Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
THE QING TRIBUTARY SYSTEM
The Qing was not simply a Chinese dynasty, but a multiethnic
empire. The overwhelming majority of the Qing's subjects were of
course Chinese, but the ethnically Chinese core of Qing China (some-
times called China Proper) accounted for only around half of Qing
territory. While the Qing's governance of China Proper was based
largely on Ming precedent, non-Chinese administrative practices and
institutions were used for other areas. Until well into the nineteenth
century, the Qing separately administered Manchuria more or less as
an exclusive ethnic park and ancestral homeland for the Manchus.
Other non-Chinese areas of the Qing empire, such as Xinjiang, Tibet,
Qinghai, and Mongolia, were administered by the Court of Colonial
Affairs (Lifanyuan), a high-level central government agency that exer-
cised Qing sovereignty over these areas and directly governed them
on behalf of the Qing emperors. Of all these non-Chinese areas, only
Outer Mongolia (Mongolia north of the Gobi Desert) managed to
escape Chinese control in the twentieth century and became an inde-
pendent nation. Today Xinjiang, Tibet, and Manchuria (which the
Chinese now prefer to call Dongbei, or the northeast) are very much
under the direct control of the People's Republic of China.
Over surrounding areas not directly under its administrative con-
trol, the Qing exercised not sovereignty but a more vaguely defined
suzerainty, which was essentially a variety of feudal overlordship. A
Qing institution called the Bureau of Receptions (Zhukesi)managed
relations with quasi-independent vassal states or kingdoms that
included Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Siam, Cambodia, the Malay Penin-
sula, and even the Sulu Archipelago (today part of the Philippines,
between Mindanao and Borneo). In accordance with established
schedules, these nations sent envoys who offered tribute (local prod-
ucts) to the Qing emperor and performed before him the kowtow, a rit-
ual of extreme obeisance that involved prostration and audibly
knocking the forehead on the floor. This was a symbolic recognition
that their countries were humble vassal states of the mighty Qing
empire.
These nations subjected themselves to this humiliating procedure
because the benefits they received for mere gestures of submission to
the Qing outweighed any fleeting chagrin they might suffer. In return
for offering tribute and performing the kowtow, the Qing conferred a
title of recognition on the nation's king and showered him and his
envoys with lavish gifts out of all proportion to the worth of the tribu-
tary items presented. Tribute missions were allowed to remain in
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