Table Of ContentSACRED MANDATES
James a. millward, series editor
The Silk Roads series is made possible by the generous support
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intellectual exchange between the United States and the countries of
East and Southeast Asia, and to create scholarly and public resources
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SACRED
MANDATES
asian international relations
since chinggis Khan
Edited by Timothy Brook,
Michael van Walt van Praag,
and Miek Boltjes
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2018 by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, Miek Boltjes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in
the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press,
1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56262- 9 (cloth)
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56276- 6 (paper)
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56293- 3 (e- book)
doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226562933.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brook, Timothy, 1951– editor. | Walt van Praag, M. C. van,
editor. | Boltjes, Miek, editor.
Title: Sacred mandates : Asian international relations since
Chinggis Khan / edited by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt
van Praag, and Miek Boltjes.
Other titles: Silk roads (Chicago, Ill.)
Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press,
2018. | Series: Silk roads
Identifiers: lccn 2017053371 | isBn 9780226562629 (cloth :
alk. paper) | isBn 9780226562766 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isBn
9780226562933 (e-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Asia—Foreign relations.
Classification: lcc ds33.3.s337 2018 | ddc 327.5—dc23
lc record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2017053371
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso Z39.48–1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Cover calligraphies by Yondonrinchin Munkhbat, Jamyang Dorjee
Chakrishar, and Hsiao Hung-Wen depict core Mongol, Tibetan
Buddhist, and Chinese Confucian concepts of legitimate rule:
törö, chos srid zung ‘brel, and tianxia, respectively.
CONTENTS
Preface ix
CHAPTER ONE 1
THREE WORLDS; THREE BODIES
OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
The past in Asia’s present 2
Beyond China 5
Marco Polo and the protection of emissaries 9
International law before “international law” 12
Sovereignty in Asia before the modern era 15
The straitjacket of the modern law of nations 19
CHAPTER TWO 25
CHINGGISID RULE AND
THE MONGOL GREAT STATE
The emergence of the Chinggisid state 29
lhamsuren munKh- erdene
Imperial allocation of fiefs and the
resilience of Chinggisid law 33
Koichi matsuda
Imperial subjugation of polities
and extension into Tibet 38
Koichi matsuda
Mongol perceptions of “China”
and the Yuan dynasty 45
hodong Kim
Chinese legitimation of the Mongol regime
and the legacy of “unification” 49
CHAPTER THREE 57
INTERPOLITY RELATIONS AND
THE TRIBUTE SYSTEM OF MING CHINA
Rituals of hierarchy 58
The tribute system and regime legitimacy 64
Power and the use of force 70
Yuan- Kang wang
Civilizational rhetoric and the obfuscation of power politics 75
geoff wade
Convergence and conflict: Dai Viet in the Sinic order 81
liam KelleY
Reproduction of the tribute system 84
CHAPTER FOUR 90
THE TIBETAN BUDDHIST WORLD
The symbiosis of spiritual and temporal authority 94
Rule by relationship 98
Mongol pilgrimages and the transfer of wealth to Tibet 101
daliZhaBu
State building in the Himalayas 107
John ardussi
Tibetan- Manchu relations 113
Imperial directives in the language of chö- yön 116
matthew Kapstein
CHAPTER FIVE 123
THE MANCHU GREAT STATE
State formation and legitimation 125
nicola di cosmo
Relations with the Mongols 132
Extension of control over the Mongols 134
hiroKi oKa
Relations with Tibet 139
Etiquette and the communication of power relations 140
noBuaKi muraKami
Manchu positioning in relation to
the Chinese civilizational world 146
Guest ritual and Qing international relations 148
pamela crossleY
CHAPTER SIX 155
TRANSITIONS TO THE MODERN STATE SYSTEM
The new paradigm of international relations 157
Japan’s quest for a place in the new world order 159
shogo suZuKi
Korea’s transitions and the hypocrisy of modern law 167
KirK larsen
From mandala to modernity:
The breakdown of imperial orders 175
alex mcKaY
CHAPTER SEVEN 183
THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST
Conflicts and the deployment of history 184
The great reinterpretation 191
History in play today 196
Authors and Contributors 201
Notes 207
Bibliography 243
Index 269
PREFACE
This book is the culmination of five years of collaborative research, dis-
cussion, and reflection on the nature of sovereignty, rulership, legitimacy,
state formation, and interpolity relations in Inner and East Asia from the
early thirteenth century to the early twentieth. This research has led us to
doubt the modernist paradigm that informs the generally shared under-
standing of the contemporary international system as a world of equal in-
dependent states exercising exclusive sovereignty within their borders and
engaging in equal relations with each other. Whether that paradigm may
usefully be applied to the analysis of states outside Inner and East Asia we
leave to other analysts, but in Asia it is a fiction with shallow historical
depth. In the regions of Asia we examine in this book, state sovereignty
and interpolity relations have been shaped around quite a different para-
digm. It is undeniable that Asian states have been conspicuous in perform-
ing many of the protocols of modern international relations since World
War II, some of them starting as early as the late decades of the nineteenth
century. But these performances have not obscured the deeper practices
that mark state sovereignty and interpolity relations even today.
Our ambition in this book is not to pre sent an analysis of Asian interna-
tional and intrastate relations as these are conducted today. Rather, our ap-
proach is to foster an improved appreciation of Asia’s past to aid in under-
standing the deep context of current discussions of what those relations
are and should be. Our purpose in doing so is to introduce overlooked
sources of historical influence that contribute to today’s tensions and con-
flicts in the vast region covered in this book, which may benefit efforts to
resolve them and to prevent others from arising. By looking back from the
present and inquiring into the conceptual frameworks and actual practices
through which rulers and political elites in Inner and East Asia have con-
ducted their relations with each other over the eight centuries leading up
to the twentieth, we seek to develop an awareness of the different, often
conflicting, perceptions that are held of those relations and that have an
