Imperialism of China and of the West

All under heaven basically meant the Chinese world.

The Chinese considered all the areas outside the great wall barbaric.

China didn't usually try to expand its influence and power over others althought there were some cases that it did.

"China is like a gentleman who does not fight. If he were to fight, he would win." --- A British professor who wrote an article that I read last night.

He's referring to Ancient China and his prediction of future China.

China was an empire to an extent that it did try to control part of central Asia and Vietnam but it was not an expansionary empire like the west.

Hey guys,

    I don't think you guys understood my question.  Like I said, I'm not talking about the historical realities of Western and Chinese empires.  I'm talking about differences in the conceptual constructs that the West and the Chinese have regarding an empire or Tian Sia.  In other words, how did the West define an empire that differed from how Chinese defined Tian Sia.

Peace,

Michael

11-25-2004

Hey Gubuk,

    That's not what I'm asking still =(  Let me give you an example:

    What comes to mind when you say "Chinese food" to a Chinese and an American?

    The Chinese (say he's from Hong Kong,) if he doen't know any better, would probably think of the kind of Chinese food he always has: bbq duck and such.

    The American, who most likely doesn't know any better, probably thinks of orange chicken.

    This shows that the mental construct "Chinese food" is defined differently based on subjective experiences of different people.  The case of "empire" is, of course, much, much more convoluted.  The ancient Chinese didn't even know the word "empire."  For the sake of argument, we presume here that the closest construct that the Chinese has is "Tian Sia,"("under Heaven") or perhaps "Guo Jia" ("state family").  Even the word "Di Guo" ("emperor's state") didn't exist in ancient China as far as I know (perhaps until Qing.)  What I'm asking is, how would ancient Chinese conceptually posit "Tian Sia" and how would an European conceptually posit "empire."

Peace,

Michael

11-25-2004

Hey Cwyr,

    In that case, how would a Chinese perceive "Tian Sia" that is different from the way Roman perceives an empire?

Hey Snowybeagle,

    That is precisely what I'm looking for!  Thanks man.  I think perhaps the conceptual difference is that China didn't really have a sense of nationality -- "Zhong Yuan" is simply the center of the world.  Everyone can rule in it, but no matter who rules in it, it is the same "Tian Sia," whereas the Roman Empire is nationally defined, that it is an empire that belongs particularly to the Romans.

Peace,

Michael

11-26-2004

Its not nationalism but a sense that you can voice your discontent if your feudal lord sucks and throwing him out if need be.

Unfortunately, Confucianism teaches that being oppressed is part of life, and that you have the obligation to being oppressed and support the next enlightened tyrant if need be. Unfortunately, there are not too many enlightened tyrants. Most are just...tyrants...

First, technically speaking, the Chinese empire only began with the Qin.

Second, even during the Zhou dynasty, while the Zhou's overlordship was in decline, I would term what existed within the individual states was patriotism rather than nationalism.

[Depending on the context, the two terms are closely related but not synonymous.  Some definitions placed patriotism is usually regarded as something positive within the national group, while nationalism is usually projected on others, usually with a negative effect.  In Continential European context, nationalism is projected towards one's own people, i.e. one's nation, while patriotism connotes a state � or an empire � and its government.]

Here, I would use the definition patriotism as the feeling of belonging to and protectiveness towards one's own state of birth.  There is no inherent feeling of superiority of one own's state.

However, even at that time, there is already a sense of Chinese civilisation among the states, especially those whose ruling lords had their ancestors formally enfeoffed by the Kings of the Zhou dynasty.  It was this sense of being more civilised that led the Chinese of various States to distinguish themselves from others, even those living among them.

This sense of common civilisedness superceded the facts that the various states spoke different dialects, wrote in different scripts, used different measures etc.  It surpassed even the nationalism of the 19th century-20th century different German states who only had a common language and culture.

Those in the same club basically venerated the same great men in the past, conformed to the rites and traditions as per the Zhou dynasty, claimed a genealogy to pioneers of the Zhou dynasty and observed a more or less common proctocol.

When one of the hegemonist, Duke Wen of Jin, wanted to punish another feudal lord, he had the wretched fellow sent to the court of the King of Zhou for punishment, because of the public image that all the dukes and earls and marquis were all vassals of the King, Duke Wen of Jin himself included, even though the King of Zhou was already quite powerless then.

States such as the Chu and the Yue in the south were for a long time excluded from this "club" as they were considered barbarians, until they became too powerful to ignore.  Nonetheless, both Chu and Yue also considered the Central Plains to be the centrestage of the Great Game, and eventually became sinisized.  For a long time, the rulers of Chu, despite its great might, avoided using the title of King for fear of being seen to challenge the Son of Heaven from the Zhou Dynasty who was a mere nominal overlord.

Even when states such as Qin became the powerful and influential hegemonist, the original Chinese heartlands of the Yellow River was still considered as the epicentre of the Tian Xia, despite the fact that some of these superpower originated far from there.

And it was not a matter of there not being any other player.  Strong nomadic (barbarian) tribes such as the Huns had long been in conflict with the northern states such as Zhao.

But those were considered peripheral to the main arena where the hunt for the deer (to conquer the world) was - the Central Plains.

Even during Ages of Fragmentations later, the people in various component states were loyal to their own home states, but the sense of nationalism never died.

Prior to the Qing dynasty, Chinese nationalism meant the inclusion of descendants of the Hua-Xia heritage, or the Han identity which came into being after the establishment of the Han dynasty.

"Well Jin is before the Warring State era.  Because the definition of the start of the Warring state is from the break up of Jin by its three sub houses to form Han, Zhao and Wei."

there was actually a period of peace after a treaty of 483 bc. but in 443 bc, wu broke the treaty and attacked the chu along with the break up of jin marked the beginning of warring state period.

"People of the Warring State Era don't consider themselves Chinese.  They don't consider themselves Zhou people, they consider themselves as people of the State they are from.  Such as Qin Ren, Qi Ren, Chu Ren ... etc.   They do distinquish themselves from people they consider non-civilized.  But that doesn't mean they have a group identity either.  They just considered themselves civilized.   Much like the West Europeans didn't used to consider the Russians civilized before Peter the great."

they considered them as chinese people of the civilized world and also citizens of their feudal lords. the people outside the chinese world such as the xiongnu were considered as uncivilized aliens or barbarians. there were actually joint compaigns against the xiongnu by the chinese feudal states.

all under heaven refered to the chinese civilized world.

zhou king was the overlord of all the feudal states but he was overthrown by the qin army when the capital of chou fell.

You forgot Gui Fang. And they are not always barbarians. Gui Fang is a tributary to the Shang dynasty and they also gave a daughter of the chieftain to the Shang king Zhou, except Zhou had her and her daddy killed.