CHA PT E R

8
China and the World:
East Asian Connections
500–1300
CHAPTER LEARNING 5. China’s economy and technological
innovation had effects throughout Eurasia
OBJECTIVES C. China was also changed by its interactions
• To explore the role of China as “superpower” with non-Chinese peoples.
among the third-wave civilizations 1. nomadic military threat
• To examine China’s deep influence on East 2. international trade as catalyst of change
Asia II. Together Again: The Reemergence of a
• To consider the ways in which interaction with Unified China
other peoples had an impact on China A. The Han dynasty collapsed around 220 C.E.
• To encourage students to question modern 1. led to 300 years of political fragmentation
assumptions about China 2. nomadic incursion from the north
3. conditions discredited Confucianism in
many eyes
CHAPTER OUTLINE 4. Chinese migration southward to Yangzi
River valley began
I. Opening Vignette
B. A “Golden Age” of Chinese Achievement
A. Many believe that China will be the next
1. the Sui dynasty (589–618) reunified China
superpower.
a. Sui rulers vastly extended the canal
B. China was a major player among the third-
system
wave civilizations.
b. but their ruthlessness and failure to
1. a China-centered “world order”
conquer Korea alienated people,
encompassed most of eastern Asia
exhausted state’s resources
2. China’s borders reached far into Central
c. dynasty was overthrown, but state
Asia
didn’t disintegrate
3. its wealthy and cosmopolitan culture
2. Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279)
attracted visitors from afar
dynasties built on Sui foundations
4. all of China’s neighbors felt its
a. established patterns of Chinese life that
gravitational pull
lasted into twentieth century

83
 b. regarded as a golden age of arts and 3. Song: tightening of patriarchal restrictions
literature on women
3. Tang and Song politics 4. literature highlighted the subjection of
a. six major ministries were created, women
along with the Censorate for 5. foot binding started in tenth or eleventh
surveillance over government century C.E.
b. examination system revived to staff the a. was associated with images of female
bureaucracy beauty and eroticism
c. proliferation of schools and colleges b. kept women restricted to the house
d. a large share of official positions went 6. textile production became larger scale,
to sons of the elite displacing women from their traditional
e. large landowners continued to be role in the industry
powerful, despite state efforts to a. women found other roles in cities
redistribute land to the peasants b. prosperity of the elite created demand
4. economic revolution under the Song for concubines, entertainers,
a. great prosperity courtesans, prostitutes
b. rapid population growth (from 50 7. in some ways the position of women
million–60 million people during Tang improved
dynasty to 120 million by 1200) a. property rights expanded
c. great improvement in agricultural b. more women were educated, in order
production to raise sons better
d. China was the most urbanized region III. China and the Northern Nomads: A Chinese
in the world World Order in the Making
e. great network of internal waterways A. For most of its history, China’s most
(canals, rivers, lakes) enduring interaction with foreigners was in
f. great improvements in industrial the north, with the peoples of the steppes.
production 1. northern nomads typically lived in small
g. invention of print (both woodblock and kinship-based groups
movable type) 2. occasional creation of powerful states or
h. best navigational and shipbuilding confederations
technology in the world 3. pastoral societies needed grain and other
i. invention of gunpowder farm products from China
5. production for the market rather than for 4. leaders wanted Chinese manufactured and
local consumption was widespread luxury goods
a. cheap transportation allowed peasants 5. steppe pressure and intrusion was a
to grow specialized crops constant factor in Chinese history for
b. government demanded payment of 2,000 years
taxes in cash, not in kind 6. nomads often felt threatened by the
c. growing use of paper money and Chinese
financial instruments a. Chinese military attacks on the steppes
C. Women in the Song Dynasty b. Great Wall
1. the era wasn’t very “golden” for women 7. China needed the nomads
2. during the Tang dynasty, elite women in a. steppes provided horses and other
the north had been allowed greater goods
freedom (influence of steppe nomads) b. nomads controlled much of the Silk
Roads
B. The Tribute System in Theory 4. steppe culture influenced the parts of
1. the Chinese understood themselves as the northern China that were ruled frequently
center of the world (“middle kingdom”), by nomads
far superior to the “barbarian” outsiders a. founders of Sui and Tang dynasties
2. establishment of “tribute system” to were of mixed blood
manage relations with non-Chinese b. Tang dynasty: fad among northern
peoples Chinese elites for anything connected
a. non-Chinese authorities must to “western barbarians”
acknowledge Chinese superiority IV. Coping with China: Comparing Korea,
b. present tribute to the emperor Vietnam, and Japan
c. would receive trading privileges and A. The emerging states and civilizations of
“bestowals” in return (often worth Korea, Vietnam, and Japan also had tributary
more than the tribute) relationships with China.
3. the system apparently worked for 1. agricultural, sedentary societies
centuries 2. their civilizations were shaped by
C. The Tribute System in Practice proximity to China but did not become
1. but the system disguised contradictory Chinese
realities 3. similar to twentieth-century Afro-Asian
2. some nomadic empires could deal with societies that accepted elements of
China on at least equal terms Western culture while maintaining
a. Xiongnu confederacy (established political/cultural independence
around 200 B.C.E.) B. Korea and China
b. Turkic empires of Mongolia were 1. interaction with China started with
similar temporary Chinese conquest of northern
3. steppe nomads usually did not want to Korea during the Han dynasty, with some
conquer and rule China colonization
a. preferred extortion 2. Korean states emerged in fourth–seventh
b. but nomads moved in when the centuries C.E.
Chinese state broke down a. the states were rivals; also resisted
c. several steppe states took over parts of Chinese political control
northern China b. seventh century: the Silla kingdom
D. Cultural Influence across an Ecological allied with Tang dynasty China to
Frontier bring some political unity
1. nomads who ruled parts of China often 3. Korea generally maintained political
adopted Chinese ways independence under the Silla (688–900),
2. but Chinese culture did not have great Koryo (918–1392), and Yi (1392–1910)
impact on steppe nomads dynasties
a. pastoral societies retained their own a. but China provided legitimacy for
cultural patterns Korean rulers
b. most lived where Chinese-style b. efforts to replicate Chinese court life
agriculture was impossible and administration
3. interaction took the form of trade, military c. capital city Kumsong modeled on
conflict, negotiations, extortion, and some Chinese capital Chang’an
cultural influence 4. acceptance of much Chinese culture
a. Chinese luxury goods, scholarship, and
religious influence
 b. Confucianism had negative impact on c. Seventeen Article Constitution
Korean women, especially after 1300 d. two capital cities (Nara and then
5. Korea maintained its Korean culture Heian) were founded, both modeled on
a. Chinese cultural influence had little Chinese capital (Chang’an)
effect on Korea’s serf-like peasants or 3. elements of Chinese culture took root in
large slave population Japan
b. only Buddhism moved beyond the a. several schools of Chinese Buddhism
Korean elite b. art, architecture, education, medicine,
c. examination system for bureaucrats religious views
never won prominence c. Chinese writing system
d. in 1400s, Korea developed a phonetic 4. Japanese borrowings were selective
alphabet (hangul) 5. Japan never created an effective
C. Vietnam and China centralized and bureaucratic state
1. the experience of Vietnam was broadly a. political power became decentralized
similar to that of Korea b. local authorities developed their own
2. but Vietnam’s cultural heartland in the military forces (samurai)
Red River valley was part of the Chinese 6. religious distinctiveness
state from 111 B.C.E. to 939 C.E. a. Buddhism never replaced native belief
a. real effort at cultural assimilation of system
elite b. the way of the kami (sacred spirits),
b. provoked rebellions later called Shinto
3. Vietnamese rulers adopted the Chinese 7. distinctive literary and artistic culture
approach to government a. unique writing system mixed Chinese
a. examination system helped undermine characters with phonetic symbols
established aristocrats b. early development of tanka (highly
b. elite remained deeply committed to stylized poetry)
Chinese culture c. highly refined aesthetic court culture,
4. much of distinctive Vietnamese culture especially in Heian period (794–1192)
remained in place 8. elite women escaped most of Confucian
a. language, cockfighting, betel nuts, oppression
greater roles for women V. China and the Eurasian World Economy
b. kept nature goddesses and a female A. Spillovers: China’s Impact on Eurasia
Buddha in popular belief 1. many of China’s technological
c. developed a variation of Chinese innovations spread beyond its borders
writing, chu nom (southern script) a. salt production through solar
D. Japan and China evaporation
1. Japan was never invaded or conquered by b. papermaking
China, so borrowing of Chinese culture c. printing (though resisted by the Islamic
was voluntary world)
2. main period of cultural borrowing was d. gunpowder invented ca. 1000, but used
seventh–ninth centuries C.E., when first differently after it reached Europe
unified Japanese state began to emerge e. Chinese textile, metallurgical, and
a. creation of Japanese bureaucratic state naval technologies also stimulated
modeled on China began with Shotoku imitation and innovation (e.g.,
Taishi (572–622) magnetic compass)
b. large-scale missions to China to learn
 2. Chinese prosperity stimulated commercial f. serious effort to present Buddhism in a
life all over Eurasia form accessible to the Chinese
B. On the Receiving End: China as Economic g. it was Mahayana form of Buddhism
Beneficiary that became popular
1. China learned cotton and sugar cultivation 3. Sui and early Tang dynasties gave state
and processing from India support to Buddhism
2. China was transformed around 1000 by a. Sui emperor Wendi (r. 581–604) had
introduction of new rice strains from monasteries built at base of China’s
Vietnam five sacred mountains
3. technological creativity was spurred by b. monasteries became very wealthy
cross-cultural contact c. Buddhism was never independent from
4. growing participation in Indian Ocean state authorities
trade C. Losing State Support: The Crisis of Chinese
a. foreign merchant settlements in Buddhism
southern Chinese ports by Tang era 1. growth of Chinese Buddhism provoked
b. sometimes brought violence, e.g., resistance and criticism
massive massacre of foreigners in a. deepening resentment of the Buddhist
Canton in the 870s establishment’s wealth
c. transformation of southern China to b. it was foreign, thus offensive
production for export instead of c. monastic celibacy and withdrawal
subsistence undermined the Confucian-based
VI. China and Buddhism family system
A. Buddhism was India’s most important gift to 2. new xenophobia perhaps started with An
China. Lushan rebellion (755–763), led by
1. China’s only large-scale cultural foreign general
borrowing until Marxism 3. Chinese state began direct action against
2. China was the base for Buddhism’s spread foreign religions in 841–845
to Korea and Japan a. 260,000 monks and nuns forced to
B. Making Buddhism Chinese return to secular life
1. Buddhism entered China via Silk Roads in b. thousands of monasteries, temples, and
first–second centuries C.E. shrines confiscated or destroyed
a. had little appeal at first c. Buddhists forbidden to use precious
b. Indian culture was too different from metals or gems for their images
Chinese 4. Buddhism did not vanish from China; it
2. Buddhism took root 300–800 C.E. remained an important element of popular
a. collapse of the Han dynasty ca. 200 religion
C.E. brought chaos and discrediting of VII. Reflections: Why Do Things Change?
Confucianism A. Change and transformation are constants in
b. nomadic rulers in northern China human history.
favored Buddhism 1. explaining why and how societies change
c. Buddhism was comforting is historians’ most central issue
d. monasteries provided increasing array 2. disagreement about what is the most
of social services important catalyst of change
e. Buddhists appeared to have access to B. The case of China illustrates the range of
magical powers factors that drive change.
 1. world historians tend to find contact with
strangers to be the primary source of
change
2. the history of China and East Asia helps
illustrate this view
3. but perhaps it’s misleading to distinguish
between internal and external sources of
change

LECTURE STRATEGIES