5 - The East Asian Interstate Society and the Westphalian System

Summary

This chapter clarifies the nature of interstate relations and challenges the claims that the Chinese tributary system could not adjust to the Westphalian system. The alleged incompatibility between East Asian conceptions of international order and the Westphalian system is overstated. This chapter surveys arguments that intellectual stagnation and a myopic worldview caused Chinese decline and eventual collapse. Instead, it is argued that China engaged in intellectual adjustment to meet the global pressures caused by the imperial colonial powers. This adjustment and change in the collective imagination also carried over into the political realm.