China’s Cartographic Aggression
China’s new map, released 2023
Tibet
Arunachal Pradesh (“South Tibet”)
Bhutan
Kashmir
Taiwan
South China Sea (10 dash line)
Central Nation vs Barbarian Periphery
Cultural, not racial
“I am happy because I am human and not an animal, a male and not a female, a Chinese and not a barbarian, and because I live in Luoyang, the greatest city in the world.” Shao Yong, Song Dynasty historian, circa 1050
The Fall of the Tang
Emperor Taizong (976-997)
Emperor Taizu (960-976)
Emperor Zhengzong (997-1022)
Consolidating Power: The Model Emperors
Buying Peace
Regionalism in 1000 CE
State Building in Song China
Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule, 2009
“The Song elites could not invent a remedy for the psychological disadvantage of being unable to equate the Song empire with the territorial achievements of the glorious Han and Tang dynasties…During the 319 years of Song rule, China…was a territory divided among different nations (with shared cultural identity) and states (with centralized, bureaucratic governments), no single one of which held primacy. Aspiring to establish a long-lasting dynasty…They began by defining the “inner nature” of the dynasty and the centrality of Confucian ideology and cultural values…The Song emperors deliberately strengthened the civil principle (wen) over the military principle (wu).”
Taizu’s Civil Service
Ideology as a cornerstone of statebuilding
Zhu Xi
The Scholar-Officials (Literati)
Accounts of China and India by Abu Zayd al-Sirafi, Persian traveler and seafarer
What can we learn about Medieval China from traveler accounts?
The Belitung Shipwreck
Abbasid dhow→China
60,000 items
Spices, gold, silver, blue & white wares
Dark spots=origins of cargo
A replica dhow
Blue & white pottery
Gold cup with Persian dancers
Trade, Travel, Technology
A medieval Chinese passport for a Sogdian merchant
The Qingming Scroll
Along the River During the Qingming Festival, also known by its Chinese name as the Qingming Shanghe Tu, is a painting by the Song dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan. It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing during the Northern Song. The entire piece was painted in the handscroll format. What can we infer about China during the Song dynasty from the scroll?
The Rainbow Bridge
Urbanization & Commercialization
Blast furnace for steel
Grain mill powered by water, river transport
Centralizing the State: Neo-Confucianism
12th Century Civil Service Exam Question
The Guanzi Book [an ancient book on Chinese philosophy] states: "Children of scholars and farmers must always be scholars and farmers and children of merchants and laborers must also always be merchants and laborers, so that a scholar can give instructions and take care of his proper status, and a farmer can work attentively in cultivating his crops to feed the people. Everyone is satisfied with his occupation and does not seek to change. Otherwise…all become greedy and seek only profits."
But to fit people in their occupations is not to improve morals. To see something better and change - what harm is there in this?...We now have a regulation keeping the descendants of those in despised occupations from taking the civil service examinations. Although this rule has been in force for some time, I consider that it still is a good time to examine this regulation. You candidates have excelled yourselves in knowledge of the past, and in debating various problems; I would like you to spend time considering the issue I have just outlined above.
“[Under the Song dynasty], the number of men who were granted degrees [by passing the imperial examinations] suddenly rose, indicating a similar rise in the number of candidates. This was made possible by an increase in China’s productive power and the consequent accumulation of wealth…A new class appeared in China [under the Song], comparable to the middle class in early modern Europe. In China this newly risen class concentrated hard on scholarship....
In principle [the examination system] was open to all qualified applicants regardless of social background, which made it unusually democratic…But for a candidate to continue his studies without interruption for such a long period required a measure of economic support that was simply not available to poor people....[Thus] the contention that the doors of the examination system were open to all applicants was an exaggeration, of course…[Yet] we must not lose sight of the historical context: the very idea that everyone should be eligible for the examinations, regardless of family background or lineage, was incomparably forward-looking in its day…It is true that the examinations not only produced officials loyal to the state but also, at times, resentful rejected applicants who opposed the system. Yet, when an old dynasty was replaced
by a new, the latter usually undertook an early revival of the examination system practically unchanged.” -Ichisada Miyazaki, historian, China’s Examination Hell, book published in 1963