The Triumph of Domination in the Ancient Chinese System

Abstract

Kenneth Waltz challenges IR scholars to ‘look farther afield… to the China of the warring states era… and see that where political entities of whatever sort compete freely, substantive and stylistic characteristics are similar.’ (Waltz, 1986: 329–30) Indeed, the term China or Zhongguo originally referred to ‘central states’ in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods: zhong means central and guo means states. The zhongguo system offers IR scholars a most-similar case to evaluate Eurocentric balance-of-power theories. Similar to the early modern European system, the ancient Chinese system experienced disintegration of feudal hierarchy, prevalence of war, conditions of international anarchy, emergence of sovereign territorial states, configuration of the balance of power, and attempts at universal domination. Like their counterparts in Europe, domination-seekers in the zhongguo system faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles: the balance of power, the rising costs of expansion, the barriers of geography, and the difficulty of consolidating conquests. However, unlike the fate of Charles V, Louis XIV, and Napoleon, the state of Qin overcame such countervailing forces by self-strengthening reforms, divide-and-conquer strategies, and cunning and brutish stratagems. First, Qin built up its power and wealth by simultaneously enhancing its administrative-extractive capacity.

* This chapter is based on Chapter Two ‘The Dynamics of International Politics in Ancient China,’ War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, 54–101, © Victoria Tin-bor Hui 2005, with the permission of Cambridge University Press. An earlier version of this analysis was published in International Organization in 2004 as ‘Toward a Dynamic Theory of International Politics: Insights from Comparing the Ancient Chinese and Early Modern European Systems,’ vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 175–205, with the permission of Cambridge University Press.