Page 73 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

59.

thirteenth century this Confucian principle no longer was

totally effective, the Imperial Government still demanded that

trade and commerce be kept under official control.

As Westerners began appearing on the coast of China

seeking to trade with the Chinese, the Imperial Government

treated them as they had all other foreigners. In Confucian

China belief in the superiority of Chinese society and

civilization pushed all foreigners into the classification of
11
"barbarians. Chinese viewed their own society as the center

of the world with all other societies revolving around it.

These foreigners were still part of the world in which China

existed. Consequently the Chinese had constructed an elabo­

rate system of foreign relations in order to treat or manage
11
11 22
the barbarians. Over the centuries this system had been

very successful. The foreigners surrounding China had been
tribes or states with political, economic and social organi­

zations much inferior to that of the Chinese Empire. When the

Westerners first appeared, the Chinese naturally put them into
11
the same category of other "barbarians and expected them to

act as anticipated. They did not realize that the Europeans

were different, with societies with comparable levels of or­

ganization as China's but with superior technology. Chinese

22
simply, this system was based on a superior-inferior
relationship between China and foreigners. Foreign states
having contact with China included neighboring Asian tribes,
Japan, Burma, Siam, etc. At given intervals these states would
1
send tribute missions to Peking, where they would kow-tow (k ou­
1
t ou) before the Emperor and present their tribute in acknowl­
edging his sovereignity and their own inferior position. In
return the Emperor would bestow gifts upon the mission to take
home. See John K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China
Coast (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1953).