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Explaining the variation in the extent of China's hegemony, 1279-1840 — multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism
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i
Explaining the Variation in the Extent of China’s Hegemony, 1279-1840
— Multiple Sources of Ideational Power beyond Confucianism
by
Han-Hui Hsieh
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)
August 2022
Copyright 2022 Han-Hui Hsieh
ii
Acknowledgements
This dissertation could not be done without the support and comments from many people and the
generous funding from various institutions. I would like to recognize them and express my
sincerest gratitude to them, especially to those who have left USC.
My friends from home in Taiwan and abroad and colleagues at USC have been essential to
me, both in my difficult times and happy times. Without the support of you, I would not have been
able to complete the task of writing this dissertation and getting my Ph.D. In my first year arriving
here and beginning my studies, I was lost in this completely new environment feeling like a
stranger. Many of you cared about me. Especially Mingmin Yang and In Young Min, who both
looked after me like older brothers. I will always remember your kindness and generosity. And
then, my colleagues in the Department of Political Science and International Relations as well as
the Korean Studies Institute here at USC have formed a thriving and promising intellectual
community and always provided thoughtful comments on the members’ research. I would like to
thank Ronan Fu, Alex Lin, Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, and Jackie Wong, and many more that I
could not name one by one, who have been extremely helpful in my career here.
I would like to thank those who have read and provided comments for different versions of
my research as well. To the panelists, discussants, and those who expressed their interests in my
research in the conferences that I have attended, your comments and questions made me rethink
the papers that I presented and helped shape my dissertation along the way. Faculty members who
are in my committee also provided valuable comments.
iii
Lastly, I would like to thank the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (Republic of China), and
the Fulbright Program, for providing the funding for the first two years of my Ph.D. studies. The
Department of Political Science and International Relations at USC generously provided many
years of tuition and teaching assistantship as well as funding for my research and conference
participation. The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, which has
been renowned for its support of Sinology and East Asian studies, awarded me a dissertation
fellowship from 2019 to 2020, and I am extremely thankful for such an honor and generous support.
The China Times Cultural Foundation based in the United States also awarded me a scholarship
for my dissertation research, and I would like to recognize its support as well.
iv
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..ii
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..v
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………vi
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….vii
Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1
Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………….19
Chapter 3: An Overview of the Changing Extent of China’s Hegemony, 1279-1840……………30
Chapter 4: Tibet’s Ever-changing Relations with Hegemonic China……………………………46
Chapter 5: Consistent Chinese Hegemony over Korea Based on Inconsistent Legitimation
Strategies…………………………………………………………………………..73
Chapter 6: Conclusion, Scholarly Contributions, and Empirical Implications………………….105
References………………………………………………………………………………………115
v
List of Tables
Table 1…………………………………………………………………..3
Table 2…………………………………………………………………..5
vi
List of Figures
Figure 1……………………………………………………………......35
Figure 2……………………………………………………………......39
Figure 3……………………………………………………………......40
Figure 4……………………………………………………………......44
vii
Abstract
What explains the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony when China’s status as the hegemon
of East Asia remains constant? Throughout much of the time in East Asia’s long history, China
has been the most powerful state actor dominating its neighbors as the indisputable hegemon.
However, one curious phenomenon was that the extent of China’s hegemony never remained the
same, and actually varied significantly across different dynasties. More specifically, this
dissertation looks at the longest uninterrupted time of Chinese hegemony over East Asia, from the
Yuan conquest of China in 1279 to the decline of Chinese supremacy beginning from the Opium
War in 1840, to better illustrate and explain such a variation.
If China remained the most militarily powerful state actor in the international system of
historical East Asia, and the level of its power relative to other state actors also remained constant,
why did the extent of Chinese hegemony vary significantly over time, specifically during the
nearly six hundred years from the Yuan dynasty to the late Qing when China was the indisputable
and unchallenged hegemon of East Asia? This is the puzzle that this dissertation aims to answer.
And I argue that material power, especially military capabilities, cannot account for the changes
in the extent of China’s hegemony. My argument is that during certain periods of time China
utilized multiple sources of ideational power in addition to Confucianism to legitimize its
hegemony and domination of other political entities, and this was the key variable explaining why
sometimes the extent of Chinese hegemony was able to expand beyond the Tributary System to
incorporate areas such as Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, while other times its domain was
confined to the Confucian cultural sphere.
viii
China’s material power, especially its military capability, cannot explain why the extent of
China’s hegemony varied over time when it remained the hegemon of East Asia, as China needed
to resort to ideational power to establish its authority that legitimized its domination over its
subordinates in the hierarchical international system. The conventional wisdom explaining China’s
successful domination of its vassals and a stable and peaceful international hierarchy in East Asia
under Chinese hegemony contributes these outcomes to one single ideational factor, which was
the Confucian civilization that China perfected and shared among its vassal states. This
conventional wisdom is termed the Confucian Peace theory in the dissertation. However, there
were certain periods of time when the extent of China’s hegemony expanded beyond the Confucian
cultural sphere, which this conventional wisdom of Confucian Peace in the existing literature
cannot explain. My dissertation therefore provides academic originality and contributes to the
scholarship by negating the limited conventional wisdom, and argues that there were multiple
sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism that contributed to China’s domination of other
entities. The more various the sources of ideational power China possessed and utilized, the
broader its hegemony could expand.
This dissertation engages with an emerging cluster of literature in international relations (IR)
focusing on historical East Asia, and contributes to not only international relations and political
science but also Chinese and East Asian studies. And this dissertation advances IR scholars’
understanding of historical Chinese hegemony by proposing a new argument explaining how
China was able to establish and maintain its domination, which emphasizes the function of multiple
sources of ideational power in addition to Confucianism. Here in this dissertation I present a
broader picture of China’s domination over historical East Asia by explaining that Chinese
hegemony has been based on other sources of ideational power such as Tibetan Buddhism and
ix
Mongol and Manchu traditions during the Yuan and Qing dynasties respectively. These were the
times when the extent of China’s hegemony was the largest and incorporated entities such as Tibet
and Mongolia in Inner Asia. This shows that Confucianism was only one of the many important
ideational tools that China utilized to appeal to its various subordinates, which is the originality
this dissertation brings to the field of historical East Asian IR. This research also fills in a gap in
existing historical East Asian IR literature that neglects China’s domination over Inner Asia, and
the case of Chinese hegemony in the Yuan dynasty.
Lastly, this dissertation provides significant implications for contemporary international
relations and Chinese studies. It informs us that a successful hegemon cannot rely on material
power alone or only one source of ideational power to establish and legitimize its domination, as
not all of its subordinates would accept that single form of authority. There has to be more than
just one gadget that could work effectively in the hegemon’s toolkit. It also suggests that the reason
why the various Chinese regimes in the contemporary times after the fall of the Qing dynasty have
continued to face civil unrests in regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet is due to the central
government’s lack of proper ideational power providing acceptable authority and legitimacy in the
eyes of its subordinates there. Had there been proper authority and legitimacy claimed by Beijing
that were simultaneously accepted and recognized by its Uyghur and Tibetan constituents, there
would not have been much conflict in those regions. Therefore, certain tailor-made arrangements
that could reestablish proper legitimacy for the Chinese central government would be necessary,
otherwise resistance would continue to be present in China’s peripheral regions.
1
Chapter One: Introduction
The Puzzle
This dissertation derives from one particular research puzzle: What can explain the variation in the
extent of China’s hegemony when China’s status as the hegemon of East Asia remains constant?
More specifically, if China remained the most powerful state actor in the international system of
historical East Asia, without facing credible challengers that could replace its position, why did
the extent of China’s hegemony vary significantly over time? Specifically, in this dissertation I
have examined Chinese hegemony during the nearly six hundred years from the Yuan dynasty to
late Qing when it remained the indisputable regional hegemon. And to answer the puzzle why the
extent of China’s hegemony changed significantly while holding its position as the most power
state actor constant, my argument is that during certain periods of time China possessed and
utilized multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism, and this is the key variable
explaining why sometimes the extent of Chinese hegemony was able to expand beyond the
Tributary System to incorporate areas such as Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, while other times its
hegemony was confined to the Confucian cultural sphere.
When China was a unified empire in its history, usually it would also concurrently be the
indisputable hegemon of East Asia under such circumstances.
1
Although China’s hegemonic status
as the dominating state actor of the East Asian international system did not change much, and in
1
Such as the Qin (221-207 BCE), Han (202 BCE - 8 CE; 25-220 CE), Sui (581-619 CE), Tang (618-907 CE), Yuan
(1271-1368 CE), Ming (1368-1644 CE), and Qing (1636-1912 CE) dynasties. The Northern Song dynasty (960-
1127 CE), while unified China proper, however was facing the Liao (916-1125 CE) established by the Khitans and
later the Jin (1115-1234 CE) of the Jurchens in the competition for hegemony.
2
fact remained constant for almost six consecutive centuries from 1271 to 1840
2
during the last
three successive imperial dynasties of China, however, the extent of its hegemony varied
significantly over time. Such variation is puzzling to scholars of international relations, because
the variation of the dependent variable of our interest here, which is the extent of China’s
hegemony in this dissertation, is not caused by the most common independent variable (namely,
state power, especially in military terms) that could account for most of the changes in the
international system.
In this case, China’s military power cannot explain why the extent of its hegemony changed
over time, since China remained the most militarily powerful state actor in the regional
international system, and the level of its military power relative to other state actors in the system
also remained unchanged, as no other state actor managed to successfully challenge China’s
supremacy and replace it as the new hegemon. Therefore, I argue that the answer must be
something else — it is the variation of the sources of ideational power
3
that China possessed and
utilized that established its authority legitimizing its domination over its subordinates. During
certain periods of time, the Chinese imperial dynasties possessed and utilized multiple sources of
ideational power beyond Confucianism, which explains why their hegemony was able to expand
beyond the Sinic or Confucian cultural sphere mainly composed of smaller kingdoms
4
in the
vicinity modeling themselves after China.
2
This is counted from the inception of the Yuan dynasty in 1271 till the later years of the Qing era when China was
subjugated to the arriving forces from the West beginning in the Opium War of 1840.
3
In this dissertation, the term ideational power is defined as the source of authority that a hegemon utilizes to
legitimize its domination over its subordinates.
4
These mainly included the entities in modern-day Korea, Vietnam, and Ryukyu.
3
Table 1. Variation of China’s Hegemony
Era Confucian Cultural Sphere Non-Confucian Sphere
Yuan Included Included
Ming Included Not included
Qing Included Included
Table 1 above shows the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony when China remained the
hegemon of East Asia. Although the three dynasties compared in the above table, namely the Yuan
(1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644), and Qing (1636-1912), were all the indisputable regional
hegemon of East Asia of their times, yet the extent of their hegemony varied significantly. We can
see that the primary variation lies in whether the extent of China’s hegemony was able to expand
beyond the Confucian cultural sphere. While all three Chinese dynasties retained the Confucian
cultural sphere consisting of smaller neighboring kingdoms such as Koryǒ and later Chosǒn
(present-day Korea), Dai Viet (also known as Annam, present-day Vietnam), and Ryūkyū (present-
day Okinawa) in their hegemony, however, the most noticeable variation is the inclusion of non-
Confucian sphere in Inner Asia, such as the entities of Tibet and Mongolia, which only the Yuan
and the Qing managed to incorporate into their spheres of influence. To briefly sum up the
comparison of the three eras of Chinese hegemony studied in this research, the Ming dynasty’s
hegemony was confined to the Confucian cultural sphere, while it was not the case for both the
Ming’s immediate predecessor and successor, the Yuan and the Qing respectively. But why could
the Yuan and the Qing manage to attain a broader, more expansive hegemony, while the Ming
could not? I argue that the key is the different sources of ideational power that these three Chinese
imperial dynasties possessed and utilized that contributed to this variation. The more various the
sources of ideational power China possessed and utilized, the broader its hegemony could be.
4
The Argument
I argue that certain Chinese dynasties as the hegemon of historical East Asia possessed and utilized
multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism, and this is the key to explaining why
the extent of China’s hegemony varied over time, despite the fact that China’s status as the
hegemon of the East Asia remained constant in the timeframe from the Yuan to the Ming until late
Qing. My hypothesis is when China as the hegemon of East Asia possessed multiple sources of
ideational power beyond Confucianism, the extent of China’s hegemony would be more expansive.
The opposite scenario is, if China applied only one single source of ideational power, namely
Confucianism, to legitimize it hegemony and domination of other state actors, then we would
witness a more confined Chinese hegemony.
In my research, I conceptualize ideational power as the source of authority that a hegemon
utilizes to legitimize its domination over its subordinates. This concept of power is in sharp contrast
to material power such as military and economic capabilities of a state actor that Realism considers
the most important. I argue that power, understood as the ability for A to “get B to do something
that B would not otherwise do” (Dahl 1957, 202-3) does not have to be in material form in
international relations, as we do observe that state actors with limited material power are able to
exert influence over others. Similarly, Reich and Lebow (2014) argue that power does not mean
the same as influence, and point out the limits of material power and the importance of legitimacy.
Furthermore, to be more specific in the context of this dissertation, if the dependent variable
of our interest varies but the variable of material power remains constant, then clearly the latter
cannot serve as the explanatory variable accounting for the variation. To explain the variation in
the extent of China’s hegemony, I have selected three eras of consecutive Chinese hegemony to
better demonstrate the contrast between each one, and to unveil the multiple sources of ideational
5
power that were at play. Table 2 below is a summary showing the correlation between China’s
multiple/single source of ideational power and the expansive/confined extent of China’s hegemony
during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
Table 2. Correlation between China’s Sources of Ideational Power
and the Extent of its Hegemony
Era Sources of ideational power Extent of Hegemony
Yuan Multiple
(Mongol traditions, Tibetan Buddhism, Confucianism)
Expansive
Ming Single
(Confucianism)
Confined
Qing Multiple
(Manchu traditions, Tibetan Buddhism, Confucianism)
Expansive
From table 2 we can see that the more various the sources of ideational power China possessed
and utilized, the more expansive its hegemony would be. In sum, during these three eras of Chinese
hegemony in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, we observe that the sources of each dynasty’s ideational
power varied, which corresponded to the changes in the extent of their hegemony. Whenever China
was able to exert more than one single source of ideational power, the extent of its hegemony
would expand accordingly. This explains the variation between the expansive hegemony of the
Yuan and the Qing dynasties and the more confined Ming hegemony. Here I should elaborate a
little more on the sources of ideational power that had influence on the extent of China’s hegemony
for each dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) of China was established by the Mongols, and it was the first
unified dynasty of China that was not founded by the majority Han people. Therefore, unlike
previous Chinese dynasties which considered themselves inheritors of the Mandate of Heaven and
6
protectors of the Confucian civilization, the Mongol rulers of Yuan China claimed a broader
legitimacy by adopting Buddhism, a widespread religion thus with universal appeal, as the
foundation of their authority over their known world which included heterogeneous peoples and
entities. Herbert Franke (1978) encapsulates well this concept with the term “universal
emperorship.” For example, Khubilai Khan, the first emperor of the Yuan dynasty, declared
Tibetan Buddhism as the state religion of his empire, which helped him secure the loyalty of Tibet
and provided him the necessary authority anointed by a universal religion. The Yuan also
selectively adopted certain Confucian practices to appeal to its Han Chinese subordinates in China
proper. For instance, the Yuan was the first dynasty of China that instituted the civil service
examinations based on the Neo-Confucian canon developed in the Song era (Dardess 2003). Also,
the Yuan dynasty’s legal system incorporated certain Confucian features, the most prominent
example of which was favoring patrilineal inheritance rights, which was also the first in Chinese
history (Birge 2008). Both implementations had lasting effects into the subsequent Ming and Qing
dynasties. Furthermore, the Yuan adopted the Mongol tradition of forming familial ties through
intermarriage to draw Koryǒ tightly into its orbit (Zhao 2008), instead of relying on Confucianism
to appeal to the Little China in the Confucian cultural sphere.
After the Yuan was a case of confined Chinese hegemony. The Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
was established by the Han Chinese after expelling the Mongols out of China proper. The Ming
had been constantly fighting with the Mongols retreated to the steppes in the north, and because
of this, this Chinese dynasty was only able to rely on a single source of ideational power, which
was Confucianism, when establishing and legitimizing its hegemony. Hence extent of its
hegemony was limited to the Confucian cultural sphere only and could not expand to incorporate
areas such as Mongolia and Tibet in Inner Asia. In short, it was not the lack of material power (in
7
the form of military capability) that explained the Ming’s relatively confined hegemony in contrast
to the Yuan and the Qing, but it was the more limited sources of ideational power that the Ming
had relative to the Yuan and Qing that resulted in such a phenomenon.
For the Qing dynasty (1636-1912) established by the Manchus, it consciously followed the
Mongol-Yuan’s model of utilizing multiple sources of ideational power to approach its various
constituents.
5
Chinese hegemony during the Qing dynasty has often been considered a prominent
example of the so-called Confucian Peace along with its predecessor the Ming (Kang 2010a; Kelly
2012). However I argue that the Confucian Peace presents an incomplete picture of the Qing
hegemony, and this image of the Qing was only partly correct. Indeed, the Manchus did selectively
adapt to Confucianism, which could be found in the Qing’s political institutions modeled after
previous Chinese dynasties, its emphasis on classical Confucian texts in education and civil service
examinations, and its efforts to secure Chosǒn, known as the Little China in the Confucian world,
on its side during its confrontation with the Ming to bolster its legitimacy as the recipient of the
Mandate of Heaven. However, evidence presented by the New Qing History
6
scholarship provides
new perspectives on the Qing that can shed light on the studies of international relations of
historical East Asia during this era.
The Qing emperors selectively presented themselves to different constituents with different
images (Farquhar 1978). The Manchu rulers of the Qing, like the Mongol rulers of the Yuan,
followed Tibetan Buddhism and became the patrons of this religion, which helped them assert their
suzerainty over Tibet. They also appealed to the Mongols by claiming to inherit the mandate as the
5
Such an approach was dubbed “universal rulership” by Crossley (1999), not unsimilar to Franke’s universal
emperorship.
6
The New Qing History scholarship emphasizes the study of the Qing dynasty using materials written in non-
Chinese languages, such as primary sources in Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and other languages. For an overview of
the New Qing History literature, see Rawski 1996; Guy 2002; Waley-Cohen 2004; and Wu 2016.
8
Mongol Great Khan after acquiring the great seal of the Yuan. Lastly, the Manchus retained their
unique identity separated from the majority Han population of China, which was the key to
sustaining their minority rule (Elliott 2001). This defies the conventional wisdom depicting the
Manchus as a people completely assimilated into the Sinic and Confucian civilization, and
suggests that the Qing dynasty’s Manchu ruling elites actually relied on more than just the
Confucian ideational power to establish their authority and legitimacy, as there were heterogeneous
constituents within the Manchu-Qing empire, similar to the Mongol-Yuan empire.
In sum, in China’s hegemony across the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, we can
observe that the sources of each dynasty’s ideational power varied. Whenever China was able to
exert more than one single source of ideational power, the extent of its hegemony would expand
accordingly. This explains the variation between the expansive Chinese hegemony during the Yuan
and the Qing dynasties and the more confined one of the Ming.
Research Design
This dissertation aims to explain why did the extent of Chinese hegemony vary during the times
when China remained the regional hegemon of East Asia, and the timeframe that the author has
chosen to examine is 1279 to 1840, encompassing the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties in China’s
history. One rationale to focus on these three eras of Chinese hegemony is that the Yuan, Ming,
and Qing are three consecutive periods of times when China remained a unified empire and did
not experience disintegration during dynastic transitions.
7
Under such circumstances without
7
The dynastic transitions between the Yuan, Ming, and Qing with China remained unified was a unique case in
Chinese history, as this is the only time when three consecutive dynasties succeeding one another in such a way.
Previously only during the Sui-Tang dynastic transition did we observe one unified Chinese dynasty succeeding
another also unified dynasty without China experiencing prolonged fragmentation in the form of multiple rivaling
entities coexisting with one another all claiming the Mandate of Heaven concurrently.
9
interruption of Chinese domination of the regional international system in East Asia, together with
China’s status as the hegemon of the system remaining constant, this setting can better demonstrate
the contrast of the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony over time, and show why such a
variation is puzzling.
Furthermore, another reason for the author to adopt this case selection is that, these three
dynasties did not collapse as a consequence of external invasions, but instead, all imploded from
within.
8
This is important from an international relations perspective because it shows that the
structure of the international system was stable, with no challengers rivaling and attempting to
replace the sitting hegemon within the system. In short, during the nearly six hundred years from
early Yuan to late Qing, the level of China’s material power and its status as the hegemon as well
as the structure of the regional international system in East Asia remained stable, and with such a
background, it is particularly puzzling to observe variation in the extent of China’s hegemony. And
only during the time from the Yuan to late Qing in historical East Asian international relations can
IR scholars locate such a constantly stable system while observing significant variation in the
extent of Chinese hegemony, which is the reason for my case selection of these three dynasties.
Following the preceding explanation for the case selection, here I should introduce the causal
mechanism presented in this research:
IVm + IVi → DV
8
The Yuan dynasty’s rule in China ended because of internal rebellions and uprisings in its latter years, which
cumulated in the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368 by Zhu Yuanzhang, and the retreat of the Mongols to the
steppes north of China proper. The remnants of the Mongol-Yuan forces founded the Northern Yuan. The Ming
dynasty was not toppled by the invading Manchus of the Qing, but collapsed in a similar fashion as its predecessor
the Yuan. Rebels led by Li Zhicheng took the Ming capital of Beijing in 1644, and it was later that the Manchus
entered the Shanhai Pass, gradually conquering the whole China. The Qing fell to the Xinhai Revolution of 1911
and formally ended in early 1912, replaced by the Republic of China in that year.
10
Here IVm refers to the independent variable of material power, while IVi stands for the
independent variable of ideational power. DV , the dependent variable of our interest in this research,
is the extent of China’s hegemony. During the timeframe of this research, namely the Yuan, Ming,
and Qing dynasties, the DV varies significantly across the three cases, with the Ming having the
most confined hegemony, which is in sharp contrast with both the Yuan and the Qing’s expansive
domains beyond the Confucian cultural sphere. However, looking at the two independent variables,
IVm across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing was held constant, because China had been the indisputable
hegemon of the international system and there was no challenger capable of toppling its supremacy,
therefore IVm certainly cannot account for the variation in the DV . Meanwhile, the other
independent variable, IVi, did vary across time, with the Yuan and Qing possessing multiple
sources of ideational power such as Tibetan Buddhism and their respective Mongol and Manchu
traditions, in contrast with the Ming’s limited, single source of Confucian ideational power. This
variation in IVi corresponds to the variation in our dependent variable, which suggests that IVi is
the variable that causes the changes in the DV .
Outline of the Dissertation
This dissertation is organized as follows: Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter with an overview
of the project including the research puzzle and the argument, as well as the research design.
Chapter 2 presents a literature review covering extant IR scholarship on relevant topics including
hierarchy versus anarchy, ideational power, the Tributary System and the hierarchical international
order in historical East Asia, and works from the disciplines of Chinese history and East Asian area
studies addressing the Confucian and non-Confucian ideational powers of different Chinese
11
empires. Chapter 3 is an overview chapter outlining the broader picture of Chinese hegemony
across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and a description of how the extent of China’s
hegemony varied across these three eras. Chapter 4 is the case study of the changing relations
between China and Tibet across the three dynasties, and the case of Tibet shows that when China
was able to utilize non-Confucian ideational power to appeal to its heterogeneous subordinates, it
could successfully expand its hegemony beyond the Confucian Tributary System. Specifically in
the case of Tibet, the ideational power of Tibetan Buddhism was utilized by the Yuan and the Qing
to legitimize their domination of Tibet. Chapter 5 is the case study of Sino-Korean relations across
the three dynasties, and the case of Korea shows that even for the Little China as Korea was known
in historical East Asia, China did not always only use the Confucian ideational power to legitimize
its domination of Korea. Here we see that in the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol emperors of the Yuan
attempted to assimilate the ruling elites of Korea and make Korea more Mongol-like. Lastly,
Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation with a summary of the findings, details the scholarly
contribution and significance of this research to the fields of international relations as well as
Chinese and East Asian studies, and provides empirical implications for contemporary IR drawn
from the research. Short summaries of chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 are provided in the following
paragraphs, while a summary of the contributions and implications as an abbreviated version of
the concluding chapter is also included in the end of this introductory chapter.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter addresses relevant IR literature on the following topics: anarchy and hierarchy; the
function of ideational power, or power in non-material forms in the formation of international
systems; the Tributary System and hierarchical structure of the international system in historical
12
East Asia; the Confucian Peace theory contributing the lasting peace and stable hierarchy in
historical East Asia to the function of Confucian civilization. Moreover, the literature review of
this dissertation also covers scholarship from other relevant disciplines, such as East Asian area
studies and Chinese history. Topics including the studies of the Mongols and the Mongol Empire
and the Mongol rule of China during the Yuan dynasty, and the “New Qing History” scholarship
that studies China of the Manchu-Qing dynasty emphasizing the use of non-Chinese materials to
better understand the uniqueness of Manchu rule over China, Manchu identity and its Central Asian
connections, and the non-Han images of the Qing dynasty, which defies the conventional wisdom
that Manchu minority rulers of the Qing were assimilated into their majority Han Chinese
population. Studying the Mongol-Yuan and the Manchu-Qing dynasties can help IR scholars
understand better how historical China in different eras dominated expansive hierarchical
international systems composed of heterogeneous units with the use of multiple sources of
ideational power.
Existing literature on historical East Asian hierarchy only emphasizes the function of one
single form of ideational power, which is Confucianism, when it comes to China’s hegemony, and
it argues that peace could only be found among the Confucianized states but not between China
and its nomadic neighbors in the steppes. This argument which I termed “Confucian Peace Theory”
is limited and does not explain the entire complex picture of historical East Asian international
relations which also included non-Sinic and non-Confucian entities that were under Chinese
hegemony that enjoyed stable and peaceful relationships with China as well. This is a blind spot
in the existing IR literature, and I aim to rectify this problem in this dissertation. Furthermore,
there is a significant gap in the literature on historical East Asian IR, which is the omission of the
Mongol-Yuan hegemony over East Asia, and this dissertation will also fill in that gap by addressing
13
the Mongol-Yuan domination of not just China but also East Asia with its distinctive strategies.
Chapter 3: An Overview of the Changing Extent of China’s Hegemony, 1279-1840
In this chapter I provide an overview of the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony from the
Yuan (1271-1368) dynasty to the late Qing (1636-1912) era when China was the indisputable
hegemon of East Asia for nearly six hundred years as a background of the research, before I move
on to each of the three detailed case studies to better illustrate how China’s domination of other
entities waxed and waned over the time covered in this dissertation. To be more precise, the time
frame of this dissertation is Chinese hegemony over East Asia from 1279, when the Yuan dynasty
completed its conquest of the Southern Song (1127-1279) dynasty and thereby unifying China and
eradicating any potential challenger to its status as the indisputable ruler of China and hegemon of
the region, to 1840 in the late Qing period, when China lost the Opium War to Britain, an arriving
great power external to the region, and its status as the indisputable hegemon and its domination
of other state actors in East Asia began to crumble.
During the period of time from 1279 to 1840 covering three successive Chinese imperial
dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, for nearly six hundred years, China remained the
indisputable hegemon of the system, yet the extent of its hegemony did not remain the same.
Sometimes China’s hegemonic sphere of influence was expansive, yet some other times it was
more confined. This chapter provides a general description of such variation, which leads to the
following three chapters each dedicating to one specific case study to better illustrate how the
extent of China’s hegemony changed over time.
The Yuan dynasty was established by the Mongols which later conquered China as well as
many other entities and peoples in Asia. The territory of this Chinese dynasty was the largest
14
among all dynasties in Chinese history, incorporating Mongolia, Tibet, and Northeast China
(Manchuria) into its domain, and since the Yuan became the nominal suzerain of all four Mongol
khanates all established by descendants of Genghis Khan, the extent of the Yuan’s hegemony
stretched all the way into Central Asia, which also meant that this Chinese empire had the largest
hegemony among the three studied in this dissertation.
The Yuan was replaced by the Ming as the ruling dynasty of a unified China in 1368. The
Ming dynasty is usually considered the model of a Chinese empire dominating its neighboring
vassal states within the tributary system and the era when Confucianism once again flourished in
China after a century of alien rule. Its territory, however, was confined to China proper only, when
compared with its immediate predecessor the Yuan. Due to the continuing rivalry between the
Ming and the remnants of the Yuan occupying the Mongol steppes known as the Northern Yuan in
Chinese history, Ming China could not include Mongolia in its territory, nor could it incorporate
Mongolia into the extent of its hegemony. Tibet was not included in the Ming’s territory or
hegemony either, which is another key difference between the realms of the Yuan and the Ming.
The Ming’s control of Manchuria was also not as tight as the Yuan’s case. In sum, the Ming could
only manage to incorporate neighboring smaller states that embraced Confucian civilization and
modeled themselves after China into its sphere of influence. Thus, the Ming had a more confined
hegemony when compared with the Yuan, and with its successor the Qing as well.
Soon after the fall of the Ming due to civil rebellions, the Qing dynasty established by the
Manchus entered China proper and unified China and became the ruler of country. The Qing once
again had Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and later Xinjiang, along with China proper, all within its
territory. On the other hand, the Qing’s hegemony was also more expansive than the Ming’s which
was limited to the Confucian culture sphere. A comparison of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing’s spheres
15
of influence reveals significant variation across the three eras, which provides the background of
this dissertation research. This chapter will be followed by two representative cases of Tibet and
Korea. The two regions are studied to better demonstrate the changes in China’s relationship with
and domination of each, and the pattern witnessed in the case studies corresponds to the variation
in China’s different sources of ideational power across different periods of time.
Chapter 4: Tibet’s Ever-changing Relations with Hegemonic China
The case of Tibet is another representative example of an entity that did not always remained
within the extent of China’s hegemony when it continuously remained the indisputable hegemon
of East Asia across three eras. Tibet was conquered by the Mongols and was incorporated into the
Yuan dynasty’s territory, under the administration of the Xuanzheng Yuan (Bureau of Buddhist and
Tibetan Affairs). This marked the first time that Tibet was included in the territory of a Chinese
imperial dynasty in China’s long history. Tibetan Buddhism also provided important source of
legitimacy for Mongol rule during the Yuan dynasty, and Phags Pa, an important leader of Tibetan
Buddhism, was Imperial Preceptor of the Yuan dynasty, and Tibetan Buddhism was also declared
the state religion of the Yuan.
However when the Yuan was toppled and replaced by the Ming as the ruler of China and
hegemon of East Asia, Tibet was no longer a part of Ming China, nor was it within the Ming’s
hegemonic sphere of influence. Then later the Qing adopted a strategy similar to the Yuan in its
relationship with Tibet, as the Manchus also worship Tibetan Buddhism and revere the supreme
leaders of such a religion. The Manchu emperors were also recognized as Emperor Manjusri in
Tibetan Buddhism, which signified the emperors’ status as the incarnation of the bodhisattva of
wisdom in the eyes of their Tibetan constituents. The Qing dynasty’s authority and legitimacy to
16
rule over Tibet derived from the fact that the Manchus established their domination through the
use of a proper ideational power when dealing with Tibet, which was Tibetan Buddhism, and again
the case of Tibet, just like Mongolia, demonstrated that an entity which once was included in the
extent of China’s hegemony because of the use of a proper source of ideational power that
successfully established China’s authority and legitimated China’s status as the suzerain, would no
longer be part of that hierarchy once the accepted source of ideational power was no longer used
by the hegemon, but would only return once the proper source of ideational power was functioning
again. This is the pattern that we could observe across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
Chapter 5: Consistent Chinese Hegemony over Korea Based on Inconsistent Legitimation
Strategies
The case of Korea has been considered a model tribute-paying vassal state loyal to China, and
Korea was also considered the Little China, which signified its level of achievement in terms of
Confucian civilization was only second to China itself. Existing IR literature emphasizes the
Confucian ideational power as the binding power of the enduring hierarchical relationship between
China and Korea, with the former as the suzerain and the latter as the subordinate. However in this
chapter I will first reveal that China’s domination over Korea in this bilateral hierarchical
relationship between the two sides was not always legitimized by the Confucian ideational power.
During the Yuan dynasty, Korea (Koryǒ dynasty at the time) was bonded to Yuan China through
Mongol traditions, most significantly, intermarriages between Koryǒ crown princes and Mongol
imperial princesses. All crown princes of Koryǒ must spend time before ascending the throne as a
hostage in the Yuan capital, Dadu (Beijing). They must also marry a Yuan princess as their primary
consort, and only the sons of the Koryǒ kings with these Mongol princesses were eligible to be the
17
next kings of Koryǒ. This is a special case during the long history of bilateral relations between
China and Korea, as only in the Yuan era was China’s domination of Korea established on non-
Confucian traditions.
In the Ming as well as the Qing dynasties, China asserted its supremacy over Korea based on
the traditional Confucian rhetoric, and this could be best seen in Hong Taiji’s demand for Chosǒn
Korea’s surrender and recognition of its suzerainty, as Hong Taiji’s claim was entirely based on
the Confucian Mandate of Heaven and the argument that whoever embraced and perfected
Confucianism could be the inheritor of the mandate, regardless of being Han Chinese of not. In
short, the case of Korea is discussed to demonstrate that, even for the Little China, and the second
most Confucianized entity in the East Asian international system dominated by China, the
legitimation of China’s supremacy as the hegemon did not always come from Confucian ideational
power alone, as the Yuan-Koryǒ relationship revealed. This is perhaps the heaviest blow to the
conventional wisdom of the Confucian Peace theory in the IR literature on historical East Asia.
Contributions and Implications
This dissertation engages with an emerging cluster of IR literature focusing on the stable and rather
peaceful hierarchical international order found in historical East Asia, which is a sharp contrast
against the anarchical international system full of conflicts and balancing behaviors among state
actors in the West. Meanwhile, it is also an interdisciplinary project as it speaks to multiple fields
such as international relations, East Asian area studies, and Chinese history. Moreover, this
dissertation has its academic originality and contributes to the scholarship on international
relations of historical East Asia by defying the conventional wisdom of the Confucian Peace overly
emphasizing on the Tributary System, and fills in a gap in the relevant literature which is the
18
neglect of China’s domination over Inner Asia and Chinese hegemony in the Yuan dynasty. Lastly,
this dissertation provides empirical and policy implications for contemporary international
relations regarding the rising China, as well as the problems China in the modern era has been
facing in its governance of peripheral regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. More details on the
contributions and implications will be elaborated in the last chapter.
19
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Hierarchy versus Anarchy as the Nature of the International System
The nature of the international system has often been depicted as an anarchy in the IR literature,
after the Peace of Westphalia when the concept of sovereignty and the idea that each sovereign
state has equal status in the international system began to emerge. This is especially true in the
case of the Realist school of IR theories. For example, Kenneth Waltz, the founder of neorealism
or structural realism, sees national politics as hierarchical, while international politics as anarchical
(1979, 113). However, it is not always correct to perceive international politics as anarchic and
chaotic without hierarchical order, while domestic politics is constantly hierarchical and orderly.
The notion of international anarchy without a central authority or without order and governance,
if given careful reconsideration, cannot be said to be true, because “every international system or
society has a set of rules or norms that define actors and appropriate behavior” (Krasner 2001,
173). An international system with authoritative institutions cannot be said to be anarchical (Hurd
1999). If we accept that some authoritative international institutions exist, then the international
system is not an anarchy, as it has parts that are governed. Hurd also recognizes the concept of
legitimacy as an ordering principle at the international level. Although the traditional default
setting of the international system is anarchy and the lack of legitimate authority; however, in
reality, legitimate authority exists, and we should consider that the international system is not
entirely anarchical but a system of authority. Therefore, I argue that IR scholars need to reconsider
the idea that anarchy is the default setting of the international system, as we do observe the
presence of hierarchies in various parts of the world throughout history.
20
English School scholars Bull and Watson (1984, 1) argue that there exists an international
society made of independent states, and this international society is more than just a group of states;
these states form a system with common rules and institutions for the conduct of their relations.
Based on that argument, Bull (2002) considers diplomacy one of the international society’s
primary order-creating institutions in world politics, and sees diplomacy as the evidence of the
presence of an international society. In the eyes of the IR scholars of the English School,
international relations is not entirely anarchic and chaotic, and they see order and common
institutions that govern the interactions between members of the international society.
With the presence of order in the international society, various international organizations can
be equipped with the authority as well as legitimacy to function similarly to what a government
would do in the realm of domestic politics. Therefore we see most of the states abide by
international laws most of the times, and that there are international tribunals to do justice. For
example, the United Nations’ Security Council has the authority to issue binding resolutions to
member states of the United Nations,
9
and it is also charged with the ultimate authorization
whether to approve the use of force to resolve a crisis, and that there are regulations limiting state
actors’ use of force to launch wars to settle disputes, or to develop or to use weapons of mass
destruction. Actors in international relations do not challenge these practices frequently, and this
is the evidence that these institutions have evolved into the norms that are generally recognized as
well as accepted in the international society. Therefore, given the presence of certain orders and
recognized norms, as well as the international organizations that function similarly to the
9
According to article 25 in chapter V of the UN Charter, “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and
carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”
21
institutions of domestic governments, one can hardly say that the international relations system is
anarchic.
In this dissertation, hierarchy is conceptualized as an international system which has multiple
actors with one center of power that is recognized by all other participants as legitimate. And the
recognized status and ranking of the members in such a system does not have to be based on
material power. In a hierarchical system, there is “a rank order based on a particular attribute”
(Kang 2010a, 17). Similarly, Lebow (2008, 65) defines hierarchy as “a rank order of statuses,”
while hierarchy is conceptualized as super-ordination and differentiation by Donnelly (2006, 141).
And more importantly, hierarchy exists when the ruler possesses authority (legitimacy, or rightful
rule) over the ruled (Lake 2009, 51). Within the hierarchical system, the leading state actor, or the
hegemon, provides order and stability as well as the rules that govern the interaction and
relationship among the participants. Hierarchy needs not to always be a global system; in fact,
more often do we observe the existence of a regional hierarchy. Also, considering the powers
possessed by the leading figure of a hierarchical system, such powers are not just about the
distribution of material capabilities; ideational or normative power is also important in the
formation and the stability of hierarchy in international relations.
Ideational Power behind the Formation of Hierarchy and Hegemony
In international relations, hierarchy is not formed just because of the use of force and coercion by
the dominant state; it could be a result of voluntary acceptance and recognition from the followers.
Existing international relations literature, especially from the realist school, mainly defines the
hegemon or great power as the state actor with the most material power, and the distribution of
22
capabilities is crucial to outcomes in international relations (Dunne and Schmidt 2008, 98). Power
here is usually conceptualized or understood as “the ability of A to get B to do what B otherwise
would not do”
10
(Dahl 1957, 202-3; Barnett and Duvall 2005, 49) in the IR literature. But the
relevant literature had not addressed power in non-material forms as much, aside perhaps from the
idea of “soft power” (Nye 2004). Also, Reich and Lebow (2014) differentiate influence from power
and power from material resources in their studies.
Granted, considering the need for the dominant state to maintain the order within the
hierarchical international system, and the expectations from the subordinates for it to do so, part
of the feasibility of the establishment of a hierarchy depends on the material (especially military)
power of the dominant state. Yet the legitimacy of that state to be accepted to sit on the top of the
hierarchy needs not always be based solely on the material capability. Historically, diplomacy in
the West was seen conducted through the influence of other actors through soft power, such as the
Byzantine Empire’s soft power came from its clients’ admiration of its culture (Cohen 2013, 23).
Another example could be seen in historical East Asia, as Shuisheng Zhao (2013, 32) points out
that, despite being a significantly militarily stronger power, China’s centrality in the Tributary
System was based on its civilization and culture, and the order in that system was maintained by
the strength of the Chinese civilization. However, in this research, it is further pointed out that that
there were actually multiple sources of ideational power in addition to Confucianism that various
Chinese empires and dynasties used to legitimize their domination over the hierarchical system.
More on this will be addressed in the next section of the literature review on hierarchy in historical
East Asia.
10
Power in this sense as direct control of others is referred to as compulsory power according to Barnett and Duvall
(2005, 49).
23
The emphasis on the importance of ideational power in the formation and stability of
international systems is echoed by other scholars as well. For instance, Ian Clark (2009a) suggests
that there are two accounts of power, the material and the social. The social one is really about the
power derived from the fact that the status of hegemony has to be recognized and bestowed instead
of being possessed unilaterally by a state actor. Lake (2009) shares a similar view that authority of
the ruler is not self-claimed, but rather is conferred by the ruled.
Also, for a hierarchy and hegemony to be formed, some sense of legitimacy, or rightful rule,
must be present for a state actor to be recognized by all other state actors as the accepted leader of
the system, and that such legitimacy the dominant state possesses is backed by its superior
ideational power that proves to be attractive to all other members of the system. Then in works on
classical realism, the function of non-material factors such as norms and ethics in international
relations is also recognized. Lebow (2003) rereads important texts associated with classical realism,
and found elements emphasizing justice and ethics. Therefore, he argues that a viable international
community has to be based on certain norms and principles of justice. Similarly, Hurd (1999)
argues that legitimacy and authority matter in international politics. Hurd defines legitimacy as the
normative belief held by an actor that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed (1999, 381), which
is subjective to the actor’s perception. Legitimacy contributes to compliance by providing an
internal reason for an actor to follow a rule. When an actor believes a rule to be legitimate,
compliance is no longer driven by fear or by self-interests, but instead by moral obligation (Hurd
1999, 387). The narration and explanation of the stable and lasting peace among East Asian states
by Robert Kelly (2012) also identifies that the shared Confucian values and ideology helped bind
the states in that region together and formed a sense of “imagined community,” borrowing the term
coined by Anderson (1983) that served as the foundation of that system.
24
The Hierarchical Structure of the International System in Historical East
Asia: The Tributary System and its Confucian Foundation
In East Asia’s long history, there had been more hierarchies than anarchies, as there was usually a
hegemon that dominated the regional international system, with the hegemon usually being a
unified Chinese imperial dynasty. In such a system, though the hegemon did possess more material
power than the subordinates, however, what contributed to the stability and peace of the system
was ideational power. For instance, John King Fairbank (1968) argued that Sino-centrism was
based on cultural values, and that there were different zones within the Tributary System based on
how much Chinese cultural values were accepted and appreciated. Meanwhile, he also pointed out
that the Chinese concept of world order was in contrast with the Western idea of international
relations based on equal sovereign states.
In the international system of historical East Asia, Confucianism has been the dominant
ideology for centuries and has been accepted and practiced by state actors including not just China
but also others, such as Korea and Vietnam. (Woodside 2006; Kelley 2005; Kang, 2010a; 2010b;
Kelly, 2012). Though Confucianism was first adopted by the Chinese empires to serve as their
national ideology, various other states in East Asia would then go on to accept that set of ideas and
values, and gradually enter the Confucian cultural sphere. Korea, Vietnam, Ryukyu, and Japan are
the states that have been influenced by Confucian values more than other Asian states. Even the
non-Han conquerors of China proper would later gradually accept some of the Confucian values
25
and rituals after they occupied or conquered these territories, albeit with different extent.
11
In this
way, existing scholarship on historical East Asian international relations argued that this region
provided the researchers a stage where most of the actors in the system shared similar values and
were placed in the same hierarchical international order in which the members were ranked
according to their cultural assimilation with the hegemon (usually the Chinese empires) which had
the highest level of civilization, or was the most Confucian society, as recognized by all other
members. Within this hierarchical system, cultural achievement was the source of status and
ranked order for the members within the system (Kang 2010a, 8). Borrowing from Benedict
Anderson (1983), we could say that this shared culture and Confucian ethical values created an
“imagined community” — a Confucian community — among these East Asian states.
According to some scholars, the shared Confucian ideology and values were the most
important elements that bound the East Asian states together and contributed to their peaceful
interaction (Kang 2010a; 2010b; Kelley 2005; Kelly 2012). The interactions between the East
Asian states, namely, how they conducted diplomacy, were well documented and preserved, and
this provides the necessary empirical evidence supporting the argument that there has been a
hierarchical international system in historical East Asia and that this hierarchy was mainly based
on the ideational power of the hegemon. Also, the fact that these countries shared the same writing
script (Chinese characters) and similar institutions (meritocratic examination system and
centralized governmental bureaucratic structure) clearly illustrated the common ideational
foundation of such community (Woodside 2006).
11
This could be seen in the Northern Wei (386-535) dynasty established by the Xianbei people from the steppes
north of China, and later the Western Xia (1038-1227) of the Tangut people that occupied some parts of the territory
of what is called China today, as well as those conquest dynasties including the Liao (916-1125), Jin (1115-1234),
Yuan (1271-1368) and Qing (1636-1912).
26
To sum up the IR literature on China’s domination of historical East Asia, so far the extant
scholarship mostly contributes China’s stable and rather peaceful hierarchy in this region to one
ideational factor: the Confucian civilization that was shared among participating political entities
within the system. Because China was the origin of such a civilization and it also perfected the
practice of Confucianism, China had since been recognized as the most civilized model for other
entities within the Confucian cultural sphere. This allowed China to claim its hegemony and have
its position accepted by others. In this dissertation, I have collective refer to IR scholarship with
such an argument as the Confucian Peace theory.
12
Essentially this scholarship argues that the
shared ideology or culture of Confucianism among certain East Asian entities contributed to the
lack of frequent conflicts among them in the international system here in East Asia. In such an
argument, the function of Confucianism is similar to, if not entirely the same as, that of democracy
in the Democratic Peace theory, which inspires the user’s usage of the term “Confucian Peace”
theory or argument to collectively refer to such an argument found in the relevant IR scholarship.
On the other hand, for scholars working on historical China and East Asia who have a more
realist perspective, they would also recognize the function of ideational factor and the influence of
culture on policy making and the strategy of the Chinese state. For example, although Alastair Iain
Johnston (1995) argues that Confucian ideas did not make the Ming Dynasty’s military strategy
against the Mongols less realist, yet he does recognize that this Chinese-style realism actually
originated from Chinese culture and had ideational origins, hence he terms this “cultural realism.”
He points out that traditional Chinese approach to the use of force was similar to realism in the
Western tradition, and argues that the Ming strategy against the Mongols followed a parabellum
12
Philips (2018) uses a similar term “Confucian Peace Thesis” in his research on historical Chinese hegemony over
the non-Confucian Inner Asia.
27
paradigm by analyzing the texts of policy memorials. In this case the ideational influence of a
state’s strategy did not come from Confucianism, but rather from other parts of the Chinese culture.
Beyond Confucianism: the Multiple Sources of Ideational Power behind
China’s Hegemony
How did the Chinese hegemons legitimize their domination of various entities across East Asia
and beyond? Was Confucian civilization the only source that provided the Chinese hegemon the
necessary political authority for it to establish legitimate control of other entities? This dissertation
challenges the conventional wisdom in the extant IR literature on Chinese hegemony over
historical East Asia, the Confucian Peace theory, and provides a broader and more complete picture
of how China legitimized its domination of various and heterogeneous subordinates within its
hegemonic sphere of influence.
We can rethink the Confucian Peace theory this way: if the argument that there was stability
and peace among China and its subordinates because these actors shared Confucianism were to be
true, then we would not have been able to observe successful Chinese domination of entities that
did not embrace Confucianism. Therefore, the scholarship based on the Confucian Peace theory
then suggests that the function of the Confucian ideational factor only applies to entities towards
China’s neighbors in the east and the south such as Korea and Vietnam, while to China’s west and
the north, the relationship China had with those neighbors would be dominated by conflicts and
balancing behaviors. But in reality, we do observe that China was able to establish stable and
peaceful domination of entities in Inner Asia, for example, the Sino-Tibetan relations in the Yuan
and Qing dynasties. This dissertation therefore takes the case study of how China ruled Tibet and
28
legitimized its domination as an importance piece of evidence to challenge the established
conventional wisdom of Confucian Peace in the field of historical East Asian IR that overly
emphasizes the function of the Confucian ideational power and ignores others.
While Confucianism did have significant influence in the formation of international system
in historical East Asia, however, this research also points out that Confucianism was only one of
the various East Asian hegemons’ multiple sources of ideational power. The evidence from the
Yuan and Qing dynasties showed that, these powerful empires established their legitimation as the
hegemons of the hierarchical systems in historical East Asia through various ways, and Confucian
ideology was only one of their multiple sources of ideational power that they used to legitimize
their dominance. Borrowing from the ideas of “universal emperorship” of Herbert Franke (1978)
on how the Yuan dynasty legitimized its rule and “universal rulership” of Pamela Crossley (1999)
addressing the Qing dynasty’s appeal to its various constituencies, this dissertation shows that the
ideational power that historical East Asian hegemons used to legitimize its rule was not limited to
just Chinese civilization and Confucian ideology, and makes the argument that there were multiple
sources of their ideational power to sustain the hierarchies that they established.
Successful Chinese dynasties that had more expansive hegemony possessed and utilized
multiple sources of ideational power to legitimize their domination of other entities, and
Confucianism was only one of these multiple sources of ideational power. In the Tang dynasty
(618-907), many of the Chinese emperors were called the Tian Kehan ( 天可 汗), meaning Khan of
Heaven, by the Turkic peoples in the Western Regions. This gesture showed that the Tang dynasty
inherited the more open international order from the previous Sui dynasty (581-619), as the ruling
elites of both dynasties had multiethnic origins and were not purely Han Chinese (Lin 2018, 146;
Chang 2018). Later, China during the Yuan and Qing dynasties both adopted Tibetan Buddhism
29
as an important source of ideational power that helped them secure Tibet within their hegemonic
sphere of influence, while the Ming dynasty failed to do so. In addition, the Mongol and Manchu
traditions of the Yuan and Qing respectively also functioned in the founding and maintaining of
their respective multiethnic empire (Brook et al. 2018). The cases of the Yuan and Qing illustrate
that when China used multiple sources of ideational power, its hegemony would be more expansive,
and by comparison, if not, the extent of its hegemony would be confined to the Confucian cultural
sphere only.
More specific on the literature on the Qing dynasty, which had previously been considered
the representative case of the so-called Confucian Peace along with the preceding Ming dynasty.
The New Qing History
13
scholarship emphasizes the study of the Qing dynasty using primary
sources written in non-Chinese languages, mainly in Manchu, but also Mongol, Tibetan, and other
languages. The purpose is to reveal the Inner Asian, non-Chinese and Confucian images of the
Manchu rulers of the Qing, challenging the established conventional wisdom in the study of
Chinese history that the Manchu rulers of the Qing had been “Sinicized” or assimilated by the
majority Han Chinese population in the empire, which contributed to their successful rule of China
as a minority group. The New Qing History scholarship essentially argues the opposite, that it was
precisely because the Manchu rulers of the Qing retained their Manchu identity and Inner Asian
roots, this strategy enabled them to rule over such a vast empire composed of various and
heterogeneous constituents.
13
For an overview of the New Qing History and its argument against the Manchus’ “Sinicization,” see Rawski
1996; Guy 2002; Waley-Cohen 2004; and Wu 2016. In addition, the four books of The Last Emperors (Rawski
1998); A Translucent Mirror (Crossley 1999); Manchus and Han (Rhoads 2000); and The Manchu Way (Elliott
2001) are considered the most representative works of the New Qing History literature. Furthermore, scholarship
addressing the Manchu-Qing’s Inner Asian roots, and how the Manchus dealt with their various Inner Asian
constituents, see Forêt 2000; Millward et al. 2004; Elverskog 2006; and Brophy 2013.
30
Chapter Three: An Overview of the Changing Extent of China’s
Hegemony, 1279-1840
In this chapter I will first explain how hegemony is conceptualized in this research, and then I will
provide an overview of the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony, which is the dependent
variable to be explained in the dissertation, from the Yuan (1271-1368) dynasty through the Ming
(1368-1644) and to the late Qing (1636-1912) era when China was the indisputable hegemon of
East Asia for nearly six hundred years as a background of the research, before I move on to the
detailed case studies. To be more precise, the time frame of this dissertation is Chinese hegemony
over East Asia from 1279, when the Yuan dynasty completed its conquest of the Southern Song
dynasty (1127-1279), thereby unifying China and eradicating any potential challenger to its status
as the indisputable ruler of China and hegemon of the region, to 1840 in the late Qing period, when
China lost the Opium War to Britain, an arriving great power external to the region, and its status
as the indisputable hegemon and its domination of other state actors in East Asia began to crumble.
During the period of time from 1279 to 1840 covering three successive Chinese imperial dynasties
of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, for nearly six hundred years, China remained the indisputable
hegemon of the system, yet the extent of its hegemony did not remain the same. Sometimes China’s
hegemony was expansive, while some other times it was more confined. In short, the aim of this
chapter is to provide a general description of the variation in the dependent variable of the
dissertation, so the readers could have a sense of how the extent of China’s hegemony changed
over time.
31
Defining Hegemony
When China was a unified empire and ruled by an imperial dynasty, most of the times it would
concurrently be the most powerful state actor and the regional hegemon of historical East Asia.
Though we must also note that China was not always a unified state, and there were indeed many
periods of Chinese history when China was fractured with multiple regimes fighting among each
other at the same time.
14
Then there were also times when China was not the most powerful state
actor in historical East Asia and had to accept that its neighbors or even rivals were its equals
(Rossabi 1983), and there were even times when China faced enemies and challengers from the
nomads coming from the northern steppes that threatened its security (Di Cosmo 2002). However,
since the timeframe of this dissertation only covers around six hundred years, three dynasties in
the four millennia of Chinese history, here the discussion will mainly focus on the times when
China was the regional hegemon leading a hierarchical international order in historical East Asia.
In international relations, hegemony can be understood as a type of authority and degree of
hierarchy, and hegemony is not simply based on material power of a state actor (Schenoni 2019).
And hegemony sits somewhere on the spectrum between empire with consolidated formal control
over violence and unipolarity which is entirely based on material capabilities without authority.
Mastanduno argues that hegemony “requires a preponderance of material resources, a sense of
social purpose, the ability to control international outcomes of importance to the dominant state,
and some degree of consent and acceptance from other states in the system” (2003, 145). Ikenberry
14
For example, the Warring States period (403-221 BCE) could be the scenario in East Asian history that best
matches the Realist IR theory, in which there was a multi-state international system with seven territorial states
competing for primacy (Hui 2005). The Three Kingdoms (220-280 CE), the Northern and Southern dynasties (420-
589 CE), the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-979 CE), and the 10th to 13th centuries when the
Northern Song (960-1127 CE) and Southern Song (1127-1279 CE) competed with the Liao (916-1125 CE) and then
the Jin (1115-1234 CE) dynasties.
32
and Kupchan (1990) also point out that, while the hegemon’s influence rests on material power,
yet “it is most effectively exercised when a hegemon is able to establish a set of norms that others
willingly embrace.” Clark (2009b) provides a conception of hegemony as a potential institution of
the international society, and it is not just about the material power of the Great Powers, but also
their degree of social recognition, namely legitimacy. Clark (2011a) then discusses the rights and
responsibilities of a hegemon that have to be conferred by other state actors. Keohane (1984, 39)
similarly suggests that the reason why secondary states defer to the leadership of the hegemony is
because of the legitimacy of hegemonic regimes. These discussions demonstrate the ideational
aspect of hegemony, and how it is based on legitimacy, authority, and norms (Mastanduno 2005).
How should a hegemon behave? Scholars such as Gilpin and Keohane suggest that a hegemon
is one state that is powerful enough to maintain the essential rules governing interstate relations,
and willing to do so (Keohane and Nye 1977, 44; Gilpin 1981, 129-139; Keohane 1984, 34). Clark
(2011a, 4) defines hegemony as “an institutionalized practice of special rights and responsibilities
conferred by international society or a constituency within it, on a state (or states) with the
resources to lead.” And according to Mastanduno (2003, 145), a hegemon should have the ability
to control international outcomes of importance to the dominant state. With such scholarly
discussion and conceptualization of hegemon and hegemony, we can understand that a hegemon
needs to maintain order and shape the interstate relations in the region that it dominates.
Applying this conceptualization of hegemony to the role that China played in historical East
Asia, China did maintain a hierarchical order which it dominated, and it would restore the existing
order when appropriate, while also making sure the interstate conflicts in this region would be
resolved. Certain examples within the timeframe of this study, to name a few, include: the Ming’s
vassal Champa ( 占城, in present-day central and southern Vietnam) requested the Ming to assist
33
it in defending against the invading Annam during the reigns of emperors Hongwu (r. 1368-1398)
and Yongle (r. 1402-1424) (Mingshi 321: 5; 324: 2-3); the Ming’s attempt to help restore a
legitimate ruler in its vassal Dai Viet in 1406 (Mingshi 321: 5-6); the Imjin War
15
of 1592-1598
during the reign of Wanli Emperor (r. 1572-1620) when Ming China fought on behalf of its loyal
vassal Chosǒn against Japanese invasion (Mingshi 320: 27-33). Examples in the Qing dynasty
include: China intervened in Chosǒn in 1882 to restore order after a riot, and then in 1884 to quell
a coup led by pro-Japanese forces (Qing shigao 526: 33-38); the Qing also sent forces to Chosǒn
to help put down the Donghak Rebellion of 1894-1895 (Qing shigao 526: 47-52).
The extent of China’s hegemony therefore included not just the territories it governed, but
also the vassal states that recognized China as their suzerain. With this as the starting point, I
examine how the Yuan, Ming, and Qing defined their hegemony, namely, what were the territories
and vassal states recognized in the official historiography of these dynasties. The primary sources
consulted include the Yuanshi ( 元史, history of the Yuan), Xin Yuanshi ( 新元史, new history of
the Yuan), Mingshi (明史, history of the Ming), and Qing shigao ( 清史 稿, draft history of the
Qing). And then I also cross check the findings with authoritative secondary sources such as the
Cambridge History of China, and works by experts of the history of these dynasties.
The Extent of China’s Hegemony during the Yuan Dynasty
The Mongols rose to become the superpower of Eurasia beginning in the early 1200s, when
Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire in 1206. The Mongols then began marching south
15
For more details of the Imjin War, called the first great East Asian war by Swope, see Swope 2009, in which he
argues that this war marked China’s commitment to rescue its vassal state and defend its interests in Northeast Asia.
34
towards China. By 1234, the Mongols had conquered the Jin dynasty of the Jurchens, which ruled
northern China. Later, his grandson Khubilai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty in 1271, and the
Yuan eventually defeated the Southern Song which ruled southern China and became the unifier
of China in 1279. This Mongol-Yuan dynasty lasted until 1368 when the Mongols were expelled
from China proper. The remaining Mongol forces retreated to the steppes, and the regime they
established there is known as the Northern Yuan in Chinese history.
The Yuan dynasty was established by the Mongols which later conquered China as well as
many other entities and peoples across Asia. The territory of this Chinese dynasty was the largest
among all dynasties in the history of China, incorporating Mongolia, Tibet, present-day Xinjiang,
and Northeast China into its domain. Also, since the Yuan dynasty was recognized as the nominal
suzerain of all four Mongol khanates, all established by descendants of Genghis Khan, the extent
of the Yuan’s hegemony actually stretched all the way into Central Asia, southern Russia, and the
Middle East (Morgan 2007, xviii-xx), which also meant that this Chinese empire had the largest
hegemony among the three studied in this dissertation.
In the Yuanshi, the official history of the Yuan dynasty, chapters 58 to 63 on geography cover
the territories of the Yuan. These included areas not within China proper, but also the Branch
Central Secretariat for Liaoyang and Other Places ( 遼陽等處行中書省), which is Northeastern
China, and the Branch Central Secretariat for Lingbei and Other Places ( 嶺北等處行中書省),
which occupies roughly the area of present-day Mongolia (Langlois 1990, 396). And among the
foreign countries included in the Yuanshi, in chapters 208 to 210, which are biographies 95 to 97,
Koryǒ, Annam, Myanmar, Champa are those who had sent missions to the Yuan, requested and
received investitures from the Yuan, and presented tributes to the Yuan. The records in the Yuanshi
also show that they conducted the above practices multiple times. Rossabi notes that while the
35
Mongols did try to invade Annam and Champa, however those military campaigns were not
successful, and the Yuan suffered heavy losses.
16
Though Annam and Champa were also plagued
by the Mongol invasions, and would decide to “offer acquiescence to the great khan,” and “They
therefore began to send tribute, and the Mongolian expeditions against them ended in the late
1280s.” (Rossabi 1994, 486-487).
Figure 1. Map of the Extent of Yuan Hegemony, 1294
16
Also refer to the imperial edict by Khubilai Khan written in Sino-Mongolian in Yuan dianzhang 34:26b translated
by the author which indicates that the Mongols could not conquer Annam with the use of military force. The
translation and the edict are in chapter 5.
36
The figure 1 above is a map of Asia from page 111 in the book by Morris Rossabi (1988) “Khubilai
Khan: His Life and Times” with the four Mongol khanates marked on it. The colors are added by
the author, based on whether an area belonged to the Yuan’s territory or vassal. The orange colored
areas are the Yuan’s territories, while the yellow colored areas are the vassal states recognizing
the Yuan as their suzerain, and therefore within the Yuan’s hegemony. These include the khanates
as well as Koryǒ, Annam, Myanmar, and Champa. Note that in the original map, Koryǒ was
marked as territory of the Yuan. While it could be considered as such, since for some periods of
time Koryǒ was a nominally the Branch Central Secretariat for the Invasion of the East ( 征東行
省), though in reality Koryǒ managed to retain its autonomy, with its king as the chief councilor
of the branch central secretariat actually in charge (Farquhar 1990, 400; Zhao 2008; Birge and
Broadbridge 2022, 28).
The Extent of China’s Hegemony during the Ming Dynasty
The Yuan was replaced by the Ming as the ruling dynasty of a unified China in 1368. The latter
years of the Yuan dynasty had seen numerous internal rebellions and uprisings. Dardess (1994)
notes that there were plenty of plagues, famines, agricultural decline, depopulation, and civil
upheaval towards the end of the Yuan dynasty. Essentially, the fall of the Yuan could be
contributed to domestic crises such as civil unrest and insurrections. The tumultuous situation in
late Yuan cumulated in the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368 by Zhu Yuanzhang, who
defeated other rivaling anti-Yuan rebellion forces, and had his men capture the Yuan capital Dadu.
37
The Mongols then retreated to the steppes north of China proper, and the regime founded by the
remnants of the Mongol-Yuan forces is known as the Northern Yuan.
The Ming dynasty is usually considered the model of a Chinese empire dominating its
neighboring vassal states within the Tributary System (Fairbank 1968), and an era when
Confucianism especially flourished in China after a century of alien rule. Its territory, however,
was confined to China proper only, when compared with its immediate predecessor the Yuan. Also,
due to the continuing rivalry between the Ming and the remnants of the Yuan occupying the
Mongol steppes, Ming China could not include Mongolia in its territory, nor could it incorporate
Mongolia into the extent of its hegemony (Rossabi 1998, 225). Tibet was not included in the
Ming’s territory or hegemony either, which is another key difference between the realms of the
Yuan and the Ming. The Ming’s control of Manchuria was also not as tight as the Yuan’s case. In
sum, the Ming could only manage to incorporate neighboring smaller states that embraced
Confucian civilization and modeled themselves after China into the extent of its hegemony. Thus,
the Ming had a more confined hegemony when compared with the Yuan, and with its successor
the Qing as well.
In the Mingshi, chapters 320 to 328, which are biographies 208 to 216, listed the foreign
entities that the Ming was aware of. Among them, Chosǒn, Annam, Ryūkyū, Champa, Chenla ( 真
臘, present-day Cambodia), Siam ( 暹羅, present-day Thailand), Java (爪哇), Srivijaya ( 三佛齊,
in Sumatra) were the ones sending missions and paying tribute regularly throughout the Ming.
Gungwu Wang (1998, 322) also notes that among the entities in Southeast Asia, “Regular foreign
relations continued with a limited number of southern kingdoms, notably Champa until it was
destroyed by the Vietnamese, various rulers of Java to the end of the fifteenth century, and Melaka
until it fell to the Portuguese in 1511. Only the mainland kingdoms of Vietnam, Ayutthaya (Siam),
38
Laos, Burma, and various Shan and T’ai states had continuous, although not always harmonious,
relations with the Ming court to the end” in his chapter on the Ming’s foreign relations with
Southeast Asia in volume 8 on the Ming dynasty of the Cambridge History of China.
In addition to the above regular tribute-paying vassals, the Mingshi did also note that certain
other entities also sent tribute to the Ming, though not as frequently and regularly as the ones above.
Therefore the author does not consider them entities within the extent of the Ming’s hegemony.
Some examples include: Borneo, which sent tribute to the Ming three times but only in the Yongle
reign (Mingshi 323:36); Japan, which did so sporadically during the reign of the Muromachi
Bakufu,
17
but later the tributes stopped and the relations between China and Japan worsened
because of Japanese invasions of Chosǒn (the Imjin War), and the assaults of wokou ( 倭寇, or
wako in Japanese, literally meaning dwarf pirates, though referring to Japanese pirates in this
context)
18
during mid to late Ming.
17
There are records in the Mingshi (322:10) that there was Ming investiture of the fourth shogun of the Muromachi
Bakufu, Yoshimochi Ashikaga, as the “king of Japan” in 1408, the sixth year of the reign of Yongle emperor. And
the last attempt of Japanese tribute to the Ming recorded in the Mingshi (322:21) is in the year 1647, the 26th year of
the reign of Jiajing Emperor. However the Emperor ordered the envoys to return, as the scheduled time for the
tribute from Japan had not arrived yet.
18
Scholars studying the wokou note that many of them were actually Chinese instead of Japanese, such as Wills
(1998, 334). The same can be found in the Mingshi (322:26), which mentions roughly only 30% of the wokou were
real Japanese, while the rest were Chinese affiliated with the wokou.
39
Figure 2. Map of the Extent of Ming Hegemony at the Beginning of the Dynasty
The map shown above in figure 2 is based on the map on page 224 in chapter 4 by Chan Hok-lam
(1998), “The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsüan-te reigns, 1399–1435” in volume 7,
which is part 1 on the Ming dynasty, of the Cambridge History of China. The map shows the
Ming’s territory and its neighboring state-like entities. Though the original map does not mark the
various vassal states paying tribute to the Ming mentioned in the previous paragraphs, however
the author has these places colored in yellow, while the territory of the Ming is colored orange, to
be consistent with the categories in figure 1, which is the map of the Yuan’s hegemony. Due to the
40
areas covered in the original map, certain places in Southeast Asia, such as the southern part of the
Indochina Peninsula, Java, and Sumatra are missing. This means that parts of the Ming’s vassal
states including southern Annam, Champa, Chenla, parts of Siam, Java, and Srivijaya could not be
shown in figure 2.
Figure 3. The Extent of the Ming’s Hegemony on the Scale of the Yuan’s Hegemony
In order to also include the missing vassal states of the Ming in the map, while also making a
comparison of the extent of China’s hegemony of the Yuan and the Ming, the author places the
41
extent of the Ming’s hegemony on the scale of the Yuan’s hegemony, and the result is figure 3.
Essentially, figure 3 above is the Ming’s hegemony roughly drawn on the map of figure 1. Again
the colors are by the author, while the original map is taken from Rossabi (1988, 111). Figure 3
should provide a better sense of how the Ming’s hegemony is compared to that of the Yuan, and
should be able to show the readers the Ming hegemony is more confined when compared to the
Yuan’s hegemony.
The Extent of China’s Hegemony during the Qing Dynasty
Just like its immediate predecessor, the Ming dynasty found itself in a series of crises by the late
16th and early 17th centuries. And similarly, it then collapsed amid internal rebellions. In 1644,
rebels led by Li Zhicheng captured the Ming’s capital Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor (r.
1627-1644) hanged himself, which marked the end of the Ming dynasty. Some of the remnant
forces loyal to the Ming retreated to the south and established several regional regimes that are
collectively known as the Southern Ming. Soon after the fall of the Ming, the forces of the Manchus
entered China proper through the Shanhai Pass with the assistance of former Ming general Wu
Sangui, and this marked the beginning of the Manchu-Qing dynasty’s rule over China. The Qing’s
territory once again included Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and later Xinjiang,
19
along with China
proper, all within its territory.
In the Qing shigao, or draft history of the Qing, compiled on the order of the President of the
Republic of China after the end of the Qing, there are zhuan ( 傳), or biographies of different parts
19
Peter Perdue’s China Marches West (2010) details how the Manchu-Qing expanded into central Eurasia, and
defeated the Zunghar Mongols. The military campaigns there enabled the Qing to control present-day Xinjiang and
have more influence in Mongolia and Tibet.
42
of Mongolia and Tibet that were outer territories (waifan 外藩 or fanbu 藩部) of the Qing in
chapters 518 to 525, which are biographies 305 to 312. And there are also the Qing’s attached
states
20
(shuguo, or 屬國 in Chinese) listed in chapters 526 to 529, which are biographies 313 to
316. These entities within the extent of the Qing’s hegemony are clearly separated from the other
foreign entities, which are included in the sections zhi ( 志), or treatises of various topics. In the
case of those foreign entities that were not the Qing’s vassals, they can be found in chapters 153
to 160, which are treatises 128 to 135 covering diplomacy.
According to the Qing shigao, the attached states of China included Chosǒn, Ryūkyū,
Vietnam,
21
Myanmar, Siam, kingdom of Lan Xang and later kingdom of Luang Prabang (in
present-day Laos), Sulu sultanate (which included present-day Sulu archipelago, and northeast part
of Borneo), Gurkha (present-day Nepal), Kokand khanate, Kazakhstan, and various entities in
Central Asia. Di Cosmo (2016, 134-135), however, notes that the Lifan Yuan was responsible for
the relations with bordering entities such as Kokand and Kazakhstan, which implies that these two
entities in Central Asia should be categorized as the Qing’s outer territories like Mongolia and
Tibet, instead of attached states. Nevertheless, whether Kokand and Kazakhstan are categorized
as the Qing’s outer territories or attached states, either way makes them entities within the extent
of the Qing’s hegemony.
20
The terms fanbu and shuguo used in the Qing shigao are translated as outer territories and attached states by
Peterson (2016) in the Cambridge History of China, volume 9, the Ching Dynasty to 1800, part 2.
21
Dai Viet was also known as Annam, and after the Nguyen dynasty unified the entire country, the first Nguyen
ruler sent tributes to the Qing and requested the Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796-1820) the investiture of “the king of Nam
Viet (or nanyue, 南越 in Chinese).” However the Jiaqing Emperor deemed such a name inappropriate, as historically
the state of nanyue included parts of the provinces of Guangdon and Guangxi in China, which are not the territory of
Annam. Eventually Annam’s name was changed to Vietnam by the Jiaqing Emperor in 1803. The record can be
found in the Qing shigao (527:20).
43
However, among the other entities in Central Asia listed in chapter 529 as the attached states
of the Qing in the records of the Qing shigao, note that not all of them paid tribute to the Qing
regularly. For some of them, there are only records of one of a few tributes to China, such as
Andijan (in present-day Uzbekistan, mentioned as 安集延 in the Qing shigao), Badakhshan (in
present-day Tajikistan and Afghanistan, referred to as 巴 達 克 山 in the Qing shigao), and
Afghanistan. Other places such as Margilan ( 瑪爾 噶朗), Namangan ( 那木 干), Tashkent ( 塔什干),
Bolor ( 博羅爾), and Kanjut ( 坎巨提) are briefly described as attached to the Qing (neifu, or 內附
in Chinese), though there is no mention of them paying tribute (lai gong, or 來貢 in Chinese) to
the Qing. Therefore, the author does not consider these within the extent of the Qing’s hegemony,
in line with the standard the author applies regarding the status of Borneo and Japan in the section
on the extent of Ming’s hegemony.
44
Figure 4. Map of the Extent of Qing Hegemony, 1759
The figure 4 above is a map based on the map on pages 280-281 in chapter 5 by Alexander
Woodside (2002), “The Ch’ien-Lung Reign” in volume 9, part 1 of the Qing Empire to 1800 of
the Cambridge History of China. The map shows the Qing’s territory, colored in orange, and its
vassal states, colored in yellow. Note that due to the areas covered by the original map, the vassal
state of Kazakhstan which stretches much westward into Central Asia could not be shown fully in
45
figure 4. Again, the colors are by the author, as the case with figures 1 and 2. And with this map
on a scale closer to figure 1, as well as figure 3 which is based on figure 1, this makes it easier for
the readers to compare the extents of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing’s hegemony with one another.
And the result observed should be clear that, among the three cases of Chinese hegemony, the one
of the Yuan is the largest, with the Qing coming in second, while the Ming’s hegemony is the most
confined of the three.
Conclusion
A comparison of the extent of China’s hegemony across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties
reveals significant variation across the three eras, which provides the background of the research
in this dissertation. We can observe that among the three cases of Chinese hegemony, the one of
the Yuan is the largest, while the Ming has the most confined hegemony, as shown in the maps
included in the chapter. The next two chapters following this one are detailed accounts of two
representative case studies of China’s relations with the entities within the extent of its hegemony,
which are Tibet and Korea respectively. The two entities are studied in this dissertation to better
demonstrate the changes in China’s relations with each of them with and without the use of proper
ideational power that could appeal to the entity, and how China legitimized its domination over
the two respectively. The pattern witnessed in the case studies corresponds to the variation in
China’s different sources of ideational power across different periods of time.
46
Chapter Four: Tibet’s Ever-changing Relations with Hegemonic
China
This chapter takes Tibet as a representative example to illustrate how an entity’s changing
relationship with China, the hegemon of historical East Asia, corresponds to the variation in the
extent of China’s hegemony, and that such a variation is a result of the changes in the sources of
ideation power that China utilizes to appeal to the said entity. When China utilizes a proper source
of ideational power to appeal to a certain entity in order to incorporate it into China’s hegemony,
this strategy would work, and we would be able to observe that the extent of China’s hegemony
expands accordingly. However, if China as the hegemon does not apply this strategy of utilizing
multiple sources of ideational power to appeal to a diverse group of potential subordinates, and
instead just relies on one single source of ideational power (which would be Confucianism) across
the board, then the result that we observe would be a more confined Chinese hegemony limited to
the Confucian cultural sphere and the Tributary System, because with such a strategy China would
not be able to legitimize its domination over different potential subordinates who each has different
sources of authority that it would accept or recognize as legitimate.
For nearly six hundred years from the Mongol-Yuan’s conquest of China in 1279 to 1840 in
the late Qing era, the extent of China’s hegemony actually varied significantly, and Tibet is a
representative example of such a puzzling variation. During the nearly six centuries of Chinese
hegemony, Tibet, just like many other entities, did not always remain within the extent of China’s
hegemony. Tibet was incorporated into the Mongol Empire and then became the Yuan dynasty’s
territory. But when China entered the Ming dynasty, which was ruled by the majority Han people
47
again, Tibet was no longer part of China’s territory, nor did it remain within the extent of China’s
hegemony. Later, the Qing dynasty of the Manchus managed to reestablish China’s domination
over Tibet, much like the case of the Sino-Tibetan relationship in the Yuan era. Here from this brief
overview of the changing Sino-Tibetan relationship over the nearly six hundred years covered in
this dissertation, we can clearly observe that there are some significant variations.
In this chapter, I will explain that such a variation in hegemonic China’s relations with Tibet
was a result of China’s use of a proper source of ideational power or the lack thereof. When the
hegemonic China was able to exert a proper source of ideational power, which in Tibet’s case
would be Tibetan Buddhism, to appeal to Tibet, and to claim the political authority deriving from
that source of ideational power to legitimize its domination of Tibet, then China would be able to
incorporate Tibet into its hegemony. In other words, when China did not utilize the ideational
power of Tibetan Buddhism to appeal to and try to legitimize its control of Tibet, this suggested
that Tibet would not be a subordinate of China or accept China as its suzerain even when China
was the hegemon and the most powerful state actor of the regional international system.
Tibet as a Part of the Mongol and then the Yuan Empire
Tibet was firstly incorporated into the Mongol Empire and then the Yuan dynasty established by
the Mongols in China. At first, Tibet surrendered to the arriving Mongol forces during the reign of
Ögedei Khan (r. 1229-1241) of the Mongol empire in 1240, before the Yuan dynasty was
established (Wylie 1977, 110). By that time, the Mongol empire had already conquered the Jin
dynasty (1115-1234) that ruled the northern parts of China. The Mongol empire and the Mongol-
Yuan dynasty would then establish institutions specifically dedicated to the administration of Tibet,
which will be addressed later in the chapter. Therefore, in short, during the Yuan dynasty, Tibet
48
was not only within the extent of China’s hegemony, but was even a part the territory of a Chinese
dynasty.
The First Contacts between the Mongols and the Tibetans
Tibet before its incorporation into the Mongol Empire was in political fragmentation (Kapstein
2006). The Mongols had been aware of Tibet’s existence through their contacts with the Tangut
kingdom of the Western Xia (1038-1227), which was situated between the lands of the Mongols
and the area we call Tibet today. The first Mongol Great Khan, Genghis Khan (r. 1206-1227), may
have had the intension of bringing Tibet into his realm, according to Stephen Haw (2014). Recent
studies (Haw 2014; Atwood 2015) also point out that, the first Mongol contacts with Tibet occurred
well before 1240, which most scholars have considered to be when the Mongol conquest of Tibet
occurred. But the strong religious ties between Tibetan clergy and the Mongol nobles were not yet
involved at that time. For instance, Atwood (2015, 40) argues that, during the first Mongol
encounters with Tibet, “The Mongol image of ‘Tibet’ in the 1240s and 1250s was not based on the
religiously-dominated society of Central Tibet, but rather on the pastoralists and farmers of
Kokenuur.” Furthermore, before the Mongols subdued Tibet, their expansion had already reached
the Kokonor region, which is now known as Qinghai, in the northeast of the Tibetan plateau, which
is traditionally an area dominated by the Tibetan people (Kapstein 2006; Atwood 2015).
Later, during the reign of Ögedei Khan (r. 1229-1241), successor of the great Genghis Khan,
the Mongol empire had already in 1234 conquered the Jurchen Jin dynasty that ruled northern
China, and decided to continue its expansion. As the Mongol empire continued to expand, Tibet
was invaded by the Mongols several times in the thirteenth century, but the Mongol military
campaign in 1240 was the decisive one that resulted in Tibet’s submission to the Mongol empire.
49
Stephen Haw (2014), however, argues that the Mongol conquest of Tibet should be seen as a
gradual process in different stages, instead of one single event dated to 1240. He suggests that,
initially there were incursions into north and northeast Tibet, which were the regions bordering the
Western Xia, and then later there was the military expedition led by Köden in 1240.
Ögedei assigned to each of his three sons different regions for them to conquer respectively,
and Köden, his second son, was responsible for pacifying the remnants of the Jin dynasty and
supervising the invasion of Sichuan (Yuanshi 2:36), which is immediately to the east of Tibet. He
was also put in charge of the former Tangut kingdom of Western Xia. This means that of all of the
Mongol empire’s military campaigns at that time, Prince Köden led the one that was closest to
Tibet, which could explain why in 1244 he was the one who summoned Sa-skya Pandita as the
representative to surrender on behalf of the entirety of Tibet.
In 1244, a letter written by Köden, the Mongol prince in charge of the military campaigns
targeting Tibet, was sent to the head of the Sa-skya school of Tibetan Buddhism, Sa-skya Pandita,
in which the prince invited the Lama to visit him (Franke 1981; Haw 2014). Some historians have
presented this story as a Mongol nobleman seeking the teaching of Buddhism. However, the letter
could in fact be seen as an ultimatum for the Tibetans to surrender (Wylie 1977; Franke 1981). The
region that we know as Tibet today was politically fragmented in the thirteenth century, and this
situation presented a problem for the arriving Mongol troops, as they wanted to identify a ruler
who could “surrender” the entirety of Tibet to them, but since it was in political fragmentation,
they could not identify such a figure (Haw 2014, 42). Eventually they chose a religious leader from
the Sa-skya school of Tibetan Buddhism, Sa-skya Pandita, to be their target, considering his family
background controlling local religious and economic power which made him a suitable
representative who could surrender on behalf of the Tibetans (Wylie 1977, 113). Sa-skya Pandita
50
brought with him his nephew, Phags-pa, along his way to the Kokonor region to meet Köden, the
Mongol prince. And the alliance between the Sa-skya school of Tibetan Buddhism and the
Mongols would be continued by Phags-pa, who became Sa-skya Pandita’s successor, and later
Khubilai Khan’s Imperial Preceptor in the times of the Yuan dynasty.
After Köden’s campaign, the Mongol invasions of Tibet from about 1252 until 1255 probably
resulted in the conquest or submission of most of the region to the Mongol empire (Haw 2014, 47).
And during the reign of Möngke Khan (r. 1251-1259), institutions were also established to
administer Tibet. This practice was continued in the reign of Khubilai Khan (r. 1260-1294). And
by the 1260s, the conquests were complete, and Tibet was being governed rather than conquered
(Franke 1981).
The Xuanzheng Yuan: the Institution Administering Tibet in the Yuan Imperial
Government
After the Mongol empire subdued Tibet, in 1264 a special institution was established to govern
Tibet, the Zongzhi Yuan (總制院), or the Bureau of General Regulation (Yuanshi 87:2193).
Khubilai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty as the new name of his realm in 1271, and later the
Zhongzhi Yuan was renamed the Xuanzheng Yuan ( 宣政院), or the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan
Affairs, in 1288, and Tibet remained under the jurisdiction of that institution within the Yuan
imperial government. From this arrangement we can understand that the Yuan dynasty’s treatment
of Tibet as its territory was unique in that it was different from any other provinces of the Yuan.
Instead, Tibet was to be administered by a specifically dedicated agency within the government.
Beginning from the reign of Khubilai Khan, the supreme religious leaders of the Sa-skya sect of
Tibetan Buddhism held the title of Imperial Preceptor (or dishi,帝師 in Chinese), and were put in
51
charge of the Xuanzheng Yuan, thereby reuniting the once fragmented Tibet under one regime.
The Xuanzheng Yuan was listed as one of the agencies within the overall structure of the Yuan
imperial government for the administration of “fiefs, fief-like territories, and other special
populations,” which explains the basic functions of this institution (Farquhar 1981, 312).
According to the Yuanshi ( 元史, Yuan dynastic history), which is the official history of the Yuan
dynasty complied by the succeeding Ming dynasty in 1370, the institution of the Xuanzheng Yuan
handled Buddhist monks as well as the territory of Tibet, and both the monks and the lands of Tibet
were under the jurisdiction of and governed by the Xuanzheng Yuan (Franke 1981, 311-312). The
original text in the Yuanshi that describes the institution of the Xuanzheng Yuan comes from chapter
87, treatise 37, official posts 3 ( 元史,卷 87,志 37 ,百官 3):
The Xuanzheng Yuan, ranked 1b,
22
handles Buddhist monks and the territory of Tufan
23
and administers them. When there is turmoil in Tufan, a branch Xuanzhen Yuan will be
set up to quell it……In early Yuan times, the Zongzhi Yuan was established, and it was
led by the State Preceptor.
24
In the twenty-fifth year (1288),
25
because of the practices of
the Tang dynasty that the envoys from Tufan were received at the Xuanzheng Hall ( 宣政
殿), its name was changed to the Xuanzheng Yuan.
26
(Yuanshi 87:2193)
22
The rank of the Xuanzheng Yuan in the text is cong yipin ( 從一品), or sub-first rank, and the translation used by
the author here follows the practice of Hucker (1985) in his work A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China,
in which he translates and briefly describes the titles of officials included in the dictionary, and uses “a” for the
standard rank, and “b” for the sub rank. With this system, the standard first rank is simplified as 1a, and sub-first
rank as 1b.
23
The term used in the text, Tufan ( 吐蕃), is the ancient name of Tibet in classical Chinese writings.
24
In the text the term guoshi ( 國師), or state preceptor, was used, instead of dishi, imperial preceptor, because at the
time of the Zongzhi Yuan the name of the title granted to Phags-pa was initially the state preceptor, rather than
imperial preceptor, which was only changed in 1270.
25
Here it refers to the twenty-fifth year of the Zhiyuan period ( 至元), the second era name of Khubilai Khan, or the
year 1288.
26
The English translation of this paragraph was done by the author.
52
宣政院,秩從一品,掌釋教僧徒及吐蕃之境而隸治之。遇吐蕃有事,則為分院往
鎮, …… 至元初,立總制院,而領以國師。二十五年,因唐制吐蕃來朝見於宣政
殿之故,更名宣政院。
Descriptions of the Xuanzheng Yuan that are nearly identical as the above text in the Yuanshi, with
only minor changes in the wording, appear in the New History of the Yuan (Xin Yuanshi 新元史
in Chinese), which is also part of the series of China’s official histories of the imperial dynasties.
27
In the Xin Yuanshi, the description of the Xuanzheng Yuan appears in chapter 58, treatise 25, official
posts 4 ( 新元史 ,卷 58 , 志 25,百官 4), and the text repeats the same content seen in the Yuanshi,
which, in short, describes the rank of the Xuanzheng Yuan and its duties, its predecessor the
Zongzhi Yuan, and the story behind its renaming.
The importance of the Xuanzheng Yuan, in addition to its uniqueness, can also be seen in its
elevated position within the structure of the overall Yuan imperial government. The Xuanzheng
Yuan is considered “a fourth central agency” in the Yuan’s imperial government structure (Franke
1981, 312), along with the Central Secretariat (Zhonshusheng 中書省), the Censorate (Yushitai 御
史臺), and the Bureau of Military Affairs (Shumiyuan 樞密院). Studies on the institutions in the
Yuan imperial government administering Tibet provide evidence that the Yuan dynasty did have
jurisdiction over Tibet, and that the Xuanzheng Yuan was also among one of most important central
27
The New History of the Yuan was compiled in the era of the Republic of China in 1920 with an attempt to revise
and fix the errors in the original History of the Yuan. This newer and revised version of the history of the Yuan
dynasty was declared by the President of the Republic of China at the time, Xu Shichang ( 徐世昌), as one of the
orthodox histories of previous Chinese dynasties along with the original Twenty-Four Histories to form the Twenty-
Five Histories.
53
agencies in the Yuan imperial government (Farquhar 1981; 1990, 153-4). Rossabi (1988, 144)
argues that, after the establishment of this institution administering Tibet, and later sending an
army to quell the rebels against the Sa-skya sect in Tibet, by 1268 Khubilai truly began to impose
Mongol sovereignty over Tibet.
After conquering the Southern Song (1127-1279) dynasty to unify the entire China under the
Yuan in 1279, Khubilai made Phags-pa, the leader of the Sa-skya sect of Tibetan Buddhism, his
Imperial Preceptor (dishi, or 帝師 in Chinese) and the head of the Xuanzheng Yuan. An overview
of the Yuan governance of Tibet and the role of the Imperial Preceptor in this can be seen in the
following paragraph from the Yuanshi:
28
The Yuan arose from the north, and therefore [they were aware of those] who
already worshipped Buddhism. When it obtained the western regions, because the
lands were broad, dangerous, and far, and the people ferocious and bellicose,
Shizu
29
considered that he could make them more pliant by using their traditional
practices. Thus, he divided the lands of Tufan into counties and commandries,
established offices, and assigned officials, all led by the Imperial Preceptor.
Thereupon, he established the Xuanzhen Yuan …… Thus, the orders of the Imperial
Preceptor and the emperor’s edicts and decrees were promulgated together in the
western lands.
30
(Yuahshi 202:4520)
28
This paragraph comes from chapter 202, biography 89, Buddhism and Taoism ( 卷 202 列傳第 89 釋老) in the
Yuanshi.
29
The term Shizu ( 世祖 in Chinese) refers to Khubilai Khan, as this is his temple name as the emperor of the Yuan
dynasty.
30
The English translation of this paragraph was done by the author.
54
元起朔方,固已崇尚釋教。 及得西域,世祖以其地廣而險遠,民獷而好鬥,
思有以因其俗而柔其人,乃郡縣土番之地,設官分職,而領之於帝師。乃立
宣政院……於是帝師之命,與詔敕並行於西土。
This signified that the Yuan’s rule of Tibet was based on a plastic and flexible strategy, which was
unlike its administering of the provinces established in China proper. This can be seen from the
establishment of the Zongzhi Yuan (later the Xuanzheng Yuan) headed by a Tibetan Buddhist leader,
and from the respect given to Tibetan Buddhism by the Yuan emperors. Waley-Cohen (1998, 340)
notes that adopting Tibetan Buddhism enabled the Mongol-Yuan to dominate Tibet without the use
of force. And Phags-pa and Tibetan Buddhism proved to be influential not just in Khubilai’s
imperial court and the Yuan governance of Tibet, but also in the overall hegemonic enterprise of
the Mongol-Yuan empire.
Universal Emperorship and the Role of Tibetan Buddhism in Legitimizing the Yuan
Hegemony
Since the times of Genghis Khan, the Mongol rulers had been open to the practice of multiple
religions within their realm, as the Mongols had a policy of religious tolerance (Ratchnevsky 1991,
197-198; Morgan 2007, 37). This strategy of religious toleration had a political motive, which was
to secure acquiesce from the local population of the places that the Mongols conquered (Atwood
2004, 246). The Mongols worshipped tengri, heaven or god, and any religion that recognized
heaven or god was left intact (Matsuda 2018, 41). Rossabi notes that, Khubilai Khan, the founder
of the Yuan dynasty, “pursued a policy designed to win over all the various religions in his realm”
(1988, 141). Those religions included Confucianism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, and Christianity,
55
among others. But among the various religions that coexisted in the Mongol and the Yuan empire,
Tibetan Buddhism was the primary source of ideational power rendering the authority that
legitimized the Yuan’s rule of its vast empire. Atwood (2015, 41) suggests that, the Mongols’
interests in the religious figures of Tibet for their provision of authority may have developed out
of the Tangut institution of imperial preceptors, or dishi, which did later become the title given to
Phags-pa by Khubilai Khan.
The Yuan dynasty was founded by the Mongols, specifically, by Khubilai Khan, and it was
the first unified Chinese dynasty not established by the majority Han people of China. Khubilai
Khan proclaimed himself the Great Khan of the Mongols in 1260 amid internal power struggles
among rival Mongol elites led by his brother Ariq Böke. Under such circumstances, Khubilai
needed to claim a mandate that was broad enough to support his assertion that he was the Great
Khan of the vast empire of the Mongols, and the emperor of China. After winning the civil war,
he later declared Da Yuan ( 大元, the great Yuan) as the new name of his realm in 1271.
31
Langlois
(1981, 3-6) discusses the imperial edict proclaiming the Yuan dynasty in great detail, and notes
that this gesture of Khubilai Khan aimed at securing the support from the Han Chinese population
in his realm. But Khubilai actually also sought to develop religious legitimacy that would appeal
to a wider population in his empire outside of China proper. Especially, he borrowed the religious
aura of the Chakravartin king, a universal emperor or monarch in the Buddhist tradition, which
31
The translation of the imperial edict proclaiming Da Yuan as the new title of Khubilai’s realm can be seen in
Langlois (1981, 3-4). The “Edict Proclaiming the Title of the State” ( 建國號詔) was influenced by Liu Bingzhong
( 劉秉忠), a minister of Khubilai and a Buddhist-Taoist scholar. He recommended the name Yuan, meaning the
origins, from the Chinese classics Yi Jing ( 易經), or the Book of Changes, to set a precedent in Chinese history, as
this name of the new dynasty did not come from place names, which departed from the established tradition of
previous dynasties. Langlois argued that this gesture aimed at winning the acceptance of Khubiai Khan as the
legitimate ruler from the Chinese population and to enhance the Yuan dynasty’s legitimacy. But Langlois (1981, 6)
also discussed that the idea of naming the dynasty this way not based on a name of a particular place had a symbolic
importance that “universalized” the throne of China. This implies that the legitimacy and the mandate of heaven that
the Yuan emperors hoped to claim were broader than those claimed by previous emperors of China.
56
conveyed the image that Khubilai became the legitimate ruler of the Buddhism world (Franke 1978;
Rossabi 1988, 145; Matsuda 2018, 43-44), to establish his legitimacy to rule over the Tibetans,
Uighurs, and other Inner Asians (Langlois 1981, 7).
The term “universal emperor” coined by Herbert Franke (1978) encapsulates well the
Mongol-Yuan dynasty’s overall strategy. The Mongol-Yuan hoped to consolidate its mandate to
rule over China proper as well as the empire’s other parts that were multiethnic simultaneously. In
the concept of universal emperorship, religion, especially Tibetan Buddhism, played a major role,
as it provided the Yuan emperors the source of authority to claim a mandate that was far broader
than the Confucian version of the Mandate of Heaven.
To the Tibetans, Khubilai presented himself in the image of a patron of Tibetan Buddhism,
and in return, he was recognized as the universal emperor, the Chakravartin king, and incarnation
of the boddhisattva Manjusri ( 文 殊 菩 薩). With this, Tibetan Buddhism provided Khubilai the
“ideological justification” (Rossabi 1988, 143) for his accession to power. Franke (1981, 304)
argues that it was Tibetan Buddhism that achieved the final sacralization of Mongol rule over
China. By adopting Buddhism, a universal religion, as the source of their authority to legitimize
their domination over various populations, the Mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty were able to
claim an even broader legitimacy than the traditional Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven,
and that they were not only legitimate rulers of China proper but also of their known world. This
is what transcends the previous Sinocentric version of legitimacy claimed by not only Han Chinese
emperors but also those foreign rulers of various parts of China that came before the Mongols. In
short, the Mongol emperors of the Yuan dynasty established their legitimacy not as successors of
the previous Chinese dynasties, but rather as a divine sovereign of their known world (Franke
1978). The Yuan’s Mongol emperors claimed their legitimacy as the Son of Heaven, who also
57
inherited the Buddhist heavenly mandate, signifying that they perceived their legitimacy stronger
and wider than the more confined Chinese version of the Mandate of Heaven.
One particular religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism, Phags-pa, the Imperial Preceptor of
Khubilai Khan, was the key figure providing the necessary authority based on a religious
foundation to the Yuan’s Mongol emperors that legitimized their rule over their known world.
According to Herbert Franke (1981, 306), Phags-pa’s two main achievements were, first of all,
providing the Mongol emperors with a pseudo-historical theory which incorporated them into the
line of succession of Buddhist universal emperors, and secondly, developing a theory of theocratic
rule for Khubilai Khan and his successors. Another major contribution of Phags-pa, according to
Morris Rossabi, was his creation of the Phags-pa script as the alphabet for the Mongol language
and the State Script for the Yuan dynasty, and furthermore, as the universal script in Khubilai’s
realm. The Phags-pa script could accurately reflect the sounds and thus could potentially transcribe
all the languages used within the empire, and this could serve as a mechanism unifying the
frequently antagonistic peoples under Mongol rule (Rossabi 1988, 157), which again was an ideal
tool supporting Khubilai’s claim as a universal emperor.
32
Tibet’s Relations with Ming China
The Mongol-Yuan dynasty’s rule of China did not last long, and the last years of the Yuan dynasty
were marred by frequent civil rebellions. Zhu Yuanzhang ( 朱元璋), one of the prominent leaders
of the various rebellious groups, later united most of the anti-Yuan forces across China and started
his north expedition. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang declared himself emperor (r. 1368-1398) with the
32
Though the Phags-pa script was designed in the hopes of becoming the universal script across Khubilai’s empire,
Rossabi (1988, 160) notes that eventually it did not replace existing Uighur script or Chinese characters as the
commonly used written language in the Yuan realm, as it was imposed from above and met strong opposition.
58
era name of Hongwu, and formally proclaimed the founding of the Ming dynasty in Nanjing (Mote
and Twitchett 1988, chapter 1). Later the same year, his armies conquered the Yuan dynasty’s
capital, Dadu (present-day Beijing). This marked the end of Mongol rule of China. The last Yuan
emperor and his remaining forces fled to Shangdu, the Yuan’s Upper Capital, and this Mongol
regime based in the steppes is known as the Northern Yuan dynasty in Chinese history.
Despite having successfully captured China proper from the hands of the Mongols, the newly
established Ming dynasty was unable to hold onto Tibet as tightly as its immediate predecessor
did. Unlike the situation during the Yuan dynasty, when Tibet was put under the administration of
the Xuanzheng yuan and therefore was formally incorporated into the Yuan dynasty’s territory,
there are different views regarding whether Tibet was incorporated into the Ming dynasty’s
territory and to what extent China during the Ming era was able to exert control over Tibet. This
section conceptualizes Tibet’s place within the Ming’s hegemony from an IR perspective.
Ming Emperors and Their Interests in Tibetan Buddhism
The late expert of Tibet, Elliot Sperling, argues that the relationship between China and Tibet went
through a total change from the Yuan to the Ming (Sperling 1983, 194). The early Ming emperors
also seemed to be interested in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, according to the chapter 331
that records events related to Tibet in the Mingshi, the official history of the Ming dynasty. During
the Ming dynasty, the Ming emperors did continue certain practices as what their immediate
predecessors, the Yuan, did in Tibet, for example, issuing imperial decrees, granting titles, and
official seals, to various important figures in Tibet. Furthermore, Robinson (2020, 203-4) discusses
that the Ming commissioned construction of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and sponsored
ceremonies, and housed prominent Tibetan Buddhists in the capital. Rossabi also notes that the
59
Yongle emperor (r. 1402-1424) actively sought relations with Tibet (1998, 243).
This could have something to do with the Ming’s attempt to establish itself in a Chinggisid
image to appeal to the other entities, at least in its early times. Robinson (2008, 368-369; 2020,
194) claims that the Ming emperors sought to legitimize their rule through claiming the Chinggisid
legacy, especially since the Mongol regime known as the Northern Yuan in Chinese history
continued to exist and threaten the Ming from the north. And since Tibetan Buddhism was an
importance source of political authority and legitimacy as a universal empire claimed by the
Mongol-Yuan (Franke 1978), it is logical that the Ming wanted to foster closer ties to Tibet and
Tibetan Buddhism in its attempt to imitate the Yuan. Though there were also records of important
and powerful Tibetan Buddhism clerics who declined to accept Ming titles (Wylie 2003, 469-470;
Rossabi 1998, 244).
But the Ming’s approach of claiming the Chiggisid legacy and appealing to Tibetan Buddhism
would shift after the Tumu Crisis in 1449.
33
Rossabi explains that the Tumu Crisis marked the
turning point in the Ming’s external policy and grand strategy: “Yet the defeat at T’u-mu and the
subsequent challenges to China prompted the court to abandon its fortified guard posts that lay
beyond the so-called Great Wall. From this time on, China, in effect, renounced the expansionist
and more assertive policies associated with the Yung-lo emperor and his immediate successors”
(Rossabi 1998, 235). This point is also shared by Gungwu Wang (1998, 322). Since the Ming
turned more inward and had less interests in expanding its sphere of influence, this could explain
why the Ming emperors’ interests in Tibetan Buddhism and claiming the Chinngisid legacy
33
This was the incident when the Oirat Mongols led by Esen invaded and defeated the Ming. And in the battle the
reigning Ming emperor Yingzhong (r. 1435-1449 and 1457-1464) was captured alive and taken by the Mongols as
hostage. The Oirats subsequently advanced to surround the Ming capital Beijing, but the Ming forces were able to
defend the city and kept the enemies at bay. More detailed accounts of the incident can be found in Twitchett and
Grimm (1988) and Rossabi (2008), which are chapter 4 in part one and two respectively of the two-volume
Cambridge History of China on the Ming dynasty.
60
diminished later in the dynasty.
Furthermore, the later emperors of the Ming also had less interests in Buddhism. Wills (1998)
and Geiss (1998) noted that after the reign of the Zhengde emperor (r. 1505-1521), the Ming
favored Neo-Confucianism, turned more inward in terms of its foreign affairs limited to the
tributary vassals, and held animosity towards Tibetan Buddhism and lamas. The Jiajing Emperor
(r. 1521-1567) was a devout Taoist, and thus showed little interests in Buddhism, and in his reign
Tibetan Buddhism was suppressed (Wylie 2003, 470). Rawski claims that it was during Jiajing’s
reign that the Ming’s relationship with Tibetan ended, as the Ming’s influence in Amdo was
supplanted by the Mongols in the region (1998, 245).
Lastly, the rise of the Tumed Mongols in later Ming in present-day Qinghai, known as
Kokonor at that time, which has been a region predominantly dwelled by the Tibetans, could also
contribute to the diminishing ties between the Ming and Tibet. It was Altan Khan, leader of the
Tumed Mongols, who conferred the title “Dalai Lama” to the third hierarch of the Gelug school of
Tibetan Buddhism (Wylie 2003, 470) in 1578. The Dalai Lama in turn granted Altan Khan the title
“king of religion, majestic purity” (Goldstein 1997, 8), and recognized him as “protector of the
faith” (Rawski 1998, 246). This showed that during the Ming, the close ties between the secular
Mongol rulers and the religious leaders of Tibetan Buddhism similar to that between Khubilai and
Phags-pa seen in the Yuan times were continued.
Titles Granted to Tibetan Buddhist Clerics by the Ming
The Mingshi notes that early Ming emperors such as Hongwu and Yongle would invite many
prominent figures of Tibetan Buddhism to visit the capital and conferred them honorific titles. But
was this practice the same as the investitures from the Ming emperors that formally bestowed
61
authority on the leaders of the vassal states in the Tributary System?
Comparing the cases of the Sino-Tibetan relationship between the Yuan and the Ming eras,
Schwieger notes that in Tibetan documents during the Yuan era, the Tibetan officials did refer to
the Yuan emperors as their source of authority, which was not the case during the Ming period.
Therefore, these can be considered as the pieces of evidence suggesting that Ming China did not
exert direct imperial influence on Tibet, and there was no effective Chinese rule in Tibet
(Schwieger 2010, 326), as no Tibetan ruler ever accepted the role of being a vassal of the Ming
(Powers 2004, 58-59).
Renowned historian of Tibet, Elliot Sperling, studied in detail the Yongle emperor’s
relationship with these Tibetan Lamas as well as secular leaders from Tibet whom the emperor
conferred titles upon as well as the emperor’s rationale for building up relationship with them.
Sperling (1983) firstly argues against the conventional wisdom that the Ming dynasty had a formal
policy of “divide and rule” towards Tibet. He proposed instead that the emperor’s conferring of
these titles on important figures of Tibet was based on his personal religious interests, as well as
the commercial needs of the Ming from Tibet, without thinking of the divide and rule political
strategy behind such gestures.
34
And according to Norbu (2001, 52), the meetings of Tibetan lamas
with the Ming emperors were exchanges between “the patron and the priest” and were not
instances of a political subordinate paying tribute to a superior. And therefore, the relationship
between the Ming emperors who bestowed titles and those Tibetan Buddhist clerics who received
34
According to Sperling (1983), there were two main categories of titles for the Tibetan recipients, fawang ( 法王)
and wang ( 王), and each had its intended characteristic behind the name. For those clerics whom were conferred the
title of fawang from emperor Yongle, there was a religious component behind that title, as the word fa ( 法
“dharma” or “teaching”) implied, and it signified that the emperor was sincerely interested in Buddhism and their
spiritual skills and he invited some of them to visit his court to perform Buddhism rituals for him. As for those who
obtained the title of wang from the emperor, Sperling argues that their relationship with the Ming emperor was
secular, as maintaining cordial relations with these powerful leaders in Tibet would facilitate the Ming’s tea and
horse trade with Tibet, in which the Ming would obtain horses with better quality that it could use on the battlefield
from Tibet.
62
the titles could be described as priest-patron relationship.
Sperling also points out that the priest-patron relationship between Tibetan Buddhist clerics
and the Chinese imperial court had existed under circumstances in which Tibet was subordinate to
secular powers acting as religious patrons such as the reign of Khubilai Khan, as well as during
periods in which the patron had no real political authority in Tibet, for instance, during the Ming
era (Sperling 2004, 25-26). He further notes that some offices that the Ming established for
handling Tibetan affairs “were not in any way a part of the actual political power structure of Tibet”
and that the honorific titles from the Ming emperors “did not confer political authority” (Sperling
2004, 26-27). These arguments imply that such a priest-patron relationship between the Ming
emperors and Tibetan Buddhist clerics had no meaning of political authority of the Ming or Tibet’s
subordination to China behind it.
Such an argument that Ming China had exerted no political authority over Tibet is shared by
other scholar as well. Goldstein (1997, 4-5) adds that the titles conferred by the Ming court were
nominal and did not actually carry the authority that those granted by the Yuan had. Similarly,
Hoffman notes that the Ming upheld the facade of rule over Tibet through periodic missions of
“tribute emissaries” to the Ming court and by granting nominal titles to ruling lamas, but did not
actually interfere in Tibetan governance (2003, 65). Lastly, in a study of the titles and seals that
Ming emperors conferred to Tibetan leaders, Schwieger (2010) argues that those titles did not carry
the meaning of official positions within the Ming governmental structure, therefore should not
signify that those Tibetan leaders who accepted those titles, seals, and imperial decrees actually
acknowledged Ming sovereignty.
63
Interpreting Tibet’s Position vis-à-vis Ming Hegemony
After examining the decline of Ming’s interests in Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the titles
granted by the Ming to various Tibetan figures, how should we determine the nature of Sino-
Tibetan relations during the Ming? Were they diplomatic relations? Or was Tibet a tributary vassal
of the Ming? Van Walt van Praag (1987, 7-8) notes that the Ming dynasty did not have much
interest in Tibet, and considered it an independent entity. In addition, Rossabi argues that Tibet
“scarcely had diplomatic relations with the Ming” (1998, 241).
Peter Schwieger (2010) argues that, while the practices of granting titles to Tibetan Buddhist
clerics did continue in the Ming, yet the meaning that such practices and symbols carried were
entirely different from the Yuan’s case. He notes that in Ming official documents issued to Tibetan
leaders and clerics, real authority was missing (Schwieger 2010, 314). And titles granted to Tibetan
religious figures were merely honorific titles, and should not be considered regular governmental
officials (Shen 2007, 248). Another important question when considering the nature of Ming-Tibet
relation is, did the Ming ever control Tibet? Norbu states that as the Ming dynasty was preoccupied
with the Mongol threat to the north, thus could not spare additional armed forces to enforce or
back up their claim of sovereignty over Tibet, which the Yuan did. Instead, the Ming relied on
“Confucian instruments of tribute relations” of granting titles and gifts to Tibetan Buddhist lamas
(2001, 59). Goldstein adds that, by conferring titles to the various Tibetans leaders already in power,
the Ming emperors were merely recognizing the reality of political fragmentation in Tibet (1997,
5). Hoffman (2003, 65) concurs that the Ming did not actually interfere in the governance of Tibet.
Here we can take a look at how the Ming dynasty “coded” Tibet. Did the Ming consider Tibet
its territory? Or did Tibet fall into the category of the Ming’s vassal states? The official history of
the Ming dynasty, the Mingshi ( 明史), listed various entities and leaders of present-day Tibet in
64
chapter 331 under treatises 219, titled xiyu ( 西域, western regions). Essentially, these paragraphs
describe that the Hongwu Emperor managed Tufan (Tibet) with various mechanisms. In the
beginning he attempted to follow what the Mongols in the Yuan had done with the Tibetans, namely
allowing Tibet to be administered in its own fashion and have Buddhist clerics to lead the
administration. However, later there were words indicating official titles and treasures given to
various figures in Tibet (Mingshi 331:8572). Lastly, the trade of tea and horses between China
proper and Tibet was mentioned. But throughout the text, nothing political or denoting authority
of the Ming over Tibet was included in the relevant sections. This presented a rather mixed record
of Sino-Tibetan relations in the Ming dynasty.
In sum, there was no conclusive account in the Mingshi of how Tibet was coded by the Ming
dynasty. Tibet was not an entity listed as a vassal state paying tribute and engaging in diplomatic
rituals conforming to the Confucian ways to Ming along with entities such as Chosǒn, Dai Viet,
and Ryūkyū. Nor did it fall into the category of either tusi ( 土司, native chieftains under the Ming’s
loose control) or waiguo ( 外國, foreign states). In contrast, both the eastern and western Mongol
tribes were listed as foreign states in the Mingshi, which indicated that the Ming did not consider
these entities within its hegemony. This makes the relationship of Tibet vis-à-vis the Ming rather
ambiguous. However, based on the primary sources of the Ming, along with the studies of the
nature of the titles granted to the figures in Tibet by the Ming, we could come to the conclusion
that Tibet was not considered a piece of territory nor formal vassal state by the Ming.
Tibet’s Position within the Qing Hegemony
By the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the Ming dynasty was in a series of crises. Gradually, it
collapsed amid internal rebellions in its later years. Eventually the Ming was toppled by a major
65
civil rebellion led by Li Zhicheng in 1644, and its last emperor hanged himself after the fall of
Beijing to the rebels. This is considered the end of the Ming dynasty, though some of the remnant
forces loyal to the Ming retreated to the south and established several regional regimes collectively
known as the Southern Ming (Struve 1988, 641).
Meanwhile, there was a group of people called the Manchus, who were formerly the Jurchens
from what is northeastern China today, that began to rise. Led by Nurhaci (r. 1616-1626), they
would establish their own kingdom named the Later Jin (1626-1636), named after an earlier
dynasty founded by the Jurchens. And then under Hong Taiji (r. 1626-1643), the name of the state
Later Jin was changed to the Qing, and Hong Taiji proclaimed himself emperor of this new dynasty.
The Manchus would enter China proper via the Shanhai Pass in 1644, right after the collapse of
the Ming thanks to the assistance from former Ming general Wu Sangui, and this marked the
beginning of the Manchu-Qing dynasty’s rule over China proper. However, the Qing did not rule
Tibet until much later, which is explained in the following paragraphs.
Incorporating Tibet into the Qing Realm and the Lifan Yuan
Before the time of the Qing dynasty and the arrival of the Manchus, Tibet was part of the Khoshut
Khanate, a regime established by the Oirat Mongols in 1642. Gushi Khan, the leader of the
Khoshut Khanate, made the fifth Dalai Lama of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism the de facto
ruler of Tibet, which ensured the domination of this school as well as the supremacy of the Dalai
Lama in Tibet. In 1717 the Zunghar Khanate, another regime established by the Oirat Mongols,
conquered the Khoshut Khanate and invaded Tibet. The Qing’s forces first entered Tibet in 1720
to expel the invading Zunghar troops in Tibet, and this marked the beginning of the Qing’s direct
involvement in Tibet (Di Cosmo 2016).
66
After the Qing troops expelled the Zunghars in Tibet, they instated the seventh Dalai Lama
as the leader of the region, and maintained forces in Tibet. The Qing also set up the office of
Imperial Resident in Tibet ( 駐藏大臣, or amban in Manchu) in Lhasa as the representative of the
Qing imperial court in the region. This can be interpreted as the Qing formally considering Tibet
part of its territory, though the administrative system that the Qing set up to govern Tibet was not
the same as the formal provinces established in China proper (Chia 1993).
The Qing dynasty created an institution in charge of minority affairs including Mongolia and
Tibet, which was called the Lifan Yuan ( 理 藩 院 in Chinese, literally meaning court for the
administration of outlying regions) (Chia 1993; Di Cosmo 2016). The Qing did not set up
provinces in Tibet like its arrangements of the territory in China proper, but instead applied a
system similar to the Yuan’s Xuanzheng Yuan to govern its peripheral regions. Meanwhile, the
Qing did not administer its relations with Tibet through the Ministry of Rites ( 禮部) either, which
would have signified that the Sino-Tibet relationship fell into the category of foreign affairs like
that between the Qing and its tributary vassals.
During the Qing dynasty, Tibet was once again tightly incorporated into China’s realm. The
higher level of Qing China’s exerting control over Tibet can be seen in the aftermath of the Sino-
Gorkha War in 1788-1792. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735-1796), Gorkha
(present-day Nepal) invaded Tibet, and the Qing defeated Gorkha and made the latter a tribute-
paying subordinate state (Mote 2003, 938). After the war, the Qing imperial court issued a decree,
the Imperial Decree for Settling the Aftermath in Tibet ( 欽定藏內善後章程), which aimed at
strengthening its control over Tibet. In this 29-article decree, the status of the Imperial Resident in
Tibet was elevated to the level on par with the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, both of whom were
the top leaders of Tibet, and the latter two were stripped of their privilege of reporting to the Qing
67
emperor directly. From then on, they could only contact the emperor via the Imperial Resident.
The Imperial Resident would also command the troops in Tibet. Furthermore, the first article of
the Qing imperial decree also stipulated that the selection process determining the next Dalai and
Panchen Lamas had to be conducted by using a golden urn, in which slips of paper with the names
of all candidates were put. One of them would be drawn, and the process would be supervised by
the Imperial Resident on behalf of the Qing emperor (Goldstein 1989, 44). All these were evidence
demonstrating China’s tighter control of Tibet during the Qing dynasty.
Tibetan Buddhism as an Important Source of the Qing’s Ideational Power
Similar to the case of the Yuan dynasty established by the Mongols, the Qing dynasty established
by the Manchus also relied on Tibetan Buddhism as an important source of ideational power to
legitimize its domination over the Tibetans. Tibetan Buddhism proved to be crucial to the Manchu
emperors’ claim to the heavenly mandate in their efforts to appeal to various groups of non-Han
Chinese constituents in the multiethnic and multicultural Qing empire, because it was the religion
worshipped by most of the people in Tibet, Mongolia, and also in some areas of Xinjiang and
Qinghai. If Confucianism served as the primary ideational power that the Qing empire utilized to
legitimize its domination over the Han Chinese population in China proper and its tributary vassal
states such as Chosŏn, Dai Viet, and Ryūkyū, namely those smaller neighboring Sinic kingdoms
that embraced Confucian civilization and modeled themselves after China because Confucianism
was the shared ideology among these components of the Qing-dominated international hierarchy,
then Tibetan Buddhism served the same purpose in the Qing’s relationship with the subordinates
in the northern and the western parts of its sphere of influence.
The Qing emperors presented various images to appeal to their different subordinates
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(Farquhar 1978; Crossley 1999). They were the Sons of Heaven to the Chinese, and Great Khans
to the Mongols. To the Tibetans in particular, the Qing emperors were regarded as bodhisattva-
emperors, and specifically, as incarnations of the bodhisattva Manjusri (Farquhar 1978). The
bodhisattva Manjusri represents wisdom, and is one of the most important bodhisattvas in
Buddhism. In paintings of Qing emperors as the personification of the bodhisattva Manjusri, the
emperors would be depicted as holding the Dharmachakra (Wheel of the Dharma or Wheel of the
Law), which implies that the Qing emperors were the wheel-turning sage rulers, namely the
Chakravartin (轉輪聖王), or the Buddhist version of the universal emperor who inherited the
heavenly mandate. This was just like the images of the emperors of the former Yuan dynasty that
the Manchu-Qing dynasty consciously followed as an example. The Buddhist notion of divine
rulership also made a link between the bodhisattva Manjusri and Chakravartin king (Hevia 1993,
253). In short, the image of the Qing emperor as a bodhisattva provided “a substantial boost to his
political potency” (Farquhar 1978, 25), which enhanced the authority and legitimacy of the
Manchu-Qing emperors in their rule over the various entities and peoples in Inner Asia.
The Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty were known to be followers as well as patrons of
Tibetan Buddhism, yet their support and patronage of this particular religion went beyond the
simple reason of personal favoritism. Political considerations were also involved, especially when
it came to legitimizing Manchu dominance over the regions and peoples that also followed Tibetan
Buddhism. Grupper (1984) argues that Nurhaci’s embrace of Tibetan Buddhism had much more
to do than just securing the support of the Mongols, the Manchus’ first allies in their imperial
enterprise, who also believed in the religion. It was primarily the cultural appeal of this religion
and the aura of authority of the Chakravartin that made Nurhaci, the leader unifying the various
Jurchen tribes and the founder of the Later Jin and who was the immediate predecessor of the Qing
69
dynasty, decide to form a close relationship with Tibetan Buddhism. From this perspective, we can
see that Nurhaci did see the significance and value of the authority that this particular religion
could bring to his imperial enterprise. Through endorsing Tibetan Buddhism and becoming its
patron, this gesture and the religion served as the source of ideational power that provided the
necessary authority to legitimize the Manchu rulers’ claim that they now had inherited the heavenly
mandate in the eyes of the followers of Tibetan Buddhism (Grupper 1984; Hevia 1993; Wang
2000). According to Grupper (1984, 50), the relationship that was formed between the Manchu-
Qing emperors and Tibetan Buddhism was in the form of traditional Buddhist monarchy, which
was marked by the feature of “partnership of the ruler and his chaplain.” He also points out that
Tibetan Buddhism served as the “major unifying force in the Manchu polity,” which is not unlike
the function of Tibetan Buddhism during the Mongol-Yuan dynasty.
Later, Hong Taiji, who succeeded Nurhaci and then changed the name of the state from Later
Jin to the Qing in 1636 and the name of his people from Jurchen to Manchu, forged a closer
relationship between the Manchu rulers and the leaders of Tibetan Buddhism. Hong Taiji invited
the fifth Dalai Lama to Mukden, then the Manchu state’s capital, in 1637 (Farquhar 1978; Wang
2000). Later in 1640, in a letter sent to Hong Taiji by the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the
Qing emperor was recognized as a bodhisattva, as he was addressed as the Manjusri Great Emperor
(Farquhar 1978, 19). Tibetan Buddhism began to flourish during Hong Taiji’s reign. In Mukden,
temple construction was funded with imperial support, and Grupper (1984) notes that this was due
to the changed political circumstances that the Manchu state was facing as it continued its conquest
and expansion towards the west, which the Mongol tribes occupied. More than ever did the
Manchus need to find certain ways to legitimize their domination over the newly secured
constituents of their empire. Grupper also argues that the Manchu imperial patronage of Tibetan
70
Buddhism was an act in continuity with what the Mongol-Yuan monarchy had practiced, and that
served the purpose of providing an ideological foundation supporting the claim that Hong Taiji’s
Qing was the successor state to the Yuan (1984, 52-53).
In sum, there was an important purpose in the Manchu-Qing’s embrace of Tibetan Buddhism
as a source of its ideational power. The Manchu emperors intended to legitimize their claim as the
successors of the Mongol Great Khans. Patronizing Tibetan Buddhism enhanced the Manchu
emperor’s ability to appeal to and then govern the Mongols and ensured Mongol support of the
Manchus, as well as provided Hong Taiji, the founder of the Qing dynasty, with the overarching
ideological basis for establishing a successor state to the Mongol-Yuan dynasty (Grupper 1984,
52-53; 55). To the later Qing emperors, for instance, the Qianlong Emperor, presenting himself in
the image of the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Manjusri (Wang 2000), which was the practice
of the Mongol-Yuan emperors, also drew the association between him and Khubilai. Morevoer,
the special relationship between the Qing and Tibet echoed that between Khubilai and Phags-pa.
Waley-Cohen (1998, 340) also argues that Tibetan Buddhism enabled the Yuan to dominate Tibet
without the use of force. And after the Mongols took Tibetan Buddhism as their religion, Tibet
became the source of religious inspiration for the Mongols (Wang 2000, 127). Essentially, the
Manchu-Qing state patronizing Tibetan Buddhism can be seen as “a polity in which a religiously-
inspired monarchy headed a theologically-grounded state” (Grupper 1984, 53), which modeled the
example of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty. After all, both the Yuan and the Qing dynasties shared
significant amounts of similarities, such as their vast territory spanning across areas west of China
proper deep into Inner Asia, and the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural nature of the two empires. To
maintain stable control over the non-Han Chinese constituents of the Qing empire, the Manchu
rulers had to appeal to these peoples and entities with an ideology other than Confucianism, which
71
was effective only to the Han Chinese population in China proper and the Sinic vassal states
participating in the Tributary System. In the case of the Mongols and the Tibetans, their religion,
Tibetan Buddhism, became the primary source of ideational power that the Manchu rulers utilized
to generate the authority to legitimize Manchu domination.
Conclusion
In sum, during the three eras of Chinese hegemony from the Yuan to the Ming and Qing that are
studied in this chapter, we can observe variation in China’s extent of control over Tibet. Tibet was
a subordinate of the Mongol empire before the founding of the Yuan dynasty. But later when the
Mongol great khan Khubilai proclaimed his empire the Yuan and then entered and ruled China, the
administration of Tibet was handled by the Xuanzheng Yuan, a formal government institution of
the Yuan, which indicated that Tibet was incorporated into Yuan territory. However during the
Ming dynasty, China did not directly govern Tibet. Although the Ming emperors did bestow
honorific titles to certain Tibetan religious figures, this was at best understood as a nominal priest-
patron relationship, as the titles themselves did not carry political authority, nor did they signify
subordination. In the Qing dynasty, Tibet once again entered a closer relationship with China and
the extent of Qing’s control over Tibet was tight, similar to the case of the Yuan era. Especially
after the Gorkha invasion of Tibet, the Qing court issued the 29-article imperial decree to
strengthen its hold onto Tibet. Therefore, we witness that although during the nearly six hundred
years of timeframe covered in this chapter it was constant that China stayed as the hegemon of the
East Asian international system, yet China’s extent of control over Tibet varied. Then, the question
is, how do we explain this variation?
I argue that the key to explaining such a variation is the different sources of ideational power
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that different Chinese hegemons utilized. We already know that China during the nearly six
hundred years studied in this dissertation remained the indisputable hegemon of the East Asian
international system, and it had not met a successful challenger that could topple its domination of
the region. This means that the level of China’s material power, especially its military capability
in relation to other entities in the system stayed constant, as it has remained the most power state
actor in the entire timeframe. Yet we still observe the variation in the dependent variable of our
interest here, namely the extent of China’s hegemony. Clearly, as the level of China’s material
power relative to other actors in the system stayed constant, this variable could not possibly serve
as the explanatory variable for the variation that we observe. Therefore, I argue that ideational
power is the key. When China exerted multiple sources of ideational power, namely, ideational
power beyond Confucian civilization, it was able to expand its hegemony further to incorporate
entities such as Tibet that did not share Confucianism. Only when appealing to an entity with the
appropriate source of ideational power could the hegemon establish its political authority as the
suzerain and legitimize its domination.
Furthermore, the Mongol-Yuan and the Manchu-Qing dynasties envisioned a broader version
of the Mandate of Heaven which included not just the Confucian version of the mandate embraced
by the Chinese dynasties established by the Han people, and their realms did expand beyond China
proper. They were willing to embrace and utilize multiple sources of ideational power beyond
Confucian civilization to establish their authority to legitimize their domination over various
subordinate entities and peoples, which explains why the level of their control over Tibet was
higher and the extent of their hegemony more expansive than that of the Ming.
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Chapter Five: Consistent Chinese Domination over Korea Based on
Inconsistent Legitimation Strategies
During the nearly six hundred years from the Yuan to the late Qing when China was the
indisputable hegemon of the East Asian international system, Korea had always been within the
extent of China’s hegemony. The extant IR literature focusing on historical East Asia and Sino-
Korean relations emphasizes the function of Confucian civilization that was shared among both
China and Korea, which enabled China to occupy the superior position vis-à-vis Korea in this
hierarchical bilateral relation. Since Confucianism originated in China, and China had perfected
this ideology, this provided the rationale supporting China’s domination of not just Korea, but also
its other vassal states such as Vietnam and Ryukyu that embraced Confucianism and modeled
themselves after China.
Despite recognizing that the Chinese domination of Korea was legitimized with the
Confucian political ideology, however, this chapter also presents elements of the non-Confucian
image of the Sino-Korean bilateral relations, which has been largely neglected by the IR literature
on historical East Asia so far. During the Mongol-Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) of China, Korea in
the Koryǒ dynasty (918-1392) subordinated to China, but later we can observe that the Mongol-
Yuan domination of Korea was not based solely on the Confucian rhetoric, but instead also
included some of the practices and traditions of the Mongols. This case study of Sino-Korean
relations during the Yuan dynasty once again demonstrates that Confucianism, though an important
source of ideational power sustaining Chinese hegemony, was however just one among the many
sources of ideational power that China as the hegemon of East Asia utilized to appeal to its
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subordinates.
In this chapter, I will first point out that during the Yuan dynasty, Korea (Koryǒ dynasty at
the time) was drawn into China’s hegemony through the use of Mongol traditions, the most
important of which was intermarriage, which tied the ruling families of Koryǒ and the Mongol-
Yuan together tightly. The Koryǒ kings and princes also adopted Mongol culture and practiced
certain Mongol rituals. This practice was in sharp contrast with that of the Ming and Qing dynasties,
in which Confucianism played the most important role. Confucian rhetoric and the attraction of
Korea, the Little China, into the Manchu-Qing’s orbit played an important role in the Qing’s quest
of replacing the Ming as the hegemon of East Asia, as the Qing essentially utilized the Confucian
rhetoric to argue that now its ruler has inherited the Mandate of Heaven and embraced Confucian
civilization to be considered civilized, and the Manchus were no longer in the league of the
barbarians, therefore Chosǒn, which had been known as the Little China, and the most
Confucianized and civilized entity after China under Heaven, should recognize this fact and take
the Qing as its new suzerain. From this case we can also understand that, in international relations
in historical East Asia, the founding of hegemony was not entirely based on material power only,
and in fact, ideational power which could provide legitimacy and establish the authority of the
aspiring hegemon’s superiority and domination played a more important role.
The Yuan-Koryǒ Relations: Chinese Domination Legitimized with Non-
Confucian Ideational Power
Korea has been known as the Little China and the most Confucian society after China itself in East
Asian civilization (Sun 2012), and in the hierarchical bilateral relationship between China and
Korea, the former always dominated the latter, based on the fact that China inherited the Mandate
75
of Heaven and that Korea as the vassal of the heavenly empire imitated the culture and institutions
of China. In the hierarchical relationship between China and Korea, traditionally the authority that
legitimized Chinese domination of Korea in that hierarchical bilateral relationship had been the
Confucian civilization shared by both sides. China perfected Confucianism and thus was
considered the most authoritative state actor in this part of the world, which enabled it to sit at the
very top of the international hierarchy made of Confucianized entities in historical East Asia
(Fairbank 1968; Kang 2010a; Zhao 2013). Korea, on the other hand, was often viewed as the
second most Confucian state after the hegemon China, and as a model of the tributary vassals in
the Confucian international order. This type of Sino-Korean hierarchical relationship had remained
that way for most parts of the history of both countries.
However, China’s domination of Korea during the Yuan dynasty was not entirely the case.
Instead, in this period of time, the Mongol-Yuan dynasty of China attempted to establish its
authority as the suzerain of Koryǒ using traditions and practices of the Mongols themselves, rather
than simply relying on Confucian political ideology. The Mongol-Yuan’s strategy towards Korea
was mainly assimilation. First, this involved the crown princes of Koryǒ to be sent to the Yuan’s
capital city of Dadu to be hostages, where they would receive Mongol names and learn Mongol
traditions and cultures (Zhao 2008). And then there were marriages and the ensuing familial ties
between the ruling houses of the Yuan and Koryǒ. The kings of Koryǒ must marry a Mongol-Yuan
imperial princess to be his primary consort. Thus, Koryǒ kings became sons-in-law of the Yuan
emperors. Lastly, since only the heirs by the kings’ primary consorts could inherit the throne, this
meant that the future kings of Koryǒ would be at least half Mongol by blood, and even more so as
the generations moved on. These Koryǒ kings of Mongol descent would also be close blood
relatives of the Yuan Emperors. The above practices strengthened the familial ties between the
76
Yuan and Koryǒ, and became the source of authority for the Yuan to legitimize its domination of
Koryǒ in this hierarchical relationship (Zhao 2008; Birge and Broadbridge 2022, 27-8).
Some Confucian Components in the Yuan-Koryǒ Relations
Before I begin to elaborate on the assimilation policy that the Mongol-Yuan employed in its
legitimation strategy towards Koryǒ, there were some Confucian elements in Yuan-Koryǒ relations
that should also be recognized. Koryŏ elites who traveled to China during the Yuan dynasty
brought back Neo-Confucianism to their country (Wang 2018, 340). And when facing the stronger
and potentially threatening Mongol-Yuan, Koryǒ’s diplomatic strategy was framing itself as an
important element in confirming the Mongol-Yuan’s imperial legitimacy, and that a proper empire
ought to preserve Korea’s political integrity (Wang 2018, 342). This helped secure Koryǒ’s
survival as an autonomous kingdom within the Yuan empire, instead of being annihilated like other
entities that the Mongols had conquered. In the process, Koryǒ’s appeal spoke to the Confucian
literati serving Khubilai Khan, by portraying Korea as a repository of the cultural and political
legacies of the imperial past of previous Chinese dynasties that Khubilai wanted to imitate.
35
Furthermore, Sixiang Wang also points out that during the power struggle between Khubilai
Khan and Ariq Böke, the Koryŏ prince and future king Wonjong (r. 1260-1274) played an
important role. The Koryŏ prince at the time was on his way to visit the Mongol Great Khan, but
by turning to Khubilai instead of Ariq Böke, he had taken the center stage by deliberately choosing
Khubilai as the new Son of Heaven (2018, 347). This confirms the centrality that Koryŏ occupied
35
Similarly, Yuanchong Wang notes the central role that Korea played in a Confucian world order, and the
significance of having Korea as a subordinate to be proven as the recipient of the Mandate of Heaven could be seen
in the case of how Hong Taiji attempted to secure Chosŏn on his side in the imperial enterprise of the Later Jin and
then the Qing (Wang 2015; 2017). This will be discussed in length in the section on Qing-Chosŏn relations later in
this chapter as well.
77
in a Confucian worldview, according to Breuker (2003).
As Sixiang Wang (2018, 339) puts it, a “consequential dynamic of Mongol-Koryŏ relations
was…efforts by Khubilai’s officials to cast the Mongols as heirs to a long-standing imperial
tradition.” Wang (2018, 341) points out that the concept of zhengtong ( 正統), “tied political
authority to a diachronic transmission through a line of previous imperial dynasties…[and] points
to the repertoire of political technologies tied to this genealogical notion of legitimacy.” Koryŏ’s
leaders adroitly played their diplomatic hand with the Mongols, which involved “interpolating
Korea into the repertoire of imperial legitimation, which rested on the idea that Korea’s submission
confirmed imperial legitimacy and that a proper empire ought to preserve Korea’s political
integrity.” After Khubilai’s accession, the Mongols explicitly linked their political legitimacy to
this tradition, and Koryŏ “appealed to a notion of a moral empire rooted in a common cultural
inheritance…and made common cause with their [Mongol] Confucian-minded officials…” (Wang
2018, 342).
Interestingly, while the Mongols selectively adopted certain Confucian ideologies and
practices to help it better govern China proper and appeal to the Han Chinese majority population
there, in the case of Koryǒ, known as the Little China, they had to in addition rely on their own
traditions to assimilate the Koryǒ ruling elites as a way to establish political authority and form
closer familial ties that served as the foundation of the Yuan’s domination of Koryǒ.
Assimilation of Koryǒ into Mongol Culture and Traditions
The beginning of the interactions between the Mongols and Koryǒ, the dynasty ruling the Korean
peninsula at the time of the Mongol-Yuan empire,
36
was by no means peaceful. Before the
36
The Mongols rose to become the superpower of Asia beginning in the early 1200s, when Genghis Khan created
what we called the Mongol Empire in 1206, and then his grandson Khubilai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty in
78
establishment of the Yuan dynasty, as early as 1231, the Mongol Great Khan Ögedei Khan, son
and successor of Genghis Khan, ordered the first Mongol invasions of Koryǒ (Yuanshi 2: 32; 34).
The Mongols hoped to secure Koryǒ as its vassal due to the Korean Peninsula’s strategic location,
and issued several demands to the Koryǒ court threatening to invade and conquer Koryǒ, which
could be seen in an imperial edict issued by Ögedei in 1231. The edict was written in Sino-
Mongolian,
37
and can be found in chapter 23 of Koryǒsa (23: 4-5). To summarize and paraphrase
its meaning, essentially the edict repeatedly asked Koryǒ whether it would prefer to surrender
peacefully or to fight the Mongols. The edict also reminded the Koreans that the Mongols helped
them defeat the invading Khitans previously, and without the assistance of the Mongols, Koryǒ
would have been destroyed. However, Koryǒ killed the envoy sent by the Mongols. Lastly, the
edict threatened Koryǒ by mentioning that those places where the Mongols conquered with
military forces ended being devastated, while those who surrendered could retain their lives
(Yilinzhen 1982, 177-8). The original text reads:
聖旨: 「 差 撤 里 打 火 里 赤 軍 去 者 , 問 你 每: 「 待投拜 , 待 廝 殺? 」 鼠 兒 年 , 黑
契丹你每高麗國裏討虜時節 ,你每迭當不得了去也 。阿每差得札刺 、何稱兩
介引得軍來 ,把黑契丹都殺了 。你每不殺了 ,阿每來。若阿每不將黑契丹了 ,
你每不早了那是麽?使臣禾利歹根底不拜來那是麽?投了呵,差使臣瓜古與你
每 根 底 不 行 打 來 那 什 麽? 瓜 古 與 沒 了 , 使 臣 覓 瓜 古 與 來 , 你 每 使 弓 箭 將 覓 來
1271, which lasted until 1368 when the Mongols were expelled from China proper. Koryǒ was a kingdom on the
Korean Peninsula which existed from 918 to 1392. In 936 Koryǒ unified the whole of Korean Peninsula, and thus
during the entire length of the Yuan dynasty Koryǒ was the sole entity on the Korean Peninsula.
37
Sino-Mongolian is a hybrid language and “a form of direct translation from Mongolian that preserves Mongolian
syntax and uses Chinese characters to represent Mongolian words” which “purports to record the actual
pronouncements in Mongolian of the Mongol rulers and their close advisors” and “gives us a sense of ‘listening in’
on the speech of Khubilai Khan and other Yuan emperors,” according to Birge (2017, 3).
79
底人射得回去了 。那上頭,管是你每底將瓜古與殺了也 。阿每覓問當來也 。」
皇 帝 聖 旨 道: 「 若 你 每 待 廝 交 , 阿 每 一 處 廝 , 相 殺 住 到 老 者 。 若 還 要 投 呵 ,
依前一 番投了者去 。若你每民戶根底的愛惜 ,依前一番投拜來。下去底使臣
快快 地交回來者 。若要廝殺,你識者!」
皇帝大國土裏達達每將四向周圍國土都收了 ,不投底國土都收了, 你每不聽
得來?投去了底人都一處行打 ,你每不聽得來?阿每將劫摢你每底寄不及都收
撫了 , 聽 你 每 根 底 來? 高 麗 國 王 , 你 每 底 民 戶 裏 投 拜 了 的 人 依 舊 住 坐 , 不投
拜底人戶殺有 。
虎兒年投拜了 , 咱每不啻一家來那什麽?使去底使臣是阿土 。
38
However, king Gojong of Koryǒ (r. 1213-1259) refused the demands from the Mongols to
surrender seen in the above edict by Ögedei. This led to the subsequent six invasions.
39
Though
Koryǒ endured enormous destruction amid multiple Mongol invasions, and even had to move its
capital to Kanghwa Island, however, after six military campaigns, Koryǒ had not been entirely
conquered by the Mongols (Breuker 2003; 2012, 63). This showed that, even for one of the most
powerful and largest empires even seen in world history, military force was not enough to make
others surrender or recognize its suzerainty.
Another case related to the Mongols can also illustrate the point that military power is
insufficient to conquer others. In the Yuan dianzhang ( 元典章, Statues and Precedents of the Yuan
Dynasty), which is a legal compendium of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty, there is an imperial edict
38
The punctuated text is based on Yilinzhen (1982, 177-178) with minor modifications by the author.
39
According to Breuker (2012), there were in total six Mongol invasions spanning three decades.
80
from Khubilai Khan, and the content records that previously the Mongols could not effectively
conquer Annam through military force, and many of the Yuan’s soldiers and officers escaped in
the process. And in fact, in the end the Yuan still could not conquer Annam. Here the imperial edict
in Yuan dianzhang 34:26b reads:
The imperial edict said: “Officials from the Fujian branch secretariat led by
Yiheimishi memorialized: ‘When we launched our invasion of Annam and Champa,
because we the government had not punished the crimes of those military officers,
soldiers, and sailors who shirked their responsibilities down there in the wind and
water and escaped from the area and returned home, the past invasion did not work
well. Now when we want to invade Java, if we do not punish them, it is likely that
they will just escape like that, and our invasion would probably not work well.
Furthermore, adding burden to Your Majesty, would you be willing to grant an
honor to us for an imperial edict?’ [Khubilai’s edict responded:] As for those
military officers who now shirk and evade their responsibilities like that, and for
those who escaped and returned home without proper discharge papers, without
hesitation, punish them with execution!” Thus said the imperial edict to us. It was
written on the 29th day of the second month of the year of the dragon,
40
in the Liulin
Palace.
41
聖旨:「亦黒迷失為頭福建行省官人毎奏: 「跤趾國裏,占城裏出征 時分,軍
40
Zhiyuan 29th year, or 1292.
41
This edict in the Yuan dianzhang written in Sino-Mongolian is translated to English by the author.
81
官每 ,軍每水手 每風水裏推調了逃了回來了的根底 ,罪過他每底不要了上頭 ,
去了的勾當 每他怠慢了。如今俺大勾當裏去的時分 ,似那底一般逃 走了不扎
撤呵 , 勾 當 俺 的 怠 慢 一 般 有 。 更 聖 旨 可憐 見呵 , 怎生? 」 麼 道 奏 來 。 如 今 那
般推辭躱閃的省官人 每根底,没别里哥逃 走回來的人每根底休疑惑 ,敲了劄
撒者道來。 」
聖旨 俺底,龍兒年二月二十九日 栁林裏有時分寫來。
42
Warfare in the Korean Peninsula had proved to be costly for both the Mongols and Koryǒ.
Eventually, both sides concluded a peace treaty, with Koryǒ’s ruling house retaining its power over
its realm (Breuker 2012, 64). Breuker notes that “absorption of Goryeo into the Yuan empire only
became possible after internal conditions in Goryeo made further war politically undesirable…and
emphatically not after Goryeo had been forced to its knees” (2012, 64).
Koryǒ surrendered to the Mongols in 1259, and the king Gojong agreed to send his son, the
crown prince and future king Wongjong, to the Mongol court as a hostage (Koryǒsa 24; Wang
2018, 338-9). Koryǒ would then become a vassal state of the Mongol empire and later the Yuan
dynasty. There were even periods of time when Koryǒ was nominally a province, or more precisely,
a branch central secretariat ( 行中書省) of the Yuan (Farquhar 1990, 399-400). The official name
given to Koryǒ was the Branch Central Secretariat for the Invasion of the East ( 征東等處行中書
省), however Koryǒ was only a branch central secretariat in name, while in reality it managed to
retain its autonomy (Zhao 2008; Birge and Broadbridge 2022, 28), and the King of Koryǒ served
concurrently as the chief councilor of the branch central secretariat (Farquhar 1990, 400).
42
The punctuated text is based on Yilinzhen (1982, 175) with minor modifications by the author.
82
In the Koryǒsa ( 고려사, 高麗史, history of Koryǒ), which is the historical record of the
Koryǒ dynasty written in hanja ( 한자, 漢字, traditional Chinese writing script) compiled by the
succeeding Chosǒn dynasty, there are many texts that illustrate how the Korean society during the
Koryǒ dynasty from the king to the officials all the way down to the commoners were Mongolized
to a certain extent. For example, chapter 72 of the Koryǒsa notes that the practice of the Korean
people adopting Mongol clothing and hair style lasted for almost a hundred years. This began with
the order promulgated in the second month of the fourth year (1278) of the reign of king
Chungnyeol (r. 1274-1298 and 1298-1308), that people within Koryǒ had to wear clothes of the
“superior state,” meaning the Yuan. And then it details what the Mongol hair style looked like. The
original text that I have paraphrased in English above reads:
事元以來,開剃辮髮,襲胡服,殆將百年。…… ( 忠烈王) 四年二月。……令
境內皆服 上國衣冠。開剃蒙古俗,剃頂至額,方其形,留髮其中,謂之開剃。
時自宰相至下僚,無不開剃。
This took place after Koryǒ became a vassal of the Yuan, and king Chungnyeol, who issued the
order, was the first king of Koryǒ who married a Mongol-Yuan princess as his primary consort. In
his case, he married Khubilai’s daughter, Princess Jeguk ( 齊國大長公主).
And then, in chapter 23 the Koryǒsa chǒryo ( 고려사절요, 高麗史節要, Abridged Essence of
the History of Koryǒ), which is a chronological historical record of the Koryǒ dynasty by year,
there are descriptions of how king Chungseon (r. 1298 and 1308-1313), the first Koryǒ king who
was half Mongol by blood, became so fond of and attracted to his Mongol heritage that he chose
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to remain in the Yuan dynasty’s capital Dadu, instead of his own kingdom, even after he had
become the king. The emperor of the Yuan at the time, Renzhong (r. 1311-1320) and the Empress
Dowager had to ask king Chungseon to return to his country repeatedly, but king Chungseon was
reluctant to oblige. Eventually, having run out of reasons to remain in Dadu and not fulfill his
duties as the reigning monarch of Koryo, king Chungseon decided to abdicate in favor of his son,
so that he could stay in the Yuan imperial capital. These events that were recorded in the Koryǒsa
chǒryo took place in the fifth year of the reign of king Chungseon, or 1313, and the original text
that I have paraphrased in English above reads:
春正月……國王久留京師,帝及太后屢詔之國,王無意於行。
三月,元欲王歸國,王無以爲辭,乃遜其位。……上王遜位,欲留,朝廷不
聽,故不得已遂行。
史臣曰: 「 忠 宣 爲 世 子 , 入 侍 元 朝 , … … 及 其 卽 位 , 遽 厭 萬 幾 , 尋 復 如
元,……淹留燕京,至于五年……從臣久勞思歸……。元亦厭之,再詔歸國,
無以爲辭,乃遜位子燾……」
To sum up, the Mongols were contemplating a better and more efficient strategy that would secure
the loyalty of Koryǒ. After all, military campaigns and governance after conquests are very costly.
In addition to appealing to Koryǒ with the ideational power of Confucianism, which had been the
traditional source of China’s authority and foundation of its legitimation applied to Koryǒ, the
Mongols decided to approach this vassal state with a different strategy more in line with Mongol
traditions, which was to assimilate the ruling house of Koryǒ.
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Marriages of Yuan Princesses and Koryǒ Kings
The purpose of the Mongol imperial family marrying its princesses to other peoples within the
empire was to enhance the political and military strength of the Mongol Empire. This tradition of
marrying Mongol princesses to the key allies and members of the Mongol empire had been
practiced by the Mongol empire’s ruling elites before they conquered China and dominated East
Asia, and the practice took place at first within the various Mongol tribes and clans (Birge and
Broadbridge 2022). There had been regularized marriage relationships within certain clans, and
the marital union within the Mongol empire’s ruling elite clans had important political implications
(Rossabi 1979, 160). Marriage alliances were vital to the Mongol empire’s creation and
maintenance, even at the times when the Mongols’ power was fading (Robinson 2022, 255-256).
The Yuanshi, the official history of the Yuan dynasty, notes that those who married Yuan
princesses were considered princes and were entrusted by the Yuan court (Zhao 2008, 35). Also,
marriage was regarded as an important means to ally all possible forces by the Mongols (Zhao,
2008, 36). From the time of Genghis Khan, he and his successors had determined to use marriages
as a strategy to enhance their power and secure alliances (Birge and Broadbridge 2022), as Genghis
Khan believed that clans were not entirely reliable, since members of his clan abandoned his
widowed mother and his siblings when he was a child, therefore they could not be trusted. Thus,
Genghis Khan realized that he had to recruit his own allies that he could trust and forge close
relationships with. Marrying his own daughters to potential candidates of allies became a strategy
for him to achieve that goal. Eventually, Mongol imperial family’s marriages with allies were taken
as a tool to effectively control these allies. And all princesses had important political missions as
well when they were sent out to form marriage ties with potential allies. The mission of these
Mongol princesses was to become the political representative of the Mongol empire to advance
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the interests of the Empire and to secure the loyalty of that entity the princess was sent out to marry
into (Zhao 2008, 37). In the case of Koryǒ, the Mongol princesses who married to Koryǒ were the
de facto representatives of the Yuan imperial court there. Essentially, the marriage strategy of
Genghis Khan was to use marriage to control tribal chiefs and kings whose submission was
considered unreliable (Zhao 2008, 40), with the hopes of bringing them closer to the Mongol
imperial family and have their interests in line with those of the empire.
There were also six tribes and states that had relatively stable or regularized marriage
relationships with the Mongol imperial family, according to Zhao (2008), and among these six
entities that had stable intermarriage relationships with the Mongol imperial family, only one of
them was non-Mongol, which was Koryǒ. Here the practice applied to the Yuan-Koryǒ bilateral
alliance was marrying Mongol-Yuan princesses to the crown princes, namely the future kings of
Koryǒ, thereby forging familial ties between the ruling houses of the Yuan and Koryǒ (Zhao 2008;
Birge and Broadbridge 2022, 27-8). This meant that every king of Koryǒ thereafter became a son-
in-law of the Yuan emperor.
The marriage between a Mongol-Yuan princess and a Koryǒ prince began with King
Chungnyeol of Koryǒ marrying Princess Jeguk, a daughter of Khubilai Khan, in 1274. In chapter
28 of the Koryǒsa, the record shows that in the winter of 1274, which is the fourth year of King
Chungnyeol’s reign, the Yuan sent an envoy to Koryǒ with an imperial edict saying that the royal
family of Koryǒ, the Wang family, married people with the same surname, which was inappropriate.
Now that Koryǒ has become the same family with us the Yuan, the two families should intermarry
with each other. The quote from the Koryǒsa that I have translated above in its original language
in hanja is:
43
43
The quote comes from chapter 28 of the Koryǒsa which documents the events in the first year of the reign of king
Chungnyeol.
86
冬 十 月。 元 遣岳 脫 衍康守 衡 來, 詔 曰: 「 爾 國諸 王 氏娶 同 姓, 此 何理也 。 旣
與我爲一家,自宜與之通婚。 」
The practice of a Koryǒ king marrying a Yuan imperial princess as his primary consort lasted until
king Gongmin (r. 1351-1374) when the Yuan dynasty was toppled replaced by the Ming dynasty
in 1368 and the Mongols expelled from China. In total, there were five Koryǒ monarchs who
married seven Yuan princesses (Zhao 2008; Birge and Broadbridge 2022, 27-28).
For Koryŏ officials, the submission of their country to the Mongols, specifically, to Khubilai
Khan, in 1259, was a source of political capital. Central to the rhetorical strategy of these later
Koryŏ diplomats was casting king Wonjong’s act of “coming to submit before all others” as a
“meritorious deed,” which paid off well, including not just marriage with the great khan’s daughter,
but also the Koryŏ king’s status as a son-ln-law of the Yuan emperor, and most important of all,
Koryŏ’s freedom to retain its “old customs” (Wang 2018, 346). In 1260, Khubilai Khan’s armies
escorted king Wonjong, who had stayed in Dadu at the time as a hostage, back to Koryŏ to inherit
the throne (Wang 2018, 344). Previously in Koryŏ, power was in the hands of the Choe clan under
a military regime, and the king had been relegated to a figurehead position. But the power of the
kingship would be restored with the support of the Mongols, even more so after the future kings
had to marry Yuan imperial princesses. With these connections to the Mongol-Yuan, king
Chungnyeol could sideline the traditional Koryŏ elite to concentrate power in his hands (Wang
2018, 340). After king Chungnyeol, Koryŏ rulers were not only sons-in-law (fuma, or 駙馬 in
Chinese) of the Yuan emperor, but also descendants of Khubilai through Princess Jeguk. Thus,
from a familial perspective, these Koryŏ kings owed a filial duty to the Yuan emperors.
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Because of these marriage and familial ties between Koryǒ and the Yuan, the Koryǒ kingdom
received special treatment from the Mongols and was deemed unique among all the states (Zhao
2008, 179). For example, the Kings of Koryǒ enjoyed higher positions compared with other
Mongol princes, which could be observed in their seating order at imperial banquets in the Yuan
court. And as sons-in-law of the Mongol emperor, Koryǒ kings could also participate in the
khuriltai, which were conventions attended by Mongol princes and elites to elect a new leader
(Zhao 2008, 202-203).
The close familial ties between the Yuan and Koryǒ were mutual beneficial, and could even
be described as interdependent. On the one hand, the Mongols and the Yuan were important to
Koryŏ, especially to its kings, as the support of the Mongols and the Yuan were essential for the
kingship’s power and the foundation of its authority. But on the other hand, dependence on their
Mongol kin also meant that Koryŏ kings’ political fortunes would be subjected to the developments
at the Yuan imperial court (Wang 2018, 340). Also, since the Mongols provided the source of
authority and legitimacy for the kings of Koryŏ, the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty meant that Koryŏ
would lose its protection and source of legitimation, and indeed, it was soon replaced by another
dynasty, Chosŏn, as the ruling regime of the Korean Peninsula.
Meanwhile, Koryŏ was important to the Yuan as well. Robinson (2009) argues that we should
see Koryŏ as part of the wider Mongol empire, and it was not simply a passive member that was
included in the Mongol-Yuan Empire. In addition, king Wonjong played a center role in the internal
political struggle of the Mongol Empire as he chose to side with Khubilai Khan and thus bolstering
the authority of Khubilai. Towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, Koryŏ actually played important
roles in defending the Yuan against the rebellions of the Red Turbans, and later an empress of the
Yuan originally from Koryŏ was also powerful enough to manipulate court politics of both the
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Yuan and Koryŏ.
And lastly, we can see that the marriages between Koryŏ crown princes and Yuan imperial
princes became systematic arrangements through many generations. And this makes the case of
Yuan-Koryŏ marriages different from the other cases of Chinese princesses marrying royalties of
foreign entities in other dynasties. The practice of heqin ( 和親) has a long history that can be dated
back to the Han and Tang dynasties. But most of these cases of heqin at those times were one-off
events, and only happened sporadically. Those did not repeat systematically one generation after
another that could establish stable familial ties between China and those foreign entities. Nor did
those come with assimilation policies. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, there were five Koryŏ
kings marrying Yuan princesses spanning almost a hundred years. This marks the difference
between Yuan-Koryŏ intermarriages and other cases of heqin in previous Chinese dynasties.
Chosǒn as the Model Confucian Tributary Vassal of the Ming
The Ming dynasty of China was considered as the height of the East Asian Tributary System
(Swope 2009) whose foundation was the Confucian civilization shared among the many
participants in the system. Despite being militarily strong, as it was able to defeat other rivaling
anti-Yuan rebels and emerged as the unifier of China,
44
the Ming did not rely on its material power
solely to try to dominate its neighbors. In the Ming’s relationships with its vassal states, ideational
power was the binding force of the hierarchical order. However, compared with its predecessor the
Yuan and successor the Qing, the Ming had limited sources of ideational power that it utilized to
44
According to Dardess (1994), there were plenty of plagues, famines, agricultural decline, depopulation, and civil
upheaval towards the end of the Yuan dynasty. Essentially, the fall of the Yuan could be contributed to domestic
crises such as civil unrest and insurrections. This shows that the Yuan’s demise was an implosion from within,
rather than a defeat or conquest by the Ming.
89
establish its authority to legitimize its domination over its subordinates. The only source of
ideational power of the Ming hegemony was Confucian civilization, and that was what it utilized
to legitimize its domination of Korea.
The Confucianization of Chosǒn Korea during the Ming Dynasty
Confucianism reached the Korean Peninsula from China as early as 372 CE when a Confucian
academy was established during the Koguryo era (Deuchler 1992, 14). In the course of Korean
history, various kingdoms and dynasties adopted certain institutions borrowed from the already
Confucianized neighboring Chinese empires. For instance, examination system based on
Confucian classics was recorded in United Silla and Koryǒ eras. Korean students would visit China
and bring back books as well as knowledge to Korea, and even a few passed the civil service
examination of the Tang Dynasty (Deuchler 1992, 14-15). Later when Neo-Confucianism
developed by Zhu Xi flourished in China during the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty, Koryǒ also
encountered this new branch of Confucian ideology through its close relationship with the Yuan.
Gradually Neo-Confucianism entered Koryǒ and influenced the scholars and the ruling class.
From that historical background, the Koryǒ and Chosǒn dynasties of Korea developed a
meritocratic civil service examination following the model of China, which the government
bureaucracies were based on, that was also shared with China and Vietnam, the other
Confucianized states in East Asia (Woodside 2006). A system of government administrative
institutions run by bureaucracies of which the personnel were selected through meritocratic civil
service examinations was first implemented in China during the Tang Dynasty. This feature of
government is considered an essential element of a modern state, according to Alexander Woodside
(2006). This system then influenced China’s neighboring states, especially Korea and Vietnam,
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who ended up implementing the same within their own borders. Meanwhile, the mandarins who
passed the meritocratic civil service examinations and thus became government officials were
obliged to work with a moralistic, Confucian world view (Woodside 2006, 7). With such a
government administrative system heavily influenced by Confucian values, we can see that indeed
the Korean society was truly a Confucianized one.
But a more comprehensive transformation of the Korean society into a Confucian one
modeled on ancient China idealized in Confucian classics did not begin until the founding of the
Chosǒn dynasty (1392-1897), which took place not long after the Ming dynasty was established
and replaced the Mongol-Yuan dynasty in China (Deuchler 1992). After the founding of the
Chosǒn dynasty, which replaced the Koryǒ dynasty, Neo-Confucian scholars began to attack
Buddhism in Korea, which also had strong influence on the society and especially among the
ordinary people. These Confucian scholars identified the now demised former dynasty of Koryǒ
as a Buddhist regime, and argued that the new Chosǒn dynasty should embrace Confucianism that
would help it separate itself from the previous era. Furthermore, Confucian scholars in the Chosǒn
court argued that, in order to re-stabilize the Korean society after experiencing the more
tumultuous later years of the Koryǒ dynasty, the model of ancient China found in classical
Confucian teachings should be implemented in Chosǒn. And this was the beginning of how
Confucian classics depicting the ideal society ruled by sage-kings of ancient China became the
model of the Korean society that these Confucian scholar-officials of the newly-established
Chosǒn dynasty hoped to rebuild, which was termed “the Confucian transformation of Korea” by
Deuchler (1992).
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The Hierarchical International Order in East Asia Led by Ming China
The Ming’s vassals embraced the Confucian civilization that China perfected and were submissive
to China in their practice of diplomacy that were revealed in official documents as well as
secondary sources that interpreted their diplomatic relationship, which is the evidence showing
their acceptance of China as the legitimate hegemon dominating a hierarchical international system.
In the case of Chosŏn, its primary policies were “promoting Confucianism” as a state ideology,
and “serving the great” (sadae, or 事大 in Chinese) for national security under the Ming
hierarchical international order (Kye 2010, 57). And in fact, Chosŏn followed the sadae principle
revering the Ming so faithfully that, even after the fall of the Ming and Chosŏn’s own recognition
of the Manchu-Qing as its suzerain, Chosŏn built the Altar of Great Gratitude within a royal palace
in 1704, where the kings would continue to perform sacrifices for Ming emperors regularly, until
Japanese occupation of its capital in 1894 (Kye 2014).
In the case of Ming-Chosŏn bilateral relations, China’s authority over Chosŏn derived from
its Confucian ideational power. During the time of the Ming, this hierarchical tributary system was
ranked ordered, and based on how culturally similar the participants within the system were to
China (Kang 2010a). The vassal states such as Chosǒn and Dai Viet embraced Confucianism and
were eager to participate in the Tributary System (Kelley 2005). They were also the ones that were
granted the most tributary missions to China, which signified that these states were considered
more important by China, and their status was higher than that of other members of the system.
This hierarchy was clearly one based on ideational power, instead of material power.
During this period of time, diplomacy between Ming China and Chosǒn as well as Dai Viet
clearly revealed the fact that the international system in East Asia was a hierarchical one. Dai Viet
acknowledged that it was a vassal of Ming China as documented by Vietnamese tributary envoys
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in the poetry they composed en route the missions to China which illustrated their world view and
attitude towards China (Kelley 2005). And when they met their counterparts from Chosǒn who
were also on diplomatic mission to the Ming dynasty’s capital Beijing, they exchanged poems
which would show their shared “brotherly camaraderie” (Kelley 2005, 183) as they both “followed
the same patterns of poetry and documents,” namely, the Confucian civilization that China
perfected.
Furthermore, the Confucian tributary rituals performed between the Ming as the suzerain and
Chosǒn as the vassal carried great importance, as they could be used as sources of legitimation
targeting domestic audience amid power struggles, as seen in the case of Chosǒn, and to the Ming,
receiving tributary missions from vassal states bolstered the Ming emperors’ claim and status as
the recipient of the Mandate of Heaven. In short, these tributary rituals were mutually beneficial
for both sides. For example, Ji-young Lee (2017) details the mechanism how political leaders’
efforts to legitimize their position against their opponents in the domestic realm had direct effects
on hegemonic authority. And in early modern East Asian IR, external recognition, namely
investiture, by the Chinese empire, the regional hegemon, enhanced political leaders’ legitimacy
within the subordinate states, as the symbolic power of the Chinese empire had strategic
implications for domestic power struggles in its neighboring states. It was when China’s neighbors
were under anarchic conditions in the domestic realm, or in the process of creating a new political
order that their rulers found China's symbolic recognition of their identity as rulers (the practice of
investiture) instrumental for enhancing their domestic position vis-a-vis their rivals (Lee 2017,
169). This is also illustrated in her case study of Ming-Chosǒn diplomatic relations (Lee 2013;
2016). Similarly, in another study by Kye (2010) on the relationship between king Chungjong (r.
1506-1544) of Chosǒn and Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521-1567) of the Ming, the mutual benefits for
93
both the Ming and Chosǒn were also noted. Chungjong, as a king installed in a coup, was eager to
link himself more intimately with the Ming emperor, who was the higher authority vis-à-vis his
own country, from which he received investiture, and thus recognition as the legitimate ruler of
Chosǒn. To the Jiajing Emperor, who frequently provoked his officials with a variety of ritual
controversies, the congratulatory missions from Chosŏn showed that he was the legitimate Son of
Heaven as he received the envoys from his empire’s vassal states. Here in this story, both the king
of Chosǒn and the emperor of China needed the rituals performed by each other to bolster their
own legitimacy.
The Relative Peace between the Ming Dynasty and its Confucian Vassals
Empirical evidence from the Chronology of Wars in China through Successive Dynasties
(Zhongguo lidai zhangzheng nianbiao, 中國歷代 戰爭年表) revealed that there were actually only
two wars
45
happened between the Sinicized states during the Ming dynasty, and both wars were
results of consideration of Confucian ideas and rhetoric regarding the hegemon’s responsibility
vis-à-vis its subordinates. One of the two wars was the Ming’s invasion of Dai Viet from 1407 to
1428, in order to restore legitimate ruler for its vassal state, which is a responsibility of the suzerain.
The other war was Japanese invasion of Chosǒn from 1592 to 1598, and again, in this case the
Ming had the responsibility to come to the rescue of its most loyal vassal when it was attacked by
another state actor outside of the system. Another study by Kang et al. (2016) incorporates the
datasets of wars from Chinese sources, the Chronology of Wars in China, and Korean sources, the
Chronology of Wars of the Korean People, and finds out that “only 34 out of 822 conflicts of any
type (4.1 percent of the total incidents) involved China, Korea, Vietnam, or Japan” (Kang et al.
45
The data came from table 5.1 on page 83 of Kang 2010a.
94
2016, 770) and if just those coded as wars are counted, this paper comes up with the same result
as Kang (2010a), meaning that only two wars between these states, one between China and
Vietnam, another between Japan and China. These data show the relative peaceful nature of
international relations among state actors in historical East Asia.
Among these two cases of wars between China and Sinic states recorded in the Chronology
of Wars in China according to Kang (2010a), what happened after the Chinese were defeated and
withdrew from Dai Viet proved to be counterintuitive, as this contradicts the prediction of
structural realism model. And thus this case can be seen as another piece of evidence that the
Ming’s hegemony was based on the Confucian ideational power, and that Confucianism served as
the binding power of the hierarchical international system under the Ming domination. Dai Viet
successfully resisted Ming China’s attempted conquest, hence demonstrated that it was powerful
enough in this military confrontation with its suzerain. According to the structural realist
perspective, the distribution of capabilities shifted in favor of Dai Viet, and the victorious side
should be no longer willing to remain subordinate to China, which was after all defeated. In this
sense this should be the least likely case for my argument that their hierarchical relationship was
based on ideational power to be valid. Yet after the victory, Dai Viet continued to pay tribute to the
Ming (Ngo 1479, 563; Kang 2010a, 101), which it just defeated, and accepted to be a member on
the second tier of the hierarchy below China. This is a strong and convincing piece of evidence
that here in East Asia, authority was the cause of stability, and the explicit hierarchical order
explained why the region has been relatively stable (Kang 2010a, 101). This also echoes Robert
Kelly’s observation that the Confucian value of hierarchical order is one of the key elements in
East Asia’s long peace (Kelly 2012). In sum, this hierarchical system observed in historical East
Asia during the Ming dynasty was based on not just its material power, but more importantly, it
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was the superior ideational power of the leader, China, that maintained such hierarchical system
and made other members voluntarily accept such ranked order.
On the other hand, the Ming’s relations with non-Confucian entities were not as peaceful as
those with Chosǒn and Dai Viet. For example, Iain Johnston (1995, 216) argues that the Ming
could adopt offensive strategies towards the Mongols when it was capable of doing so, namely,
“when the relative balance of capabilities clearly favored them” (Johnston 1995, 243). Similarly,
David Robinson points out that “early Ming emperors frequently warred with Mongol rulers”
(Robinson 2020, 16). Though they did not fight with all Mongols, as “Ming emperors tried to
weaken or eliminate individual Mongol foes at the same time they sought Mongol allies”
(Robinson 2020, 16).
The first emperor of the Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang, as well as other early Ming emperors did try
to win the allegiance of the Mongols, as securing their loyalty was essential to the newly founded
Ming’s legitimacy in a still largely Chinggisid world order in east Eurasia, and it would also
legitimate their claim as the new universal ruler replacing the Yuan in this Chinggisid world
(Robinson 2020, chapter 1). Though later the Tumu Crisis in 1449 would be the watershed that
marked the fundamental change of the Ming’s overall strategic towards the Mongols (Rossabi
1998, 235; Wang 1998, 322). Johnston (1995) notes that as the Ming’s relative capacity declined
vis-à-vis the Mongols, especially after the Tumu Crisis with the defeat of the Ming and the capture
of the emperor, the Ming did recognize this change and shifted to a more defensive strategy. And
then Robinson (2020, 132-133) notes that the main significance of Esen’s capture of the emperor
was a deep and long-lasting negative sentiment against the Mongols, and by extension, against all
the alien conquerors, and the Tumu incident was also the moment when the Ming court began to
adopt an increasingly passive posture vis-à-vis the Mongols. The Ming’s approach to external
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affairs also turned inward, preferring to deal with the Confucian tributary vassals only. According
to Wills (1998, 338), “many Ming statesmen seem to have believed that no embassy should be
accepted from a ruler who had not been enrolled among the tributary states during the first reigns
of the dynasty.”
Although the Ming was indeed defeated by the Oirat Mongols and its emperor captured,
however, I would like to note that, the Tumu Crisis was just one battle that the Ming lost, and this
defeat did not result in the Oirats occupying China or replacing the Ming as the new hegemon of
East Asia. This was similar to the situation a few decades ago before the Tumu Crisis, when the
Vietnamese drove the occupying Ming forces out in 1427, known as the Lam Son uprising, and
restore Dai Viet as an independent entity. In that case, the Ming’s defeat did not mean it had lost
its hegemony, or the winning side Vietnam had dethroned the Ming as the new regional hegemon.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier in this chapter, following Vietnam’s victory, actually it would end
up recognizing the Ming as is suzerain again. Therefore, while I recognize that the Ming could be
and had been defeated by other entities, however Ming China still remained the hegemon of East
Asia, and the structure of the international system in the region did not change.
Legitimizing the Qing Dynasty’s Hegemony with the Confucian
Ideational Power
The Qing, and its predecessor Later Jin, had been consciously constructing a hierarchical
international order centered on itself using Confucian political rhetoric (Wang 2015). The Qing
dynasty not only adopted Confucianism as their source of ideational power when facing the Han
constituents within their border; this same source of ideational power also functioned in
legitimizing their dominance of certain vassal states in the hierarchical tributary system centered
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on China: Chosǒn (present-day Korea), Annam (present-day Vietnam), and Ryūkyū (present-day
Okinawa). These states were the most Confucianized states that used the Chinese characters as
their official writing script and had participated in the Chinese-led Tributary System for centuries.
46
In order to maintain a dominating yet stable and peaceful hierarchical relationship with these states,
the Qing needed to legitimize its position as the overlord of these states. The source of legitimation
that the Qing rulers found viable was to become Confucians themselves and present that image to
these vassals, thereby continuing the practice of the previous Chinese dynasties.
The Significance of Chosǒn in the Qing’s Hegemonic Enterprise
Among the Confucian tributary states of the Qing, Chosǒn was the first one that was included in
the Qing international hierarchy. During the times of Later Jin, Hong Taiji’s troops invaded Chosǒn
for the first time in 1627 (Wang 2018, 25). In the post-conflict bilateral relationship between the
Later Jin and Chosǒn, the former was the elder brother and the latter the younger one. Yet when
Chosǒn kept its close interactions with the Ming and allegiance, Hong Taiji decided to launch a
second invasion that would completely subdue Chosǒn and make it a subordinate vassal state
(Wang 2018, 37). Despite military coercion was used, it is noteworthy that Hong Taiji’s Qing also
attempted to persuade the Chosǒn to comply and recognize its legitimacy as the new zhongguo ( 中
國, the central state) using Confucian rhetoric (Wang 2015; 2017; Wang 2018).
What the Qing attempted to do was to imitate the tributary relationship that had been built by
the Ming to interact with its vassals, and during the process, borrowing Confucian political
ideology to provide the authoritative rhetoric that would render the Qing sufficient legitimacy to
46
Note that Rawski (2015) points out that, for these Northeast Asian states such as Korea and Japan that she studies
in this specific work, using Chinese characters in their languages and borrowing and imitating Chinese political
system does not equal Sinicization. These countries still retained their own identity that is different from China and
from each other, which could be seen in the rituals they performed, their social structures, cultures and norms.
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claim that itself is the zhongguo that has virtue and receives the Mandate of Heaven to rule (Wang
2015; 2018, chapters 1-2). To construct itself as the Central State, or zhongguo, the Manchu state
had to transform itself from within first by importing Chinese style institutions and culture.
Also, the Manchu state’s relationship with Chosǒn played a pivotal role in reshaping the
political identity of the Jurchen/Manchu regime (Wang 2015, 96). In dealing with Chosǒn during
its rise, the Later Jin aimed at reshaping its image as barbarian, which was imposed by the
Confucian Ming and Chosǒn. Rawski (2015, chapter 5) analyzes the discourse of the civilized
(hua, 華) and barbarian (yi, 夷) in different societies in early modern East Asia, and during the
Ming-Qing transition, to the Koreans, yi did not just designated their own domestic periphery, but
also was applied against the Manchus to assert their own visions of the Asian world order (i.e.
Korea would be more civilized and legitimate to be the center of the world order compared to the
Manchus after the Ming was replaced by the Qing). And in this process, the Manchu regime
derived political and cultural resources primarily from its relations with Chosǒn to validate and
reinforce its position as the center in the Sinic world order and depict its relations with other
countries as hierarchical zongfan (tributary) relations. Essentially, the interaction between the Later
Jin/Qing and Chosǒn “consolidated the Manchu regime’s identity as zhongguo and propelled the
processes of the Sinicization of the regime.” (Wang 2015, 97). Wang then also notes that the use
of Chinese political rhetoric of this sort meant to achieve a political goal by transforming the
regime from a “barbarian” one on the periphery of the Ming centric world into a new center of
gravity in a Jin-dominated world (2015, 102).
Most importantly, Hong Taiji’s attempt to have Chosǒn as its vassal was also because Chosǒn
has long been known as the most Confucianized state after China itself, and also the most loyal
ally of China, and that Chosǒn’s identity as “Little China” (Robinson 2000; Sun 2012; Kye 2014)
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represented political significance. Securing Chosǒn’s allegiance would send out a clear signal to
the rest of Ming China’s Confucian vassal states: If the Little China recognized Qing’s legitimacy
as the recipient of the Mandate of Heaven replacing the Ming, then it would be a piece of
persuasive evidence that could attract more vassals to leave the Ming camp and join the Qing
side.
47
This signifies that Chosǒn was actually an essential part of the Qing’s international
hierarchy based on the Confucian ideational power. Chosǒn’s recognition and endorsement of the
Qing-led hierarchical order would be the starting point for the Qing to win over other Confucian
states.
Chosǒn as the Model Tributary Vassal of the Qing’s Confucian-based Hierarchy
The Chinese-led East Asian tributary system and the hierarchical international order functioned
within that system was based on the Confucian ideology. The states that participated in this
hierarchical system all shared certain Confucian features: social order, culture, government
institutions, etc. Within such a multistate system, why choose Korea as the case to be examined
here in this chapter? I argue that as Korea was the most representative tributary vassal state of
China, it helps us understand how this international hierarchy based on a certain type of non-
material, ideational power actually functioned if we carefully study and analyze this case. Indeed,
Korea was the model tributary of China, as pointed out in John Fairbank’s influential edited work
“The Chinese World Order” on Chinese tributary system (1968, 90). And that the Koreans
themselves also considered their state the most Confucian state after China itself. Therefore, in my
examination of the use of Confucian ideational power in the historical East Asian international
hierarchy, Korea, and to be more specifically, Korea’s Chosǒn dynasty (1392-1897) as the tributary
47
This view is also shared by Yuanchong Wang (2015, 107-108).
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vassal of the Qing empire of China, is chosen to be the case study presented here.
In the Qing’s attempt of forming a hierarchical international system under its dominance,
having the Confucian and Sinicized tributary states of its predecessor, the Ming, participate in such
a system was an essential component. The Qing firstly approached Chosǒn, which was not only
one of the most long-term vassal states of the Chinese empires, but also the most loyal vassal of
the Ming.
48
Chosǒn and its predecessor Koryǒ had been participating in the East Asian tributary
system led by Chinese dynasties. For the Qing, the meaning of securing Chosǒn as its vassal is
manifold. Once having Chosǒn on its side, the Qing could prevent the Ming from gaining extra
support in its military campaign against the Ming, weakening its rival. Furthermore, the Qing
actually demanded Chosǒn to provide support in its battles against the Ming. But more importantly,
the significance of the Qing securing Chosǒn as its vassal state and recognizing its suzerainty was
that Chosǒn has long been part of the East Asian tributary system dominated by China, and that it
was also considered the most Confucian state after China, thus the completion of such task,
especially having Chosǒn switch its recognition from the Ming to the Qing, would provide the
Qing a strong case to its claim that the Mandate of Heaven has shifted to its favor, now that the
most Confucian state after China in this international system based and functioned on Confucian
ideology has recognized the Qing as its suzerain, and the rest should follow suit.
Although Chosǒn was firstly coerced to be a vassal of the Qing after two Manchu invasions,
and it had still not wholeheartedly accepted the fact that the Qing has become its new suzerain,
considering the strong affection that Chosǒn had towards the Ming after the Imjin War, later in the
late eighteenth century, Chosǒn scholars began to argue that Chosǒn should now properly respect
48
Chosǒn was extremely grateful for the Ming dynasty of China, since the Ming helped it defeated the invading
Japanese led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the Imjin War (1592-1598). Therefore Chosǒn had felt that it was indebted
to the Ming for having protected Chosǒn and restoring its independence.
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the Qing, not because of the Qing’s strong political or military power, but because now they
considered that the Qing had become the successor of the great Confucian culture that they
worshipped (Chun 1968, 111). This observation resulted from the long-term interactions that
Chosǒn had with the Qing during the frequent tributary missions sent to Beijing. Soon after the
foundation of the Qing in 1636, Chosǒn was subdued and become the Qing’s vassal state in 1637.
Since then, Chosǒn had been sending tributary missions to the Qing regularly. The historical data
documenting the tributary missions sent by Chosǒn to the Qing showed that embassies went to
China from the very beginning of the Qing-Chosǒn hierarchical relationship in 1637 up until 1894,
which was the last year that Chosǒn participated in the Chinese-led tributary system until it was
forced into the Japanese-dominated East Asian international order after the first Sino-Japanese War.
In between, there were 435 embassies in total and the average number of visits of Chosǒn tributary
missions to the Qing was 1.5 per year (Kang 2010a, 59). In these tributary missions, the Chosǒn
scholar-officials were able to interact with their Chinese counterparts and bring back scholarship
that contributed to the Chinese and Confucian cultural influence on the Korean society.
Managing the Qing-Chosǒn Border Dispute: A Case Study of How the Qing-Chosǒn
Hierarchy Functioned Based on Confucianism
An example illustrating how the Qing-Chosǒn bilateral hierarchical relationship was conducted
based on the Confucian ideology and appropriate tributary rituals could be seen in the case of how
the two sides dealt with each other regarding border disputes.
49
In 1710, a Chosǒn subject named
Yi Mangon crossed the border and entered the Qing territories illegally with his associates. They
49
The case is excerpted from Schmid, Andre. 2007. “Tributary Relations and The Qing-Chosǒn Frontier on Mount
Paektu.” In The Chinese State at the Borders, edited by Diana Lary, 126-150. Vancouver: University of British
Columbia Press.
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stole ginseng from the Chinese and also killed some Chinese subjects, before returning to Korea.
Facing the criminal act and illegal crossing committed by the subjects of Chosǒn, the Qing court
decided to dispatch an envoy to investigate the matter, and to conduct surveys of the Qing-Chosǒn
frontier in order to clearly mark the shared border of the two sides (Schmidt 2007). The Qing envoy,
Mukedeng, received imperial edict directly from the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661-1622) himself
ordering him to travel to Mount Paektu to investigate and clarify the actual border. This, however,
caused unease from the side of Chosǒn, as Chosǒn officials were concerned that the Manchus
might actually utilize such an occasion to gather sensitive military strategic information of Chosǒn
in the borderland.
In order to prevent the Manchus from achieving what Chosǒn feared, Chosǒn adopted a policy
of unproductive cooperation in a sense that the officials accompanying the Qing envoy would do
everything they could to deceive him and delay his trip with some difficulties, in the hope of
eventually having him give up his mission (Schmidt 2007). Moreover, Chosǒn was also hoping to
resort to the Board of Rites (禮部, the government ministry responsible for handling external
relations with the Sinicized, Confucian tributary vassal states) of the Qing court to have the envoy
stopped. Though in the end all their efforts failed, and the Qing envoy managed to reach the area
where Chosǒn had hoped to keep him away from.
On the other hand, despite having accomplished what the Kangxi Emperor ordered him to do,
Mukedeng did face enormous hardship imposed by his Chosǒn counterparts accompanying him
along the way. When his first mission concluded he did not report the uncooperative behaviors of
the Chosǒn side. And he did this for a reason. As he was representing the Qing, the overlord of
Chosǒn in the tributary system, he was supposed to “impress Chosǒn officials with the imperial
aura and to command their respect” (Schmid 2007, 139). And if he were to make the mistreatment
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that he encountered known to the emperor, this “would suggest, according to the legitimizing
devices used by the court, that the virtue of the emperor was less than assured across his realm”
(Schmid 2007, 139). In short, to report his mistreatment would reveal that this hierarchical
tributary relationship was not functioning in the ideal way that it should have been. Therefore, in
order to not to show this discrepancy between the ideal image of the tributary relationship and the
reality, what Mukedeng actually encountered was only documented in the memorials from the
Chosǒn side, and could not be found in Qing documents.
The Chosǒn officials were seemingly accommodating the Qing envoy’s request, but were
determined to hold him up and keep him away from certain areas in the dark. The Qing envoy was
indeed mistreated, but decided not to report the truth to the emperor. Though both sides’ reactions
might seem odd, yet it is important to note that what they had done all conformed with appropriate
tributary rituals, and thus preserve the ideal image of the tributary system, as the Chosǒn officials
did not use force to make the Qing envoy abandon his mission, nor did they deny his request
entirely, and the Qing envoy was trying to convey to his emperor that the tributary system
functioned in a faultless way as what it ought to be. In this case we could see that the tributary
rituals served as the medium for the two sides to deal with a variety of issues, including disputes,
and despite however reluctant Chosǒn was to comply with the request of its suzerain, it never dared
to deviate from the proper manner of being a loyal tributary vassal and its duty of “serving the
great.”
Conclusion
From the Sino-Korean bilateral relations across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, we could
observe that while Korea did consistently participate in the Chinese-led hierarchical international
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order, however the model that the Chinese imperial dynasties legitimized their domination over
Korea did not remain unchanged. In the Yuan era, a strategy of assimilation was adopted, and the
Mongols tried to make Koryǒ its trusted ally by maintaining familial ties through the marriages
between the royalty of the two countries. This is a special case in the Sino-Korean relationship of
over two millennia, as China’s domination of Korea was not legitimized through the Confucian
political ideology. And this case demonstrates that, even for the most representative example of
Chinese vassal, China’s legitimation does not necessarily come from only one single source of
ideational power, namely Confucian civilization.
Korea in the Chosǒn dynasty, however, embraced Confucianism and the Ming’s as well as
the Qing’s domination of Korea were both based on the Confucian ideational power. Despite the
fact that the two Chinese dynasties were the indisputable hegemon of East Asia and thus the most
powerful state actor in the system, we must note that Korean subordination to China was not
entirely a result of China’s superior material or military power. After all, China did not send out
large amount of army to occupy Korea or to be stationed there to secure Korean subordination or
maintain Chinese domination, even after the several military campaigns by Hong Taiji against
Chosǒn. What made Korea remain a vassal to the Chinese hegemon was that China made efforts
to establish appropriate political authority to legitimize its claim as the suzerain of Korea and its
domination. Hence Confucian civilization, along with the Confucian rhetoric favoring order and
the mandate of heaven, were all what the Ming and the Qing utilized as ideational power. In sum,
from the cases of how China across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties established and legitimized
their domination of Korea, we can understand that international hierarchical orders are not solely
achieved through material power. Ideational power that the hegemons utilize to establish authority
and to legitimize their domination plays an essential role in the process.
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Chapter Six: Conclusion, Scholarly Contributions, and Empirical
Implications
In the concluding chapter I will first summarize the findings in this dissertation, and then offer the
scholarly contribution that my dissertation brings to the field. Furthermore, I will also provide
some empirical implications that this research has to say about contemporary international
relations and China and East Asian studies. This dissertation is an interdisciplinary research project
relevant to international relations, Chinese history, and East Asian regional studies. It specifically
engages with recently emerging scholarship focusing on international relations of historical East
Asia. Moreover, this dissertation makes an original contribution to existing scholarship by defying
the conventional wisdom of the Confucian Peace theory. It provides an alternative account of
China’s hegemony over historical East Asia, and it also fills in a gap in the IR literature on
historical East Asia.
Summary of the Findings
During the nearly six centuries of uninterrupted Chinese hegemony over East Asia from 1279 to
1840, despite the fact that China across the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties remained the
indisputable hegemon and the most powerful state actor of the international system in the region,
the extent of China’s hegemony actually varied significantly. The main difference lies in whether
China could control the non-Confucian cultural sphere, usually the region of Inner Asia.
The variation in the extent of China’s hegemony occurred when China’s status as the regional
hegemon and the most powerful state actor in the region was held constant, which informs us IR
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scholars that a state’s material power, especially military capabilities, cannot explain this variation
in the extent of its hegemony that we are witnessing. To explain such a puzzling phenomenon, the
author argues that ideational power was the key variable that can account for the changing extent
of Chinese hegemony. When China possessed and utilized multiple sources of ideational power,
its hegemony would be able to expand beyond the confined Confucian cultural sphere of the
Tributary System to incorporate entities in Inner Asia, such as Tibet and Mongolia. And China’s
changing relationship with Tibet and Korea across the three dynasties serves as the representative
case supporting this argument.
From the case studies of how the Yuan and the Qing established their domination of Tibet in
this dissertation, we can understand that Tibetan Buddhism served as an important source of
ideational power providing an aspiring hegemon with the necessary authority that legitimized its
domination of other entities in the international system of this part of the world. This political
authority deriving from a religious source also helped legitimize the Yuan and the Qing’s claims
to be universal empires. When a Chinese dynasty adopted Tibetan Buddhism and used it to appeal
to the Tibetans to establish political authority that could legitimize China’s hegemony over Tibet,
then Tibet would be included in the extent of China’s hegemony. This happened in the Yuan and
the Qing dynasties, but not the Ming in between.
And then, the case of Korea informs us IR scholars studying historical East Asia and Chinese
hegemony that, even to the second most Confucianized entity in the Tributary System, the Little
China, and the model tributary state of China, the legitimation of China’s hegemony and
domination over Korea was not always based on Confucianism. This could be seen in the Yuan
dynasty’s efforts of assimilating the rulers of Koryǒ to make them more Mongol-like, as well as
the intermarriages between the ruling houses of the Yuan and Koryǒ, as well as the marriages
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between Yuan princesses and Koryǒ kings that established blood ties and familial relations
between the ruling houses of the two entities.
In short, the main finding of this dissertation is that, historically the more successful Chinese
empires enjoying the most expansive extent of their hegemony in East Asia utilized multiple
sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism to legitimize their domination over other entities
in a hierarchical international system. From such a finding an implication for how an aspiring
hegemon (such as contemporary China) should design its grand strategy could be drawn: relying
on material power alone, or only one single source of ideational power to establish authority would
not be sufficient for an aspiring hegemon’s successful domination over other state actors in a
complex international system made of heterogeneous units. This is exactly the scenario that we are
facing in the contemporary world. Not all units in the system accept one single form of authority
and legitimacy from the hegemon. This implies that trying to promote just one form of ideational
power to appeal to a group of heterogeneous state actors would not work effectively. And this
informs foreign policy decision makers that there is no one-size-fits-all type of ideational power
that would be universally valid when it comes to establishing legitimacy and appealing to other
state actors for them to comply with the hegemon. There has to be more than just one gadget that
could work effectively in the hegemon’s toolkit.
Engaging the Relevant IR Literature and Scholarly Contributions
As China is rising and trying to wield more power in global affairs, studying what China as
hegemon was like historically has increasingly drawn the interests of more IR scholars. There has
been an emerging cluster of IR scholarship focusing on the hierarchical order that existed in
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historical East Asia under Chinese hegemony in recent decades,
50
and this scholarship continues
to thrive. This is not just because of the interests in China, but also because of the fundamental
differences found in the international system of historical East Asia compared to the empirical
experiences of the West and Europe. Here in this part of the world, hierarchy was the norm, instead
of anarchy, and there was no constant balancing behaviors against the hegemon, therefore the
system was marked by a lack of wars and conflicts among its members.
Unlike the anarchical international system in the West made of formally equal sovereign states
each competing for more power and hegemony after the Peace of Westphalia, in East Asia the
system has been a stable and peaceful hierarchy, with one state actor, China, constantly sitting on
the top. Certain works on historical East Asian international relations attribute the long-lasting
peace in this region and the stable international hierarchy to one single ideational factor, which is
a shared Confucian civilization among the state actors that served as the foundation legitimizing
Chinese superiority over its tributary vassals in the system. However, in this dissertation I
challenge and defy that conventional wisdom by arguing that, historically China as the successful
hegemon of East Asia, actually possessed multiple sources of ideational power beyond
Confucianism to establish its authority to legitimize its domination over various subordinates.
China’s multiple sources of ideational power included Tibetan Buddhism and the Mongol and
Manchu traditions during the Yuan and Qing dynasties respectively, in addition to Confucianism.
This explains why China was able to expand its hegemony beyond a few neighboring tributary
states to include areas such as Mongolia, Tibet, and all the way into Inner Asia. Furthermore, this
dissertation pushes the boundaries of the studies of IR in historical East Asia by showing that stable
Chinese domination based on authority instead of conquest could and did happen in regions outside
50
See, for example, Hui 2005; Kang 2010a; 2010b; Wang 2011; Kelly 2012; Zhang 2015; Lee 2017; and Park 2017.
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of the Confucian cultural sphere, which can be seen in the case of Tibet.
Many decades ago, renowned Sinologists such as John King Fairbank (1968) had written
about the Tributary System led by China in historical East Asia. Within that hierarchical
international system, the participants were ranked by their affinity to the Confucian civilization.
More recent works in the IR literature on historical East Asia also tend to contribute the long lasting
peace in this region and the stable international hierarchy dominated by China to one single
ideational factor, which was the shared Confucian civilization among the states actors here in the
East Asian international system. This served as the foundation legitimizing Chinese superiority
over its tributary vassals in the system (Kang 2010a; 2010b; Kelly 2012). In a way, these
scholarship have suggested either explicitly or implicitly that there existed a Confucian “imagined
community,” borrowing the term coined by Benedict Anderson (1983), based on the common
Confucian culture shared among its members in historical East Asia. Here in this dissertation I
collectively refer to such an argument as the Confucian Peace theory.
The Confucian Peace theory has been considered the conventional wisdom explaining
China’s relative stable and peaceful domination of historical East Asia. However, the Confucian
Peace theory has also met with some challenges recently (Hsieh 2017; Phillips 2018; Brook et al.
2018). In a recent study (Brook et al. 2018), three different genres of civilizational authority, or
“worlds” that had shaped international relations in historical Asia have been identified: Confucian
Sinic, Chinggisid Mongol, and Tibetan Buddhist. And in this dissertation I challenge and defy such
a conventional wisdom by arguing that, historically China as the successful hegemon of East Asia,
possessed multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism to establish its authority to
legitimize its domination over various subordinates within the extent of its hegemony. The multiple
sources of ideational power including Tibetan Buddhism and the Mongol and Manchu traditions
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of the Yuan and Qing respectively, and that Confucianism was only one of the many sources of
ideational power being utilized. This explains why China was able to expand its hegemony beyond
neighboring tributary states and reach further to include areas such as Tibet and Mongolia in Inner
Asia. And China’s domination and hegemony over Inner Asia, or any of the non-Confucian spheres,
is something that the Confucian Peace theory cannot explain. Such a finding of this dissertation
contributes to the existing IR scholarship focusing on historical East Asia and Chinese hegemony,
as the most widely recognized and discussed source of ideational power providing China the
authority legitimatizing its domination in the relevant literature has so far been limited to
Confucian civilization only and ignored others. Furthermore, China’s domination of Inner Asia, as
well as China’s hegemony during the Yuan dynasty, are both something the existing IR literature
focusing on historical East Asia and Chinese hegemony did not consider, and this dissertation can
help fill in this gap in the literature.
Empirical Implications for Contemporary IR and China Studies
Here I would like to explain how a study on historical East Asian international relations could have
implications for the contemporary world. I argue that this dissertation project is important and
relevant because it sheds lights on how a hegemon should design its grand strategy focusing on
attracting as many and various followers as possible utilizing ideational power instead of material
power. This empirical implication is relevant to the contemporary world, as now we are witnessing
China as a resurging great power in the international arena. Analyzing and understanding how this
superpower behaves on the global stage and conducts its foreign policies is crucial to scholars of
international relations and Chinese studies. And studying what historically China had done under
similar conditions when it was the most powerful state actor in the region could help scholars draw
111
useful inferences to better understand China’s present and anticipate possible developments in the
future. This research, therefore, is empirically relevant and can contribute to the disciplines of
international relations and China studies.
The primary empirical implication drawn from this dissertation is that, for a hegemon, relying
on one single source of ideational power to appeal to all members within the system would not be
sufficient for its successful domination over other state actors in a complex international system
made of heterogeneous units. For certain scholars who argue that America is gradually losing its
hegemony, the lack of diverse appeal to different followers might be the reason. Reich and Lebow
(2014) discusses the limits of material power and the importance of legitimacy in determining
America’s global influence. They point out that, although the United States maintains enormous
military and economic capabilities, its actual influence and legitimacy are seriously limited in
today’s multipower world, and the U.S. is increasingly incapable of translating its power into
influence.
51
The truth is that, there are certain state actors who do not embrace the values of
democracy, freedom, human rights, free trade, etc. that the United States has championed and tried
to promote on the global stage. When faced with such actors, America as the hegemon would need
to resort to other means to appeal to them and establish the authority that could legitimize the claim
that they ought to follow America’s lead.
This implication applies also to contemporary East Asia, as we are now witnessing China as
a resurging great power in the region. If indeed China is aiming to replace the U.S. as the new
global or regional hegemon, it is noteworthy whether it designs a grand strategy with the use of
multiple sources of ideational power or only uses material power such as military coercion or
51
Reich and Lebow (2014) even argues that the United States has often been a source of political and economic
instability. Though they also point out that the United States is most effective when emphasizing persuasion and
sponsorship, and that the roles of hegemon are agenda setting, economic custodianship, and the sponsorship of
global initiatives.
112
economic buy-offs. Although the author should point out that, the topics of whether there is
actually an imminent power transition from the U.S. to China, or if China is powerful enough to
take over the U.S. as the new hegemon, or would conflicts between the two sides be inevitable,
are debatable in academia and the policy circle.
52
For example, Clark (2011b), who conceptualizes
hegemony as an institution based on legitimacy, argues that while there are indicators of a shift in
the material distribution of power between the U.S. and China, this however does not imply a
hegemonic succession. For Clark, it requires effective socialization of the aspirant hegemon’s
purpose and support for its preferred order for a hegemonic succession from the U.S. to China to
happen. And according to him, to date China has been largely content to operate within existing
frameworks, rather than instigate a revision of them, and does not yet present a model for emulation
elsewhere. This argument implies that China might be a status quo power and does not intend to
promote alternate international order under its lead. The author of this dissertation has discussed
the prospects of Chinese hegemony in another paper (Hsieh 2022). I point out that so far China’s
strategy to appeal to other state actors still overly relies on its material power, instead of building
up its ideational power to establish acceptable authority that other state actors would accept. For
example, China’s Belt and Road Initiative manifests its intent to win over the support of other
countries through the use of economic incentives. So do the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership both initiated by China. This coupled with
China’s increasing military activities in the Asia-Pacific with the intention to either impress or
coerce other countries clearly indicates that China’s grand strategy is largely based on material
power, and the use of ideational power is lacking. If China’s past can shed light on its present and
52
To name a few representative examples, in as early as the 1990s, Aaron Friedberg (1993) has written that a
multipolar Asia after the Cold War could be “Ripe for Rivalry.” Similarly, Mearsheimer (2001) also predicts that
power competition and conflicts between the current hegemon the U.S. and the rising power China would be
inevitable due to the logic of offensive realism.
113
future, we could argue that its current strategy would not lead to a revival of Chinese hegemony
regionally, let alone globally.
In sum, the main point that I want to raise in this dissertation is that, there is no one-size-fits-
all type of ideational power that is universally valid when it comes to establishing legitimacy and
appealing to potential followers. There has to be more than just one gadget in the hegemon’s tool
kit in order to work effectively.
The same observation applies to contemporary Chinese politics as well. What can explain
why all of the regimes established in China after the fall of the Qing dynasty could not maintain
effective control of peripheral regions such as Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet? For example, Outer
Mongolia has become an independent state, not a region or province of China. And nowadays why
does the People’s Republic constantly face civil unrest in the latter two regions? This research
implies that the primary reason has been the Chinese central government’s lack of acceptable
authority in the eyes of the local population. Chinese governments has been relying almost entirely
on one single source of ideational power — Han Chinese nationalism, to generate their authority
and legitimacy, after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 that toppled the Manchu-Qing dynasty. From
the slogan of “Expel the Barbarians, Restore China” of the revolution, we can see that the nascent
nation-state of the Republic of China and its state-building enterprise was actually a project based
on Han Chinese nationalism, which was a sharp contrast against the grand strategies adopted by
the expansive former Chinese empires of the Yuan and the Qing.
The situation in the era of the People’s Republic did not change much either. Essentially the
regime has been trying to make the peripheral regions and the minorities less different, and more
114
like China proper and the Han Chinese.
53
This explains well why the peoples in China’s different
peripheral regions nowadays are reluctant to accept the legitimacy that the central government
claims over them. Had there been proper authority and legitimacy claimed by Beijing that were
simultaneously accepted by its Uyghur and Tibetan constituents, there would not have been much
conflict in those regions. What happened in Hong Kong was not much different, as Beijing was
trying to make this Special Administrative Region less special and more like the rest of China
under its control. Understandably the local population resisted such policies with fierce protests
and even violence. This suggests that there would need to be certain tailor-made arrangements that
could reestablish proper legitimacy for the Chinese central government in these regions, otherwise
resistance will likely continue to be present in Xinjiang, Tibet, and now Hong Kong. With this
empirical implication in mind, this research is not only pertinent to the discipline of international
relations, but also relevant to contemporary Chinese studies as well.
53
This view is echoed by Rawski (2015), who explicitly argues that the People’s Republic emphasizes unity and the
Han-centric version of Chinese history, creating many problems for its governance of the various ethnicities in the
regions in its periphery.
115
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
What explains the variation in the extent of China’s hegemony when China’s status as the hegemon of East Asia remains constant? Throughout much of the time in East Asia’s long history, China has been the most powerful state actor dominating its neighbors as the indisputable hegemon. However, one curious phenomenon was that the extent of China’s hegemony never remained the same, and actually varied significantly across different dynasties. More specifically, this dissertation looks at the longest uninterrupted time of Chinese hegemony over East Asia, from the Yuan conquest of China in 1279 to the decline of Chinese supremacy beginning from the Opium War in 1840, to better illustrate and explain such a variation.
If China remained the most militarily powerful state actor in the international system of historical East Asia, and the level of its power relative to other state actors also remained constant, why did the extent of Chinese hegemony vary significantly over time, specifically during the nearly six hundred years from the Yuan dynasty to the late Qing when China was the indisputable and unchallenged hegemon of East Asia? This is the puzzle that this dissertation aims to answer. And I argue that material power, especially military capabilities, cannot account for the changes in the extent of China’s hegemony. My argument is that during certain periods of time China utilized multiple sources of ideational power in addition to Confucianism to legitimize its hegemony and domination of other political entities, and this was the key variable explaining why sometimes the extent of Chinese hegemony was able to expand beyond the Tributary System to incorporate areas such as Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, while other times its domain was confined to the Confucian cultural sphere.
China’s material power, especially its military capability, cannot explain why the extent of China’s hegemony varied over time when it remained the hegemon of East Asia, as China needed to resort to ideational power to establish its authority that legitimized its domination over its subordinates in the hierarchical international system. The conventional wisdom explaining China’s successful domination of its vassals and a stable and peaceful international hierarchy in East Asia under Chinese hegemony contributes these outcomes to one single ideational factor, which was the Confucian civilization that China perfected and shared among its vassal states. This conventional wisdom is termed the Confucian Peace theory in the dissertation. However, there were certain periods of time when the extent of China’s hegemony expanded beyond the Confucian cultural sphere, which this conventional wisdom of Confucian Peace in the existing literature cannot explain. My dissertation therefore provides academic originality and contributes to the scholarship by negating the limited conventional wisdom, and argues that there were multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism that contributed to China’s domination of other entities. The more various the sources of ideational power China possessed and utilized, the broader its hegemony could expand.
This dissertation engages with an emerging cluster of literature in international relations (IR) focusing on historical East Asia, and contributes to not only international relations and political science but also Chinese and East Asian studies. And this dissertation advances IR scholars’ understanding of historical Chinese hegemony by proposing a new argument explaining how China was able to establish and maintain its domination, which emphasizes the function of multiple sources of ideational power in addition to Confucianism. Here in this dissertation I present a broader picture of China’s domination over historical East Asia by explaining that Chinese hegemony has been based on other sources of ideational power such as Tibetan Buddhism and Mongol and Manchu traditions during the Yuan and Qing dynasties respectively. These were the times when the extent of China’s hegemony was the largest and incorporated entities such as Tibet and Mongolia in Inner Asia. This shows that Confucianism was only one of the many important ideational tools that China utilized to appeal to its various subordinates, which is the originality this dissertation brings to the field of historical East Asian IR. This research also fills in a gap in existing historical East Asian IR literature that neglects China’s domination over Inner Asia, and the case of Chinese hegemony in the Yuan dynasty.
Lastly, this dissertation provides significant implications for contemporary international relations and Chinese studies. It informs us that a successful hegemon cannot rely on material power alone or only one source of ideational power to establish and legitimize its domination, as not all of its subordinates would accept that single form of authority. There has to be more than just one gadget that could work effectively in the hegemon’s toolkit. It also suggests that the reason why the various Chinese regimes in the contemporary times after the fall of the Qing dynasty have continued to face civil unrests in regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet is due to the central government’s lack of proper ideational power providing acceptable authority and legitimacy in the eyes of its subordinates there. Had there been proper authority and legitimacy claimed by Beijing that were simultaneously accepted and recognized by its Uyghur and Tibetan constituents, there would not have been much conflict in those regions. Therefore, certain tailor-made arrangements that could reestablish proper legitimacy for the Chinese central government would be necessary, otherwise resistance would continue to be present in China’s peripheral regions.
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Hsieh, Han-Hui
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Core Title
Explaining the variation in the extent of China's hegemony, 1279-1840 — multiple sources of ideational power beyond Confucianism
School
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Doctor of Philosophy
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Political Science and International Relations
Degree Conferral Date
2022-08
Publication Date
07/24/2022
Defense Date
06/10/2022
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Kang, David (
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), Birge, Bettine (
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), Hymans, Jacques (
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hanhuihs@usc.edu,r98322010@ntu.edu.tw
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