China

Foreign relations

The Manchu inherited the tributary system of foreign relations from previous dynasties. This system assumed that China was culturally and materially superior to all other nations, and it required those who wished to trade and deal with China to come as vassals to the emperor, who was the ruler of “all under heaven.” The tributary system was used by the Qing Board of Rites to deal with the countries along China’s eastern and southern borders and with the European nations that sought trade at the ports of south and southeast China.

The tributary system operated in its fullest form in the Qing treatment of Korea. The Korean court used the Chinese calendar, sent regular embassies to Beijing to present tribute, and consulted the Chinese on the conduct of foreign relations. The Qing emperor confirmed the authority of the Korean rulers, approved the Korean choice of consorts and heirs, and bestowed noble ranks on Korean kings. The Korean envoy performed the kowtow (complete prostration and knocking of the head on the ground) before the Qing emperor and addressed him using the terms appropriate to someone of inferior status.

Central Asia was another matter. Tribes on the northwestern and western frontiers had repeatedly invaded China, and the Manchu, who had been part of the world of the steppe, were keenly aware of the need to maintain military supremacy on China’s northern borders. Central Asian affairs were handled by a new agency, the Court of Colonial Affairs, that was created before 1644. Qing policies toward Central Asia frequently deviated from the tributary ideal, Chinese relations with Russia being a case in point. The early Qing rulers attempted to check the Russian advance in northern Asia and used the Russians as a buffer against the Mongols. The Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), which tried to fix a common border, was an agreement between equals. The Treaty of Kyakhta (1727) extended agreement on the borders to the west and opened markets for trade. When Chinese ambassadors went to Moscow (1731) and St. Petersburg (1732) to request that Russia remain neutral during the Chinese campaigns against the Oirat in Central Asia, they performed the kowtow before the empress.

Foreign trade was not always restricted to the formal exchanges prescribed by the tributary system. Extensive trading was carried out in markets along China’s borders with Korea, at the Russo-Mongolian border town of Kyakhta, and at selected ports along the coast, whence ships traded with Southeast Asia. Perhaps the most striking example of trade taking precedence over tribute was the Qing trade with Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate viewed the Manchu as barbarians whose conquest sullied China’s claim to moral superiority in the world order. They refused to take part in the tributary system and themselves issued trade permits (counterparts of the Chinese tributary tallies) to Chinese merchants coming to Nagasaki after 1715. The Qing need for Japanese copper, a money metal in China, required that trade with Japan be continued, and it was.