Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics

By Yuan-kang Wang

Confucianism has shaped a certain perception of Chinese security strategy, symbolized by the defensive, nonaggressive Great Wall. Many believe China is antimilitary and reluctant to use force against its enemies. Instead, the country practices pacifism and refrains from expanding its boundaries, even when nationally strong.

In a path-breaking study that travels seven hundred years of Chinese history, Yuan-kang Wang resoundingly discredits this notion, recasting China as a practitioner of realpolitik and a ruthless purveyor of expansive grand strategies. Leaders of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) prized military force and shrewdly assessed the strength of China's adversaries. They adopted defensive strategies only when their country was weak and pursued expansive goals, such as territorial acquisition, enemy destruction, and total military victory, when their country was strong. Despite the dominance of an antimilitarist Confucian culture, warfare was not uncommon in the bulk of Chinese history. Grounding his research in primary Chinese sources, Wang outlines a politics of power that are crucial to understanding China's strategies today, especially its policy of "peaceful development," which it has adopted only because of military, economic, and technological weakness in relation to the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Dec 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9780231522403

Book preview

HARMONY AND WAR

Contemporary Asia in the World

CONTEMPORARY ASIA IN THE WORLD

David C. Kang and Victor D. Cha, Editors

This series aims to address a gap in the public-policy and scholarly discussion of Asia. It seeks to promote books and studies that are on the cutting edge of their respective disciplines or in the promotion of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research but that are also accessible to a wider readership. The editors seek to showcase the best scholarly and public-policy arguments on Asia from any field, including politics, history, economics, and cultural studies.

Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia, Victor D. Cha, 2008

The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online, Guobin Yang, 2009

China and India: Prospects for Peace, Jonathan Holslag, 2010

India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia,Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, 2010

Living with the Dragon: How the American Public Views the Rise of China, Benjamin I. Page and Tao Xie, 2010

East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute, David C. Kang, 2010

HARMONY AND WAR: CONFUCIAN CULTURE AND CHINESE POWER POLITICS

Yuan-kang Wang

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS    NEW YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Publishers Since 1893

New York   Chichester, West Sussex

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Copyright © 2011 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-52240-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wang, Yuan-Kang.

Harmony and war : Confucian culture and Chinese power politics / Yuan-kang Wang.

p. cm.—(Contemporary Asia in the world)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-15140-5 (cloth : acid-free paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-52240-3 (ebook)

1. China—History—Song dynasty, 960-1279.  2. China—History—Ming dynasty, 1368–1644.  3. China—Military policy.  4. China—Strategic aspects.  5. Confucianism—China—History.  6. Confucianism—Political aspects—China—History.  7. Power (Social sciences)—China—History.  8. Harmony (Philosophy)—Political aspects—China—History.  9. Militarism—China—History.  I. Title.  II. Series.

DS751.3.W375   2011

327.51—dc22

2010025011

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [e-mail].

References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

To the memory of my father

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Preface

1.  Confucian Strategic Culture and the Puzzle

2.  Culture and Strategic Choice

3.  The Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127)

4.  The Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)

5.  The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

6.  The Ming Tribute System

7.  Chinese Power Politics in the Age of U.S. Unipolarity

Notes

Glossary: Chinese Terms

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

3.1.  Song China and the Liao Empire, 1100

3.2.  The Sixteen Prefectures and Song-Liao Conflicts

3.3.  The Song Invasion of the Xi Xia, 1081

4.1.  Southern Song and the Jin Empire, 1200

5.1.  Ming China About 1580

6.1.  The Seven Voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433)

FIGURES

3.1.  Cumulative Frequencies of Conflict Initiation (960–1127)

4.1.  Cumulative Frequencies of Conflict Initiation (1127–1234)

5.1.  Grain Production in Military Colonies (1403–1571)

5.2.  Cumulative Frequencies of Conflict Initiation (1368–1643)

TABLES

1.1.  Major Periods in Imperial China

2.1.  Competing Theories of Chinese Strategic Choice

3.1.  Origins of Midlevel Song Officials and Above

3.2.  Song State Budget, 960–1059

3.3.  Itemized Tax Revenue, 1004–1047

4.1.  Percentage of Troops Controlled by the Four Generals

5.1.  Backgrounds of Ming Grand Secretaries, 1403–1644

5.2.  Degrees Held by Local Officials

5.3.  Horse Population During the Reign of Emperor Yongle

5.4.  Soldier Shortages in the Nine Garrisons (1541)

5.5.  Military Disbursements from the Central Treasury to Border Garrisons

5.6.  Fiscal Situation of the Ming Treasury

6.1.  Ming China’s Seven Maritime Expeditions, 1405–1433

7.1.  The Power Structure of the United States and China (2007)

PREFACE

THIS BOOK is about the power politics of Confucian China. In general, Confucianism favors harmony and condemns war. The Great Wall of China is often said to be the symbol of an enduring Confucian strategic culture that is pacifist, antimilitary, and defensive. As Beijing engineers its rise on the world stage, Chinese leaders have employed the Confucian precept of harmony and benevolence to allay international fears of an increasingly powerful China. Did Confucianism constrain China’s decision to use force in the past? Did Chinese leaders consistently adopt a defensive grand strategy? Were Chinese war aims limited to border protection and restoration of the status quo ante? Most important, what can we learn from the past to shed light on the strategic trajectory of an ascendant China in today’s world?

To answer these questions, I examine Chinese military policy during the Song dynasty (960–1279) and the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Based on a review of the important strategic decisions made by the Chinese leaders during these two periods, I argue that relative power concerns were at the heart of Chinese strategic choices; Confucian culture failed to constrain Chinese use of force. Instead, China was clearly a practitioner of realpolitik, behaving much like other great powers have throughout world history. Chinese decisions to use force were predicated on leaders’ assessment of the relative strength between China and its adversary. Moreover, Chinese grand strategy was not consistently defensive but, rather, was correlated with the country’s relative power: China tended to adopt an offensive grand strategy when its power was relatively strong and a defensive one when its power was relatively weak. In addition, Chinese leaders have not restricted their war aims to deterrence and border protection but at times adopted expansive goals such as acquisition of territory, destruction of enemy power, and total military victory.

Notwithstanding the dominance of an antimilitarist Confucian culture, warfare was not uncommon in Chinese history. What caused Chinese leaders to practice realpolitik was anarchy. The anarchic structure of the system forced Chinese leaders, despite their training and socialization in Confucian discourse, to pursue power and even to go to war if necessary. In short, anarchy trumps culture.

In writing this book, I came to subvert many of the deep-seated beliefs that I had acquired in my early education. While growing up in Taiwan, I received instructions in Chinese history and Confucian classics at school. The narratives that I was taught corresponded with conventional wisdom: a peaceful Confucian culture had produced a state that was defensive-minded and avoided outward expansion; the Chinese world order was constructed according to the way of the king (wang dao), not the way of the hegemon (ba dao); and Chinese territory expanded by the spreading of Confucian culture, not by military force. This study challenges all of these standard articulations. In a sense, this book is also a journey of self-reflection.

I have incurred a long list of scholarly debts along the way. The stimulating intellectual environment at the University of Chicago nurtured me and this project. John Mearsheimer, in particular, encouraged me to ask an important question and undertake a study of Chinese military history using international relations theory. There were times when I doubted whether political scientists, whose minds focus on the present, would be interested in a study of China’s distant past, but John’s unflinching support and encouragement over the years kept me focused on the research. This book would not have been possible without him. I also thank two other members of my doctoral committee. Charles Glaser was generous in providing useful insights and critiques and cheerfully responded to my requests for help. Robert Pape spent many hours with me over coffee discussing my project and helped me sharpen my argument. I benefited immensely from their insightful advice and suggestions.

A postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs allowed me to continue research on this project and receive invaluable feedback. Over the years, many people gave me helpful comments. First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to Andrew Marble, who read the various incarnations of this project with tremendous patience. His incisive comments and editorial skills greatly enhanced the manuscript. I am also indebted to Warren Cohen and Edward Friedman, who read the entire manuscript and offered astute suggestions. The generosity of both these scholars is much appreciated. Early drafts of this research were presented at the Program on International Security Policy and the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security at the University of Chicago, the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, the Midwest Political Science Association, the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica in Taipei, the Brookings Institution, the International Studies Association, and the American Political Science Association. For comments on drafts and presentations, I thank Alexander Wendt, Duncan Snidal, Daniel Drezner, Alexander Thompson, Alexander Downes, Deborah Boucoyannis, Takayuki Nishi, Dong Sun Lee, Sebastian Rosato, Jeffrey Hart, Kenneth Klinkner, Changhe Su, Steve Miller, Richard Rosecrance, Fiona Adamson, David Edelstein, Christopher Twomey, John Garofano, Ronald Krebs, Staci Goddard, Gregory Mitrovich, Yu-shan Wu, Richard Bush, Daniel Kempton, John Vasquez, Douglas Gibler, and Victoria Hui. Pardon me if I miss anyone.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Richard Bush for a visiting fellowship in the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. The opportunity came at a crucial time and allowed me conduct research on contemporary Chinese grand strategy, which became the basis for the last chapter of this book. I also thank Jeffery Bader for moderating a presentation of this research at the Brookings.

For financial support at various stages of this research, I thank the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation (through the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago), the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the National Science Council in Taiwan, and the Brookings Institution. I also thank my colleagues in the Department of Diplomacy at the National Chengchi University in Taipei and Shih-yueh Yang for his research assistance. Some of the research was conducted during my employment in the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. I thank my colleagues, especially Daniel Kempton, Christopher Jones, and Danny Unger for their collegiality and support. At Western Michigan University, I am indebted to David Hartmann for a timely course release that allowed me to finally tidy up the manuscript. I am also grateful to Anne Routon of the Columbia University Press for shepherding me through the review and publication process. I thank the two anonymous reviewers commissioned by the Press for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Above all else, I thank my wife, Chien-Juh Gu, for her love and unqualified support. Also an academic, she knew how important this book meant to me and patiently accompanied me every step of the way. She kept my spirits up in down times and helped me see the big picture. My life is amply enriched because of her. The arrival our two wonderful boys, Kevin and John, made our life complete and full of fun. Watching them grow is one of the most joyful experiences in life. Finally, I could not be where I am without the unconditional support and love of my parents. I dedicate this book to the memory of my father.

1

CONFUCIAN STRATEGIC CULTURE AND THE PUZZLE

CHINA’S WEIGHT is increasingly felt around the globe. Its booming economy, growing military might, and rising diplomatic clout are gradually changing the international landscape. As China rises, many observers are wondering how a rich and powerful China will behave in the world. International relations (IR) scholarship offers various answers to this important question, ranging from dangerous power transition to cooperative international integration and to peaceful identity transformation.¹ Yet, for Chinese civilian and military strategists, one argument repeatedly stands out: Because of its Confucian culture, China has not behaved aggressively toward others throughout history and will continue to be a pacific power after it has risen on today’s world stage. Confucianism denigrates the efficacy of military force as an instrument of statecraft, giving rise to a strategic culture that is pacifist, defensive, and non-expansionist. The Great Wall embodied China’s strategic culture of peace and defense. According to this view, existing IR theory, developed mainly in the West, where wars were abundant, is ill suited to explain and understand the distinctive Chinese experience centered on peace and harmony. Chinese strategists are enamored of the distinction between the brutal, hegemonic way (ba dao) of the Western powers and the benevolent, kingly way (wang dao) of the Chinese world order. The West, they argue, is quick to use force to resolve interstate disputes, but China has always shunned violence in preference to defense and diplomacy. Against the realpolitik tradition of the West, China did not expand in history even when it was powerful.

Chinese military strategists have given considerable attention to cultural variables. Lieutenant General Li Jijun of the Academy of Military Science, who first introduced the concept of strategic culture to China, argues that the defensive character of China’s strategic culture is widely recognized in the world.² General Xu Xin, former deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, argues that the Chinese nation has a long tradition of honoring peace. As early as two thousand years ago, Confucius has emphasized that ‘peace should be cherished.’³ Because of this preoccupation with defense, generations of Chinese leaders have chosen not to pursue an offensive-oriented strategy. Contemporary civilian analysts, though not necessarily using the term strategic culture, also suggest that China has a cultural preference for peace, harmony, and defense. Unlike the Westphalian system, in which interstate relations were formally equal but conflictual, the Confucian world order with China at the center was, in the words of Qin Yaqing, unequal but benign.⁴

Official policy papers and public statements by top leaders hew to the idea of a pacifist strategic culture. In a 2005 foreign policy white paper, the Chinese foreign ministry proclaimed that Chinese culture is a pacific one.⁵ The 2006 Defense White Paper stated that China pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature.⁶ The late senior leader Deng Xiaoping reiterated on several occasions that China’s strategy is always and will be defensive.… If China is modernized in the future, its strategy will still be defensive.⁷ Former Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen remarked, China has never had the tradition of expanding abroad.⁸ In a speech delivered at Harvard University in 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao stated, Peace loving has been a time-honored quality of the Chinese nation. The very first emperor of the Qin dynasty commanded the building of the Great Wall 2,000 years ago for defense purposes.⁹ President Hu Jintao announced in 2004 that China since ancient times has had a fine tradition of sincerity, benevolence, kindness and trust towards its neighbors.¹⁰

Granted, almost every nation will proclaim that it is peace-loving and that its security policy is defensive. What is striking about the Chinese case is the extent to which this preference for nonviolent, defensive measures is emphasized by the political, military, and academic elites—so much so that Andrew Scobell terms it the Chinese Cult of Defense.¹¹

Like their Chinese counterparts, international analysts have long subscribed to the notion that Confucian culture has constrained China’s use of military force. In the West, the pacifist image of China has been in existence since the Enlightenment, when the philosophes praised Chinese civilization as rational and peaceful.¹² Max Weber wrote about the pacifist character of Confucianism and observed, The Confucianists, who are ultimately pacifist literati oriented to inner political welfare, naturally faced military powers with aversion or with lack of understanding.¹³ John K. Fairbank asserted that Chinese culture has a pacifist bias, rendering the use of force a last resort.¹⁴ Ralph Sawyer argued, Despite incessant barbarian incursions and major military threats throughout their history … Imperial China was little inclined to pursue military solutions to external aggression.¹⁵ Writing on the revival of Confucianism in today’s China, Daniel Bell opined, Confucian theorizing on just and unjust war has the potential to play the role of constraining China’s imperial ventures abroad, just as it did in the past.¹⁶

The popularity of this cultural argument cannot be overemphasized, yet there have been surprisingly few studies examining the proposition that China’s Confucian culture has constrained its use of force against external threats during its imperial past. Most of the existing studies focus on the People’s Republic of China after 1949, a period in which China has never been in a dominant position in the system. Few IR scholars have ventured to study Imperial China as the main body of their research.¹⁷ As such, they provide inadequate guidance on the issue of how China will behave when its power rises in the future. If history is any guide, studying Chinese strategic behaviors in the past will likely shed light on its future behavior. When was China most likely to use force? How had China behaved as it grew more powerful? Did Chinese war aims expand in the absence of systemic and military constraints? This book provides answers to these important questions.

THE CENTRAL QUESTION

The central question of this study is: To what extent does culture influence a state’s use of military force against external security threats? Put in the context of China, did Confucian culture constrain Chinese use of force in the past?

This question is grounded in IR theory. Structural realism holds that anarchy, defined as the absence of a central authority above states, pushes states to engage in power competition and use force when necessary; a state’s culture does not have an independent effect on how it behaves in the world.¹⁸ Cultural theories, in contrast, argue that ideational factors such as culture can transform the harmful effects of anarchy and have an independent effect on state behaviors. For instance, Peter Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara argue that, in the aftermath of World War II, a culture of pacifism has become institutionalized in Japan, to the extent that Japanese policymakers no longer follow the logic of realist theory.¹⁹ Thomas Berger suggests that Japan’s culture of anti-militarism makes it very hard for that country to assume a substantial military role.²⁰ According to cultural theorists, if leaders can forgo the realist ideas of competition and instead cultivate the norms of cooperation, then international politics can be transformed; conflicts among states will no longer be inevitable.

In the extant literature, there are two strands of cultural explanations in regard to China’s strategic behavior: Confucian pacifism and cultural realism. Both maintain that culture has an independent effect on how states behave in the world, but they disagree sharply over which culture best characterizes the Chinese tradition. Confucian pacifism depicts Chinese use of force as reluctant, reactive, and defensive.²¹ The antimilitarist ideas of China’s Confucian culture proscribed the use of violence in statecraft and prescribed peaceful, noncoercive means in resolving disputes. Having an antimilitarist strategic culture, China has rarely taken the initiative in using force—its actual use of force was for self-defense, a response to the aggression of others. Confucianism denigrates the efficacy of violence in statecraft and preaches peace and harmony in state-to-state relations: war is aberrant; brute force begets chaos. The use of force was unnecessary, futile, and counterproductive. The key to national security is good domestic governance built on moral education as well as cultivation of benevolence and virtue among the country’s leaders. Following Confucian precepts, a wealthy and powerful China has historically been a benign hegemon, not an expansionist power bent on dominating others. Looking ahead, because of this cultural heritage, a strong China will not behave aggressively toward others, nor will it be an expansionist power—even though its capabilities to do so have increased.

In contradistinction to Confucian pacifism, cultural realism sees Chinese use of force as eager, proactive, and offensive. While acknowledging the parallel existence of Confucian pacifism, which is said to be symbolic and inoperative, Alastair Iain Johnston contends that China has had an often neglected, but operational, strand of realpolitik strategic culture.²² Because of this strategic culture, China viewed conflict as inevitable, held a zero-sum view of the adversary, and valued the utility of force in resolving interstate disputes. Furthermore, in times of superior strength, China preferred to pursue an offensive, expansionist grand strategy that included extended campaigns beyond the borders, annexation of territories, and total annihilation of adversaries. In times of relative weakness, China adopted a defensive grand strategy such as static defense and deterrence, or even an accommodationist grand strategy that entailed territorial concessions, economic incentives, and peace treaties. Contrary to the claim of Confucian pacifism, a rise in China’s relative power would lead to an increasingly aggressive, belligerent, and expansionist security policy. Importantly, according to cultural realism, Chinese realpolitik was not a product of the anarchic structure of the system but rather a product of social learning. Chinese strategists have learned the precepts of realpolitik by reading the Seven Military Classics as well as other military writings. Because power politics is learned, it can therefore be unlearned. The hardwiring of realpolitik thinking in Chinese leaders can hence be replaced by a more peaceful discourse.²³

Both Confucian pacifism and cultural realism start from a cultural, ideational perspective. Structural realism, on the other hand, holds that culture has little effect on how states behave in the world. The theory argues that, in an anarchic system, the distribution of power, not country-specific strategic cultures, accounts for much of international outcome and state behavior. In this view, the material structure of the system exerts overriding influence on state behavior. Realists do not deny that when international pressures are not salient, a state’s cultural and historical legacies may have an effect on its strategic behavior, but they do insist that power considerations frequently trump unit-level variables such as culture, ideology, and regime type. International anarchy, defined as the absence of a higher authority above states, is the permissive condition that allows war to occur regardless of the intentions of states. Because war is always a possibility in an anarchic system, survival-seeking states will arm themselves for security and seek to gain relative power at the expense of others, since power is the key to survival in a system with no central authority to protect states from aggression. A powerful state, with more resources at disposal, will pursue an offensive grand strategy by expanding its political, economic, and military interests abroad. Hence, structural realism shares with cultural realism an identical view of state behavior; they differ, however, over the source of realpolitik behavior, which structural realism attributes to the material structure of the system, whereas cultural realism finds the roots in a state’s strategic culture.

Which of the three theories is the most persuasive? China provides an excellent opportunity to test competing theories about structural and cultural influence on state behaviors. Rarely in human history can we find a case like China in which a single pacifist culture dominated both the bureaucracy and the society for two thousand years. In comparison, the two familiar cases of culturalists (Japan and German) comprise only fifty years and are confounded by the security guarantee of the United States. Additionally, many scholars have argued for China’s uniqueness and nonrealist predilections in its dealings with foreign states.²⁴ Hence in terms of ideational influence on a state’s strategic behavior, China presents a most-likely case for culturally contingent explanations, given the dominant influence of Confucianism. If culture affects a state’s decision to use military force, we would expect to see markedly pacifist behaviors in the Chinese case. In this way, China presents a least-likely case for structural realism, which argues that structural imperatives force a state to be aggressive, regardless of its culture. In other words, China could be a crucial case for those who privilege the influence of anarchic structure and those who privilege cultural, ideational influence on state behavior.²⁵ If structural realism holds up after such a tough test, the theory gains more credibility, since we would expect cultural theories to perform better in the Chinese case.

Last but not least, structural realism is a theory that has its empirical roots in the West. By including a major case in Asia, starting as early as the tenth century, this study makes for a stronger test. I avoid double counting of the data by examining cases outside the West. If structural realism passes the test, it refutes the assertion that IR theory is ill suited for the non-Western world.²⁶

RESEARCH STRATEGIES

The central concern of this study is to examine whether culture has a significant influence on the strategic choice of states. To do that, the decision-making process will be crucial. By carefully scrutinizing the decision process, we can ascertain whether cultural considerations or power concerns motivated Chinese leaders to choose a particular military strategy. That is, we must investigate the conditions under which top leaders decided to go to war, strengthen defense, or sue for peace. We must also look into the relationship between increased military capability and war-proneness and examine whether Chinese war aims were purely defensive in nature or actually contained offensive objectives such as annihilation of the adversary and conquest of territory.

As the methodology that can best answer the proposed research question, I employ the method of structured, focused comparison.²⁷ I test for congruence of the fit between the theory’s predictions and the historical evidence and process-trace the decisions leading up to the adoption of a particular military strategy. This method is the most appropriate for my study because the nuances and contextual richness of historical case studies provide essential information about the key factors driving Chinese national security policy-making. Process-tracing has a unique advantage over other research methods.²⁸ In cases in which Confucian pacifism and structural realism predict similar outcomes (for example, low-coercive strategies in times of military weakness), examining the decision-making process of Chinese leaders choosing defense or not using force can help us resolve whether this decision was an outcome of cultural preference, as Confucian pacifism would expect, or an outcome of the military balance of power, as structural realism would expect. In addition to detailed studies of cases, the number of cases should be large enough to enhance the external validity and robustness of our findings while allowing us to identity the motives that led Chinese leaders to select certain military strategies at different times. Whenever appropriate, I supplement my case studies with quantitative data showing the overall trend between Chinese power and war-proneness.

The universe of cases is vast in Imperial China, considering its more than two thousand years of written history (see table 1.1). To make the task manageable, I use the following criteria to select cases. First, the strength of Confucian ideology should be high in the selected periods, as indicated by its institutionalization through the civil service examinations and embeddedness in state and society. The proportion of recruited scholar-officials in the central decision-making apparatus and the development of Confucian thoughts among Chinese intellectuals are important clues to the breadth and depth of Confucianism in a particular period. Second, for a test of the Confucian strategic culture, the selected periods should more or less be insulated from non-Chinese influence. In the case of conquest dynasties (such as the Mongol Yuan dynasty and the Manchu Qing dynasty), Chinese strategic culture could be confounded with non-Chinese cultural heritages brought in by the alien conquerors. Third, the cases should be selected in a way that maximizes variations on our study variables. Specifically, the selected periods should include China at the height of its power as well as at the nadir; the strategic decisions should include both the use and non-use of force; and the security environments should entail a variety of actors and threats.

Based on these case selection criteria, I concentrate on two major periods in Chinese history: the Song dynasty (960–1279) and the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). First, these two dynasties are arguably the most Confucian periods in Chinese history, making them most-likely cases for Confucian pacifism but least-likely cases for structural realism. Compared to previous dynasties, Confucianism had become deeply imbedded in state and society since the Song dynasty.²⁹ The breadth and depth of Confucian culture in the Song and the Ming dynasties makes them ideal cases for a test of the cultural argument. Second, these two dynasties are the most recent ones ruled by Han Chinese, not by alien conquerors such as the Yuan or the Qing dynasty. In other words, they are pure Chinese dynasties; the influence of non-Chinese traditions could be more or less ruled out.³⁰ Third, interdynastic comparison is superior to a single dynastic study. Each dynasty faced a different strategic environment. The Song was relatively weak and had never achieved hegemony in East Asia, whereas the Ming was much more powerful and had achieved regional hegemony. By examining two different dynasties, I have ensured that a security decision was not unique to a particular dynasty but rather a more universal phenomenon that has endured across different strategic contexts.

TABLE 1.1 Major Periods in Imperial China

Within each dynasty, I examine a series of strategic decisions involving the use and non-use of force, thus significantly multiplying the number of observable cases. These cases are identified when the Chinese court was seriously contemplating using force against external adversaries and when such deliberations were reserved in court documents. In the end, about thirty cases involving Chinese strategic choices are examined. The relatively large number of cases across a long time period (nearly six hundred years) promise to enhance the theoretical and empirical rigor of the results. In each dynasty, I focus on China’s security policy toward its main rivals, that is, those political units that had the potential to threaten Chinese survival and dominate the system. To broaden the scope of this study, I devote a chapter to examining China’s relations with other lesser powers in the Ming tribute system (see chapter 6). The tribute system profoundly affected the benign perception of the Chinese world order, and thus warrants a detailed treatment in a separate chapter.

I employ a large amount of primary Chinese sources, supplemented by well-regarded secondary literature. To trace China’s decisions to use force, I examine policy debates that are preserved in official histories or the policy memorials (zouzhe) submitted to the emperors. I consult authoritative primary sources commonly used by historians of China. In lieu of mechanical content analysis, I closely read through court documents to uncover the actual cause of strategic choice. Of all the countries in East Asia, China has kept the most detailed historical records. Written or compiled by Confucian scholar-officials, these records had a tendency to describe events in terms favorable to China at the expense of the adversaries. Therefore, great discretion must be exercised.³¹ I minimize potential bias by consulting respected historiographies that seek to present a balanced account of China’s external conflicts.

I will proceed as follows. Chapter 2 discusses the role of culture in strategic studies and the relevant theories as pertained to China. I lay out the research design and derive hypotheses on three strategic issues: grand strategy, use of force, and war aims. Next, I begin the task of comparing hypothesis and evidence. Chapter 3 presents an in-depth case study of the Northern Song dynasty’s security policy toward the more powerful Liao Empire and toward the Xi Xia state. Chapter 4 examines the Southern Song dynasty’s military struggle with the stronger Jin Empire. These two chapters investigate Chinese strategic choice when the country was the weaker power in the system.

Chapters 5 and 6 examine Chinese strategic behavior when the country was the stronger power. Unlike the Song dynasty, the Ming dynasty was able to establish regional hegemony in East Asia. In Chapter 5, I focus on the Ming’s enduring rivalry with the Mongols and the decision to build the Great Wall. Chapter 6 studies Ming China’s tribute system by examining four cases—the annexation of Vietnam (1407–1427), seven maritime expeditions (1405–1433), Hami in Inner Asia (1473–1528), and the Sino-Japanese War over Korea (1592–1598). Chapter 7 summarizes the findings of the previous historical analysis and discusses how Confucian culture supplements realist theory. I then examine the current grand strategy of the People’s Republic of China and explicate the strategic logic underlying the policy of peaceful development. This study suggests that China will gradually shift to an offensive-oriented grand strategy as its power continues to grow.

2

CULTURE AND STRATEGIC CHOICE

WHY DO states aggress? Why do states use force to settle external disputes? The history of international relations is replete with examples of states conquering territories, making threats against each other, resolving disputes with force, expanding war aims, and coercing others into submission. Why do states behave this way? There is no shortage of explanations in the international relations (IR) scholarship: domestic pathologies, leadership traits, unbalanced distribution of power, misperception of intentions, and miscalculation of capabilities, to name just a few. Scholarship on China, however, frequently uses culture to explain a state’s grand strategy and decision to use force: strategic culture profoundly influences how a state positions itself in the world as well as how it treats its neighbors. The use of cultural variables is so widespread that, in Andrew Scobell’s words, cultural interpretations have been at the core of the majority of studies of China’s foreign relations.¹

Three theories are most pertinent to Chinese security policy—Confucian pacifism, cultural realism, and structural realism. This chapter reviews the international-relations literature regarding cultural and structural theories of state behavior and examines the three theories in detail as they apply to China.

CULTURE IN SECURITY STUDIES

The idea that culture affects a state’s external behavior has broad intuitive appeal. Policymakers and commentators frequently use culture as an independent variable to explain, or expect, the foreign policy of another state. During World War II, for example, the U.S. military asked cultural anthropologists to profile the cultures of Japan and Germany as a guide to their strategic behaviors.² The use of cultural variables in the study of international relations has a rich and long tradition. Although comprising different strands (national character, organizational culture, strategic culture, political culture, global culture, and so forth), cultural theories share a common dissatisfaction with realism.³ In general, in their analysis culturalists challenge realism’s emphasis on the role of material power in influencing strategic choice and privilege ideas, identity, and norms of appropriate behavior.⁴

Cultural theories attribute a state’s strategic choice to ideational variables, often at the unit level.⁵ That is, they trace the source of a state’s behavior primarily to culture—understood as shared ideas, beliefs, and values collectively held within a society or by its elites that are transmitted from one generation to the next through a process of socialization.⁶ Cultural norms not only have constitutive effects that define the identity of an actor, but they also have regulative effects that prescribe appropriate behavior.⁷ For example, one constitutive effect of strategic culture is that policymakers adhere to certain norms or rules of behavior, not for fear of the consequences of nonadherence, but because violation of these norms is considered illegitimate and inappropriate. In this sense, strategic culture limits the options of plausible policy choices and renders certain alternatives unacceptable. The thrust of culturalism is that norms tell us who we are and affect how we behave. If we could change what we think in our heads, we would be able to change how we behave.

Cultural theories maintain that the effect of material structure on state behavior is indeterminate.⁸ Instead, material structure such as the international distribution of power must be viewed through a cultural prism in order to have effects on state behavior. As Alexander Wendt argues, "The distribution of capabilities only has the effects on international politics that it does because of the desiring