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Rethinking Tribute System and Chinese Foreign Aid from a Relational Perspective

Did China provide what can be termed foreign aid to neighboring countries in ancient times? This is a fascinating but largely neglected question. Previous studies on China’s foreign aid generally didn’t pay significant attention to the many centuries when diplomatic relations in East Asia were regulated by the tribute system. In this article, we argue that this omission lies in the substantialist metaphysics on which the concepts of foreign aid and the tribute system are grounded. Modern research has paid too much attention to their substantial components, like norms and managing institutions, with the result that the psychological experience agents invested in the process have been neglected. By taking a relational perspective, we test the view that the Chinese tribute system and foreign aid are of one and the same fundamental nature, characterized by voluntary participation, reciprocity and relation-orientation.