Letter concerning the Yu Gong Scholarly Society’s plans for research on border areas].
35. Ibid., 36:215.
36. Fu Sinian, Fu Sinian quanji [Complete works of Fu Sinian], 7 vols., ed. Ouyang Zhesheng (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003), 4:125–127.
37. According to Ding Wenjiang, “The most important reason for the inability to unify China lies in the fact that we do not have a shared faith. The basis of this faith is built on our own understanding of ourselves. History and archaeology study our nation’s past, while linguistics, anthropology, and other social sciences study our nation’s present. Only by studying our nation’s past and present well can we be able to understand ourselves.” See Ding Wenjiang, “Zhongyang yanjiuyuande shiming” [The mission of Academia Sinica], Dongfang zazhi, January 16, 1935.
38. Fu Sinian, “Yi Xia dong xi shuo” [The hypothesis of the Yi in the east and the Xia in the west], in Fu Sinian quanji, 3:226.
39. Ma Rong, “Du Wang Tongling ‘Zhongguo minzu shi’ ” [Reading Wang Tongling’s history of the Chinese nation], Beijing Daxue xuebao 2002, no. 3: 125–135.
40. For Li Chi’s classifications, see The Formation of the Chinese People: An Anthropological Inquiry (New York: Russell and Russell, 1928), 254–261.
41. Wang Daw-hwan [Wang Daohuan], “Shiyusuode tizhi renleixue jia” [Physical anthropologists in the Institute of History and Philology], in Xin xueshu zhi lu [The path to new scholarship], 2 vols., ed. Tu Cheng-sheng and Wang Fansen (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 2003), 1:181.
42. See Zha Xiaoying, “Zhengdangde lishi guan: Lun Li Chi de kaoguxue yanjiu yu minzu zhuyi” [Legitimate views of history: On Li Chi’s archaeology and nationalism], Kaogu 2012, no. 6: 89–92. According to Zha, Li Chi’s “ideas about anthropological history were at least as strong as his nationalist sentiment, which led him to argue that certain cultural characteristics were autochthonous and that others were of foreign origin.” Likewise, works published by S. M. Shirokogorov (1889–1939) that were based on his studies of physical anthropology in northeastern China, such as Anthropology of Northern China (Shanghai: Royal Asiatic Society, 1923) and Anthropology of Eastern China and Kwangtung Province (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1925), were just as marked by nationalist sentiment.
43. Zhang Zhiyu, “Ershi shiji houbande Zhongguo kaoguxue” [Chinese archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century], in Zhang Zhiyu, Kaoguxue zhuanti liu jiang [Six lectures on archaeology] (Beijing: Sanlian, 2010), 170–177.
44. Fu Sinian, Fu Sinian quanji, 3:235–236.
45. Although we use the term “archaeology” (Ch. renleixue) here, the term also includes what later would be called the study of nationalities. For a history of this field, see Wang Jianmin, Zhongguo minzu xue shi [The history of nationalities research in China], 2 vols. (Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), esp. 1:102–122.
46. Yang Chengzhi, “Cong Xinan minzu shuo dao duli Luoluo” [From the southeastern nationalities to the independent Luoluo group] (1929), quoted in Hokkaidō Daigaku bungaku kenkyūka kiyō 130 (2010): 57.
47. Ling Chunsheng, Songhuajiang xiayoude Hezhe zu [The Hezhe people of the lower Songhua river] (1934; repr. Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1990), 1.
48. Li Yiyuan has pointed out that the publication of Songhuajiang xiayoude Hezhe zu in 1934 resulted “not only in the first scientific survey in Chinese nationalities research but also an important example of efforts being made worldwide to gather materials for ethnographic surveys that had been inspired by Bronisław Malinowski’s Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922).” See Li Yiyuan zixuan ji [Selected works of Li Yiyuan] (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002), 431.
49. See Yano Jin’ichi, “Manmōzō ha Shina honrai no ryōdo ni soshiru ron,” Gaikō jihō 412 (1922), reprinted in Kindai Shina ron, 92–112.
50. Regarding the Bo people, see D. C. Graham, “Ancient White Men’s Graves in Szechwan,” Journal of the West China Border Research Society 5 (1932): 78. See also Rui Yifu, “Bo ren kao” [An investigation into the Bo people], Shiyusuo jikan 23 (1951).
51. Li Jinhua, “He wei Tonggusi: Cong bijiao shiye kan Shi Luguo yu Ling Chunsheng de Tonggusiren lishi yanjiu” [What is Tungusic? Examining Shirokogoroff’s and Ling Chunsheng’s histories of the Tungusic peoples from a comparative perspective], Wenhua xuekan 2012, no. 1: 111–115.
52. See the preface to Ling Chunsheng and Rui Yifu, Xiang xi Miao zu diaocha baogao [Report on the Miao of western Hunan] (1947; repr., Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2003).
53. See Zhang Qiudong, “ ‘Wenhua lie qi’ yu ‘zhengzhi zijue’: Ling Chunsheng yu Shi Qigui de Xiang xi Miaozu yanjiu bijiao fenxi” [“Seeking cultural novelty” and “political self-consciousness”: A comparative analysis of studies of the Miao in western Hunan conducted by Ling Chunsheng and Shi Qigui], Leshan shifan xueyuan xuebao 25, no. 3 (2010): 108–112.
54. Tao Yunda, “Guanyu Mexie zhi mingcheng fenbu yu qianyi” [On the distribution and dispersion of Mexie names], Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 7, no. 1 (1936): 126.
55. Fu Sinian quanji, 3:131.
56. Li Chi, “Ji Xiaodun chutu zhi qingtong qi (zhong pian) hou ji” [Afterword to the second essay on bronze vessels excavated at Xiaodun], in Li Ji wenji, ed. Zhang Guangzhi, 5 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2006), 5:134.
57. Li Chi, “Zhongguo shanggu shi zhi chongjian gongzuo jiqi wenti” [The work and challenges of reconstructing ancient Chinese history], in Li Ji wenji, 1:354–355.
58. Chen Siyong’s article, “Ang’angxi shiqian yizhi” [Prehistoric ruins at Ang’angxi], made reference to Anderson and Torii Ryūzō. Chen rejected Japanese arguments that Manchuria had a separate culture and argued that “the Neolithic culture at Ang’angxi was simply the eastern branch of the Neolithic culture of Rehe in Mongolioa.” See “Ang’angxi shiqian yizhi,” Shiyu suo ji kan 4 (1932): 44.
59. Ma Dazheng and Liu Di’s study lists relevant publications on the subject from this period and shows that they were most concentrated in the 1920s and 1930s, making them “a product of the patriotic social movement to save China.” See Ma Dazheng and Liu Di, Ershi shijide Zhongguo bianjing yanjiu [A study of the borders of China in the twentieth century] (Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998), 77.
60. Liu Yizheng, “Shidi xuebao xu” [Preface for Shidi xuebao], Shidi xuebao 1, no. 1 (November 1921): 1.
61. Therefore, in his preface to Fundamentals of Chinese History (Guo shi yao yi), Liu stressed the importance of the “rectification of borders, the rectification of the nation, and the rectification of morality and justice” and said that “it is shameful if the borders are not rectified and the nation is not rectified.” Liu Yizheng, Guo shi yao yi [Fundamentals of Chinese history] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1945), 65. See also Chen Baoyun, Xueshu yu guojia: Shidi xuebao jiqi xueren qun yanjiu [Scholarship and the nation: A study of Shidi xuebao and its contributors] (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2010), 113–115.
62. This quotation is a line from a poem written by Lu Xun, “Inscribed on a Small Photograph,” written in 1903. In this poem, the young Lu Xun compares himself to the famous poet Qu Yuan, who despaired when being refused an official post by the king. In Lu Xun’s case, the analogy spoke to his growing nationalist desire to help his homeland. Translation modified from Leo Ou-fan Lee, Lu Xun and His Legacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 20–21.—Trans.
63. See Gu Jiegang, “Qin-Han tongyi youlai he Zhanguoren duiyu shijiede xiangxiang,” in Gu Jiegang quanji, 6:33.
64. Gu Jiegang and Shi Nianhai, Zhongguo jiangyu yange shi (1936; repr., Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2000), 1.
65. Gu Jiegang riji [Diary of Gu Jiegang], 12 vols. (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2007), 2:128–140. The entry for this day (December 31, 1933) includes newspaper clippings that reported on Tan Muyu’s research and lectures. For a discussion of Tan Muyu’s importance for Gu Jiegang, see Yu Yingshi, Wei jinde caiqing: Cong Gu Jiegang riji kan Gu Jigangde neixin shijie [Limitless talent: Understanding the inner world of Gu Jiegang through his diary] (Taipei: Lianjing, 2007), 118.
66. Gu Jiegang, “Bianjing zhoukan fakanci” [Inaugural essay for “Borderlands Weekly”], in Gu Jiegang quanji, 36:319–321.
67. Gu Jiegang, “Zhonghua minzu shi yige” [The Chinese nation is one], in Gu Jiegang quanji, 36:94–108. See also “Wo wei shenme xie ‘Zhonghua minzu shi yige’ ” [Why I wrote “The Chinese nation is one”], in ibid., 36:109–116. For a discussion of the wide-ranging influence of this essay, see Zhou Wenjiu and Zhang Jinpeng, “Guanyu ‘Zhonghua minzu shi yige’ xueshu lunbiande kaocha” [An investigation into the scholarly debates about “The Chinese nation is one”], Minzu yanjiu 2007, no. 3: 22.
68. Fu Sinian, Letter to Zhu Jiahua and Hang Liwu (July 7, 1937), in Fu Sinian yizha [Uncollected letters of Fu Sinian], 3 vols., ed. Wang Fansen, Pan Guangzhe, and Wu Zhengshang (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, 2011), 2:1012–1018.
69. Gu Jiegang riji, 197 (February, 7, 1939).
70. Fei Xiaotong, “Guanyu minzu wentide taolun” [A discussion of the national question], Yi shi bao, May 1, 1939.
71. Fei Xiaotong, “Gu Jiegang xiansheng bainian ji” [On the hundredth anniversary of Gu Jiegang’s birth], in Fei Xiaotong wenji [Collection of prose by Fei Xiaotong] 14 vols. (Beijing: Qun yan chubanshe, 1999), 13:26–27. It was subsequently pointed out that the theory of the “unity in diversity” of the Chinese nation that Fei put forward late in life “nudged his earlier one-sided position to emphasize the ‘diversity’ of the nation, subtly drawing from a part of Gu Jiegang’s thinking to create this more open idea of ‘unity in diversity.’ ” See Zhao Xudong, “Yiti duoyuande zuqun guanxi lun yao” [Major points of debates about unity in diversity in ethnic relations], Shehui kexue 2012, no. 4: 53.
72. Fu Sinian yizha, 1229 (February 1942).
73. See “Recommendation to Remove Obstacles to National Unity by Correcting Ancient Legends of the Han People Expelling the Miao People from the Yellow River Basin” (Chongqing: Zhonghua minguo jiaoyu bu, 1941), submitted by Gu Jiegang and Ma Yi to the second meeting of the Border Education Committee of the Republic of China. In Jiaoyu bu shi di jiaoyu weiyuanhui gaikuang [Status of the committee for historical and geographical education] (Chongqing, 1941), pt. 2.
74. Chiang Kai-shek, “China’s Destiny” and “Chinese Economic Theory” (1947; repr., Leiden: Brill, 2012), 33, 30.
75. It is worth noting that, after China’s Destiny was published, Chen Boda and others published Ping Zhongguo zhi mingyun [An assessment of China’s fate]. Chen’s essay argued that Chiang Kai-shek’s ideas about “large and small branches of the same bloodline” amounted to a fascist theory of bloodlines. Chen’s main evidence for this argument was that (1) the nation was still formed by “shared language, shared geography, shared economic life (the connectedness of economic life) and a shared psychological structure that is demonstrated by a shared culture”; (2) many different national groups existed in Chinese history, and assimilation occurred through brutal conflict, not peaceful coexistence; and (3) even if Chen Boda’s argument was marked heavily by Han nationalism, he nonetheless criticized China’s Destiny for what he saw as its “Han chauvinism and attempts to bully minority nationalities within China” (4–8).
1. Huntington argued that “blood, language, religion, way of life, were what the Greeks had in common and what distinguished them from the Persians and other non-Greeks.” It seems, then, that Han Chinese people are different from other national groups because ethnicity, language, religion, way of life, and other cultural factors. Of course, Huntington is not very clear on the differences between “culture” and “civilization.” See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 42.
2. The difference between Chinese characters and phonetic writing lies mostly in the so-called pictographic elements of Chinese characters, as seen in characters such as ri 日 (the sun), yue 月 (the moon), mu 木 (tree / wood), shui 水 (water), huo 火 (fire), shou 手 (hand), kou 口 (mouth), and dao 刀 (knife). Many others use more detailed and complicated expressions to reach a new result. For example, by adding one dot to the left of the character dao 刀, we get ren 刃, which is the edge of a knife. By putting shou 手 on top of a tree (mu 木), we get cai 采, which means to pick, pull, or pluck. When an ox (niu 牛) is placed in a stable, we call the stable lao 牢; the character shows us an ox with a roof over its head. These characters are known as “compound characters” or “associative compounds” (hui yi zi). Compound characters have limited uses, however, and so “radical-phonetic” or “logographic” characters use sound elements to show differences, as as with characters such as jiang 江 (large river) and he 河 (river or stream) and song 松 (pine) and 柏 bai (cypress); in all of these cases, the left-hand element carries an aspect of the meaning, while the right-hand element determines the pronunciation. Because Chinese characters are rooted in the pictographic, however, many of their meanings can be guessed through the elements from which they are made; many were in fact developed through these meanings. For example, if mu 木 refers to a tree, and this “tree” is in the middle of the “sun” (ri 日), then we have the sun rising in the east, which refers to the character dong 東 (“east,” simplified now as 东). In another case, ri 日 refers to the sun, and the sun is descending into the foliage (cao 草) on the horizon, then we have mu 莫 (暮), which means “dusk.” Chinese characters, then, influence people’s thinking and their imaginations and have created a certain habit of literal reading among Chinese people. For a discussion of the way Chinese people revere and place faith in the written word, see Hu Shi, “Ming jiao” [The doctrine of names], in Hu Shi wenji [Collection of Hu Shi’s prose], ed. Ouyang Zhesheng, 12 vols. (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe 1998), 4, juan 2:51–62.
3. Francis L. K. Hsü (Xu Langguang) has argued that Western cultures emphasize self-reliance, while Chinese culture emphasizes mutual dependence. See his “Cultural Differences between East and West and Their Significance for the World Today,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 2, no. 1 (June 1972): 216–237.
4. “Cultivating oneself” (xiushen), “harmonizing one’s clan” (qi jia), “governing the state well” (zhi guo), and “bringing peace throughout the land” (ping Tianxia). John King Fairbank said that, although the connection between self-cultivation and ruling the state was an article of faith among Chinese scholars, “from the Greek point of view [it was] a fancy series of non sequiturs.” See John King Fairbank, The United States and China, 4th ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 77. For one translation of “The Great Learning,” see Charles Mueller’s translation, http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/greatlearning.html.
5. See also Fei Xiaotong, From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society, a Translation of Fei Xiaotong’s Xiangtu Zhongguo, trans. Gary Hamilton and Wang Zheng (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and Francis L. K. Hsü, Under the Ancestors’ Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social Mobility in China (1948; repr., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1971).
6. Song Xiaozong’s essay, “Yuan dao bian” [An investigation of the essentials of the moral way], which later was known as “San jiao lun” [On the three teachings]. This essay from the Song dynasty, which is rare because of its direct response to Han Yu, could have easily provoked disagreement because of the prominence of Neo-Confucian thought during the Southern Song. Why would the Xiaozong emperor want to use his authority to write such an essay? This is a question worth considering, as are the responses from Fan Chengda, Shi Hao, and Cheng Taizhi; see Lin Xinzhuan, Jianyan yilai chao ye za ji [Notes on the imperial court since the Jianyan period], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 2:544. Centuries later, the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, also wrote a “San jiao lun,” see Quan ming wen [Complete prose of the Ming], 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992), 1:145.
7. The development of this tradition passed through phases that included the debates over “A Monk Does Not Bow Down to a King” that took place in the Eastern Jin until the point during the Tang dynasty when Buddhism was finally brought under state control and the faithful were required to pay obeisance to their parents and their rulers—or, forced to accept the traditional familial and political ethics of ancient China, filial piety (xiao) and loyalty (zhong). See the section titled “Buddhist Conquest of China?” in my An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief before the Seventh Century BC, trans. Michael S. Duke and Josephine Chiu-Duke (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 350–369.
8. See Ge Zhaoguang, Qu fu shi ji qita: Liuchao Sui Tang daojiaode sixiang shi yanjiu [The history of yielding and other topics: Studies of the intellectual history of Taoism in the Six Dynasties, Sui, and Tang] (Beijing: Sanlian, 2003).
9. It is precisely because of the unification of the three teachings that worlds of religion and politics in ancient China were unified and quite different from the absolute influence of religion over politics in the Islamic world. This situation is also quite different from Christianity in the West, which competed with secular powers in the Middle Ages, and with the situation in Japan, where Buddhism and Shinto had great power and authority.
10. Analogies derived from Yin and Yang may include the relationships between the sun and moon and Heaven and Earth and can also be used to understand symbolically the relationship between ruler and official and higher and lower; other relationships derived from Yin and Yang, such as cold and warm, wet and dry, the noble and the lowly, and those of high and low birth, imply a series of techniques for regulating relationships. The Five Elements (wu xing) in ancient China referred to the five most basic elements of the universe: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; but the five elements were applied to a wide variety of things, events, and phenomena in the universe, in society, and the human body, including the five virtues of “benevolence, righteousness, ritual, knowledge, and sageliness.” People commonly believed that the Five Elements could be used to understand and order everything in the universe, hence the five colors, five sounds, five flavors, five directions, five internal organs, the five ritual ceremonies, and so on. Without them, people believed society would descend into chaos and the universe would lose all order.
11. There are, of course, many accounts of the origins of ideas about the Five Elements. For a modern account based on ancient sources, see Feng Shi, “Shanggu yuzhou guande kaogu xue yanjiu” [An archaeological study of early views of the universe], Shiyu suo jikan 82, no. 3 (2011): 399–491. This article introduces information about Shuangdun Grave No. 1 in Bengbu, a tomb from the Zhongli state (which was destroyed by the Kingdom of Wu in 518 BCE) from the Spring and Autumn period, which was excavated between December 2006 and August 2008. For a report of the excavation of this tomb see Kan Xuhang, Zhou Qun, and Qian Renfa, “Anhui Bengbushi Shuangdun yi hao Chunqiu muzang” [Tomb Shuangdun-1 of the Spring and Autumn period in Bengbu city, Anhui] Kaogu, 2009, no. 7: 39–45, 108–110. It is worth noting that (1) the soil of the tomb mound and the tomb fill was a variegated blend of the five colors of green, white, red, black, and yellow, which are all related to ideas about the five elements; and (2) the remains of a fine layer of white quartzite, laid out in the shape of a jade bi disc, was found over the five-colored earth of the tomb mound; this layer could be related to the idea of Heaven covering Earth.
12. In recent years archaeologists have discovered some early materials, such as the Yin shu (Pulling book) recorded on Han bamboo slips and unearthed at Zhangjiashan in Hubei, which says that not only that, in ruling the state, “those above [that is, the rulers] must be in accord with the movements of the sun, moon, and starts in Heaven, and those below must live in accordance with the changes of Yin, Yang, and the four seasons on Earth,” but also that the people’s lives must be in accordance with “Heaven, Earth, and the four seasons.” This means that, “In cultivating the self, one must seek accord with Heaven and Earth, like a bellows [that opens and closes].” The laws of Heaven and Earth are like the four seasons, and they, too, influence human life. Therefore, people should also behave like nature and “produce in the spring, grow in the summer, harvest in the fall, and store in winter, for this is the way for one’s lineage to flourish.” If humans follow the way Heaven sees that “dry and wet and winter and summer follow one another,” then they can achieve eternal happiness.
13. In the minds of people in ancient China, anything that could imitate “Heaven” could possess Heaven’s mystery and power. The significance of this Heaven, then, had many meanings: during sacrificial rituals, it transformed into a mysterious, dominating force; during divination rituals, it transformed into a mysterious set of corresponding relationships; in the real, lived world, it appears as a mysterious world of desire, one that bolsters people’s confidence and helps them resolve a variety of challenges. It is not just the common people, but also the Son of Heaven and the aristocracy who believe that rational evidence and the basis of power come from Heaven. The buildings of the imperial palaces of the Qin and Han were constructed to imitate the structure of Heaven; the ceilings of tomb chambers from the Han were painted with the stars of Heaven; the imperial sacrifices conducted during the Han were directed toward the gods of Heaven and Earth, and the locations of sacrifices were follow a structure that reflected the organization of Heaven. In people’s minds, “Heaven” had an incomparably high status: it was the manifestations of nature, the highest realm, the highest of gods, and an unspoken and accepted precondition for and evidence in any discussion.
14. For example, the Records of the Grand Historian says that the legendary ruler Yu the Great was the Yellow Emperor’s great-great-grandson, and Zhuanxu’s grandson. It also says that Emperor Xie of Shang was the descendant of Emperor Ku; that Emperor Ku was the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor; and that the mother of Houji of Zhou was the wife of Emperor Ku—or a descendant of the Yellow Emperor.
15. In this case, the Xia would be considered as more “Chinese” in today’s parlance. The implication, then, is that the ancient Yin and Shang dynasties were not as “Chinese” as previously assumed.—Trans.
16. See Fu Sinian’s essay from 1935, “Yi Xia Dong Xi shuo” [On barbarian and Chinese, east and west], Fu Sinian quanji 3 (1935): 864.
17. Xu Zhuoyun, Wozhe yu tazhe: Zhongguo lishi shangde nei wai fenji [Self and other: Boundaries between inner and outer in Chinese history] (Beijing: Sanlian, 2010), 9.
18. Li Chi, “Anyang zuijin fajue baogao ji liu ci gongzuo zhi zong guji” [Report on recent discoveries at Anyang and an overview of six excavations], in Li Ji wenji, ed. Zhang Guangzhi, 5 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2006), 2:280–285. Li Chi argued that scholars of the history of ancient China should “break down narrow ideas of Chinese culture that stop at the Great Wall. We should use our eyes and legs to travel north of the Great Wall to seek out materials from the history of ancient China. An even older ‘old home’ is there.” See Li Chi, “Ji Xiaodun chutu zhi qingtong qi (zhong pian) hou ji,” in Li Ji wenji, 5:133. In another essay, “Zhongguo shanggu shi zhi chongjian gongzuo jiqi wenti” [The work of reestablishing the history of ancient China and related questions], Li Chi argued that Chinese culture was not an isolated realm, but rather that its sources came “all the way from the Black Sea to the grasslands of Central Asia, to the Dzungar lands of Xinjiang, to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, and, finally, to Manchuria” (Li Ji wenji, 1:353).
19. The Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals records that in the third year of the reign of King Xuan (606 BCE) the kingdom of Chu attacked the Rong tribe of Lu Hun, which was located, surprisingly, in what is now Song County in Henan Province, near Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Zhou. This fact demonstrated that the Chu and Rong occupied lands that overlapped with one another. Of course, the King of Chu had designs on the Nine Tripods, which symbolized the power of the Zhou Dynasty, and also demonstrated that these various ethnic groups were already part of the same political community of the “Central Lands” (Zhongguo) of the Zhou.
20. Some have argued that ideas about Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, and the eight trigrams were derived from three separate techniques of divination, that is, tortoise-shell divination, divination by the Yi Ching, and divining by milfoil, which represented the different cultures of eastern, western, and southern China in ancient times. These techniques, it is argued, did not combine with one another until the end of the Warring States period, during which time “a great synthesis occurred within the walls of the palace” that was then endowed with all kinds of moral and political significance. See Pang Pu, “Yin yang wu xing tanyuan” [Searching for the origins of yin and yang and the five elements], Zhongguo shehui kexue 1984, no. 3: 75–98.
21. This quotation is from the “Tian-xia” chapter of the Zhuangzi, trans. James Legge. See http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/tian-xia.—Trans.
22. Ibid.
23. See Yü Ying-shih, “Zongshu Zhongguo sixiang shi shangde si ci tupo” [An overview of four major breakthroughs in Chinese intellectual history], in Yü Ying-shih, Zhongguo wenhua shi tongshi [Overviews of Chinese cultural history] (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1–20. See also Yü Ying-shih, “Tian ren zhi ji: Zhongguo gudai sixiang shide qiyuan shitan” [Between heaven and man: An inquiry into the origins of ancient Chinese thought], in Zhongguo shi xin lun: Sixiang shi fence [New perspectives on Chinese history: Volume on intellectual history], ed. Chen Ruoshui (Taipei: Lianjing, 2012), 11–93.
24. The biography of the Qin Shi Huangdi quotes from “The Faults of Qin” (Guo Qin lun) by Jia Yi, who described the Qin unification as follows: the Qin Shi Huangdi “seized the land of the hundred tribes of Yue [in the south], making it into Guilin and Xiang provinces … [and] drove the Xiongnu more than seven hundred li away” (Shi ji, 280). Translation from Watson, Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty (Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, 1993), 79.
25. For example, inscriptions on bronze mirrors from the Han dynasty often refer to the “Barbarian Hu” (Hu lu) or the “Four Barbarians” (si Yi) in relation to the “state” (guojia). For example, one mirror calls for “the state (guojia) and the people to be at peace and without trouble, the northern barbarians to be wiped out, the lands of the four directions to submit and obey, the winds and rains to come arrive in season and ripen the five grains.” Likewise, Sima Qian’ s Records of the Grand Historian includes the “Biographies of the Dayuan” and “Biographies of the Xiongnu,” which show the beginnings of a sense of “China” or a “Central Land” (Zhongguo) in relation to foreign states and peoples. See Chapter 1, note 15.
26. See “The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin,” in Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, trans. Burton Watson (Hong Kong: Renditions, 1993), 45.
27. The biography of Dong Zhongshu in the Han shu [History of the former Han] includes a memorial written by Dong that recommends that “all that is not within the Six Arts and the learning of Confucius should be rejected and not allowed to develop.” His goal was to “make unification possible, make the laws clear, and allow the people to know what to follow.” In other words, Dong was calling for the Han Empire to establish a unified politics and culture; see Han shu, 2523.
28. Sima Qian, “Basic Annals of the First Emperor of the Qin,” 45.
29. Shi ji, “Huo zhi lie zhuan” [Biographies of the money-makers], 3261–3270. Translation modified from Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty, trans. Burton Watson, 2 vols. (rev. ed., Hong Kong: Renditions, 1993), 2:440.
30. This is as is described in Buddhist canons: “All within the land, each of different type, the Hu, Han, Qiang, the southern barbarians, and the Yue of Chu, each lives in their place, of different colors and types.” See Fa yuan zhu lin, in Da zheng zang, 53:280–281.
31. See Jin shu [History of the Jin], 1529–1530. Before Jiang Tong, Fu Xuan argued that “The northern barbarians have the hearts of beasts, different from the Hua [Chinese], with the Xianbei the worst among them. It would be best to establish a commandery in Gaopingchuan and ask the officials there to seek out people from Anding and Xizhou who are willing to move [to outlying areas] and exempt them from taxes and corvée labor. These actions will make it possible to open routes to the north and to populate the frontier regions.” Another person, one Guo Qin, argued for policies that would “forbid the Han from living among foreign peoples and gradually drive out the Hu people from Pingyang, Hongnong, Wei commandery, the capital, and Shangdang [now southern Shanxi].” See Jin Shu, 1322 and 2549.
32. See Tan Qixiang, “Jindai Hunan ren zhong zhi Man zu xuetong” [Bloodlines of the Man people among modern Hunanese] [1934], reprinted as Chang shui cui bian (Shijiazhuang: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 234–270.
33. See Su Qikang, Wenxue, zongjiao, xingbie yu minzu: Zhonggu shidaide Yingguo, Zhongdong, Zhongguo [Literature, religion, gender, and nation: England, the Middle East, and China in the middle ages] (Taipei: Lianjing, 2005), 237–365. See also Bei shi [History of the Northern Dynasties], juan 92, which records how an official from Northern Qi named Han Feng (a Han ethnic) “was forced to feed ‘Han dogs’ and horses. Also, some swords were used only for mowing off the heads of ‘Han bandits’ and could not be used to mow grass.” This book also often makes statements such as, “The Han dogs are intolerable and are only good for killing,” and refers to Han people who claimed to be Hu people, becoming “fake foreign devils” (jia yang guizi).
34. According to the “Biographies of the Sons of Taizong” in the New Book of Tang, he had a great fondness for all aspects of Turkic culture, enough so to cause conflicts with his family. See Xin Tang shu, 3564–3565. It is interesting that during or before the Tang dynasty, studying the language of foreign groups from the north enjoyed some popularity. For example, a chapter on educating children that is found in Admonitions of the Yan Clan (Yan shi jia xun) refers to a member of the gentry elite from the Northern Qi who was very proud of the fact that his sons had studied the language of the Xianbei and could play the pipa lute, “Because of this [training], they were able to work in service of important officials and were treated with great favor.” By the Song dynasty, however, the ability to speak the languages of foreigners from the north came to be seen as a flaw among elites and officials and was even seen as reason to suspect someone of loyalties to foreign lands or be worthy of punishment. In an epitaph for Yu Jing (1000–1064 CE) Ouyang Xiu wrote of how Yu Jing pushed for making peace with the Xixia and personally engaged with successful negotiations with them. But because he “studied the barbarian languages” he was exiled to an official post in Jizhou; he was even attacked by his political enemies and forced to leave officialdom and return to his native place.” See Ouyang Xiu quanji [Complete works of Ouyang Xiu], 6 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2001), 2:367. Some time ago, Liu Zijian pointed out that these materials show how “Confucian officials would not pursue such insignificant knowledge as barbarian languages. Usually they depended on interpreters and intermediaries, a practice that reflects chauvinistic attitudes in China and a lack of interest in the affairs of foreign countries. Moreover, those who did understand foreign languages were treated with suspicion or said to have secret or underhanded relations with foreign lands.” See Liu Zijian, Liang Song shi yanjiu lunji [Studies of the Northern and Southern Song dynasties] (Taipei: Lianjing, 1987), 89.
35. A funerary inscription for a member of the Gautama family was discovered in Chang’an County in Xi’an in 1977. Part of the inscription reads: “This family originally came from central India, but moved to China, setting down roots in China, and across the generations became people of the [Tang] capital. The Guatama family, which had the same surname as the Buddha himself, came to China sometime during the Sui and Tang period. With their skills in astronomy and divination, they eventually became officials in the Chinese court. Their works include the Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era (Kaiyuan zhan jing) and a translation of the Calendar of the Nine Forces (Jiu zhi li).” See Chao Huashan, “Tangdai tianwenxuejia Qutan zhuanmude faxian” [Discovery of a funerary inscription for the Tang-era astronomers of the Gautama family], Wenwu 1978, no. 10: 49–53.
36. According to the “Biographies of Persians” (Xi Rong: Bosi zhuan) of the Old Book of Tang (Jiu Tang shu), one Peroz, a son of Yazdagerd III, a ruler of the late Sassanian Empire, fled to China after the defeat of the Sassanians by Arab armies. Peroz came to Chang’an in 673 and 675, and some of the people who accompanied him to China established a “Persian temple” or Zoroastrian temple. A large number of the people who accompanied him eventually took up residence in China. See Fang Hao’s discussion in the first volume of his Zhong Xi jiaotong shi [A history of relations between China and the west], 2 vols. (Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 1987).
37. The biography of Emperor Ming (Ming Di ji) in the Book of Zhou (Zhou shu) quotes from an imperial edict that said during the Northern Zhou dynasty “Of the ninety-nine surnames of the thirty-six states [that is, including many foreign peoples and clans], those who moved south with the Northern Wei court came to be called ‘People of South of the [Yellow] River’ (Henan min or Henan people). Now that the Northern Zhou court is in Guanzhong [modern-day Shaanxi], the people there should be called ‘people of the capital’ ” (Zhou shu, 55). The bibliographic treatise (Jing ji zhi) of the Book of Sui (Sui shu) also notes that “when the Northern Wei moved its capital from Pingcheng [modern-day Datong] to Luoyang, the people who accompanied the court south were from eight principal clans and ten principal surnames, all of whom came from the [larger] imperial clan. There were another thirty-six clans from the various states and another ninety-two clans from various tribes. All of them came to be known as the people of Henan and Luoyang” (Sui shu, 990).
38. Chen Yinke, “Li Tang shi zu tuice hou ji” [Afterword to conjectures on the Li clan of the Tang-dynasty royalty], in Chen Yinke wenji (Beijing: Sanlian, 2001), 344.
39. Edward H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samakand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963); Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, with Special Reference to the History of Cultivated Plants and Products (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1919).
40. Yuan Zhen, “Fa qu” [Dharma melody], Quan tang shi [Complete Tang poems], juan 419, Chinese Text Project, http://ctext.org/quantangshi/419/zhs.
41. See Rong Xinjiang, Zhonggu Zhongguo yu wailai wenming [Medieval China and foreign civilizations] (Beijing: Sanlian, 2001), 343. [For a study and full translation of this text in English, see Wendi Adamek, The Teachings of Master Wuzhu: Zeng and Religion of No-Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).—Trans.]
42. Qu Dui has argued that “the Tang Dynasty was not a pure China. Because the Tang dynasty was a time when many nations blended together, in places across the Tang state one might see students and monks from Japan and Silla, merchants from Persia, Brahmin monks from India, Kunlun slaves from Southeast Asia, and others who lived side-by-side with the Chinese. So-called Chinese people (Zhongguo ren), from the family of the emperor and high officials to soldiers and peasants, all had the blood of various northern tribes from the Han dynasty in their veins. All of their customs were mixed together, and even their speaking and writing had shown signs of change for some time.” He also cites the examples of Yuan Zhen (779–831) and Bai Juyi (772–846), explaining that Yuan Zhen was a descendant of the Tuoba people, while Bai Juyi was a descendent of Sogdian peoples. “Because of these racial backgrounds, their poetic styles varied from that of Han people.” See Qu Dui, Zhu’an wen cun (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001), 129.
43. Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (New York: Norton, 2000).
44. Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York: Norton, 2000).
45. See Ge Zhaoguang, Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 29–52.
46. Nishijima Sadao, Chūgoku kodai kokka to Higashi Ajia sekai [Ancient Chinese states and the East Asian world] (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1983).
47. This transformation is quite important, because it led to the following changes in traditional China’s ideas about the differences between Chinese and foreigners and in the tribute system. Conceptually, the foreigner / Chinese division and the tribute system changed from practical strategies to an imagined order, from a system of ruling over the world to a way of comforting oneself with an imagined version of the world. Politically, the old attitude of the Celestial Kingdom became a real plan for equal relations between states. Intellectually, mainstream ideas among the educated elites concerning All-under-Heaven, China, and the Four Barbarians transformed from an ideas about the boundless territories of All-under-Heaven to a nationalism concerned with the self.
48. See Deng Xiaonan’s discussion of the resolution of differences between Hu and Han, Zuzong zhu fa [The ancestors’ family instructions] (Beijing: Sanlian, 2006), 92–100.
49. Chen Yinke, “Lun Han Yu” [Concerning Han Yu], in Chen Yinke, Chen Yinke wenji [Collection of prose by Chen Yinke], 3 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1980), 1:285–297.
50. See my discussion on thought and religious faith from the seventh through the ninth centuries, in Ge Zhaoguang, Zhongguo sixiang shi [An intellectual history of China], 3 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1998), 2:356–386.
51. Actually, if we start counting from the beginning of the period of Khitan rule, then the “Hui-ification” of Northeastern China lasted for four or five centuries, across the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties.
52. Zhu Yuanzhang, “Da gao xu” [Preface to the grand pronouncements], in Quan Ming wen, 1:586.
53. Ming Taizu shilu [Veritable records of the reign of Ming Taizu], juan 176:2665–2666.
54. One interesting example, discussed by Ping-ti Ho, is a literatus of Xianbei descent, Yuan Haowen, who identified with the Jin dynasty established by the Jurchens. With the establishment of Mongol rule, he collected and edited materials for the Zhongzhou ji [Central region collection], a collection that was both marked by the importance of Han Chinese literature and preserved important information about the literary culture of the Jin dynasty.
55. Liu Xia, Liu Shangbin wen xuji [Continued collection of the prose of Liu Shangbin], in Xuxiu siku quanshu, 1326, juan 4, 155.
56. Wang Yi, “Shizhai xiansheng Yu gong mu biao,” in Quan Yuan wen [Complete prose of the Yuan], 59 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2001), 55:618.
57. Ming Taizu shilu, 33:525.
58. Huang Ming tiao fa shi lei zuan [Classified compendium of the Ming legal code], in Zhongguo zhen xi falü dianji jicheng, series 2, 4:978.
59. For the preceding, see Zhang Jia, Xin tianxia zhi hua: Ming chu lisu gaige yanjiu [Civilizing All-under-Heaven anew: Studies in reforms in social customs of the early Ming] (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2014).
60. Ge Zhaoguang, “Bici huanrao he jiuchande lishi: Ping Fu Majin Zhongguo Dongya jinshi jiaoshe shi” [Mutually revolving and entangled histories: A review of Fuma Susumu’s History of China’s Relations with East Asia in the Modern Period], Dushu 2008, no. 1: 80–88.
61. Evelyn Rawski, “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 4 (1996): 829–850; Ping-ti Ho, “In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Reenvisioning the Qing,’ ” Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 1 (1998): 123–155.
62. “Idle people wandering about”—those who do not have stable professions or travel between regions to engage in trade—were often viewed with suspicion in traditional Chinese thought. Some traditionally educated scholar-elites would have been troubled by this type of urbanization under the Yuan.—Trans.
63. The lines that separate Classical or literary Chinese and spoken or vernacular Chinese have blurred over time. This development is not solely a linguistic phenomenon; it is also the result of the gradual dissolution of elite society and the entry of marginalized or nonelite elements into the mainstream. Culture (and values) change within language, and thus the elite, elegant, and refined language of the past gradually lost its commanding position in culture, while colloquial language made its way in force into books, onto the stage, and into interpersonal interactions. This transformation is an important aspect of the history of modern Chinese culture.
64. For Fei Xiaotong’s comparison of the organization of Chinese and Western societies, see From the Soil, 60–65.—Trans.
65. Immanuel C. Y. Hsü argues on the first page that “international society” originally only referred to a group of Western, Christian states. This group later expanded to the extent that its order became equated with the international order, but its arrival in East Asia meant that it came into contact with “another family of nations,” which, in turn, resulted in conflict between “two mutually exclusive systems” and the eventual forced integration of the Chinese order into the Western European order. As a result, the “Confucian universal empire” was made into a “modern national state.” See Hsü, China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations, 1–18.
66. Xu Zhuoyun, Wozhe yu tazhe, 21.
1. For a detailed discussion, see the conclusion to Ge Zhaoguang, Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 187–214.
3. For a discussion of Chinese people’s ideas of All-under-Heaven and “the world,” see Chapter 1.
4. For a detailed discussion, see Ge Zhaoguang, Xiangxiang yiyu: Du Li chao Chaoxian Yan xing wenxian zhaji [Imagining foreign lands: Reading Joseon-era records of embassies to China] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2014).
5. For further discussion of documents from Korean goodwill embassies, see Ge Zhaoguang, “Wenhua jiande bisai: Chaoxian tongxin shi wenxiande yiyi” [Cultural competition: The significance of documents from the Korean missions], Zhonghua wen shi lun cong 2014, no. 2: 1–62.
6. See Yamauchi Koichi, “Kō Daiyō no kaikan ni tsuite” [Hong Dae-yong’s perspective on the Chinese / barbarian dichotomy], in Chōsen gakuhō [Korean academic bulletin] no. 154 (Tenri: Tenri jihōsha, 1996). See also Ge Zhaoguang, “Cong Chaotian dao Yanxing: Shiqi shiji zhongyehou Dongya wenhua gongtongtide jieti” [From paying tribute to the celestial kingdom to the Journey to the Capital: The disintegration of the East Asian cultural community beginning in the mid-seventeenth century], Zhonghua wen shi lun cong 2006, no. 1.
7. See Yŏnhaengnok sŏnjip [Selected records of travels to China], 2 vols. (Seoul: Sŏngyunʾgwan taehakkyo taedong munhwa yŏnʾguwŏn, 1961), 1:338.
8. Wu Han, ed., Chaoxian Li chao shilu zhongde Zhongguo shiliao [Historical materials concerning China found in the veritable records of the Joseon dynasty], 12 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 8:4397.
9. Hayashi Shunsai, Ka i hentai [Changing situations between China and foreigners] (Preface, 1674; repr., Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 1981), 22, 41–45.
10. Jo Hyeong, Fusang riji [Japan diary], in Taikei Chōsen tsūshinshi [A systematic overview of Korean emissaries], ed. Nakao Hiroshi, 8 vols. (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1994–1996), 3:60.
11. Shinobu Seizaburō, Riben jindai zhengzhi shi [History of modern Japanese politics], trans. Zhou Qiqian, 4 vols. (Taipei: Guiguan tushu gongsi, 1990), 1:49.
12. Ōba Osamu, ed., An’ei kunen Awa Chikura hyōchaku Nankinsen Genjun-gō shiryō [Materials concerning the Nanjing ship Yuanshun, which washed Ashore at Chikura (Awa) in 1780 (An’ei 9)] (Suita: Kansai daigaku shuppanbu, 1991), 29–30.
13. See Matsuura Akira, ed., Kansei gannen Tosa hyōchaku Anrisen shiryō [Materials concerning the Chinese ship Anli that washed ashore at Tosa in 1789 (Kansei 1)] (Suita: Kansai daigaku shuppanbu, 1989), 351–352.
14. See Tanaka Kenji and Matsuura Akira, eds., Bunsei kyūnen Enshū hyōchaku Tokutaisen shiryō [Materials concerning the Chinese ship Detai that washed ashore on the coast of Shizuoka Prefecture in 1826 (Bunsei 9)] (Suita: Kansai daigaku shuppanbu, 1986), 108.
15. Yamaga Sokō, Chūchō jijitsu [True facts about the Central Dynasty], in Yamaga Sokō zenshū [Complete works of Yamaga Sōko], ed. Hirose Yutaka, 15 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1942), 13:226.
16. Matsuura, Kansei gannen Tosa hyōchaku Anrisen shiryō, 357.
17. This is from “Shinzo kukibun” [Oral accounts of Qing Manners], quoted in “Tōsen hyōchaku zakki” [Miscellaneous notes on Chinese ships that washed ashore], in Kansei jūninen Enshū hyōchaku Tōsen Manshōgō shiryō [Materials concerning the Chinese ship that washed ashore at Enshū in 1800 (Kansei 12)], ed. Yabuta Yutaka (Suita: Kansai daigaku shuppanbu, 1997), 223.
18. Ai Rulüe, Zhifang waiji jiao shi, ed. Xie Fang (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1996), 7.
19. See Chapter 1 of this volume.
20. Zhou Kongjiao, “Yao shu huo zhong ken qi zao e luan meng yin gen ben shu” [Memorial present to request that the emperor move quickly to wipe out root and branch the heretical teachings that are misleading the people], in Siku cun mu congshu (repr., Jinan: Qi lu shu she, 1997), shi bu 64:126.
21. Anonymous, Wanguo lai chao tu [The myriad states pay tribute to the emperor], in Qing dai gongting huihua [Court painting of the Qing dynasty], ed. Nie Chongzheng (Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1996), 236–241.
22. See Shinobu, Riben jindai zhengzhi shi, 1:49.
1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). It should be noted that Huntington does not make a particularly strict distinction between “culture” and “civilization.”
2. For a more detailed discussion, see Chapter 4.
3. See my discussion in Chapter 1.
4. See Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin, 2011), esp. chap. 2. See also Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2009).
5. See interview in Chosun Ilbo, November 28, 2012, A23.
6. For one discussion of the differences between civilization and culture, see Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 3–44.
8. Qing shi gao, 51:1891.
9. For example, James Hevia’s Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), only retells the story using new theory and is not a real history of the time.
10. This phrase is frequently used by diplomatic organizations.
11. This is Huntington’s interpretation, which follows arguments made by John K. Fairbank.
12. For example, when the Sassanian Empire was defeated by Arab armies in the mid-seventh century, many Persians asked the Tang dynasty for assistance, but the Tang was not willing to dispatch its troops. The Wanli emperor did send troops to help Korea fight Japan, but only because Korea was on China’s border. This is likely the product of a very old mind-set. For example, in his commentary to the Gongyang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Han-dynasty scholar He Xiu wrote, “The [true] king does not govern the barbarians or provide them with emoluments. He does not reject those who come to him, and does not ask after those who leave.” The outside world, it seems, is not worth mentioning. See Shisan jing zhushu, 2202.
13. Zhang Huang, Tu shu bian, SKQS 970: 188.
14. Ge Zhaoguang, Here in “China” I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses of China for Our Time, trans. Jesse Field and Qin Fang (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 23–25.
15. This is a major difference with modern Japan.
16. Some people have recently argued that “pacification” was a mode of expansion for traditional Chinese civilization and that, by comparison, “conquest” was a mode of expansion for the civilization of Mediterranean Europe. See Lin Gang, “Zhengfu yu suijing: Wenming kuozhande guancha yu bijiao” [Conquest and pacification: An investigation and comparison of civilizations’ means of expansion], Beijing daxue xuebao 2012, no. 5, 68–78.
17. “Discourse on Moving the Rong,” by Jiang Tong of the Eastern Jin, argues for the belief held by some in ancient China that Chinese and foreigners should simply be geographically separated from one another. The popular belief in the early Song that one should “uphold the ruler and drive out the barbarians” (zun wang rang Yi) also expressed an idea widely held among the gentry elites that the north should be divided between the Liao and the Song, and that it was not necessary to exercise rule over Nanzhao or Dali (both in Yunnan). One unusual fact is that the Yuan dynasty did attempt to conquer Japan, but we see that as soon as the Yuan suffered a number of military defeats that they were no longer interested in Japan. The following dynasty, the Han-ethnic Ming dynasty, went so far as to label faraway countries as “lands that shall not be conquered.” The interest in Japan shown during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns (from the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century) also shows the degree to which China often did not concern itself with distant lands. Even though Chinese such as Zhu Zunyi, Jiang Chenying, and Weng Guangping discussed Japan, most of their knowledge was derived from other works of history or even from rumors and tales. The most accurate understanding of Japan was found in Weng Guangping’s Wu qi jing bu [Commentary on the mirror of the East] (1814; repr., Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2005).
18. However, because the idea of “grand unification” carries such weight in China, any event that touches on so-called core interests such as Taiwan, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Xinjiang, or Tibet may lead to intense conflict.
19. China would often refrain from involving itself in matters that did not directly affect it. In the years after gaining the seat in the United Nations as the representative of China, the Chinese government would always abstain from voting on certain important international issues. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations argues that Islamic civilization and Confucian civilization would join forces to oppose Western civilization. My view is that, at least in terms of “joining forces,” there is little historical basis for this prediction. This is the case in part because, in traditional Chinese culture, Muslim counties close to China have historically not been treated with much respect by Confucian culture, and may have even been seen with lower regard than the West.
20. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, 47.
21. Buddhism is the exception here. Huntington argues that although Buddhism is a major world religion, it has not served as a basis for a distinct civilization because it fell into decline in the places where it originated and spread to other regions. These new regions, however, had their own civilizational foundations, and Buddhism could only be absorbed into their cultures. It could not, however, replace the cultures of those new places and serve as the foundation for a new community.
22. This refers to campaigns against Buddhism that took place during the under Emperor Taiwu (r. 423–452) of the Northern Wei, Emperor Wu (r. 560–578) of the Northern Zhou, the Wuzong emperor (r. 840–846) of the Tang dynasty, and the Shizong emperor (r. 557–560) of the Northern Zhou.
23. Numerous debates and reversals concerning the primacy of Buddhism or Taoism took place during the reigns of Tang Taizong, Gaozong, and Wu Zetian. During the reign of the Song Huizong emperor, edicts were issued to refer to icons of Buddhas to Taoist immortals and call Buddhist followers “scholars of virtue” (de shi). Following debates about the Hua Hu jing (Scripture of transforming the barbarians), in the Yuan dynasty, there were cases of orders being given to convert Taoist temples to Buddhist temples.
24. Examples include Tang-dynasty provisions against foreign religions, as well as Qing-dynasty-era bans on Catholicism.
25. For example, some Buddhists argue that “without the support of the sovereign, it is difficult to sustain our practice” (bu yi guozhu, ze fa shi nan li), as others hope to achieve the goal of having a “Bodhisattva emperor.” Moreover, Chinese Buddhism calls for the propagation of Buddhism (Fa lun chang zhuan) while maintaining the stability of the empire (huang tu yong gu).
26. Both Buddhism and Taoism understood quite early that “without the support of the sovereign, it is difficult to sustain our practice” and accepted the supervision of the royal court. Since the establishment during the Northern Wei dynasty of official posts to supervise religious organizations, nearly all dynasties have had similar offices.
27. The monk-soldiers of Japanese Buddhism are an exception to the rule in East Asia.
28. Laurence Thompson’s Chinese Religion: An Introduction begins with the statement that Chinese religion is a “manifestation of the Chinese culture.” See Chinese Religion: An Introduction (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1996), 1.
29. For example, Taoism as practiced among elites promoted acts of self-cultivation that separated one from society, such as quietly cultivating the body and spirit, or living in reclusion in a temple, in the forest, or in the mountains. Likewise, those influenced by Zen Buddhism sought a life of seclusion and a realm of spiritual calm. None of these practices promote the absolutism seen in so many religions; in fact, what they do promote is a kind of yielding and being at ease with oneself.
30. “The strong eat the weak” refers to the widespread belief, influenced by the importation of social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century, that China would be “eaten” or “cut up like a melon” by other countries such as Japan, Russia, England, and other powers.—Trans.
31. Discussions that emphasize “multiple modernities” demonstrate a certain awkwardness. On the one hand, they do not accept the idea that the transition from tradition to modernity was predetermined. On the other hand, they work to maintain the autonomy of thought, culture, and ideas and attempt to use the idea of multiplicity to find theoretical paths for interpreting the self.
32. We can see that in the past decade the term “great nation” or “great state” (da guo) has become quite popular as the term has come into use in both scholarship and politics, where discussions of “the rise of great nations,” “the rise and fall of great nations,” and “the responsibilities of great nations” are all quite common.
34. This reference is to book V, part 2 of Mencius: “Mencius added, ‘Bo Yi was a sage who was unsullied; Yi Yin was the sage who accepted responsibility; Liu Xia Hui was the sage who was easygoing; Confucius was the sage whose actions were timely. Confucius was the one who gathered together all that was good.’ ” Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1970), 150.—Trans.
35. Of course, some people might object and ask, who determines these principles and on what basis do they interpret them? Since the early modern period, hasn’t it been the West that determined these principles and demanded that we follow them? Isn’t the problem whether or not, when compared with many other undesirable choices, these principles are relatively fair? If we toss out one set of principles, will we have a replacement that everyone can approve of?
36. These works include relative early writings, such as Tianxia tixi [The All-under-Heaven system] (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chunabshe, 2005), as well as the more recent attempt by Yao Zhongtian to approach the question from a historical perspective in Hua Xia zhili zhixu shi [History of the Hua-Xia system of governance] (Haikou: Hainan chubanshe, 2012), esp. the first volume, which concerns All-under-Heaven.
37. These discussions have been very popular in recent years among scholars and thinkers in China. See the “editor’s note” (bianzhe an) to a special issue of Wenhua zongheng on Chinese philosophies of foreign relations and (in the same issue), “Rujiade waijiao yuanze ji qi dangdai yiyi” [Confucian principles of foreign relations and their conemporary significance], Wenhua zongheng 2012, no. 8: 17, 45.
38. Sheng Hong, “Cong minzu zhuyi dao Tianxia zhuyi” [From nationalism to All-under-Heavenism], Zhanlüe yu guanli 1996, no. 1: 14–19.
39. Immanuel C. Y. Hsü argues that “international society” originally only referred to Western states, but their continuing expansion meant that this “society” became an international order. The arrival of this order in East Asia meant that it came into contact with “another family of nations” led by China. Conflict between these “two mutually exclusive systems” resulted in the forced integration of the Chinese order into the Western European order. As a result, the “Confucian universal empire” was made into a “modern national state.” See Immanuel Hsü, China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 1–18. Is it really rational, however, to argue that, because the modern international order came from the West, it should be substituted with a Chinese order that is based on ideas about All-under-Heaven and the tribute system?
40. Zhao Tingyang argues that All-under-Heaven is an idea from the imperial era, a vast, boundless “world” of combined institutions of geography, thought, and society. To bring back this sense of All-under-Heaven, he argues, is to “imagine and attempt to pursue a kind of ‘world institution’ and a ‘world government’ backed by worldwide institutions.” See Zhao Tingyang “Tianxia tixi: Diguo yu shijie zhidu” [The All-under-Heaven system: Empires and world institutions], Shijie zhexue 2003, no. 5: 5. The book he published two years later, The All-under-Heaven System, came with the subtitle “an introduction to a philosophy of world institutions.”
41. The strategy of “keeping a low profile and biding one’s time” is associated with the foreign policy established by Deng Xiaoping.—Trans.
42. The five principles, which came out of China’s engagement with postcolonial countries such as India, are mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual nonaggression; mutual noninterference in internal affairs; equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence.—Trans.
43. Wang Xiaodong, quoted in Song Xiaojun, Zhongguo bu gaoxing [China is not happy] (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2009), 99. See also the chapter on nationalism in Ma Licheng, Dangdai Zhongguo ba zhong shehui sichao [Eight trends in social thought in contemporary China] (Beijing: Shehi kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2012), 133–160.
44. See Mo Luo, Zhongguo zhan qi lai [China stands up] (Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2010), 255. For a discussion of Mo Luo’s move from liberalism to statism, see Xu Jilin, “Zouxiang guojia zaitai zhi lu: Cong Mo Luode zhuanxiang kan Zhongguode xuwu zhuyi” [On the road to the states’ sacrificial altar: Observing nihilism in China through Mo Luo’s transformation], Dushu 2010, no. 8: 73–82, and Dushu 2010, no. 9: 123–130.
45. Zhao Tingyang, “Tianxia tixi: Diguo yu shijie zhidu” [The All-under-Heaven system: Empire and the world order], Shijie zhexue 2003, no. 5: 13.
46. Qiang Shigong, quoted in Chan Koonchung (Chen Guanzhong), Zhongguo tianchao zhuyi yu Xianggang [China’s dynastic ideology and Hong Kong] (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2012), 87–130.
47. The Gongyang commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals says, “It is difficult to obtain consistent accounts of events, even from those who have seen and heard them; it is even more difficult to obtain consistent accounts of remote events, based on transmitted testimony.” (In other words, the records of the times that Confucius’s father personally witnessed already show discrepancies, as do the records for the times of Confucius’s grandfather and great-grandfather.) The Han-dynasty scholar He Xiu (129–182) later interpreted these words (“seen” and “heard”) to mean that, of the twelve feudal lords who ruled the state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period, the reigns of dukes Zhao, Ding, and Ai had been personally witnessed by Confucius and his father; the reigns of dukes Wen, Xuan, Cheng, and Xiang were conveyed from what Confucius’s father had heard about them, while the accounts of the reigns of dukes Yin, Huan, Zhuang, Min, and Xi were based on information passed on by his grandfathers. Because every person’s experiences, perspectives, and ideas were different, therefore one would encounter “inconsistent” accounts. He Xiu then further argued that the Gongyang Commentary offered insight into three different kinds of world orders. The first of these was to “treat as foreign the other states of the land of Xia” (that is, to see one’s own state as “inner” or central, and treat other states of Hua-Xia as foreign or outside). The second of these was to “adopt the internal perspective of the other states of the land of Xia, they treat as foreign the nomadic Yi and Di.” The third of these was to see “everything near and far and large and small in All-under-Heaven as one.” The values and hierarchies of these three modes of world order for All-under-Heaven all differ from one another, and, in the hands of so-called New Text Confucian scholars, have become an important starting point for discussing both practical and ideal versions of an “All-under-Heaven order.” See Shisan jing zhushu, 2200. Translation borrowed from The Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, trans. H. Miller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 10n10, 180–181.
48. For example, the second issue in 2013 of journal Kaifang shidai (Era of openness) devoted space to discussion on “the China moment in world history.” A few months later, Yao Zhongqiu published an essay along these lines, also titled “Shijie lishide Zhongguo shike” (The China moment in world history), which argued that “the idea of All-under-Heaven that was followed in premodern China is best suited to Chinese people of the current moment who are facing a world-historical responsibility.” See “Shijie lishide Zhongguo shike,” Wenhua zongheng 2013, no. 6: 80.