The Tributary System and Qing Cartography
From the Song dynasty onward, virtually all large-scale maps that deal with "barbarians" of any sort refer to the Chinese tributary system. Works of the Tianxia quantu genre are certainly no exception. Invariably they include textual information on the background and evolution of important Sino-foreign tributary relationships, the frequency of certain missions, and major tributary routes. In so doing they reveal a rich lexicon of tributary terminology. The preface to each map refers explicitly to the process by which barbarian envoys come to China and offer themselves as vassals of the Qing dynasty. This process of symbolic submission is always described as an arduous one, involving "the scaling [of mountains], the sailing [of seas], and several stages of translation [ti hang chongyi]."

Such cartographic clichés reflect deep-seated attitudes expressed in a number of official documents, including the Huang Qing zhigong tu (Illustrations of the Tribute-Bearing People of the Imperial Qing; 1761), the Huang Qing fanbu yaolue (Essentials of the Vassal [Tribes] of the Imperial Qing; 1845), and the Chouban yiwu shimo (Management of Barbarian Affairs from Beginning to End; 1880). The prefaces to each of these compilations display the same condescending tone. The first emphasizes how "within and without the empire united under our dynasty, the barbarian tribes have submitted their allegiance and turned toward [Chinese] civilization [xianghua]." The second, by the great Qing geographer, Li Zhaoluo, refers to the way the emperor "nourishes [his dependencies] like their father and their mother," and "illuminates them like the sun and the moon." And the third, using much the same language as the first, describes the historic process by which foreigners gravitate to China, become "cultivated" and learn "elegance and etiquette."

The ten volumes of the Huang Qing zhigong tu provide a detailed picture of the Qing tributary system in its heyday. Most of these volumes deal with the peoples of Inner Asia and the ethnic minorities of Southwest China. Yhe first, however, focuses on China's overseas tributaries, listed in the standard order: Korea, the Liuqiu Islands, Annam, Siam, Sulu, Laos, Burma, and the Great Western Ocean (Da Xiyang). These discussions are followed by sections on the Small Western Ocean (Xiao Xiyang), England, France, Sweden, Holland, Russia, and the Phillipines.

Here, without benefit of cartographic representation, the so-called Great Western Ocean Country is located vaguely in the Atlantic region and identified both with Italy and Portugal. Other Western nations, including England, France, Sweden, Holland, and Russia are lumped together indiscriminately with Asian countries such as Japan, Borneo, Cambodia, Java, and Sumatra. Modern France is confused with Ming dynasty Portugal; and England and Sweden are recorded as countries dependent on Holland. According to the Huang Qing zhigong tu, Italy presented tribute in 1667 (it was actually Holland that did so) and the Pope himself is reported to have once brought tribute to China. In religious matters the Huang Qing zhigong tu informs us that the Portuguese/French were Buddhist countries before they accepted Catholicism.

The same kind of misinformation can be found in the section on "tributary states" in various editions of the Da Qing huidian (Collected Statutes of the Great Qing Dynasty). Thus we read in the Collected Statutes of the Jiaqing reign (1796-1820) that "Portugal [Gansila] is in the northwestern sea near England," and that "France [Falanxi], also called Fulangxi, is the same as Portugal [here, Folangji]." After absorbing the Phillipines (Lusong), this account goes on to say, "they [the French/Portuguese] divided their people and lived there, still governing it at a distance. . . . The sea route from this country to China is more than 50,000 li [c. 17,000 miles]." Sweden (Ruikuo), we are told, is in the northwestern sea; the distance by sea is calculated to be over 60,000 li [c. 20,000 miles]. [ . . . ] Denmark [Lianguo] is [also] in the northwestern sea, and its route to Guangdong province is the same as that for Sweden." Small wonder, then, that Chinese mapmakers found it difficult to acquire accurate data on foreigners. In fact, some of the same misinformation cited above is repeated in maps of the Tianxia quantu variety--for example, that the Portuguese (Gansila) "absorbed" the Phillipines.

More reliable information was, however, available, as we can see from a large, hand-colored cartographic scroll produced by a scholar named Zhuang Tingfu in 1794. The title of Zhuang's production is: Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi (Model of the myriad tributary states of the great Qing dynasty from around the globe). Although this work borrows certain cartographic elements from Ma Junliang's Jingban tianwen quantu--specifically, the Sancai tuhui version of Ricci's map and Chen Lunjiong's depiction of the eastern hemisphere--it pointedly ignores the lower part of Ma's map. Instead, it provides two extremely "modern"-looking renderings of the Eastern and Western hemispheres, both produced by Zhuang himself. These latter two maps were reprinted by Western-oriented Korean exponents of "practical learning" during the 1830s.

A pair of long written inscriptions, totalling about five thousand characters, illustrate Zhuang's two major themes: one, the transmission to China of new Western scientific knowledge by the Jesuits; the other, the historic process by which foreigners came to be ruled (laiwang) as vassals; that is, they "knocked on [China's] gates," "sincerely offered tribute," and asked to become "attached" (shu) to the Central Kingdom. The interesting feature of Zhuang's document is the way it accomodates simultaneously the idea of embracing new knowledge from the West and the notion of enrolling Westerners as traditional-style tributaries.

From a scientific standpoint, Zhuang seeks to show that he has learned a great deal from the Jesuits about geography, cartography and astronomy, which, indeed, he did. He waxes at length about latitude and longitude, time and seasonal change, the circumference of the earth (90,000 li), the north and south poles, and so forth. He also writes knowledgeably about how different cartographic projections yield different pictures of the world. According to Zhuang, previous maps, including those offered by the Jesuit fathers, Matteo Ricci and Ferdinand Verbiest, distorted China's size by placing it too far north, thus compressing it (making China appear too small and the foreign countries, too big). His map, drawing upon the work of the famous Qing scientist Mei Wending, provides, he says, a more accurate picture. Significantly, Zhuang cannot resist remarking on how, cosmologically speaking, the Chinese are fortunate to have been born in the Central Land (Zhongtu), where the radiance of the sun nourishes them like a sovereign or a father--unlike those people whose misfortune it is to be in far northern or southern regions, where beneficial qi is less direct and therefore not very helpful.

Although Zhuang devotes a great deal of attention to science, his primary concern is a cultural one: the Chinese tributary system. The Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi commemorates the well-known Macartney embassy of 1793, which, in turn, marked what Zhuang considers to be the highwater mark in the development of China's age-old system of hierarchical foreign relations. This system, he notes, expanded significantly during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns to include many new parts of the "Western Regions." The peoples of these areas, Zhuang goes on to say, have been registered as part of the Chinese empire [ru banji], and have offered tribute to the Qing dynasty along with the British, who had engaged in no official communication with China prior to 1793.

Earlier maps, Zhuang tells us, did not include all of China's tributaries; but the Macartney mission, together with the "coming to court" of other tributaries, and the "return" (laigui) of various tributary peoples from the "Western regions" during the eighteenth century, offers a fitting moment to celebrate the transformative effect of the throne's glory (shenghua) with a set of maps. His renderings, then, are respectfully offered on this magnificent occasion. Significantly, but not at all surprisingly, Zhuang's remarks about the civilizing role of the Chinese emperor (shengjiao) correspond closely to those provided in the major cartouche of Ma Junliang's Jingban tianwen quantu.

The late eighteenth century maps by Ma, Zhuang, and others bring into sharp focus the issue of how best to characterize the Qing tributary system. James Hevia's stimulating book, Cherishing Men from Afar (1995), which deals with the Macartney embassy, emphasizes the flexibility of the Chinese system, and argues that Qing guest ritual "does not appear to deal in crude distinctions between civilization and barbarism." Although Qing officials and the throne did indeed evince a good deal of flexibility in "managing" Macartney (part of a long-standing tradition), and although the word "crude" probably does not apply to their approach, I believe that Hevia underestimates the problem of cultural difference. What distinguished the "Chinese" from "barbarians" was precisely the difference in their levels of "civilization"--specifically, differences in their ritual behavior.

There is another problem with Hevia's approach. Although his stated aim is to understand events "through their multiple recountings," his analysis is marked by a curious asymmetry. In his zeal to expose the "orientalizing" tendencies of both Westerners and post-Qing Chinese scholars (who have, according to Hevia, appropriated "the intellectual framework of the colonizer"), he virtually ignores similar "occidentalizing" gestures on the part of the Qing intelligentsia--essentializing and condescending moves that are abundantly evident not only in the Chinese documents that Hevia has quite obviously studied, but also in Chinese cartographic materials, which he apparently has not. The result is an account of historiographic "distortions" that is itself "distorted" by Hevia's inclination to view precolonial China through a postcolonial lens.

My own research on China's foreign relations, including recent work on maps and other forms of visual representation, suggests that in late imperial times there was something that could indeed be called a Chinese tributary "system" in Qing times, universally recognized by all Han people, marked by the generic term zhigong (signifying the offering of "regular tribute"), and expressed in a wide range of elite as well as popular writings and illustrations. This system, although by no means the only mechanism for the conduct of Sino-foreign relations, was highly sophisticated, remarkably flexible, and perfectly "rational"--particularly in the light of Chinese cultural assumptions about imperial overlordship, the transformative effect and power of ritual, and the "nature" of both foreigners and Chinese. These assumptions, I might add, seem just as "totalizing" and demeaning with respect to foreigners ("barbarians") as those of the British, which Hevia catalogues at far greater length. In fact, references to the animal-like qualities of Westerners abound in Chinese writings, official and unofficial as well.