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Victoria Tin-bor Hui
University of Notre Dame Historical Asia is often presumed to be uniquely peaceful, in sharp contrast to the historical European system which is seen as Hobbesian and war-prone. Asian peace is supposed to be deeply stable and maintained by China as the benevolent superpower, in sharp contrast to European peace which was only momentarily maintained by fragile balances of power. David Kang’s East Asia Before the West is the most representative, arguing that East Asia was so stable that “Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea [the Imjin War] marked the only military conflict between Japan, Korea, and China” in early modern Asia for the period 1368-1841. I suggest that historical Asia appears to be peaceful and stable only by definitional fiat – by treating most political entities as nonstates and thus excluding wars involving them from the count of interstate wars. Most of all, “China” is defined retrospectively so that the territory that belongs to China today is presumed to have always belonged to China since ancient times. Moreover, unity is presumed to be the norm so that eras of division are mere interregnum. This means that wars fought between/among once independent rivals are classified as civil wars rather than interstate wars. Even when peripheral regimes are recognized as independent, they are seen as “barbarian” or “nomadic” nonstate actors and so wars involving them do not count as interstate wars. I propose a prospective approach in coding state actors without such prior presumptions. To test the relative peacefulness of historical China, the system is necessarily China-centered. It includes political entities on the central plain plus surrounding polities with whom they had direct military and diplomatic interactions, but excludes actors further beyond in Central Asia or Southeast China. Divided Chinese kingdoms and nomadic entities are coded as states if they had organized fighting forces commanded by centralized authority which maintained political independence and territorial sovereignty. By not excluding entire classes of actors a priori, I have to examine each polity’s entry to and exit from the state actor status. This alternative approach requires deep reading of over two thousand years of Asian history. The challenge is immense and I would like to take the opportunity to seek advice from other workshop participants.
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