| As early as1990s, a Chinese scholar has indicated the importance of "regionality" in regional study. Then along with the rise of social constructivism, another Chinese scholar proposed the concept of "geographical cultural constructivism". Both "regionality" and "geographical cultural constructivism", showing the scholars'profound insight on western theory's defects, have proved the necessity of strong consciousness of time and space in regional study. Otherwise, the analytical paradigm will confront the problem of "Procrustes", meaning unapplicable for some certain regions. Concretely speaking,"regionality" is embodied through the dynamic process of times as well as the static complex of "material interest structure" and "social idea structure". So this thesis focused on the issue of "idea structure evolution" in certain historical context.When it comes to East Asia, there is no doubt that the most significant shared idea is the idea of respecting each other's sovereignty. Then, is the idea on sovereignty in East Asia the same with that of European and American countries? If not, what are the differences between them? How did these features generate, and what are their implications for the regional political order?In the field of international study, theories such as Rationalism, English School, Sociology's Institutionalism and Social Constructivism all have ever discussed about idea and norm. But meanwhile, they have some defects in common. On the one hand, according to their firm subconsciousness of western values, they don't pay enough attention to the value standpoints which are embeded in ideas and norms; on the other hand, as being prone to particular idea or norm, they to some extend ignored the historical background (also named world time) of their evolution. Based on the existed theoretical approaches, this thesis tried to make some improvements. For this thesis, as certain values are hidding behind ideas and norms, the process of accepting ideas or norms should be recognized as a competition between different value systems but not just a process of "socialization". This process won't take place in vacuum, but will be modified by strategic environment in particular time and space. The combined effects of value system competition and strategic environment lead to the actors'selection and reconstruction of ideas and norms.Based on the analytical framework above, this thesis divided sovereignty into outward and inward dimensions. The outward dimension means independence and equality to other countries, while the inward dimension includes3kinds of logic:individualism, statism and theism. For East Asia, the generation of the idea on sovereignty is embedded in the process of competition between Eastern and Western value systems, which is carried out under the background of East Asia's lower status in the world power structure. To build a bridge between value system competition and international politics, the thesis defined value system competition from3perspectives:people, state and the logic of ethic. Accordingly, the competition could be interpreted through their different understandings and preferences about people, state and the logic of ethic. Moreover, during this competing process, East Asia experiences some internal transition of power structure. Value system competition and power shifts conduced that East Asian countries accepted the outward meaning of sovereignty easily. This characteristic has both positive and negative implication to regional order. It maintains the regional stability effectively, but increasingly becomes an obstacle of East Asian integration. To deal with this situation, East Asia ought to explore some new value narrative with its own characteristic to break through and redefine the concept of sovereignty.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis includes six chapters. The first chapter expounded the viewpoints on world and human nature, on what the thesis' analytical framework can be outlined. Basically speaking, the thesis kept a relativism viewpoint on civilizations. It means that all the world civilizations are composed by series of values. The differences between civilizations are originated from their order arrangment about contradictive values but not from the amount or categories of values. Thus, as order arrangement is the gene of civilization, differences between civilizations are relative rather than absolute. Moreover, people are rational, but can't be omniscience. They won't totally act according to rationality, not to mention instrumental rationality. Based on assumptions above, the first chapter outlined a roughly general framework on the correlation between value competition, strategic calculation and the idea evolution. The second chapter defined an initial state of our analysis. This chapter analyzed the feature of value system in China, Japan, and Southeast Asian from dimensions of "people","state" and "logic of ethic". Generally, in these three areas, people are defined as "social ones", which are nested in complicated social relationships; their views on world order are all influenced by the concept of "Jia-Guo-Tianxia"; and they all insist on a relative ethical logic. The third chapter interpreted modern western value system. Its analysis also depends on dimensions of people, states, and logics of ethic. Compared with East Asian traditional value system, modern west value system cherishes the value of individuals; they hold the viewpoint of "a world of states" with thinking and acting in an absolute formalism logic that is presented by instrumental rationality. The three dimensions of western value system impacted the same ones of East Asia. Purely from the logic of cultural competitions, as the viewpoint of the world order locates in the outer sphere of value system, it is more easier for the viewpoint of "world of states" to achieve a dominant position to that of "Jia-Guo-Tianxia", but more difficult for "individual" or "instrumental rationality" to gain a superior position to that of "social people" and "relative ethical logic". The fourth chapter retrospected the charactristic of power structure transition as a whole in order to represent the background of the value systems competition. It clarified the fact that East Asia displayed its weakness and its impact on the process of value system competition. Concretely speaking, the strategic environment not only enlarged the superior position of the outward meaning of sovereignty, but also weakened the impact of "individual" and "instrumental rationality" to "relationship-people" and "relative ethical logic". In this situation, East Asia successfully accept the outward meaning of sovereignty, and was inclined to statism which was based on holism understanding of the inward meaning. The fifth chapter is empirical study. This chapter reviewed the forming process of the idea on sovereignty in Japan and China. For Japan, we chose the period from late Shogunate to early Meiji emperor. Through the analysis, we found that, in domestic field, Japan experienced a double variation between "civil right" and "state authority", while in foreign activities such as the process of amending treaties, Japan took a quite different gesture to western powers from neighborhood countries. This validates the holism stand of the inward meaning and aggressive gesture of the outward meaning. For China, we chose the period from late Qing dynasty to the early period of Republic of China. According to this review, we found out that there are two historical missions for china in this period. One is to save the country from extinction, while the other is to enlighten the nation as a whole. Finally, the result is that "saving" suppressed "enlightenment", and accordingly the shock wave of western value system was weakened. The sixth chapter discussed the implication of the idea on sovereignty to regional order. Nowadays, the outward meaning of sovereignty has becoming more integrated owning to their emphasis on keeping the sovereignty not only from "being intervened" but also from "intervening others". This shared idea has strong effect on restraining one's action, and have positive function to maintain regional stability. While, as this highest principle focuses on the calculation of "cost-win" only on the level of nation state, it also has show its negative effect in regional cooperation and regional integration process. This no doubt means that knowledge elites in East Asia have the obligation to break through the concept of sovereignty from exploring traditional value elements and reconstructing East Asian value narrative about sovereignty.Based on theoretical analysis and empirical tests, this thesis kept in mind that the spreading process of ideas or norms can't be seen as "A socialize B" totally, but ought to be seen as a competition of different value system in particular strategic environment. The disseminator and receiver are equal in the perspective of civilization. Under the similarity of surface, the concept of sovereignty in East Asia is quite different from Europe. In Europe, as the preference of individualism in the inward meaning is in accord with the cosmopolitism, it challenges the concept of sovereignty from both inner and outer side. But when it comes to East Asia, the preference of holism furtherly strengthens the concept of sovereignty. As there is no strong competitive element, together with the history memory of being colonies, and the consideration of balancing China's rising, it is really hard for East Asia to break through the concept of sovereignty. While according that the awaking of regional consciousness is inevitable, the way it breaks through the concept of sovereignty won't be the same with Europe. For the knowledge elites, it is both a historical obligation and a real chance of knowledge innovation. To be more specific, East Asia need to explore the native mode of breaking and redefining sovereignty through emphasizing the world's globality and systematicness, people's sociality and relationality, equivalence of obligations and rights, and the synchronization of instrumental and value rationality. It will be a process of adding new balancing value elements to the world civilization's development as well as reconstructing East Asia's value narrative. |
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