Neighboring Countries
Neighboring Countries
Korea. Chinese cultural influences spread into outlying countries during the imperial period (617-1644). Korea, a mountainous peninsula situated among more powerful states, suffered politically from its position. In the seventh century, Buddhism spread to Korea from China, and Koreans in turn played an important role in exporting it to Japan. In the tenth century, when Chinese control declined, a rebel founded the Koryo dynasty, from which the name Korea is derived. The Koryo dynasty continued as a vassal of imperial China from the Yuan or Mongol dynasty (1279-1368) through the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Japan. As an insular country Japan came within the cultural, but not the territorial, sphere of Chinese interest. The Japanese, emerging from a relatively primitive society, began to adopt much of Chinese culture, including the written script, the Buddhist religion, and the concepts of centralized economic and political power. Tang dynasty(618-907) architecture, dances, and literary forms had a great impact on the Japanese. At the end of the ninth century, after attaining a degree of cultural complexity and with the decay of Tang political order at home, the Japanese began to lose their interest in Chinese society and life-styles. Good relations between China and Japan were revived sporadically in the following centuries, but they suffered when Japanese pirates began to assault the eastern Chinese coastline at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Southeast Asia. Another region that had been subjected to Chinese expansion was Southeast Asia. Chinese interest there was predominantly directed toward present-day Vietnam. A Chinese general established an independent southern kingdom with its capital at Guangzhou, which embraced Vietnam and some southern Chinese provinces. Despite native rebellions the incorporation of Vietnamese territory into the Chinese empire continued until 939. By this time the Chinese had designated the southern region as Annam, a term still used today. During the imperial era the Chinese had a great influence on the system of writing, law codes, administrative structures, and bureaucracy in Vietnam. The Chinese established merchant communes in other areas of Southeast Asia where native kingdoms were under Indian influences through Hinduism and Buddhism. In the thirteenth century Mongols dispatched armies into Burma and Vietnam and sent naval forces as far as Java. In the early fifteenth century Ming emperors periodically dis-patched naval expeditions into waters as far west as the Persian Gulf. These expeditions, however, brought no significant results, and as the European powers began their expansion in Asia, Ming China stopped sending any over-seas expeditions.
RELATIONS WITH JAPAN
In 1266 the Yuan government appointed the vice president of the Ministry of War as envoy to Japan and granted him the Tiger Seal for his specific mission. The vice president of the Ministry of Rites was appointed as his deputy bearing the Golden Seal. They were to carry with them a letter from the Mongol emperor to the king of Japan. The message read as fol-lows:
I have heard that since ancient times even a small nation emphasizes the importance of mutual trust and reciprocal friendship in its relationship with neighboring states. How can we be any more different? Our ancestor received the mandate of Heaven to establish a great empire and brought a large number of peoples under their jurisdiction. Even peoples in the remotest areas feared our military might and longed for the benevolent influence we might be able to extend to them. I can assure you that their number was very large indeed.
When I ascended the throne as the emperor, I immediately ordered the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of Korea the territories we had conquered, feeling compassionate for the innocent Korean people who had suffered so much during the previous war. Grateful for the favor we had shown to them, the Korean King and his ministers bore tribute to China, and the relationship between China and Korea, though legally a relationship between lord and vassal, has been as cordial as a relationship between a father and his son. Of this fact I am sure that you are fully aware.
Source: Dun J.Li, ed., The Essence of Chinese Civilization (Princeton: D. VanNostrand, 1967), pp. 227-278.
Sources
Kang Chao, Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis(Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1986).
Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1973).
Pierre Vktfet, Asia: A Natural History (New York: Random House, 1968).