1. The Evolving Asian System
Does history repeat itself in Asia?
Will the future of Asia resemble the past?
Asia’s or Europe’s past?

2. First, the dominant Realist “back to the future of Europe’s past” school
The concerns for relative power gains at the unit level (i.e., the rise of China) and the destabilizing political dynamics associated with power transitions led Aaron Friedberg and other pessimistic Realists in the 1990s to make dire “back to the future” predictions that Asia was primed for the revival of a classical great-power rivalry as Europe experienced over the past several centuries.
In short, Asia’s future is considered ready-made to repeat Europe’s war-prone past

3. Second, is a Sinocentric “back to the future of Asia’s past” school
Second, is a Sinocentric “back to the future of Asia’s past” school. Applying “the clash of civilizations” theory to “the rise of China” debates, Samuel Huntington argues that Asian countries will be more likely to bandwagon with China than to balance against it
Asia’s Sinocentric past, not Europe’s multipolar past, concludes Huntington, “will be Asia’s future,” even as “China is resuming its place as regional hegemon”

4. In a similar exceptionalist vein, David Kang argues that Asian international relations have historically been hierarchic, more peaceful, and more stable than those in the West, owing to the region’s historical acceptance of a hierarchical world order with China at its core

5. Asian history may provide a baseline for a comparative diachronic analysis and assessment of the changes and continuities in the evolution of the “Asian” system in modern times
Historical overview of the “Asian” international system as it evolved and mutated through three systemic transformations from the early Nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War

6. The first section critically appraises the main features of the Chinese tribute system as well as its progressive unraveling from the Opium War of to the Sino-Japanese War of
The second section examines the rise and fall of the Japanese imperial system from the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 to the end of World War II (Pacific War) in 1945
The third section examines the rise and demise of the Cold War system ( )
The fourth and concluding section looks at the impacts and implications of these three systemic transformations for the future of Asian international relations in the post-Cold War world

7. First Transformation: the Chinese Tribute System
In theory, if not always in practice, the traditional Chinese image of world order remained tenaciously resistant to change
It was the Chinese’ officials image of what the world was like, not what it was actually like, that determined their response to international situations
The strength and persistence of this image were revealed most dramatically during the first half of the nineteenth century, when China was faced with a clear and continuing threat from the imperialist West

8. What is so striking about the traditional Chinese image of world order – at least the high Qing scholar-gentry class – is the extent to which it was coloured by the assumptions, beliefs, sentiments, and symbols of their self-image
Indeed, world order was no more than a corollary to the Chinese internal order and thus an extended projection of the idealized self-image

9. As John Fairbank reminds us, even during the golden era of the Sinocentric world order “China’s external order was so closely related to her internal order that one could not long survive without the other”
In other words, even imperial China with all its pretensions of normative self-sufficiency could not really live in isolation; it needed outside “barbarians” in order to enact and validate the integrity of its identity/difference

10. The main concern of China’s traditional foreign policy focused on the means of making diplomatic practice conform to that idealized self-image
The absence of any rival civilization also became a major factor in the development of the Chinese image of world order, and natural geographical barriers exerted considerable influence
China is guarded on the west by almost endless deserts, on the southwest by the Himalayan range, and on the east by vast oceans. Admired but often attacked by the “barbarians” of the semi-arid plateau lands on the north and west, and cut off from the other centers of civilization by oceans, deserts, and mountains, China gradually developed a unique sense of its place under heaven

11. What is even more striking, if not all that surprising, is the absence of a nationalistic dynamic in the enactment of identity
For judging by the contemporary usage, the Chinese identity as mobilized in specific response to the Western challenge was more civilizational than national

12. What have been the real-world operational consequences of the Sinocentric hierarchical image of world order?
Although there is no Chinese term, “tribute system” has been used by Western Sinologists to designate the sum total of complex institutional expressions of the hierarchical Chinese world order. The tribute system served a vital symbolic and political “imperial title-awarding function” – that is, as investiture of a king in each tributary state in order to assure Chinese suzerainty and supremacy – by legitimizing the myth of the Middle Kingdom as the universal state governed by the Son of Heaven
What are conspicuously absent here are the Westphalian principles of state sovereignty and state equality as the foundational principles of modern international law

13. The tribute system worked relatively well for centuries, reaching its height of classical refinement in the Ming ( ) and Qing ( ) dynasties
Its longevity may have been due to its ability to foster mutually complementary interests on the part of the tribute receiver and the tribute bearer
The tribute system proved to be useful in establishing and maintaining their own political legitimacy at home

14. Korea, which had served as a model tributary state longer than any other, is a case in point
The Sino-Korean tributary relationship was more political than economic
The Confucianized ruling classes in Korea found the tribute system not only congenial ideologically – as expressed in the Korean term mohwa-sasang (ideology of emulating things Chinese) – but also proved to be a sine qua non for establishing and maintaining political legitimacy at home, explaining its long duration: “To live outside the realm of Chinese culture was, for the Korean elite, to live as a barbarian”
As late as the early 1880s, few Koreans regarded their country as equal to or independent of China

15. For many, however, the tribute system was accepted as an unavoidable price to pay for the privilege of trade, and the China trade was sufficiently lucrative to justify suffering whatever humiliation might be entailed in the ritual requirements, especially the performance of the kowtow – nine prostrations and three kneelings – symbolizing acceptance of the hierarchical Chinese world order

16. In the face of the Russian challenge, the tribute system demonstrated a capacity for adjustment to the power reality
Between 1728 and 1858, the tribute system really worked by avoidance as far as the Sino-Russian relationship was concerned.
A special system of communications between court officials of secondary or tertiary rank in both Saint Petersburg and Beijing (Peking) was set up to bypass the sensitive question of the czar’s having to address the Son of Heaven as a superior, while Russian trade caravans to Beijing “could be entered in official Manchu court records as tribute caravans, if necessary”

17. Thus, the Chinese image of world order was preserved intact, while the Russians were allowed to pursue their commercial activities in China without direct participation in the tribute system
As these diverse examples show, so long as both parties viewed their respective interests as complementary – or at least mutually acceptable – the tribute system could continue to work

18. The (first) Opium War ( ) marked a momentous benchmark event in the reshaping of East Asian international relations in the Nineteenth century, the beginning of the end of the tribute system
The crushing defeat of China in its first military confrontation with the West failed to modify the Sinocentric image of outlandish barbarians, but rather the British resort to force reaffirmed it. These conditions became not only the source of contradictory policy for China but also the excuse for arbitrary use of force on the part of the Western powers
Gunboat diplomacy

19. The ensuing Sino-Western conflicts in the interwar period of the 1840s and 1850s, which were eventually resolved by the Arrow War of (the second Opium War), and the allied military expedition to Beijing in 1860 highlighted the traditional Chinese image of world order on trial
China once again suffered a humiliating defeat.

20. The formal acceptance by China of direct diplomatic intercourse with the Western powers in 1860 marks the end of the long journey China was forced to take, departing from the tribute system at first with resistance and finally with great reluctance
The tribute system continued vestigially until 1894 with Korea, but it was actually destroyed beyond repair in 1860

21. The ideological disruption created by Western imperialism required a revolutionary response, but the self-strengthening reformers were no more than “realistic” conservatives who wanted to borrow Western science and technology – especially “strong warships and efficient guns” – to preserve the Confucian order
All the successive reform measures in economic, administrative, and constitutional matters during the last quarter of the nineteenth century also failed because what China needed was a system transformation not only in institutions but, more importantly, in ideology

22. Such an ideological transformation did not come about until China was thoroughly humiliated by an Asian neighbour in the Sino-Japanese War of The vestigial influence of the traditional Chinese image of world order was finally shattered beyond recall
The net effect of all the concessions extracted by the treaty powers amounted to an “unequal treaty system,” which China was unable to change until 1943
It is ironic, then, that China’s struggle to preserve its hierarchical system of world order as expressed in the tribute system should have ended with acceptance of the unequal treaty system imposed by the West