“An important study of classical Chinese political culture, The Everlasting Empire develops exciting and provocative arguments concerning the reasons that imperial unity came to be seen as a defining norm in classical China. This book has far-reaching implications for understanding contemporary Chinese political culture as well.”–Michael Puett, author of To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China

“Deeply researched, packed with detail, and bold in scope and analysis, The Everlasting Empire offers a compact yet profound interpretation of the ideological foundations of Chinese political culture. Reflecting on imperial China through its cycles of unity and disintegration from antiquity to the present, this magisterial contribution to empire studies and global history comes at a pivotal moment in time.”–Martin Kern, Princeton University

“This is a knowledgeable and original book about imperial Chinese political culture. Pines argues that China displayed a remarkable tendency to unite over the course of its centuries-long history and that no serious alternative to the imperial model was proposed before the advent of the West in the nineteenth century. Surprisingly few, if any, books have addressed this subject, despite its importance not only for Chinese history but also for world civilization.”–Paul Goldin, University of Pennsylvania

Yuri Pines holds the Michael W. Lipson Chair in Chinese Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a visiting professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, China. He is the author of Foundations of Confucian Thought and Envisioning Eternal Empire.

The Everlasting Empire

THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF ANCIENT CHINA AND ITS IMPERIAL LEGACYBy Yuri Pines

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-13495-6

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………viiIntroduction………………………………………………………1Chapter 1 The Ideal of “Great Unity”…………………………………11Chapter 2 The Monarch………………………………………………44Chapter 3 The Literati……………………………………………..76Chapter 4 Local Elite………………………………………………104Chapter 5 The People……………………………………………….134Chapter 6 Imperial Political Culture in the Modern Age…………………162NOTES…………………………………………………………….185BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………209INDEX…………………………………………………………….233

Chapter One

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 oikoumene, “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 so-called 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.

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 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.

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 pro-Shang 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.

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 textual and paleographic evidence suggests that even the leaders of non-Zhou polities, who appropriated the royal title, dared not proclaim themselves “Sons of Heaven,” recognizing thereby the ostensible superiority of the Zhou kings. 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.

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, 770–453 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 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.

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:

Everything is ravaged and destroyed and there is no one to appeal to. People lose either their fathers and elder brothers, or sons and younger brothers. All are full of sorrow and sadness and do not know how to protect themselves.

This plight of the tiny states generated the most curious attempt to institutionalize the multistate system: namely, two “disarmament conferences” in 546 and 541 BCE. The organizers proposed the creation of a mega-alliance, led simultaneously by Jin and Chu, legitimating thereby the bipolar world. This initiative, however, failed miserably owing to the lack of mutual trust between major powers, and also to internal crises in both Chu and Jin and the rise of new “peripheral” powers, which further jeopardized the fragile interstate order. By the end of the sixth century BCE, the multistate system of the Springs-and-Autumns era was on the verge of collapse. On its ruins, the war of all against all ensued, giving the period following the breakup of the state of Jin in 453 BCE, and prior to the imperial unification of 221 BCE, its ominous name, the age of Warring States.

As the name suggests, the Warring States period was an age when diplomats were overshadowed by generals. Alliances were inevitably short-lived; treaties were routinely violated—sometimes immediately upon being concluded—and the increasing cynicism further diminished the appeal of diplomatic means of settling conflicts. A contemporaneous observer noted:

Despite clear pronouncements and manifested principles, weapons and armor arise ever more; [despite] outstanding and compelling arguments, battles and offensives never stop; [despite] gorgeous sayings and refined words, the world lacks ordered rule; tongues are worn off and ears deafened, but no achievements are seen.

This gloomy summary explains why the multistate order was no longer seen as sustainable. As war became ubiquitous, attempts to preserve peace among rival polities were discontinued. In the meantime, a series of military innovations, and particularly the replacement of the aristocratic chariot-based armies of the past with massive infantry armies manned by peasant conscripts, changed the nature of warfare. Wars became longer and harsher; the size of the armies and the number of casualties steadily increased; and the texts of the late Warring States period inform us of dozens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of casualties in a single campaign. Slaughter of prisoners of war and of civilians, massive plunder, deliberate destruction of the enemy’s civilian infrastructure, and forced relocation of the hostile population—all exacerbated the sense of despair, eventually fueling the quest for unification.

While devastating warfare contributed in the long term to the quest for unity, in the short term it strengthened centrifugal rather than centripetal forces. Each of the newly reformed Warring States was more cohesive internally than the aristocratic polities of the preceding age, and this internal consolidation occurred in tandem with increasing estrangement from neighbors. The separation was spatial, marked by long protective walls; administrative, as suggested by legal distinctions between native and foreign subjects; and cultural, as is indicated by the increasing divergence in the material and, to a lesser extent, written culture of major states. The decline of the aristocratic elite of the Springs-and-Autumns period meant partial abandonment of the Zhou ritual culture, which had once served as a common cultural denominator of the elite members. The new elite, some of whose members had risen from the lower social strata, was more diversified culturally than its predecessors. This diversification is particularly evident in the changing image of powerful “peripheral” states, Qin in the northwest and Chu in the south, which had once been considered members of the Zhou oikoumene but by the fourth–third centuries BCE were treated as cultural strangers. Cultural separation followed the lines of political fragmentation, indicating that centuries of division might well have resulted in the complete disintegration of the Zhou world into distinct quasi-national entities.

The process depicted above of internal consolidation of large territorial states, and their political and cultural separation from neighbors, unmistakably recalls similar developments in early modern Europe, where, as is well known, these developments resulted in the formation of nation-states. In China, however, the development trajectory was markedly different. The potential transformation of the Warring States into full-fledged separate entities never materialized. Instead, these polities were submerged by the unified empire in 221 BCE, becoming thereafter a locus of ethnographic curiosity rather than of political separatism. Below we shall see how and why this happened and focus specifically on the extraordinary role of the thinkers of the Warring States period as promulgators of unification.

“Stability is in unity”

The Warring States period was a formative age of China’s intellectual tradition. This was an age of bold intellectual departures and remarkable ideological pluralism, unhindered by either political or religious orthodoxies. Thinkers competed freely for the rulers’ patronage, moving from one court to another in search of better employment. They proposed distinct remedies to social, political, economic, and military maladies, their views ranging from harsh authoritarianism to anarchistic individualism, from support of a laissez-faire economy to advocacy of state monopolies, from blatant militarism to radical pacifism. Yet this immense pluralism notwithstanding, the competing thinkers held core beliefs in common. Among these, the commitment to the universal benefit of All-under-Heaven—eventually through political unification—stands as one of the most remarkable features of the Warring States period’s intellectual discourse. An individual state never appears as the ultimate beneficiary of the thinkers’ proposals, but, if at all, as a springboard for attaining the highest aim of resolving “universal” problems.

This remarkable universalism ostensibly stands at odds with the dominant tendency during the Warring States period of individual states to strengthen their sociopolitical cohesiveness. The contradiction reflects a major difference between the lives of members of the educated elite, or at least its highest segment, and those of the rest of the populace. In an age when most states actively discouraged emigration, the intellectually active elite members, the so-called shi (whom I shall hereafter dub “intellectuals,” for heuristic convenience; see more in chapter 3) were free to cross boundaries in search of better careers. Any known thinker of that age served more than one court; and this very flexibility of movement through the interstate “market of talent” broadened the intellectuals’ horizons, causing their concerns to transcend the confines of individual states. Eventually, this breadth of horizons became associated with high elite status, while localism—local customs and identities—was viewed as characteristic of culturally impaired commoners. Lacking the intellectuals’ endorsement, the local identities of the Warring States never developed into a politically meaningful factor, as happened elsewhere, for example, in modern Europe.

(Continues…)

Excerpted from The Everlasting Empireby Yuri Pines Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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