The incursions of external competitors provides a further essential element in the definition of sovereign space. How the state’s boundaries were regarded spatially shifted in relation to the modes of their contestation: Perceptions of a state’s boundaries and territorializations were distinct depending on the apprehended cultural, and thus spatial, commensurability of the competitor, a distinction that is rendered visible in the noticeable shift in attention toward non-peer neighbors from the Warring States period to the Han dynasty. The spatial disposition (xing) of peer entities was distinguishable by a comparably ritualized adminstrative state structure. This influenced both the “paring off” of territory (xuedi) and on diplomatic treatment. The early Chinese state disparaged areas outside of its spatio-cultural purview as the “wilds,” but, in keeping with the zonal conception of space, the distinction between internal and external was gradual. The possibility of a ritualized fraternity impacted the character of a rivalry, and the spatial commensurability of rival polities. Because borders were fungible, crossing them was not itself a transgression; sovereignty was not equatable with a military line. Invasion (qin) was the penetration of a ritually sanctified space without permission.