TRADE AND PIRACY

The Sinocentric tributary system

The international order that ideally spanned East Asia when Japan was in the later Middle Ages of its history (1392–1573) may be described as a tributary system, one in which outlying states were bound with real or fictional ties of allegiance to the “Central Country,” China. Underlying that system was a culturalist theory, developed by Chinese Confucians, which held that China was a universal empire whose sovereignty had to be acknowledged by the “barbarian” rulers on its periphery if they wanted the benefits of commerce with it. In return for their homage, the Chinese emperor granted them the status of his royal vassals, the privilege of diplomatic relations, and the boon of access to Chinese civilization. They sent him tribute. He, in turn, bestowed gifts upon them out of his bounty.

As far as the Chinese of the Ming period (1368–1644) were concerned, Japan had entered such a tributary relationship with China long ago, during the time of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 220). Their scholars could catalog a long list of Japanese “tribute-bearing missions” stretching back at least to A.D. 57. To be sure, in more recent times that relationship had been disturbed by war and piracy, but it was confirmed and regulated once again at the beginning of the fifteenth century, on the initiative of the Japanese ruler Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), the third shogun of the Muromachi bakufu, who retained his control over Japan's foreign affairs even after formally retiring from the shogunate in 1395.