The Strange Journey of the Tributary System

Scholars of international relations have embraced the tributary system as the dominant lens to studying historical orders of East Asia. Hendrik Spruyt’s The World Imagined, a rare gem in the study of comparative international orders, argues that the tributary system articulated the ontology of the historical East Asia international society. This article cautions against two common pitfalls. First, the tributary system is a modern conceptual construct that can blind researchers to other types of political orders existing throughout East Asia’s diverse landscape and history, thus contributing to a Sinocentric bias. Both the Mongols and the Tibetans adopted a distinctive set of rules of inter-polity conduct that have little to do with the Chinese tributary system. Second, the tributary system perpetuates the myth that East Asia has been historically peaceful, while glossing over the numerous interpolity warfare that took place in the region as well as internal conflicts within the same cultural sphere of a state. I argue that our understanding of international orders can be substantially enriched when we take material power seriously and study its interplay with ideational factors.

CHINA�S DEBT TRAP PADA BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI) MELALUI MODEL TRIBUTARY SYSTEM ALA DINASTI MING-QING DALAM PEMBANGUNAN INFRASTRUKTUR DI TIMOR LESTE

Sejak reformasi China yang dilakukan oleh Deng Xiaoping pada tahun 1978 dan dilanjutkan oleh Xi Jinping yang lebih aktif pada tahun 2013, dengan membentuk jalur ekonomi sutra baru Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) dengan tujuan menciptakan kerjasama dan interdependensi serta harmoni pada tatanan kawasan Asia-Pasifik dan Global. Landasan BRI ini adalah salah satu bentuk romantisasi sejarah pada masa dinasti Han dengan jalur ekonomi sutra lama. Akan Tetapi kepentingan BRI terhadap negara-negara partner menjadi ancaman tersendiri dengan adanya �Debt trap� atau jebakan Utang yang dilakukan oleh China alih-alih bantuan infrastuktur. Sehigga BRI adalah salah satu model �Tributary system� gaya baru ala Dinasti Ming-Qing yang dimana jebakan utang adalah salah satu pengabdian diri pada China sebagai negara inti. Hasil analisis menjelaskan bahwa pengaruh terhadap Timor Leste menjadi ancaman dengan meningkatnya utang sebesar 13 persen pada tahun 2016, namun dibantah oleh Timor Leste dan China sendiri yang dimana jebakan utang adalah konstruksi subjektivitas dari kekhawatiran AS dan sekutu terhadap dominasi China.

Bringing the Ottoman Order Back into International Relations: A Distinct International Order or Part of an Islamic International Society?

Long neglected in international relations (IRs), the Ottoman Empire is now getting the attention it deserves. Leaving its “Westphalian straitjacket” behind, the discipline has finally taken a keen interest in non-Western and historical cases. However, the discipline has long focused disproportionately on the Chinese tributary system and produced a large body of literature about it. Spruyt's The World Imagined presents two crucial innovations. The book, on the one hand, introduces the “Islamic international society” into the mainstream, and on the other hand, balances the dominance of the Chinese tributary system in the historical IR subfield. When Spruyt's book is read together with Mikhail's God's Shadow and White's Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean, it becomes clear that the Ottoman Empire should be treated as a distinct international order. By including another book in the debate (Casale's The Ottoman Age of Exploration), this study aims to problematize “Islamic international society” and introduce the Ottoman Empire as a distinct international order.

Chinese empire or a prototype of responsible global power: discussions on the Great Qing in China and the West

In the light of China’s rise, it is of great interest to consider the views that are widespread in the PRC on the nature of Chinese state and the proper mode of international relations. Considering that Chinese leadership has proclaimed the goal of "rejuvenation" of the Chinese nation, modern assessments of China's historical past allow us to take a fresh look at the prospects for China's internal development as well as Chinese foreign policy in Asia. In this regard the era of the Qing Dynasty is of particular interest. During that period Chinese territory expanded approximately to its modern borders, and the relations with the neighbors underwent a transition from the tributary system to the modern Westphalian type of international relations. There exist various interpretations of Chinese foreign policy’s traditions. Those interpretations are largely determined by the attitude to China's current behavior at the international stage. While the Chinese rulers have adopted the concept of traditional Chinese world order that is of Western origin, many Western researchers nowadays question this concept and tend to describe pre-revolutionary China as one of many expansionist empires in Eurasia. That point of view is subject to sharp criticism from Chinese authors. The portrayal of Qing China as one of the empires can entail serious consequences for international relations as well as the territorial integrity of the PRC. In order to achieve their goals in domestic and foreign policy, Chinese leaders strive to build a historical narrative in such a way that it combines the elements of various historical periods which are most profitable in the current circumstances, including the history of Silk Road.