The Everlasting Empire (3 page)

My third, and perhaps most contentious goal, is to reassess the role of the imperial experience in the modern history of China. For two centuries, the empire’s exceptional stability was reviled as the major impediment blocking China’s access to “progress” and “modernization.” It is not my intention to dispute the intellectual validity of this perspective, which was—and is—shared by the vast majority of Chinese intellectuals and statesmen throughout the twentieth century and beyond. Nor do I intend to err in a different direction, as a minority of ultrapatriotic Chinese scholars do, obliterating obviously negative aspects of the empire’s experience.
¹⁶
Yet I think today we should liberate ourselves from teleological perspectives and weigh the empire’s strengths and shortcomings on its

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own terms: that is, against the goals set forth by its architects and custodians. There is no doubt that many of these goals were never realized: periodic disastrous collisions, widespread corruption, the inadequacy of many rulers and of their officials—all these persistent weaknesses of the empire were readily recognized not only by modern but also by traditional scholars. On the positive side, however, few if any premodern polities worldwide were able to provide such a fair degree of stability, peace, and relative prosperity to so many people as did the Chinese empire. The very fact that China—despite obvious ecological challenges
¹⁷
—remained the most populous country on earth through much of the imperial period speaks highly of its success.

Eschewing a “modernization” perspective does not mean, however, ignoring altogether the question of imperial China’s disastrous performance vis-à-vis Western (and Japanese) challenges in the nineteenthtwentieth centuries. The empire’s collapse was very real, and it involved profound changes in the structure and underlying ideological norms of the Chinese polity. In the final chapter I address these events by offering a new assessment of the fate of the imperial political culture in the modern age. I focus in particular on the following questions: Which aspects of the imperial model were abandoned altogether? Which were modified, and which were retained? Does the end of the monarchy in February 1912 mark the end of imperial China or just another—more radical than ever—modification and readjustment of the traditional system? Is it permissible to speak of political continuities during the age of revolutions and rupture that spanned most of the twentieth century? What—if any— are the lessons that the current Chinese leadership may draw from the imperial experience, especially in the early twenty-first century, as China appears to be irresistibly advancing toward an age of renewed global prowess and self-confidence? Inevitably tentative, my answers, so I hope, will add another dimension to the ongoing debates about China’s cultural identity in the modern age and the connections between its past and its present.

Today, as the economic center of gravity of the modern world shifts back toward Asia, and Western narratives of historical progress are increasingly questioned, blind faith in the supremacy of European sociopolitical and intellectual models gives way to more sober reflections. While we remain deeply enmeshed in our own hegemonic discourse—that of democracy, equality, and human rights—it may still be refreshing to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of alternative political formations and alternative hegemonic ideologies, of which the Chinese empire presents one of the most interesting examples. Without either embellishing or disparaging it, we may reflect upon its strengths and weaknesses and reassess its value, not only for a better understanding of the history

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of political ideas and political formations, but also for coping with the ever-changing political challenges of our own time.

NOTE ON REFERENCES AND TRANSLATIONS

Throughout this study, I have tried to keep references minimal, limiting these either to those studies that exercised major influence on my research or to those that provide convenient explanations for the historical examples that I present. Since the book targets nonspecialists as well as established scholars, I avoided whenever possible references to nonEnglish sources, limiting those to an absolute minimum. The only exceptions are direct citations from Chinese primary sources, which I have translated myself; in these cases the reference is to the original text.

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CHAPTER 1
The Ideal of “Great Unity”

They say that the great forces of All-under-Heaven after prolonged
division must unify, and after prolonged unity must divide.

THE PHRASE IN THE EPIGRAPH, taken from the preface to a classical Chinese novel,
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
, may serve as an excellent summary of Chinese history. An ostensibly endless chain of unifications, subsequent disintegrations, and renewed unifications of the
oikoumenë
, “All-under-Heaven” (
tianxia
), is a distinctive feature of the Chinese empire. While there is nothing exceptional about periodic disintegrations of the empire, its repeated resurrection in a more or less similar territorial framework and with a mode of functioning similar to that of the preceding unified dynasty clearly distinguishes China from other continental empires. It seems that the Chinese found a remedy to what elsewhere became a terminal illness of vast empires. What was their secret?

To answer this question we should first dismiss the once-popular deterministic explanations of the Chinese empire’s vitality as reflecting an unusually convenient topographic or demographic setting. The Chinese terrain, crisscrossed by mountain ranges (especially in the south, but also in the north) and huge rivers, was as conducive to the emergence of small independent polities as any other part of the world, with many regions (e.g., Shanxi, Sichuan, and parts of Fujian) easily defensible against outsiders’ attacks. China’s population was similarly heterogeneous: not only did ethnic minorities continuously occupy important pockets within socalled China proper, but also the core “Han” population remained highly diverse in terms of spoken language, customs, modes of life, and even religious beliefs and the pantheon. Clearly, preserving the empire’s unity was as challenging a task in the Chinese case as it was for other continental empires.
¹

What are the reasons, then, for the sustainability of the unified empire, and, most of all, for its regeneration after periods of division? In what follows I would like to propose that the answer should be sought primarily in the realm of ideology. The idea that “All-under-Heaven” should be unified under the aegis of the single monarch predated the imperial unification of 221 BCE and directly contributed to it. As I shall demonstrate below, it became the true cornerstone of traditional Chinese political culture, and decisively shaped political dynamics during ages of unity and

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fragmentation alike. Although in the course of imperial history the quest for unity had to be qualified to accommodate domestic and foreign political realities, it was never essentially compromised. Indeed, it may be argued that this belief remains the single most important legacy of the traditional political culture well into our own day.

FRAGMENTATION: CHINA AS A MULTISTATE SYSTEM

Archaeological discoveries of recent decades have revolutionized our understanding of China’s past. A previously widespread uncritical acceptance of Chinese political mythology, which postulated the existence of a single legitimate locus of power on China’s soil since the very inception of civilization there, gave way to a polycentric perspective. It is widely accepted nowadays that multiple Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures interacted for millennia in the basins of the Yellow River, the Yangzi, and beyond, none of them obviously superior to the others. Even the first historical royal dynasty, the Shang (ca. 1600–1046 BCE), might have enjoyed only a relative cultural, military, and political superiority over its neighbors, but by no means ruled the territories beyond its immediate sphere of influence in the middle reaches of the Yellow River.
²

The overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1046–256 BCE) became an important turning point. The victorious Zhou leaders utilized their success to rapidly expand the territory under their direct and indirect control, establishing a military and civilian presence beyond their original Wei River locus to the middle and low Yellow River basin, and even further to the south, to the Huai and Han Rivers area. Notably, while the conquest of the Shang and the immediate crushing of the proShang rebellion were accompanied by considerable violence, the subsequent expansion of Zhou rule, including the establishment of new settlements ruled by royal kin and allies, the relocation of the subjugated Shang population, and the imposition of the Zhou elite over the indigenous inhabitants of the eastern parts of the realm, appear to have been accomplished relatively smoothly. While the dearth of reliable sources and obvious biases in later narratives make many details of early Zhou history unverifiable, it seems certain that the Zhou rulers succeeded in establishing their position as the single legitimate locus of power in the northern part of what was to become China.
³

From the very beginning, the success of Zhou rule derived not only from the dynasty’s administrative and military prowess, but also from its peculiar legitimating devices. The Zhou kings succeeded in positioning themselves as exclusive mediators between the supreme deity, Heaven, and the people below; and in their capacity as “Sons of Heaven” (
tianzi
) they continued to enjoy obvious superiority over their allies and subordinates, the regional lords (
zhuhou
). Most interestingly, currently available

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textual and paléographie evidence suggests that even the leaders of nonZhou polities, who appropriated the royal title, dared not proclaim themselves “Sons of Heaven,” recognizing thereby the ostensible superiority of the Zhou kings.
⁴
This position of the kings at the apex of the ritual (and, supposedly, sociopolitical) pyramid allowed the battered dynasty to endure for centuries, becoming the longest royal dynasty in Chinese history. More importantly for our discussion, this persistent symbolic superiority of the Zhou house might have inspired the quest for political unification during the generations of turmoil, which followed the collapse of effective Zhou rule.
⁵

This said, one should not assume, as is frequently done in Chinese scholarly publications, a kind of lineal progression toward an ever more strongly pronounced quest for unity from the beginning of Zhou rule. To the contrary, the disastrous defeat of the Zhou dynasty by a coalition of internal and external foes in 771 BCE, its ensuing relocation to the crippled eastern part of the royal domain, and subsequent loss of effective royal power ushered in a lengthy period of political fragmentation, which was initially accepted by most political actors as a fait accompli. Especially during the so-called Springs-and-Autumns period (Chunqiu, 770453 BCE), statesmen focused their efforts on creating a viable multistate order rather than seeking renewed unification. During that period, the Zhou kings retained only symbolic superiority, while their nominal underlings, the regional lords, became for all practical purposes independent political players. Regional polities invaded each other, established alliances, signed treaties, and annexed weaker neighbors. Powerless Sons of Heaven gradually became hapless spectators of internecine struggles, in which they could occasionally intervene but the outcome of which they could not determine/

In retrospect, the seventh and sixth centuries BCE appear to have been an exceptional period in Chinese history, when political fragmentation was considered an acceptable state of affairs and efforts were made to attain stability within the framework of the multistate system; and it is the failure of these attempts that ultimately led to the rejection of the multistate world altogether. Initially, a certain degree of stabilization was attempted under the so-called system of hegemony. The most powerful regional lord acted as a surrogate of the Zhou king, combining the legitimacy of the royal representative with the fearsome power of his armies. This system, which presupposed the ongoing existence of a single locus of military superiority, however, was not sustainable in the long term. By the late seventh century BCE it was replaced by a bipolar system of two competing alliances, each led by a powerful state (Jin in the north, Chu in the south). The alliance leaders tried to stabilize their coalitions, acting as arbiters in inter- and intrastate conflicts, and pretending to be protectors of the old sociopolitical order. They perpetuated ties with allied states

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through vigorous diplomatic activities, including periodic meetings of the state leaders and the swearing of solemn alliance covenants. Moreover, the ongoing commitment of the ruling aristocratic elites in each of the competing polities to Zhou cultural norms, particularly to the Zhou ritual system, perpetuated cultural ties across state boundaries, moderated the cruelty of military conflicts, and contributed toward the establishment of certain common rules of interstate relations, becoming a surrogate for international law
⁷

The age of covenants and alliances was relatively short-lived, however. Alliance leaders too frequently favored the narrow interest of their polity at the expense of their commitment to their allies; and increasing cynicism with regard to the validity of treaties and alliance oaths undermined the effectiveness of the system of covenants. Moreover, the fierce interalliance competition between Chu and Jin amid ongoing military deadlock caused the leaders of both polities to seek expansion of their alliances by alluring or forcing the enemy’s allies to switch sides. This, in turn, generated repeated invasions of intermediate states, sandwiched between Jin and Chu, whose situation, according to a contemporary testimony, was grave indeed: