Chapter 9: Chapter Outline
The following annotated chapter outline will help you review the major topics covered in this chapter.
Instructions: Review the outline to recall events and their relationships as presented in the chapter. Return to skim any sections that seem unfamiliar.
I. Opening Vignette | ||
A. Many believe that China will be a superpower in the twenty-first century. | ||
B. China was a major player among the third-wave civilizations. | ||
1. a China-centered “world order” encompassed most of eastern Asia | ||
2. China ’s borders reached far into Central Asia | ||
3. its wealthy and cosmopolitan culture attracted visitors from afar | ||
4. all of China ’s neighbors felt its gravitational pull | ||
5. China ’s economy and technological innovation had effects throughout Eurasia | ||
C. China was also changed by its interactions with non-Chinese peoples. | ||
1. nomadic military threat | ||
2. international trade as catalyst of change | ||
II. The Reemergence of a Unified China | ||
A. The Han dynasty collapsed around 220 C.E. | ||
1. led to 300 years of political fragmentation | ||
2. nomadic incursion from the north | ||
3. conditions discredited Confucianism in many eyes | ||
4. Chinese migration southward to Yangzi River valley began vast environmental change | ||
B. A “Golden Age” of Chinese Achievement | ||
1. the Sui dynasty (589–618) reunified China | ||
a. Sui rulers vastly extended the canal system | ||
b. but their ruthlessness and failure to conquer Korea alienated people, exhausted state’s resources | ||
c. dynasty was overthrown, but state didn’t disintegrate | ||
2. Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) dynasties built on Sui foundations | ||
a. established patterns of Chinese life that lasted into twentieth century | ||
b. regarded as a “golden age” of arts and literature | ||
3. Tang and Song politics | ||
a. six major ministries were created, along with the Censorate for surveillance over government | ||
b. examination system revived to staff the bureaucracy | ||
c. proliferation of schools and colleges | ||
d. a large share of official positions went to sons of the elite | ||
e. large landowners continued to be powerful, despite state efforts to redistribute land to the peasants | ||
4. “economic revolution” under the Song | ||
a. great prosperity | ||
b. rapid population growth (from 50 million–60 million people during Tang dynasty to 120 million by 1200) | ||
c. great improvement in agricultural production | ||
d. China was the most urbanized region in the world | ||
e. great network of internal waterways (canals, rivers, lakes) | ||
f. great improvements in industrial production | ||
g. invention of print (both woodblock and movable type) | ||
h. best navigational and shipbuilding technology in the world | ||
i. invention of gunpowder | ||
5. production for the market rather than for local consumption was widespread | ||
a. cheap transportation allowed peasants to grow specialized crops | ||
b. government demanded payment of taxes in cash, not in kind | ||
c. growing use of paper money and financial instruments | ||
C. Women in the Song Dynasty | ||
1. the era wasn’t very “golden” for women | ||
2. during the Tang dynasty, elite women in the north had had greater freedom (influence of steppe nomads) | ||
3. Song: tightening of patriarchal restrictions on women | ||
4. literature highlighted the subjection of women | ||
5. foot binding started in tenth or eleventh century C.E. | ||
a. was associated with images of female beauty and eroticism | ||
b. kept women restricted to the house | ||
6. textile production became larger scale, displacing women from their traditional role in the industry | ||
a. women found other roles in cities | ||
b. prosperity of the elite created demand for concubines, entertainers, courtesans, prostitutes | ||
7. in some ways the position of women improved | ||
a. property rights expanded | ||
b. more women were educated, in order to raise sons better | ||
III. China and the Northern Nomads: A Chinese World Order in the Making | ||
A. There have been two enduring misconceptions of Chinese history: | ||
1. the idea that Chinese civilization was impressive but largely static | ||
2. the idea that China was a self-contained civilization | ||
B. For most of its history, China ’s most enduring interaction with foreigners was in the north, with the peoples of the steppes. | ||
1. northern nomads typically lived in small kinship-based groups | ||
2. occasional creation of powerful states or confederations | ||
3. pastoral societies needed grain and other farm products from China | ||
4. leaders wanted Chinese manufactured and luxury goods | ||
5. steppe pressure and intrusion was a constant factor in Chinese history for 2,000 years | ||
6. nomads often felt threatened by the Chinese | ||
a. Chinese military attacks on the steppes | ||
b. Great Wall | ||
7. China needed the nomads | ||
a. steppes provided horses and other goods | ||
b. nomads controlled much of the Silk Roads | ||
C. The Tribute System in Theory | ||
1. the Chinese understood themselves as the center of the world (“middle kingdom”), far superior to the “barbarian” outsiders | ||
2. establishment of “tribute system” to manage relations with non-Chinese peoples | ||
a. non-Chinese authorities had to acknowledge Chinese superiority | ||
b. would present tribute to the emperor | ||
c. would receive trading privileges and “bestowals” in return (often worth more than the tribute) | ||
3. the system apparently worked for centuries | ||
D. The Tribute System in Practice | ||
1. but the system disguised contradictory realities | ||
2. some nomadic empires could deal with China on at least equal terms | ||
a. Xiongnu confederacy (established around 200 B.C.E.) | ||
b. Turkic empires of Mongolia , including the Uighurs | ||
3. steppe nomads usually did not want to conquer and rule China | ||
a. preferred extortion | ||
b. but nomads moved in when the Chinese state broke down | ||
c. the Khitan and then the Jen (Jurchen) peoples took over parts of northern China | ||
E. Cultural Influence across an Ecological Frontier | ||
1. nomads who ruled parts of China often adopted Chinese ways | ||
2. but Chinese culture did not have great impact on steppe nomads | ||
a. pastoral societies retained their own cultural patterns | ||
b. most lived where Chinese-style agriculture was impossible | ||
3. interaction took the form of trade, military conflict, negotiations, extortion, and some cultural influence | ||
4. steppe culture influenced the parts of northern China that were ruled frequently by nomads | ||
a. founders of Sui and Tang dynasties were of mixed blood | ||
b. Tang dynasty: fad among northern Chinese elites for anything connected to “western barbarians” | ||
IV. Coping with China : Comparing Korea , Vietnam , and Japan | ||
A. The emerging states and civilizations of Korea , Vietnam , and Japan also had tributary relationships with China . | ||
1. agricultural, sedentary societies | ||
2. their civilizations were shaped by proximity to China but did not become Chinese | ||
3. | similar to twentieth-century Afro-Asian societies that accepted elements of Western culture while maintaining political/cultural independence | |
B. Korea and China | ||
1. interaction with China started with temporary Chinese conquest of northern Korea during the Han dynasty, with some colonization | ||
2. Korean states emerged in fourth–seventh centuries C.E. | ||
a. the states were rivals; also resisted Chinese political control | ||
b. seventh century: the Silla kingdom allied with Tang dynasty China to bring some political unity | ||
3. Korea generally maintained political independence under the Silla (688–900), Koryo (918–1392), and Yi (1392–1910) dynasties | ||
a. but China provided legitimacy for Korean rulers | ||
b. efforts to replicate Chinese court life and administration | ||
c. capital city Kumsong modeled on Chinese capital Chang’an | ||
4. acceptance of much Chinese culture | ||
a. Chinese luxury goods, scholarship, and religious influence | ||
b. Confucianism had negative impact on Korean women, especially after 1300 | ||
5. Korea maintained its Korean culture | ||
a. Chinese cultural influence had little effect on Korea ’s serflike peasants or large slave population | ||
b. only Buddhism moved beyond the Korean elite | ||
c. examination system for bureaucrats never won prominence | ||
d. in 1400s, Korea developed a phonetic alphabet (hangul) | ||
C. Vietnam and China | ||
1. the experience of Vietnam was broadly similar to that of Korea | ||
2. but Vietnam ’s cultural heartland in the Red River valley was part of the Chinese state from 111 B.C.E. to 939 C.E. | ||
a. real effort at cultural assimilation of elite | ||
b. provoked rebellions | ||
3. Vietnamese rulers adopted the Chinese approach to government | ||
a. examination system helped undermine established aristocrats | ||
b. elite remained deeply committed to Chinese culture | ||
4. much of distinctive Vietnamese culture remained in place | ||
a. language, cockfighting, betel nuts, greater roles for women | ||
b. kept nature goddesses and a “female Buddha” in popular belief | ||
c. developed a variation of Chinese writing, chu nom (“southern script”) | ||
D. Japan and China | ||
1. Japan was never invaded or conquered by China , so borrowing of Chinese culture was voluntary | ||
2. main period of cultural borrowing was seventh–ninth centuries C.E., when first unified Japanese state began to emerge | ||
a. creation of Japanese bureaucratic state modeled on China began with Shotoku Taishi (572–622) | ||
b. large-scale missions to China to learn | ||
c. Seventeen Article Constitution proclaimed Japanese ruler as emperor and encouraged Buddhism and Confucianism | ||
d. two capital cities ( Nara and then Heian) were founded, both modeled on Chinese capital of Chang’an | ||
3. elements of Chinese culture took root in Japan | ||
a. several schools of Chinese Buddhism | ||
b. art, architecture, education, medicine, religious views | ||
c. Chinese writing system | ||
4. Japanese borrowings were selective | ||
5. Japan never created an effective centralized and bureaucratic state | ||
a. political power became decentralized | ||
b. local authorities developed their own military forces (samurai) | ||
6. religious distinctiveness | ||
a. Buddhism never replaced native belief system | ||
b. the way of the kami (sacred spirits), later called Shinto | ||
7. distinctive literary and artistic culture | ||
a. unique writing system mixed Chinese characters with phonetic symbols | ||
b. early development of tanka (highly stylized poetry) | ||
c. highly refined aesthetic court culture, especially in Heian period (794–1192) | ||
8. elite women escaped most of Confucian oppression | ||
V. China and the Eurasian World Economy | ||
A. Spillovers: China ’s Impact on Eurasia | ||
1. many of China ’s technological innovations spread beyond its borders | ||
a. salt production through solar evaporation | ||
b. papermaking | ||
c. printing (though resisted by the Islamic world) | ||
d. gunpowder invented ca. 1000, but used differently after it reached Europe | ||
e. Chinese textile, metallurgical, and naval technologies also stimulated imitation and innovation (e.g., magnetic compass) | ||
2. Chinese prosperity stimulated commercial life all over Eurasia | ||
B. On the Receiving End: China as Economic Beneficiary | ||
1. China learned cotton and sugar cultivation and processing from India | ||
2. China was transformed around 1000 by introduction of new rice strains from Vietnam | ||
3. technological creativity was spurred by cross-cultural contact | ||
4. growing participation in Indian Ocean trade | ||
a. foreign merchant settlements in southern Chinese ports by Tang era | ||
b. sometimes brought violence, e.g., massive massacre of foreigners in Canton in the 870s | ||
c. transformation of southern China to production for export instead of subsistence | ||
VI. China and Buddhism | ||
A. Buddhism was India’s most important gift to China | ||
1. China’s only large-scale cultural borrowing until Marxism | ||
2. China was the base for Buddhism’s spread to Korea and Japan | ||
B. Making Buddhism Chinese | ||
1. Buddhism entered China via Silk Roads in first–second centuries C.E. | ||
a. had little appeal at first | ||
b. Indian culture was too different from Chinese | ||
2. Buddhism took root 300–800 C.E. | ||
a. collapse of the Han dynasty ca. 200 C.E. brought chaos and discrediting of Confucianism | ||
b. nomadic rulers in northern China favored Buddhism | ||
c. Buddhism was comforting | ||
d. monasteries provided increasing array of social services | ||
e. Buddhists appeared to have access to magical powers | ||
f. serious effort to present Buddhism in a form accessible to the Chinese | ||
g. it was Mahayana form of Buddhism that became popular | ||
3. Sui and early Tang dynasties gave state support to Buddhism | ||
a. Sui emperor Wendi (r. 581–604) had monasteries built at base of China ’s five sacred mountains | ||
b. monasteries became very wealthy | ||
c. Buddhism was never independent from state authorities | ||
C. Losing State Support: The Crisis of Chinese Buddhism | ||
1. growth of Chinese Buddhism provoked resistance and criticism | ||
a. deepening resentment of the Buddhist establishment’s wealth | ||
b. it was foreign and thus offensive | ||
c. monastic celibacy and withdrawal undermined the Confucian-based family system | ||
2. new xenophobia perhaps started with An Lushan rebellion (755–763), led by foreign general | ||
3. Chinese state began direct action against foreign religions in 841–845 | ||
a. 260,000 monks and nuns forced to return to secular life | ||
b. thousands of monasteries, temples, and shrines confiscated or destroyed | ||
c. Buddhists forbidden to use precious metals or gems for their images | ||
4. Buddhism did not vanish from China ; it remained an important element of popular religion | ||
VII. Reflections: Why Do Things Change? | ||
A. Change and transformation are constants in human history. | ||
1. explaining why and how societies change is historians’ most central issue | ||
2. there is often disagreement about what is the most important catalyst of change | ||
B. The case of China illustrates the range of 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 |