Fairbank And Traditional Chinese Diplomatic System Research

As the founder of the East Asian Studies Center at Harvard University, John KingFairbank created the American China studies which posed an important position in theoverseas sinology circles. And his academic point of view influenced generations ofAmerican scholars. His“impact and response”model, which insists that China’scontact with the western has produced a series of impact to Chinese society, runthrough all his modern history study. Almostly, this model has become the mainstreamof the modern Chinese history study in America from the postwar to sixties.However, this model is proposed based on Fairbank’s study on traditionalChinese diplomatic relations, such as“tributary system”. This thesis aims to furtherexplore Fairbank’s academic view on traditional Chinese diplomatic, to understandthe disintegrated process of the traditional suzerain-vassal system, and to find out therelationship between tributary system and treaty system.Based on the analysis of Fairbank’s“Chinese cultural center consciousness”andChinese world order, this paper holds the point that we can’t research Chinese simplyon the cultural assume. Cultural interpretation itself is perfect, but it also need thesupports of other factors. According to the inequality reflected by Fairbank’s“ChineseWorld Order”, this thesis deems that Chinese empire has a loose relationship with thevassal state, which is a kind of modest mean to maintain a stable world order. Bycontrast of the European system formally equality, this relationship better maintainedworld stability. Based on the hierachical classification of the Ch’ing tributaryrelationship, the author opens the door a bit further on a judgement that tributariescome for profits or righteousness should be differently analyzed based on varioushistorial, political and economic difference. Indeed, the essential attribute of thetributary system is political rather than trade relations.The treaty system being brought by the western riding to China, was contradictedby the traditional tributary system. This thesis takes emphasis on the diplomaticreflects under the two system to discuss with Fairbank’s“tributary system wasreplaced by treaty system”and makes a conclusion : Tributary system and treatysystem just like two parallel lines, mutually exclusive. Internal and externalenvironmental changes led to different manifestations of the two foreign institutions.International relations sometimes was dominated by tributary system, sometimes bythe other, sometimes the two appeared in converging situation, and sometimes the concept of tributary system was gradually incorporated by the composition of thetreaty system. Meanwhile, the article deems that tributary was based on the“Da YiTong”thought,”Hua Yi concept”and blind material superiority. So its effect was sofar-reaching.Therefore, only from the interactive perspective of concept and system can wegive a more convincing explanation on the actual configuration of the Sino-foreignrelations dominated by the tributary system.