This short book discusses several questions: What is “China”? How did modern China emerge from ancient China? What challenges does this “Middle Kingdom,” with its many national groups, complex cultures, and vast territories, now face? (Here I should point out that, with the exception of Chapter 3, a Japanese version of this book was published in February 2014 by Iwanami Shoten under the title Chūgoku saikō: Sono ryōiki, minzoku, bunka [Rethinking China: Its territories, peoples, and cultures] as part of their Iwanami gendai bunko series.)
A discussion of these questions must also take up several important keywords related to “China.” They include worldviews, borders, ethnicity, history, peripheries, and practical questions. The questions related to each keyword can be summarized as follows: First, did ideas from ancient China about “All-under-Heaven” become the worldview of modern China? If not, how might that happen? This problem involves how China in the present day understands the traditional tribute system and how it approaches the modern international order. Second, did the “frontiers” become the borders of modern China? If not, how might that happen? This discussion can help us to understand a wide variety of debates about national territories. Third, as China has moved since the early modern period from the worldview of “All-under-Heaven” to a view that recognized the myriad states (wanguo) across the globe, how has it brought the “Four Barbarians” (si Yi) (a discussion of the translation of this term is contained in the Translator’s Introduction) into China and worked to bring a structure to a vast China and Chinese nation? This discussion can help us to understand why Chinese people still hold ideas about a so-called greater China. It can also help us to understand why many scholars feel forced to discuss the history of various national groups in China solely in terms of Sinicization or acculturation. Fourth, how did what we now call Chinese culture take shape across history? Is this Chinese culture singular or multiple? Fifth, when in the early modern era did the sense of mutual trust between China and its peripheries—especially other countries in East Asia—disappear? How did the states of East Asia begin to grow apart from one another? This discussion will help us to gain a new understanding of international relations against the backdrop of the larger transformations of early modern East Asia. Sixth, I ask, from the perspective of cultural conflicts: Will the cultural resources of traditional China become a force for reason that will bring global peace and regional stability?
Although all of these questions are discussed in relation to “China,” it is also the case that, when we discuss China, we also touch on its neighbors in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea (as well as North Korea and Vietnam), and even, at times, the Western world. Living in this mutually connected and interdependent world, we hope that reflections on history will lead to rational thinking that will restrain deeply felt nationalism and lead to mutual accommodation and respect. I hope that this book will allow me to discuss with readers some of the great questions that affect us all.
Of course, I must also say that, as a historian, my discussion of these issues will always begin from a historical perspective. This is because I hope to achieve what I mention in the Introduction: to apply a knowledge of history to understand oneself and to apply a knowledge of history to arrive at common ground with neighbors on our borders.