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China's Entry into International Society: Beyond the Standard of ‘Civilization’*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Yongjin Zhang
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Extract

One of the major themes explored by the late Hedley Bull and others in their studies of the expansion of the European society of states across the globe is the entry of extra-European states into that society. It has given rise to two challenging and inescapable questions: when was each extra-European state drawn and accepted into the expanding European international society, and how? The answers to these questions are central to understanding when and how the contemporary global society which embraces states belonging to every culture and civilization emerged. Research in this area also raises questions about the future of the now universal international society. Can a global society of states devoid of cultural homogeneity survive? If so, how? Will the acceptance of common rules and institutions foster the perception of common interests by states of different cultural systems? Or conversely, will the perception of common interests move member states to work out new rules, institutions, and values to cement the structure of a universal international society? The inquiry into the historical process in which an extra-European state was drawn into the expanding international society cannot provide answers to these questions. Historical illumination is only capable of suggesting the direction in which those answers can be productively sought.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 3 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Don Markwell for his help during the preparation of this essay. I am also grateful to John Vincent and the other two anonymous referees for their helpful comments made on an earlier draft of this essay.

References

1 See two principal works in this field: Bull, H. and Watson, A. (eds.), The Expansion of International Society (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar, and Gong, G., The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar

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4 Hsu, , China's Entrance into the Family of Nations – The Diplomatic Phase, 1860–1880 (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 More significant in our context is that in 1878 China was invited to attend the sixth meeting of the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations. Guo Songtao, Chinese Minister in London attended the meeting as the Chinese representative and spoke of improving the law of nations ‘for the benefit of all governments and peoples’. He also explained that China had not completely subscribed to the rules of international law because of its different cultural and political background. See Hsu, , China's Entrance into the Family of Nations, p. 207.Google Scholar

6 It was followed by the Chinese Legation in Germany in the same year, in the United States and France in 1878, in Russia and Spain in 1879, and in Peru in 1880.

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