Pre-modern Chinese Foreign Relations and Diplomacy

Catalog description

As the PRC's economic and political clout has grown, Chinese diplomacy and foreign relations have drawn far more attention. Especially following the start of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative, both popular and academic commentators have often referred to the supposedly ancient precedents of the modern PRC's approach to foreign policy. PRC leaders have themselves invoked the Chinese tradition of foreign relations as one that enabled largely peaceful coexistence between China and its neighbors, unlike Western alternatives. This course will take a long-duree approach to understanding the conceptual frameworks, interactions, and historical events that shaped Chinese diplomacy and foreign relations from the time of the Mongol invasions up to the early twentieth century. The questions we will consider include: What basic geographic, environmental, and economic factors influenced Chinese foreign relations? Did frequently invoked concepts like "the tributary system" or "Silk Road" actually exist in Chinese thought, and if so, how did they affect the pragmatic practice of diplomacy? What was the role of ritual, poetry, and other forms of praxis in the sphere of foreign relations? How did the way that Chinese thought about the outside world and foreigners thought about China shift over time, especially in the 19th century with the advent of the much more pressing threat of European powers and Japan? The course will conclude by more directly examining the legacy of imperial Chinese foreign relations for China and the world in the 20th and 21st century.