Abstract
China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), first announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, has attracted widespread attention, with much discussion as to its meaning and intention. This article argues that one of the best ways to understand the BRI is to see it in the context of China’s two-thousand-year history as an empire. What kind of empire was the Chinese Empire? How did it see itself, and what was its characteristic mode of action? What was the meaning of the “tribute system”? The celebrated voyages (1405–1433) of the Ming admiral Zheng He are taken as a typical example of Chinese imperial behaviour (rather than being seen, as is common, as an aberrant and exceptional episode). By examining this and other aspects of Chinese imperial history, it is hoped that some light might be shed on what the Chinese leadership as in mind with its Belt and Road Initiative, and what the rest of the world should expect from it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
Not applicable.
Code availability
Not applicable.
Notes
-
Initially the project was launched in 2013 under the name “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR). Later, concerned that this sounded too imperialistic, the Chinese leadership changed it to the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). For full accounts of the initiative, see Miller (2017: 30–52); Nathan (2017); French (2018: 257–64); Winter (2019); Maçães (2019); Hillman (2020). For its proclaimed link to the old Silk Roads, together with its implicit renewal of China’s traditional claims to regional hegemony, see Frankopan (2018:89–122); Winter (2019).
-
Nor have the Chinese been the only ones in promoting the Silk Roads: Tansen Sen (2020) points to the important role played by UNESCO in popularizing the idea and ideals of the Silk Roads, through sponsoring conferences and exhibitions and in proposing the “Maritime Silk Roads” – about which Sen is particularly sceptical—for World Heritage status.
-
Personal communication to the author, December 18, 2016.
-
In a later work, Brook attributes the concept of “Great State” to Mongol use, beginning with Chinggis Khan, who around 1211 founded the “Mongol Great State” (Yeke Mongqol ulus). Khubilai Khan, as Mongol ruler of China (1271–1368), adopted the term for China, as did all subsequent Chinese rulers to the end of the dynastic period in 1912. Brook regards the term as preferable to the conventional term of “empire” as understood by Europeans. “They may be the same thing, but that remains to be proven” (Brook, 2019: 8). Tracing the Mongol origin of the concept, Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, whose work Brook acknowledges for his own account, nevertheless speaks freely of the Mongol Great State as “the Mongol Empire” (2011: passim, esp. 22–3).
-
China, “a term of obscure origins traced to ancient Persian and Sanskrit sources”, was adopted by Europeans to describe the region in the late sixteenth century, “due possibly to the pervasive influence of the Jesuits who ‘manufactured’ ‘China’ as they did much else about it.” The term Zhongguo (or Zhonghua) – “Middle Kingdom”, “Central Country” – was one that went back 2000 years, but it was used in a variety of ways with a variety of referents. It assumed its modern meaning as the name for the nation only in the late nineteenth century, as the equivalent of the Western term “China”. The Chinese adopted it as the description of a Western style nation-state that could deal on equal terms with other nations in the modern international system. Chinese nationalist historiography in the twentieth century then projected Zhongguo back anachronistically to cover the whole period since the earliest rulers, more than 2000 years ago. But “Zhongguo was not a name of the country; it waited itself to be named” (Dirlik, 2015: 2, 5, 7). The late 19t-century nationalist thinker Liang Qichao lamented: “What I feel most shameful of is that our country does not have a name. The name of the Han or people of Tang are only names of Dynasties, and the name ‘China’ that foreign countries use is not a name that we call ourselves” (in Karl, 2002: 151). It might also be worth noting that the Chinese word for “civilization”, wenming, “is a neologism that was introduced in the late nineteenth century through Japanese translations of Western works” (Kang, 2010: 30). Once again we have to be aware of the amount of “catch-up” that was taking place in late nineteenth century China, and be attentive to differences as well as similarities in any exercise in comparing China to other entities.
-
This is the traditional interpretation, which was formulated mostly by British commentators in the nineteenth century and later – for reasons of their own, mostly to do with the perceived need to “modernize “ China – accepted by twentieth-century Chinese scholars (Hevia, 1995: 225–231). As James Hevia (1995) shows, this was not the way that Lord Macartney himself saw the meaning of his mission, nor did he – as normally related – see it simply as a “failure”. Cranmer-Byng also says that “from the Chinese point of view the embassy had gone off quite well” (1957–8: 177). Hevia argues convincingly that what was in play in the Macartney embassy was “not an encounter between civilizations or cultures, but … one between two imperial formations, each one with universalistic pretensions and complex metaphysical systems to buttress such claims” (Hevia, 1995: 25). Certainly there was incompatibility – hence the British did not get quite what they wanted—but also an acceptance of a certain equality and legitimacy of claims and positions as between the British and the Chinese Empires. There is no doubt however that, as Hevia himself accepts, the interpretation – emphasizing Chinese arrogance and blindness – that was quickly formulated by the 1830s had an important influence on British (and more generally European) attitudes and behaviour, as revealed in the Opium Wars and their aftermath.
-
E.g., Ge: “From the third century BCE, when Qin Shi Huangdi established a unified empire … a Chinese empire (Zhongua diguo), relatively unified in terms of politics, culture, and language, had formed” (2018:4; see also 19–27 for its continuity and persistence in its essential character despite many disruptions). Yuri Pines (2012, 2021) also argues for an “everlasting empire”, showing a basic “ideological” continuity stressing unity and universality over a two-thousand-year period, though he also indicates the practical limits of such a conception, as recognized by the Chinese rulers themselves; see also Brook (2019: 376).
-
Europeans had already begun to speak of “the Chinese Empire” by the mid-seventeenth century, having previously referred to China (or “Cathay”, following Marco Polo) as a “kingdom” (Elliott, 2014: 32–6; Brook, 2016: 962). By the eighteenth century this designation had become common, as shown for instance in Montesquieu’s widely-read The Spirit of the Laws, in his many references to the “vast Empire of China” (Montesquieu, [1748] 1962, I: 122, 125).
-
Hegel acknowledged early Chinese achievements in the arts and sciences, but claimed that the character of Chinese society – its despotic character, the fact that everything turned on the sole person of the Emperor—prevented them from being developed in the way they had in the West. “[E]very change is excluded, and the fixedness of character which recurs perpetually, takes the place of what we would call the truly historical …. [E]verything which belongs to Spirit – unconstrained morality, in practice and theory, Heart, inward Religion, Science and Art properly so-called – is alien to it” ([1830–1] 1956: 116, 138).
-
There is much controversy over the size and nature of Zheng He’s “treasure ships”. See for a full discussion Levathes (1996: 75–85); Dreyer (2007: 99–134). Christopher Wake considers that the size of the ships has often been exaggerated, though he agrees that “the scale and scope of the voyages were without parallel in imperial China’s history” (2004: 74–5). Robert Finlay says that “they were the largest long-distance enterprises before the modern age, dwarfing anything that the most powerful European state could produce” (1991: 3). Edward Dreyer concurs: “In world history, there is no prior example of power projection by sea comparable in scale, distance and duration to Zheng He and his fleet, and even afterwards the overseas colonial empires created by the various European powers were sustained by smaller fleets composed of smaller ships” (2007: 1–2).
-
The best scholarly account of Zheng He’s voyages is Dreyer (2007), which also includes a selection of the main primary sources. Levathes (1996) is a lively and more popular account. See also Needham (1971: 389–699). Good bibliographical references in Liu et al. (2014). The Indian Ocean and South Asian aspects are well covered by Sen (2017, 2019). The claims in the best-seller about Zheng He by Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (2004), have been discounted by most scholars. See the extended critical review by Finlay (2004). And cf. Brook (2019: 401): “Serious readers are advised to avoid anything written by Gavin Menzies”.
-
For a number of other statements of this kind by Chinese scholars and officials, see Finlay (1991: 8); Dreyer (2007: 28–9); Wade (2009: 119–20); Winter (2019: 85–99). The fundamentally peaceful nature of Zheng He’s voyages – expressing a distinctively “Chinese” way of overseas trade and foreign relations, contrasted with the rapacious and imperialist Western way—is also argued by Wan Ming (2004), reflecting a scholarly consensus among Chinese scholars in the PRC (though not necessarily those overseas). Some Western scholars have also echoed this view (e.g. Needham, 1971: 535).
-
The Yongle emperor had succeeded to the throne in 1402 after a bloody civil war in which he had defeated and displaced his nephew, the Jianwen emperor (r. 1398–1402). Thousands died, including Jianwen in a palace fire, though it was rumoured that he had escaped and was in hiding. One theory has it that Zheng He’s expeditions were launched to find the missing emperor (Levathes, 1996: 66–74). Another, more plausibly, holds that the expeditions were meant to confer legitimacy on the usurping emperor among his allies and clients in Southeast Asia by displaying his power and largesse (see, e.g., Brook, 2013: 94; 2019: 79–108; Sen, 2019: 160, 185).
-
Levathes says that Zheng He’s victory in Sri Lanka is “considered the most glorious moment in the history of the voyages”, and prints a poem celebrating it (1996: 115).
-
“Sinicization” has become a hotly-debated topic among both Chinese and Western scholars in recent times. See especially the exchange between Evelyn Rawksi (1996) and Ping-ti Ho (1998). But even those such as Rawski who argue that Sinicization was not a continuous or systematic process do not deny that the Chinese emperor – of whatever ethnic origin, Mongol or Manchu – claimed the “Mandate of Heaven” and expected other states in the region to pay homage to the emperor. As Rawski herself says, speaking of the Qing dynasty, “no one can deny that the Manchus portrayed themselves as Chinese rulers” (1996: 834) – and a central part of that portrayal was the operation of the tribute system. In any case, as Ho says, Sinicization does not exclude the absorption of elements from other cultures and traditions – obvious in Chinese history – nor the acceptance of the multi-ethnic character of the empire, also evident from ancient times onwards and characteristic, almost by definition, of all empires. “Sinicization and empire-building were complementary rather than competitive forces” (Ho, 1998: 149).
-
The locus classicus of the view of China as a tributary empire is Fairbanks (!968). There is a wealth of commentary on the idea; for some helpful discussion with references to some of the recent literature, see Hevia (1995: 9–15); Qin (2010: 250–55); Perdue (2015); Brook et al., (2018: 5–9, 57–70). June Dreyer’s statement quoted above may seem too strong to some, as if there is a firm consensus on the reality and efficacy of the tribute system as understood by the Chinese. That is clearly not the case. But even those, such as the contributors to Brook et al. (2011), who criticize the strong, Fairbanks, version of the tribute idea, accept that “under certain circumstances and at certain moments, the rules and expectations of the system guided the judgments shaping interpolity relations, and that the rhetoric of the system made interpolity realtions in East Asia legible to those involved” (Brook et al., 2011: 63). In an interesting contribution, Wang Mingming (2012: 343–7) points out that the origin of the tribute system goes back to the Zhou period (c. 1046–256 BCE), and related to the ritual relations between the king, his aristocracy, and the semi-independent rulers on the periphery. The system in turn derived from the “concentric cosmography” of the “Five Zones” framework, which envisaged “a ‘world system’ of outspreading levels of culture that were at the same time the extensions of civilization from the center and the degrees of closeness to it oriented toward civilization in a centripetal manner.” The tribute idea obviously has very ancient roots, and referred to hierarchical relations, at least initially, between groups occupying the same domestic space, though later mostly applied to relations between China and the peoples outside “China Proper”.
-
One might say – as Fairbanks himself argued– that trade with China might have been part of the lure of China to its tributaries, and not simply the attraction of Chinese civilization. It is generally agreed that “tribute as trade” tended to benefit the tributaries more than it did China itself. For a good example of this, see Wen (2020). Whatever the view might be of the BRI, an economic interpretation of the tribute system does not make much sense when viewed from the metropolis (China).
-
See especially Wang (2011), who shows the persisting element of realpolitik and use of force in China’s relations with its neighbours—a tradition that he traces back to Confucianism itself. On the “duality” at the heart of the tribute system –the opposition between”ideology or culturalism and practical reason” – see also Hevia (2010).
-
Making explicit reference to the imminent commemoration of Zheng He’s expeditions, Wan Ming (2004: 32) claims that they “embodied the theme of peace, order and cooperative development”, and thus “can have great significance for the quest for world peace and development”. Such a view, echoing the official one, makes it easy to add Zheng He’s voyages to the historical antecedents of the BRI.
References
Adas, M. (1990). Machines as the measure of men: Science, technology, and ideologies of Western Dominance. Cornell University Press.
Andrews, K. (2021). The new age of empire. Bold Type Books.
Balazs, E. (1964). Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, translated by H. M. Wright. Yale University Press.
Bang, P. F., & Bayly, C. A. (Eds.). (2011). Tributary empires in global history. Palgrave Macmillan.
Barnett, R. (2016). Imagining the borderlands: Managing (to prolong) conflict in Tibet. Nations and Nationalism, 22(4), 706–724.
Bell, D. A. (2008). China’s new Confucianism: Politics and everyday life in a changing society. Princeton University Pres.
Bergesen, A. J. (2013). The new surgical colonialism: China, Africa, and oil. In G. Steinmetz (Ed.), Sociology and empire: The imperial entanglements of a discipline (pp. 300–318). Duke University Press.
Blue, G. (1999). China and Western social thought in the modern period. In T. Brook & G. Blue (Eds.), China and historical capitalism: Genealogies of sinological knowledge (pp. 57–109). Cambridge University Press.
Brook, T. (2013). The troubled empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Harvard University Press.
Brook, T. (2016). Great States. Journal of Asian Studies, 75(4), 957–972.
Brook, T. (2019). Great State: China and the World. Profile Books.
Brook, T., Van Walt Van, M., & Praag, and M Boltjes, (Eds.). (2018). Sacred mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan. University of Chicago Press.
Brown, K. (2021). “China’s green colonialism”, Times Literary Supplement, February 26: 22–23.
Burbank, J., & Cooper, F. (2010). Empires in world history: Power and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press.
Callahan, W. A. (2012). Sinospeak: Chinese exceptionalism and the politics of history. Journal of Asian Studies, 71(1), 33–55.
Chang, H. (1987). Chinese intellectuals in crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890–1911). University of California Press.
Cooper, F. (2005). States, empires, and political imagination colonialism in question (pp. 153–203). University of California Press.
Cranmer-Byng, J. L. (1957–8). Lord Macartney’s Embassy to Peking in 1793: From Official Chinese Documents. Journal of Oriental Studies, 4(1–2), 117–187.
de Montesquieu, B. [1748] (1962), The Spirit of the Laws, Two Volumes, translated by Thomas Nugent. Hafner Publishing Company.
Di Cosmo, N. (1998). Qing Colonial Administration in Inner China. The International History Review, 20(2), 287–309.
Dirlik, A. (2015). “Born in Translation: ‘China’ in the Making of ‘Zhongguo’”, boundary2, July 29. http://www.boundary2.org/2015/07/born-in-translation-china-in-the-making-of-zhongguo. Accessed 30 Mar 2021.
Doig, W. (2018). High speed empire: Chinese expansion and the future of Southeast Asia. Columbia Global Reports.
Dreyer, E. L. (2007). Zheng He: China and the oceans in the early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433. Pearson Longman.
Dreyer, J. T. (2015). The ‘Tianxia Trope’: Will China change the international system? Journal of Contemporary China, 24(96), 1015–1031.
Duara, P (2018). “Revisiting the Chinese World Order: Soft Power and the Imperialism of Nation-States”. Paper presented at the East Asia Center, University of Virginia, April 23, 2018.
Echeverri-Gent, J. (2019). “India, Sri, Lanka, Pakistan”. Paper presented at the conference, “Complementing and Competing Visons of China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, University of Virginia, March 2, 2019.
Elliott, M. C. (2014). “Chuan tong Zhonnguo shi di guo ma?” (“Was traditional China an Empire?”) Du Shu (1), 29–40. Privately translated by Ao Chen.
Fairbank, J. K. (Ed.). (1968). The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Harvard University Press.
Fairbank, J. K., & Goldman, M. (2006). China: A new history (2nd ed.). Harvard University Press.
Finlay, R. (1991). The treasure ships of Zheng He: Chinese maritime imperialism in the age of discovery. Terrae Incognitae: The Journal for the History of Discoveries, 23(1), 1–12.
Finlay, R. (2004). How not to (re)write world history: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese discovery of America. Journal of World History, 15(2), 229–242.
Finlay, R. (2008). The voyages of Zheng He: Ideology, state power, and maritime trade in Ming China. Journal of the Historical Society [Boston], 8(3), 327–347.
Ford, C. A. (2015). The Party and the Sage: Communist China’s use of quasi-Confucian rationalizations for one-party dictatorship and imperial ambition. Journal of Contemporary China, 24(96), 10342–11047.
Frank, A. G. (1998). ReOrient: Global economy in the Asian age. University of California Press.
Frankopan, P. (2018). The new silk roads: The present and future of the world. Bloomsbury.
French, H. W. (2014). China’s second continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. Vintage Books.
French, H. W. (2018). Everything under the heavens: How the past helps shape China’s push to global power. Vintage Books.
Ge, Z. (2018). What is China? Territory, Ethnicity, Culture, and History, translated by Michael Gibbs Hill. Harvard University Press.
Goldstone, J. A. (2009). Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History, 1500–1850. McGraw-Hill.
Goldstone, J. A. (2018). The once and future Middle Kingdom: China’s return to dominance in the world economy. Comparativ, 4(28), 120–139.
Hanson, V. D. (2016). “Bands of Brothers”, Times Literary Supplement, March 4: 12–13.
Hegel, G. W. F. [1830–1] (1956). The Philosophy of History, translated by J. Sibree. Dover Publications.
Hevia, J. (1995). Cherishing men from afar: Qing guest ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Duke University Press.
Hevia, J. L. (2010). Tribute, Asymmetry, and Imperial Formations: Rethinking Relations of Power in East Asia. In Wills, 2010, 61–76.
Hillemann, U. (2009). Empire, identity and barbarians: The British and China, 1750–1840. In R. J. Blyth & K. Jeffery (Eds.), The British empire and its contested pasts (pp. 97–114). Irish Academic Press.
Hillman, J. E. (2020). The Emperor’s new clothes: China and the project of the century. Yale University Press.
Ho, P. (1976). The Chinese civilization: A search for the roots of its longevity. The Journal of Asian Studies, 35(4), 547–554.
Ho, P. (1998). In defense of sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s ‘Reenvisioning the Qing.’ The Journal of Asian Studies, 57(1), 123–155.
Hung, H. (2007). “A Rocky Road from Empire to Nation: The Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong Questions in China’s Modernity.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, August 2007.
Hung, H.-F. (2016). From Qing Empire to the Chinese nation: An incomplete project. Nations and Nationalism, 22(4), 660–665.
International History Review. (1998). Special issue. Manchu Colonialism, 20(2), 253–504.
Jenner, W. J. F. (1992). The Tyranny of history: The roots of China’s crisis. Allen Lane The Penguin Press.
Jones, E. (2003). The European miracle: Environments, economies and geopolitics in the history of Europe and Asia (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Kang, D. C. (2010). East Asia before the West: Five centuries of trade and tribute. Columbia University Press.
Karl, R. E. (2002). Staging the World: Chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Duke University Press.
Keay, J. (2009). China: A history. Harper Press.
Kuik, C.-C. (2021). Irresistible inducement? Assessing China’s belt and road initiative in Southeast Asia. Council on Foreign Relations.
Kumar, K. (2017). Visions of Empire: How five imperial regimes shaped the world. Princeton University Press.
Kumar, K. (2021a). Empires: A historical and political sociology. Polity.
Kumar, K. (2021b). Colony and empire, colonialism and imperialism: A meaningful distinction? Comparative Studies in Society and History, 63(2), 280–309.
Kynge, J., & Wheatley, J. (2020). “China pulls back from the world: rethinking Xi’s ‘project of the century’”, Financial Times, December 10: 3–5.
Landes, D. S. (1999). The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are rich and some so poor. W. W. Norton and Company.
Lee, C. K. (2017). The Specter of global China: Politics, labor, and foreign investment in Africa. University of Chicago Press.
Levathes, L. (1996). When China ruled the seas: The treasure fleet of the dragon throne, 1405–1433. Oxford University Press.
Lin, S. S. (2014). Bridging the Chinese National Identity Gap: Alternative Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies, 25, 113–132.
Liu, Y., Chen, Z., & Blue, G. (Eds.). (2014). Zhen He’s Maritime Voyages (1405-1433) and China’s Relations with the Indian Ocean. Brill.
Lo, J.-P. (1955). The emergence of China as a sea power during the late Sung and early Yuan periods. The Far Eastern Quarterly, 14(4), 489–503.
Lo, J.-P. (1958). The decline of the early Ming navy. Oriens Extremus, 5(2), 149–168.
Maçães, B. (2019). Belt and road: A Chinese world order. Hurst & Company.
Miller, T. (2017). China’s Asian dream: Empire building along the new silk road. Zed Books.
Millward, J. (2019). “ ‘Reeducating’ Xinjiang’s Muslims”, New York Review of Books, February 7: 38–41.
Mitter, R. (2005). A bitter revolution: China’s struggle with the modern world. Oxford University Press.
Mitter, R. (2021). China’s Good War: How World War II is shaping a new nationalism. Harvard University Press.
Mokyr, J. (2017). A culture of growth: The origins of the modern economy. Princeton University Press.
Morris, I. (2011). Why the west rules – for now. Picador.
Mosca, M. W. (2021). “The Expansion of the Qing Empire Before 1800”. In Pines et al. (2021: 316–341).
Mote, F. W. (1989). Intellectual Foundations of China (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Mote, F. W. (2003). Imperial China 900–1800. Harvard University Press.
Munkh-Erdene, L. (2011). Where did the Mongol empire come from? Medieval Mongol ideas of people, state and empire. Inner Asia, 13(2), 211–237.
Nathan, A. J. (2017). “The Chinese World Order”, New York Review of Books, October 12: 31–34.
Needham, J. (1971). Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 4, Pt. 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Cambridge University Press.
Oakeshott, M. (1962). Rationalism in politics, and other essays. Methuen and Co.
Oakeshott, M. (1983). On history, and other essays. Basil Blackwell.
Paludan, A. (1998). Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors. Thames and Hudson.
Perdue, P. C. (2001). Empire and nation in comparative perspective: Frontier administration in eighteenth-century China. Journal of Early Modern History, 5(4), 282–304.
Perdue, P. C. (2005). China Marches West: The Qing conquest of Central Eurasia. Harvard University Press.
Perdue, P. C. (2010). “China and other colonial empires”. In Wills (2010: 77–96).
Perdue, P. C. (2015). The tenacious tributary system. Journal of Contemporary China, 24(96), 1002–1014.
Peyrefitte, A. (1992). The immobile empire. Vintage Books.
Phillips, S. (2016). Democracy and national destinies on Taiwan. Nations and Nationalism, 22(4), 666–685.
Pines, Y. (2012). The everlasting empire: The political culture of ancient China and its imperial legacy. Princeton University Press.
Pines, Y. (2021). “Limits of all-under-heaven: ideology and praxis of ‘great unity’ in early Chinese Empire”. In Pines et al. (2021: 79–110).
Pines, Y., Biran, M., & Rüpke, J. (Eds.). (2021). the limits of universal rule: Eurasian empires compared. Cambridge University Press.
Pomeranz, K. (2000). The great divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world. Princeton University Press.
Porter, J. (2016). Imperial China 1350–1900. Rowman and Littlefield.
Qin, Y (2010). “Struggle for Identity: A Political Psychology of China’s Rise”. In Womack, B. (ed.), China’s Rise in Historical Perspective. Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 249–269.
Rawski, E. S. (1996). Reenvisioning the Qing: The significance of the Qing period in Chinese history. The Journal of Asian Studies, 55(4), 829–850.
Robinson, D. M. (2021). “Delimiting the Realm Under the Ming Dynasty”. In Pines et al. (2021: 284–315.
Rowe, W. T. (2012). China’s last Empire: The Great Qing. Harvard University Press.
Runciman, W. G. (2015). Very different, but much the same: The evolution of English society since 1714. Oxford University Press.
Sen, T. (2017). The Impact of Zhen He’s expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 79(3), 609–636.
Sen, T. (2019). Zheng He’s military interventions in South Asia, 1405–1433. China and Asia, 1, 158–191.
Sen, T. (2020). “The Origins, Mythmaking, and the Politicization of the ‘Maritime Silk Road’”. Paper presented at the Workshop, “Antecedents of BRI: Religions, Material Culture, and Economics of the Silk Road”, jointly organized by the University of Virginia and Hong Kong University, December 3–5, 2020.
Sweeney, J. (2018). “Wash Brain”, Times Literary Supplement, December 21 and 28: 11.
Ullmann, W. (1979). ‘This Realm of England is an Empire.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30(2), 175–203.
Wade, G. (2009). “The Zheng He Voyages: A Re-assessment”, China and Southeast Asia, 2: 118–141. Routledge.
Wake, C. (2004). The Myth of Zheng He’s Great Treasure Ships. International Journal of Maritime History, 16(1), 59–75.
Wan, M. (2004). Reflections on the study of Zheng He’s expeditions. Ming Studies, 1, 17–33.
Wang, Y.-K. (2011). Harmony and war: Confucian culture and Chinese power politics. Columbia University Press.
Wang, M. (2012a). All under heaven (tianxia): Cosmological perspectives and political ontologies in pre-modern China. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(1), 337–383.
Wang, Z. (2012b). Never forget national humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese politics and foreign relations. Columbia University Press.
Wang, H. (2014). China from Empire to Nation-State, translated by Michael Gibbs Hill. Harvard University Press.
Wang, V, & Stevenson, A. (2021). “China Bends Freewheeling Hong Kong to Its Will”, New York Times, June 30: A1, A6.
Wen, X. (2020). “The Economics of Silk Road Diplomacy: Evidence from Dunhuang (850–1000)”. Paper given at the Workshop, “Antecedents of BRI: Empires, Religions, Material Culture and Economics of the Silk Road”, University of Virginia/University of Hong Kong, December 3–5.
Wilkinson, E. (2012). Chinese history: A new manual. Harvard University Press.
Wills, J. E., Jr. (ed.) (2010). Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise”. Merwin Asia.
Winter, T. (2019). Geocultural power: China’s quest to revive the silk roads for the twenty-first century. The University of Chicago Press.
Wittfogel, K. A. (1957). Oriental despotism: A comparative study of total power. Yale University Press.
Womack, B. (2006). China and Vietnam: The politics of asymmetry. Cambridge University Press.
Wu, R. (2016). The Lilliputian dreams: Preliminary observations of nationalism in Okinawa, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nations and Nationalism, 22(4), 686–705.
Zhao, T. (2006). Rethinking empire from a Chinese concept ‘All-under-heaven’ (Tian-xia). Social Identities, 12(1), 29–41.
Zhao, D. (2015a). The Confucian-Legalist state: A new theory of Chinese history. Oxford University Press.
Zhao, S. (2015b). Rethinking the Chinese World Order: The imperial cycle and the rise of China. Journal of Contemporary China, 24(96), 961–982.
Zhao, D. (2017). Max Weber and Patterns of Chinese History. In T. C. Ertman (Ed.), Max Weber’s Economic Ethic of the World’s Religions (pp. 137–171). Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
This is a much-revised version of a paper first given at the Workshop, “Antecedents of BRI: Empires, Religions, Material Culture, and Economics of the Silk Road”, jointly organized by the University of Virginia and the University of Hong Kong, December 3-5, 2020. I thank all the participants in the workshop, especially Brantly Womack, David Palmer, Tansen Sen, and Dorothy Wong. Thanks also to the Theory and Society Editors and reviewers, whose comments have been invaluable in a further revision.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflicts of Interest
The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kumar, K. “What can the Chinese experience of empire tell us about the Belt and Road Initiative?”. Theor Soc 51, 729–760 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-021-09469-7
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-021-09469-7