Vol. 16, Nos. 1-2 (Spring-Summer 2009)
Theme Issue
From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise”: American Historians, Political Scientists, and Policy Analysts Discuss China’s Foreign Relations
Edited by John E. Wills, Jr.
China’s central place in today’s world tempts us to seek insights from
its millennial history of relations with neighboring peoples. Does this
heritage, which sometimes took the form of a “tribute system,” make talk
of China’s “peaceful rise” less convincing? Are policy-makers in Beijing
more inclined to seek “hegemony,” less inclined to the give and take of
diplomacy among equals? The forum in this special issue of the Journal
of American East Asian Relations, based on a conference at the
University of Southern California, draws American historians, political
scientists, and policy analysts into a debate couched in common sense
terms. They offer a variety of approaches and intellectual styles:
their lively dialogue is not only provocation to scholars and policy
analysts, but also food for thought for citizens who want to keep up to date
on what specialists have found and students in advanced undergraduate
and graduate courses.
John E. Wills, Jr., “Introduction”
Michael D. Swaine, “The Policy Analyst and Historical Perspectives: Notes of a Practitioner”
John E. Wills, Jr., “How Many Asymmetries?: Continuities, Transformations, and Puzzles in the Study of Chinese Foreign Relations”
Alice Lyman Miller, “Some Things We Used to Know about China’s Past and Present (But Now, Not So Much)”
James L. Hevia, “Tribute, Asymmetry, and Imperial Formations: Rethinking Relations of Power in East Asia”
Peter C. Perdue, “China and Other Colonial Empires”
Brantly Womack, “Recognition, Deference, and Respect: Generalizing the Lessons of an Asymmetric Asian Order”
Harry Harding, “How the Past Shapes the Present: Five Ways in Which History Affects China’s Contemporary Foreign Relations”
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