The Swarthmore Lecture | Woodbrooke Conference

The Swarthmore Lecture | Woodbrooke Conference Centre

The Swarthmore Lecture | Woodbrooke Conference Centre



The Swarthmore Lecture


Audio and video recordings of past Swarthmore Lectures.

2018 Swarthmore Lecture (Video)



The 2018 Swarthmore Lecture: ‘Changing ourselves, changing the world’ was given by life-long Quaker, artist and activist Chris Alton. You can watch a subtitled recording of Chris Alton’s Swarthmore Lecture here:

2018 Swarthmore Lecture (Audio)



The audio recording of Chris Alton’s 2018 Swarthmore Lecture.

2017 Swarthmore Lecture (Video)



The Swarthmore Lecture 2017: Faith in politics? A testimony to equality was given by Catherine West at 7:30 pm on Monday 31st July 2017 as part of Yearly Meeting Gathering at Warwick University.

2017 Swarthmore Lecture (Audio)



The Swarthmore Lecture 2017: Faith in politics? A testimony to equality was given by Catherine West at 7:30 pm on Monday 31st July 2017 as part of Yearly Meeting Gathering at Warwick University.

2016 Swarthmore Lecture (Video)



The 2016 Swarthmore Lecture was given by Cécile Nyiramana and Esther Mombo. This lecture will focus on the peace building work of East African Quakers.

2016 Swarthmore Lecture (Audio)



The 2016 Swarthmore Lecture was given by Cécile Nyiramana and Esther Mombo. This lecture will focus on the peace building work of East African Quakers.

2015 Swarthmore Lecture (Audio)



The 2015 Swarthmore Lecture will consider our peace testimony in relation to the current global context and drawing on what she has learned from her practical experience of violence and peacemaking

2015 Swarthmore Lecture (Video)



The 2015 Swarthmore Lecture will consider our peace testimony in relation to the current global context and drawing on what she has learned from her practical experience of violence and peacemaking

2014 Swarthmore Lecture (Audio)



The 2014 Swarthmore Lecture explores the theme of transformation, ending with a call for us as Quakers to return to a transforming and transformational faith.

2014 Swarthmore Lecture (Video)



The 2014 Swarthmore Lecture explores the theme of transformation, ending with a call for us as Quakers to return to a transforming and transformational faith.

민주평화통일 여론확산 민주평통, 적임자로 구성돼야 | Korean Today

민주평화통일 여론확산 민주평통, 적임자로 구성돼야 | Korean Today




민주평화통일 여론확산 민주평통, 적임자로 구성돼야

한인사회 27/03/2019 Eunjin Park 1


개혁촉구 동포단체, 설문조사 통해 폭 넓은 동포 의견 듣기로

시드니 동포 단체가 ‘민주평화통일자문회의(민주평통)’ 호주협의회 기존 인선 방법에 문제를 제기하고 개혁을 촉구하는 호주동포들이 본격적인 행동에 돌입했다고 전했다.

민주평통은 평화통일 여론을 확산시키기 위해 설립된 대통령 자문기구로서 고국에는 지역별로 위원회가 있으며 호주를 포함해 해외에도 협의회와 지회, 분회가 구성되어 있다.

‘민주평통’ 호주협의회 개혁을 촉구하는 동포들은 15일 열린 토론회를 통해, 호주평통 <자문위원 후보자 추천위원회> 개혁추진위원회 (이하, 개혁추진위원회)를 결성했다. 이 위원회는 지금까지 세 차례 열린 토론회와 전담 팀 모임 등을 통해 실무위원회, 자문위원회를 두고, 설문조사 전담반을 꾸려 활동하고 있다.

개혁추진위원회는 “시드니 총영사관이 비공개적으로 민주평통 자문위원을 위촉하여 호주협의회가 소수의 전유물로 전략된 것처럼 보여왔다”고 지적했다. 2017년 시드니 촛불항쟁에 참여했던 동포들이 민주평통의 비공개적 인선과정을 비판했지만 시드니 총영사관과 호주협의회 지도부는 ‘개인정보 보호’를 이유로 자문위원 위촉과정과 명단 공개를 거부했다. 멜번 지회도 조홍주 총영사 시절 현재 평통위원이 구성되었으며 멜번분관 실무관은 당시 “교차추천”을 통해 자문위원이 위촉된 것으로 알고 있다고 밝혔다. 멜번지회도 민주평통 자문위원을 공모하거나 추천과정이 공개적으로 이뤄지지 않았다.

또한 호주협의회와 멜번지회 모두 자문위원회 활동이 민주적이지 않다는 비판을 받아왔다. 위촉받은 자문위원의 의견조차 제대로 반영하지 않고 지도부들이 대부분의 활동을 하향식으로 주도해 중도에 사임하는 자문위원도 있었다.

모든 해외 공관에서 민주평통 자문위원 위촉이 밀실에서 이뤄지는 것은 아니다. 해외 자문위원 후보자 추천위원회 구성과 자문위원 모집을 공개적으로 알린 해외 공관도 있다. 2013년 4월 3일자 더 코리언 포스트 보도에 의하면, 뉴질랜드 총영사관에서는 총영사를 위원장으로 하는 해외 자문위원 후보자 추천위원회가 구성되었다고 공개적으로 발표한 바 있다. 또한 시애틀 총영사관은 2017년 4월 11일, 공지사항/보도자료를 통해 “민주평화통일자문회의 해외 자문위원 후보자 신청 추가 접수”를 공개적으로 알리기도 했다.

고국 인천지역회의는 3월 22일 올해 9월부터 활동하는 19기 민주평통 구성에 지역 의견을 수렴하기 위해 시민사회단체 초청 간담회를 열었다. 민주평통 공식 새소식에 따르면 인천부의장은 물론 황인성 사무처장까지 참석한 간담회에서 참석자들은 “유력인사의 장기·독점적 참여가 아닌 실질적으로 평화통일을 위해 활동할 수 있는 적격자들로 구성된 민주평통”이 되어야 하며 이를 위해 자문위원 구성을 근본적으로 개선해야 한다는 의견을 교환했다. 특히 자문위원의 자발적 참여를 위한 시스템 개선과 민주적 운영의 장으로서 문화를 정착해야 한다는데 의견을 같이 했다.

호주 평통 <자문위원 후보자 추천위원회> 개혁을 촉구하는 동포들은 지속적으로 열린 토론회를 통해 활동방향과 방법을 다듬어 나가며, 설문조사를 통해 호주동포사회 공론의 흐름을 파악하기로 했다. 이런 활동들을 통해 모인 의견을 동포 공청회를 통해 공유하고 토론되는 내용을 보태 개혁 촉구 운동에 반영할 방침이라고 밝혔다.

개혁추진위원회 문의 0409 887 388t


COMMENTS


Seung Hee Lee30/03/2019#1



실질적으로 한반도 평화통일에 기여할수 있고 활동할 수 있는 사람들로 구성되는 평통이 되어야한다는것애 동의합니다. 투명한 인선, 활동상황이 정확되어야, 해외 평통이 안고있는 문제점을 해결할수 있다고 생각합니다.

"공정•투명한 절차로 평통 자문위원 선정 필요” - 한호일보

"공정&#8226;투명한 절차로 평통 자문위원 선정 필요” - 한호일보

"공정•투명한 절차로 평통 자문위원 선정 필요”평통 추천 개혁추진위 공청회 개최

양다영 기자 | 승인 2019.05.01 14:46

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‘공관과 호주협의회 불참.. 동포사회 여론 외면’

호주평통 개혁을 위한 공청회’가 지난 27일(토) 오후 3시부터 한호일보 대강당에서 열렸다.

호주 동포사회에서 민주평화통일자문회의(이하 평통) 자문위원 추천을 보다 공개적이며 민주적으로 해야 한다는 필요성이 제기되면서 '호주평통 개혁을 위한 공청회’가 지난 27일(토) 오후 3시부터 한호일보 대강당에서 열렸다. 

약 2시간동안 진행된 공청회는 ‘호주평통 자문위원 후보자 추천위원회 개혁 추진위원회’(이하 개혁위. 위원장 김종국)의 주관으로 진행됐다.

공청회에서 개혁위는 평통 자문위원 후보자 추천위원회 구성을 공개적으로 해야하며 추천위원이 최소 10명 이상은 되어야 할 것으로 주장하면서, 추천위원은 반전 및 평화운동을 했던 경험자들과 인도적 대북지원, 대북 교류와 대북경제협력에 경험이 있는 위원이 포함돼야 한다고 말했다. 

또한 2016년 비숍 장관이 정부 법안으로 상정한 북한인권법과 통일 안건 포럼을 개최하는 등 실제적으로 호주의 북한 외교 방향성에 평통의 의견이 수렴되는 것을 포함, 해외에서의 진정한 평통 활동을 위해서는 자문위원의 선정부터 투명한 절차가 중요하다는 점을 강조했다. 

오는 7월 제19기 평통 출범을 앞두고 자문위원 선정 최종 결정권을 가지고 있는 공관장인 시드니 신임 총영사 발령과, 시드니한인회장 선거 등의 변화를 앞두고 동포들의 의견이 반영될 수 있도록 적극적인 관심이 필요한 시점이라는 것 또한 강조했다. 

개혁위는 “민주평통 사무처에서 설문조사와 공청회 결과를 요구했다. 또한 구체적인 평통 개혁을 위한 대안을 제시해 줄 것을 요청했기 때문에 이번 공청회의 의견이 반영될 수 있을 것”이라고 덧붙였다.

당일 공청회는 팟캐스트 <G'day 오스트레일리아>를 진행하고 있는 김인화 작가의 진행으로 ▲ 김종국 추진위원장 인사말 ▲ 신준식 박사 공청회 개최 의의 설명 ▲ 설문조사 분석결과 및 발표는 전영민 씨와 호주연합당(United Australia Party, 이하 UAP) 리드 지역구 후보로 출마한 이 영한 씨 ▲ 박은덕 변호사의 사회로 진행된 토론 순으로 열렸다.

한편, 개혁위는 당일 총영사 측과 민주평통 호주협의회에 여러 차례 참석을 요청했지만 불참했다. 

양다영 기자 

"대통령 끌어내자"는 전광훈 목사 보며 생각난 책들 - 오마이뉴스

"대통령 끌어내자"는 전광훈 목사 보며 생각난 책들 - 오마이뉴스




책동네

"대통령 끌어내자"는 전광훈 목사 보며 생각난 책들김진호 ‘시민 K, 교회를 나가다’, '권력과 교회' 함께 읽기
19.06.23

강대호(dh9219)

한동안 전광훈 목사가 내뱉은 말들 때문에 시끄러웠다. 한국 개신교를 대표한다고 주장하는 단체의 대표인 그는 지성의 최고 정점인 신학을 공부한 사람답지 않은 주장으로 관심을 끌었다.

나는 그가 내뱉는 말의 논리나 개연성을 떠나 그 수준 때문에 부끄러움을 느꼈다. "(문재인 정부가) 북에서 지령을 받은 주사파 정권"이라거나 "당장 청와대에 진격해 대통령을 끌어내자"라는 말들을 들을 때 그랬다. 심지어 "청와대에 진격할 때 사모들이 앞장서라"라는 낯뜨거운 선동을 한다.

물론 목사도 시민이기 때문에 자신의 소신대로 주장할 수는 있다. 그렇지만 교회에서 신의 뜻이라며 내뱉는 그런 발언들이 교인들에게 미치는 영향을 생각하면 가볍게 생각할 일만은 아니라는 생각이 든다. 특히 한국 개신교 내부에서 벌어지는 정치를 잘 모르는 일반인들에게 미치는 영향을 생각하면.

그런데 과연 그런 말은 전광훈 목사 혼자만의 생각일까? 아닌 듯하다. 뉴스를 지켜보면 그의 발언에 환호하는 동료 목사들과 교인들이 있다. 그리고 대놓고 찬성하지는 않지만, 은근히 시원하다고 생각한 목사들과 교인들도 있을 것이다. 한국 기독교에는 반공이야말로 참 신앙이라고 생각하는 목사와 교인들이 많으므로.


▲ 시민 K, 교회를 나가다 “교회를 나가다”는 중의적 의미를 담고 있다. ‘교회에 다니게 되다’ 혹은 ‘교회를 떠나게 되다’ 라는 두 의미를. 교회에 다니다가 지금은 교회를 떠난 많은 사람의 마음을 은유하고 있다. ⓒ 현암사


이런 전광훈 목사를 보며 떠오른 책들이 있다. 김진호가 쓴 <시민 K, 교회를 나가다>이다. 김진호는 제도권 신학 바깥에서 민중 신학 연구자로 활동하는 목사다. 이 책은 먼저 한국 기독교 역사를 돌아보고, 사람들을 끌어모았던 교회를, 그러나 지금은 성장이 정체되고 사람들이 떠나는 교회 상황을 담았다.

특히 한국 교회가 반공주의로 빠지게 된 계기와 성장만을 탐하고 권력으로 향하는 교회와 목사들의 욕망을 자세히 그린다. 그리고 김진호가 강남순, 박노자, 한홍구, 김응교 등 실천하는 기독교인들과 '한국 교회의 가장 아픈 곳'을 이야기한 <권력과 교회>도 같은 맥락의 책이라 함께 소개할까 한다.

신사참배의 핑계를 반공에서 찾다

저자는 한국 기독교가 반공 신앙으로 쏠리게 된 시작을 신사참배에서 찾는다. 성경에서 금한 우상숭배를 저지른 교회가 그 수치심을 증오로 전환한 거였다고.

(신사참배는) 근본주의적 신앙으로서는 수용할 수 없는 것을 수용한 것이다. 말할 수 없는 굴욕감과 수치심이 그들을 사로잡았다. (중략) 바로 이런 수치심이 증오로 전환되면서 조선의 그리스도교 신앙은 활력을 되찾는다. 공산주의가 악마의 표상으로 해석되는 것은 그리 어렵지 않았다. (53쪽)
주요 목사들은 변명의 근거를 성경에서 찾아서 해석했다. '요한계시록'에 나온 '붉은 용'이 바로 소련 공산주의라고. 자연스럽게 개신교도들에게 공산주의자들은 격퇴해야 할 악마적 존재가 되었다.

그런데 해방이 되니 38선 이북에 소련이 주둔하고 공산주의자들이 권력을 쥐게 된다. 개신교도들 관점에서 악마가 지배하는 세상이 된 것이다. 북한 지역 교회와 교인들은 남한 지역으로 내려올 수밖에 없었다.

월남 교회, 증오 정치에 수단이 되다

해방 이후부터 6.25가 벌어지기 전에 북한 지역에서 수많은 개신교도가 월남했다. 그 숫자가 당시 남한 개신교도의 절반에 육박했다고. 숫자보다 중요한 건 이들이 미국 종교계는 물론 정치계와 매우 가까운 집단이라는 것이었다.

미 군정 당국은 이들에게 일본인이 두고 간 막대한 종교 재산을 무상으로 공여했다. (중략) 이들 교회는 한편으로는 남한 정국의 극우 테러리즘의 행동대원들이 충원되고 조직화되는 주요 공간이었고, 다른 한편으로는 반공주의적인 공적 정치가 담론화되고 제도화되는 마당이기도 했다. (56쪽)
김진호가 쓴 다른 책 <권력과 교회>에서는 미 군정 당국의 정치적 의도를 구체적으로 설명한다.

맥아더 사령부의 장교들은 필리핀이나 일본에서도 기독교 반공주의 국가를 만들고 싶어 했는데, 실패했죠. (중략) 한반도 남쪽에서 개신교 반공 국가를 만들고자 했을 때는 '서북지역에서 내려온 엘리트'라는 적합한 파트너가 있었던 거예요. (중략) 한경직처럼 영어를 할 줄 아는 개신교 신자도 많았죠. (권력과 교회, 145쪽)
월남한 대표적 교회인 영락교회는 일본 천리교 시설이 있던 자리를 무상으로 받았다. 다른 월남 교회들도 미 군정 측으로부터 일본 신사 등 종교시설을 지원받아서 자리를 잡게 되었다고. 월남한 기독교인들이 주축이 된 단체로는 서북청년단이 특히 유명하다. 근대사에 기록된 사건 중 이들과 관련된 것이 매우 많다.

전쟁이 끝나도 그들의 반공주의적 행태는 그치지 않았다고 한다. 이승만 정권이나 군사정권이 반공을 국시로 공산주의에 대한 증오를 내세울 때 교회는 그 공적 담론을 노골적으로 펼치는 장소가 되었다. 물론 그 일에는 목사들이 앞장섰다고. 교인들도 그 분위기를 사회에 퍼뜨리는 전도사 역할을 맡았다고 저자는 분석한다.

교회의 정치세력화, 극우의 중심에 서다

성장을 최우선으로 한 독재정권의 경제철학에 발맞춰 교회들은 몸집 불리기에 집중한다. 통계적으로 세계에서 유래를 찾을 수 없는 성장을 한 한국 교회는 언제부턴가 성장을 멈추고 사람들이 교회를 떠나기 시작했다고 한다. 교회는 그런 현상을 어떻게 분석했을까?

기독교의 위기는 외적 요인인 민주화와 연관되어 있고, 민주화로 인해 고취된 시민의식이, 기독교 정신을 사회화, 국가화하려는 교회의 방해자가 되고 있다는 해석에 도달한다. 이때 교회는 한국의 민주화를 좌경화와 동일시하며, 공공성을 강조하는 시민의식은 종북주의적 의식의 발로로 해석한다. (258쪽)
한국 기독교는 정치세력화를 모색하는 과정에서 교세 감소에 관한 위기의식을 해석하는 논리를 찾은 것이다. 그들은 교세 감소 현상을 사회가 좌경화된 결과이고 많은 교인이 좌경화되어 교회를 떠나는 것이라고. 그렇지만 저자는 성장하는 시민의식에 못 미치는 교회 역할 때문이었다고 분석한다.

아무튼, 일부 교회를 중심으로 기독교의 정치세력화를 구체적으로 추진하였다고. 그들은 문화적 남용을 제한하고 건강한 자본주의의 발전을 위해 엄격한 도덕률이 지배하는 사회를 재건해야 한다고 생각했다. 그런 사회야말로 기독교가 구현하도록 위임받은 미래 사회라는 것이다.

그 중심에 전광훈 목사처럼 권력을 지향하는 목사들이 있다. 이들이 나타나는 이유를 저자의 다른 책 '권력과 교회'에서는 한국 교회가 제왕적 목사를 허용했기 때문이라고 분석한다.
그분들이 믿는 것은 예수가 아니라, 구약 중심으로 보는 권위주의적 성서 해석이 아닐까요. 구약에서 권력과 건물숭상주의에 관한 부분만 부분 절취 해온 거죠. (중략) 그런 목회자는 대개 '보스' 같이 행동하죠. 설교 시간에 '십일조를 안 내면 암에 걸린다'라는 식으로 협박조나 명령조, 반말투로 이야기하고 자기를 내세울 만한 건물을 지어요. (중략) 이른바 성경에 나오는 영적(spiritual) 리더가 아닌 거예요. - <권력과 교회> 204쪽
많은 목사가 어떤 반지성적 목사 때문에 부끄럽다고 개탄한다. 기독교계 원로들은 일제히 전광훈 목사의 일탈을 책망하고 나선다. 마치 자기들은 다르다는 듯 부끄러워하거나 책망을 한다. 그렇지만 침묵하고 있다가 갑자기 나타난 그들도 나는 부끄럽다.

이 책의 제목이기도 한 "교회를 나가다"는 중의적 의미를 담고 있다. '교회에 다니게 되다' 혹은 '교회를 떠나게 되다' 라는 두 의미를. 교회에 다니다가 지금은 교회를 떠난 많은 사람의 마음을 은유하고 있다.

Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong: John O'Donohue

Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong: 
John O'Donohue: 
9780060955588: Amazon.com: Books




Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong Paperback – March 22, 2000
by John O'Donohue (Author)

There is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are. In this exquisitely crafted and inspirational book, John O'Donohue, author of the bestseller Anam Cara, explores the most basic of human desires - the desire to belong, a desire that constantly draws us toward new possibilities of self-discovery, friendship, and creativity.

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Editorial Reviews

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"[O'Donohue's books] fairly plead with humankind to escape our contemporary dehumanizing traps and, in so doing, return to a spiritual heritage that includes intimacy, poetry, connectedness and compassion". -- Boulder Planet

While we are here, where is it that we are absent from? This is the question that echoes at the heart of all longing.


About the Author

John O'Donohue was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the University of Tübingen in 1990. He is the author of several works, including a book on the philosophy of Hegel, Person als Vermittlung; two collections of poetry, Echoes of Memory and Conamara Blues; and two international bestsellers, Anam Cara and Eternal Echoes. He lectures and holds workshops in Europe and America, and is currently researching a book on the philosophical mysticism of Meister Eckhart. He lives in Ireland.

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.




Awakening in the World: The Threshold of Belonging

The Belonging of the Earth

In the beginning was the dream. In the eternal night where no dawn broke, the dream deepened. Before anything ever was, it had to be dreamed. Everything had its beginning in possibility. Every single thing is somehow the expression and incarnation of a thought. If a thing had never been thought, it could never be. If we take Nature as the great artist of longing then all presences in the world have emerged from her mind and imagination. We are children ofthe earth's dreaming. When you compare the silent, under-night of Nature with the detached and intimate intensity of the person, it is almost as if Nature is in dream and we are her children who have broken through the dawn into time and place. Fashioned in the dreaming of the clay, we are always somehow haunted by that; we are unable ever finally to decide what is dream and what is reality. Each day we live in what we call reality. Yet the more we think about it, the more life seems to resemble a dream. We rush through our days in such stress and intensity, as if we were here to stay and the serious project of the world depended on us. We worry and grow anxious; we magnify trivia until they become important enough to control our lives. Yet all the time, we have forgotten that we are but temporary sojourners on the surface of a strange planet spinning slowly in the infinite night of the cosmos. There is no protective zone around any of us. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. There is no definitive dividing line between reality and dream. What we consider real is often precariously dream like. One of the linguistic philosophers said that there is n evidence that could be employed to disprove this claim: Th world only came into existence ten minutes ago complete with all our memories. Any evidence you could proffer could still be accounted for by the claim. Because our grip on reality is tenuous, every heart is infused with the dream o belonging.

Belonging: The Wisdom of Rhythm

To be human is to belong. Belonging is a circle that embrace everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word "belonging" holds together the two fundamental aspects o life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing. Belonging is deep; only in a superficial sense does it refer to our external attachment to people places, and things. It is the living and passionate presence o the soul. Belonging is the heart and warmth of intimacy when we deny it, we grow cold and empty. Our life's journey is the task of refining our belonging so that it may become more true, loving, good, and free. We do not have to force belonging. The longing within us always draws u towards belonging and again towards new forms of belonging when we have outgrown the old ones. Postmodern culture tends to define identity in terms of ownership: possessions, status, and qualities. Yet the crucial essence of who you are is not owned by you. The most intimate belonging is SelfBelonging. Yet your self is not something you could ever own; it is rather the total gift that every moment of your life endeavors to receive with honor. True belonging is gracious receptivity. This is the appropriate art of belonging in friendship: friends do not belong to each other, but rather with each other. This with reaches to the very depths of their twinned souls.

True belonging is not ownership; it never grasps or holds on from fear or greed. Belonging knows its own shape and direction. True belonging comes from within. It strives for a harmony between the outer forms of belonging and the inner music of the soul. We seem to have forgotten the true depth and spiritual nature of intimate belonging. Our minds are oversaturated and demented. We need to rediscover ascetical tranquillity and come home to the temple of our senses. This would anchor our longing and help us to feel the world from within. When we allow dislocation to control us, we become outsiders, exiled from the intimacy of true unity with ourselves, each other, and creation. Our bodies know that they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless. Guided by longing, belonging is the wisdom of rhythm. When we are in rhythm with our own nature, things flow and balance naturally. Every fragment does not have to be relocated, reordered; things cohere and fit according to their deeper impulse and instinct. Our modern hunger to belong is particularly intense. An increasing majority of people feel no belonging. We have fallen out of rhythm with life. The art of belonging is the recovery of the wisdom of rhythm.

Like fields, mountains, and animals we know we belong here on earth. However, unlike them, the quality and passion of our longing make us restlessly aware that we cannot belong to the earth. The longing in the human soul makes it impossible for us ever to fully belong to any place, system,or project. We are involved passionately in the world, yet there is nothing here that can claim us completely. When we forget how partial and temporary our belonging must remain, we put ourselves in the way of danger and disappointment. We compromise something eternal within us. The sacred duty of being an individual is to gradually learn how to live so as to awaken the eternal within oneself. Our ways of belonging in the world should never be restricted to or fixated on one kind of belonging that remains stagnant. If you listen to the voices of your own longing, they will constantly call you to new styles of belonging which are energetic and mirror the complexity of your life as you deepen and intensify your presence on earth.


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Product details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 22, 2000)


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Biography
JOHN O'DONOHUE was a poet, philosopher and scholar, a native Gaelic speaker from County Clare, Ireland. He was awarded a PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Tübingen, with post-doctoral study of Meister Eckhart. John's numerous international best-selling books include: Anam Cara, Beauty, Eternal Echoes, and the beloved To Bless the Space Between Us, among many others, guide readers through the landscape of the Irish imagination. John's latest book introduced in 2018, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World, is now available. More information can be found: https://johnodonohue.com/



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Christopher Marcus
4.0 out of 5 starsLet this book make you feel beautiful inside when you need itOctober 12, 2017
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This is not as good a book as Anam Cara, which was nearly perfection incarnate if you are looking for a combo of practical wisdom, philosophical reflection and poetic beauty. But it comes close. I bought this one when my father-in-law had died and I am reading it again now that my mother has cancer - again. John's words aren't particularly focused on death and illness, although these are topics he does not shy away from. But his words are just there - for all life situations - to reveal the inner light in all things, if I may put it so. He simply makes you feel beautiful and uplifted inside, when you read what he has to say about life, love, death, longing and all the other threads in the tapestry of our journey.

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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a truly beautiful book of wisdom and insightOctober 14, 2017
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This is a truly beautiful book of wisdom and insight. I've bought probably 20 of them over the years to give to friends. Wonderful to read any time, but especially good for those who are going through transitions like grieving, questioning the meaning of life, or facing other challenges. This book is a true blessing.

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Morning Glory
5.0 out of 5 starsIncredible!January 2, 2016
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I don't even know what to say about this book. I read Anam Cara and was blown away. I did not expect this book to be as good. All I can say is that if you are truly interested in applicable, and resonating knowledge as opposed to high-flying inspirational quotes-this is the book. It sparked a creative and profound thought process that very little literature ever has.

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KWCraft
5.0 out of 5 starsand O'Donohue was the perfect guide.May 4, 2016
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This writing is insightful and important. I underlined so much that I will revisit, starring passages I wanted to talk over more with my husband that evening. So much to chew on in this book that I could only read a few pages at a time; my mind would be so full I feared skimming and I wanted to give every thought-provoking page its due. I've heard from others that this book came into their lives at just the right time and this certainly was true of me, after suffering a series of professional and personal losses that left me feeling untethered from my sense of self. I longed to feel plugged back in to the world again, and O'Donohue was the perfect guide.

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daniel
5.0 out of 5 starsVery good for daily reflectionsJuly 11, 2013
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I purchased this book at the recommendation of a friend who recommended that I read it randomly, one section at a time instead of cover to cover. I was at first reluctant to do so, since I'm usually interested in *studying* the topics I read and reading them in order so that I can follow the "prescribed" way to learn... however in a way this book is all about unlearning the unhealthy learning habits that we have developed and learning how to look inward. I chose to do the daily random method and am quite happy about it. The other nice thing is that there are a couple hundred different sections so you can discover a new topic every day, and that has been fun and interesting, and I look forward to reading it before going to bed.

The content itself is quite thought provoking. If you are a heavy intellectual with very little emphasis on emotions or emotional intelligence then you may have some trouble with it... but you're the one who needs it the most then! Happy reading...

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lisa V
5.0 out of 5 starsLove him! Amazingly insightful and expresses the deeper side ...June 13, 2016
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Love him! Amazingly insightful and expresses the deeper side of recognizing and working through life's challenges.
Acceptance and compassion for One's self....
This is my spiritual reader, my go to book for those times you just need a little deeper insight.
RIP John O'Donohue~

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Happy Gal
5.0 out of 5 starsGood bookNovember 30, 2018
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I really like this book, the author brings good insight into the human longing to belong, not only in society but in the universe. He also has some great writings about the inner spirit that lives in all of us, moving from darkness into light, and how to connect in nature. Love it.


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Westwood Village Reviews
5.0 out of 5 starsO'Donohue's GeniusJuly 14, 2014
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O'Donohue is one of the greatest and most gifted geniuses of our time. Fortunately, before his untimely passing, he was bejeweled with stars and he left us with some of the most breathless language every written. Pick a sentence at random in any one of his books and you will see what I mean.

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Feb 02, 2016Julie Christine rated it it was amazing
Shelves: best-of-2016, writing-companions, read-2016, social-political-commentary,poetry, ireland-theme-setting
Some books simply find you. They enter your life at the right time, when you are most in need of and receptive to hearing their message. This book. My soul. The Universe recognized what I needed and offered up these words in response.

I've been aware of John O'Donohue's work for some time: I have a collection of his poetry, gifted by a dear friend, that I dip into and feel embraced by; I've been to a writing residency at Anam Cara in southwest Ireland, named for one of his works of essays and reflections. But it wasn't until I read a quote in the amazing weekly newsletter of curated wisdom, Maria Popova'sBrain Pickings (you must subscribe, you simply must) that I learned ofEternal Echoes and knew it was the book for me, at this time, in this place.
There is a divine restlessness in the human heart. Though our bodies maintain an outer stability and consistency, the heart is an eternal nomad. No circle of belonging can ever contain all the longings of the human heart. As Shakespeare said, we have “immortal longings.” All human creativity issues from the urgency of longing.
That quote has become the centerpiece of the talk I give at author readings, for it speaks not only to the central themes of my novel, but to the themes playing out in my life.

Eternal Echoes is about coming to terms with the emptiness inherent to one's soul, an emptiness we seek to fill with religion or drugs, love or work, instead of accepting that it is the very space inside we need, in order to grow into our compassion, our true selves.
There is something within you that no one or nothing else in the world is able to meet or satisfy. When you recognize that such unease is natural, it will free you from getting on the treadmill of chasing ever more temporary and partial satisfactions. This eternal longing will always insist on some door remaining open somewhere in all the shelters where you belong. When you befriend this longing, it will keep you awake and alert to why you are here on earth.For this reader, acknowledging and living with this longing has been a particularly painful and recent exploration. I am a problem-solver by nature and when something is off, when my soul is akilter, my instinct is to root out the source of the maladjustment and fix it. It's hard to accept that I need to sit with my discomfort and listen to what it is trying tell me.
Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you. The mystic Thomas à Kempis said that when you go out into the world, you return having lost some of yourself. Until you learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you will only become empty and weary.By necessity, I have been spending a lot of time "in society" lately, losing bits of myself along the way. And the more time I spend engaged in society, the more Fernando Pessoa's lament from The Book of Disquiet (yet another collection of wisdoms that has found its way to me at the right time): my “passions and emotions (are) lost among more visible kinds of achievement.”

Eternal Echoes is informed by Celtic mysticism and a fluid Christian theology. Although I am not a Christian and actively avoid anything that smacks of faith-based advice, O'Donohue's approach is philosophical rather than theological. It is something akin to gnosticism, that compels the individual to be an active participant in her own journey to wholeness, not a blind believer in an all-powerful god. He writes of allowing in vulnerability, for vulnerability leads to wonder, and wonder leads to seeking, and seeking leads to growth, and growth makes room for everyone else.

Dog-eared and underlined and highlighted and journaled, Eternal Echoesenters my library of go-to soulcatchers, along with the writings of Richard Hugo, Rilke and Pessoa, Woolf, Didion and Solnit: writers who understand what it means to allow in the darkness and sit tight while it slowly becomes light. (less)
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Mar 24, 2017Avonlea Rose rated it liked it
Shelves: religion-spirituality, well-being
Does anyone else read a book, then can't decide whether they loved it or hated it? Sometimes I bounce between a 2-star and a 4-star rating and I wonder what other people must be thinking that I keep changing it. But I imagine I'm not the only who has that issue when reading a certain book.

For me, this was one of those books that I can't quite make my mind up on. "Eternal Echoes" is a collection of poetical reflections on spirituality in the modern world and human desires for longing and belonging. It reads in a very stream-of-conscious style, which is part of its charm, but I also felt at times it may have been edited more thoroughly: O'Donohue might have reconsidered a turn of phrase or expressed something more succinctly. He rambles at length on a certain idea, then is brief with another. He employs certain words or phrases too frequently, and sometimes he introduces description of the Native landscape and mythos in Ireland in a way that is not totally seamless - repeating multiple times that this is in the West of Ireland, when it might have done enough if O'Donohue had only said once that this is where he hails from. But I was not at all put off by this. Rather, I felt I struggled with "Eternal Echoes," because I do not quite agree with all of the opinions expressed within it.

While much of the book reflects genuine personal insight and some beautiful notions upon prayer and desire, some of this book could best be described as a type of Catholic pop-psychology, which is fascinating because O'Donohue also rebukes both fundamentalism and popular psychology in this book. Perhaps O'Donohue just could not quite get out of their grasp, in spite of perceiving their limitations. He still finds himself expressing on multiple occasions the idea that people can acquire not only spiritual healing, but a physical and material healing, if only they were dutiful to God and learned to see their suffering as a Divine lesson - something that has its reflection in the field of psychology, where people are made to believe they can achieve good health and wealth through simply thinking more positively. He pens that nobody would be lonesome if only they could be more generous, which itself seems austere and belies that generosity must be a shared activity. A particularly troubling element for me is that he also employs language which segregates - we should pity the poor, he writes, and children who have been abused and have lost their way; and we should pray for prostitutes. He does not seem to consider that such persons could, in fact, be reading his book. He keeps "them" at an arms length -to be pitied, but not included. Almost ironically, it was yet his ideas of the loss of a shared identity and whole community in the modern world that touched me; and this created a real conflict for me in reading this. It also felt at times that O'Donohue moved away from the really meaningful and personally-felt insights that make this book so endearing and illuminating, and resorted yet to his role as lecturer: becoming suddenly a preacher, he proffers advice on illness with a type of authority, although it seems clear he has no such experience of living with a life-long illness or disability. He often writes imperatively, as if we are not here just to listen to his reflections, but, rather, *must* listen to him.

The above said, I will also say I really enjoyed the selection of quotations that O'Donohue included among the pages; and I also appreciated the Blessings he included at the end of each chapter. These added something special, I thought, to the work: a thoughtful touch that gave it finesse.

So this book was not a complete loss, but I would also suggest approaching it with a certain level of caution - that not everything O'Donohue says is necessarily all that could be hoped for; and, while sometimes very striking and beautiful when he locates an authentic notion, and, while O'Donohue may have tried to transcend common limitations in religion and psychology, it seems to suffer still from a limited and biased perspective that does not quite make it completely past the grasps of fundamentalist and popular ideas.

Notes:

pg. 113, on "The Prison of Shame" - provides example of where O'Donohue mistakenly segregates where he tries to create tolerance. He writes, "Imagine the years of silent torment so many gay people have endured, unable to tell their secret." He continues, "Think of the victims of racism: lovely people who are humiliated and tagged for hostility." At the bottom of the page, he also chooses to describe victims of sexual violence similarly, failing to write towards but of them: "When a person is sexually abused or raped, she often feel great shame at what happened to her."

pg. 161-162 on "When Sorrows Come, They Come Not Single Spies, but in Battalions" - This essay, and the one proceeding, show some of the insensitive language I refer to above. O'Donohue writes that, "Often the flame of pain can have a cleansing effect and burn away the dross that has accumulated around your life. It is difficult to accept that what you are losing is what is used, what you no longer need."

pg. 233-234 on "Brittle Language Numbs Longing" - This essay, and the one following, is one of the areas of this book where O'Donohue begins to successfully nibble around the edges of popular psychology, speaking about how the field's jargon is so ill-suited to describe humanity: "When your experience is rich and diverse, it has a beautifully intricate inner weaving. You know that no analysis can hold a candle to the natural majesty and depth of even the most ordinary moment in the universe." He describes the language of psychology as "brittle" and "disembodied." "One such powerful term is 'process,'" he writes about how we talk of "processing" emotions. "In many cases, 'processing' has become a disease; it is now the way in which many people behave towards themselves. This term has no depth or sacredness. 'Processing' is a mechanical term: there are processed peas and beans. The tyranny of processing reveals a gaping absence of soul." He continues: "Such terminology is blasphemous; it belongs to the mechanical word."

pg. 198 on "Wonder Invites Mystery to Come Closer" - is another area of the book where O'Donohue attacks the language of popular psychology. "This jargon has no colour and no resonance of any mystery, opaqueness, or possibility. Real wonder about your soul demands words which [...] would be imaginative and suggestive of the depths of the unknown within you. Unlike the fashionable graffiti of fast-food psychology, they hold the reverence to which mystery is entitled." (less)
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Jun 18, 2012Writerful Books rated it it was amazing
This is not a book you simply read from cover to cover. There is so much timeless wisdom contained in this book that you will often find yourself pausing to reflect on what has been said time and time again. Totally appealed to my Celtic soul. I can't praise this book enough.
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May 15, 2012Victoria Evangelina Allen rated it really liked it
Shelves: read-again, psychology, spirituality, in-english, took-notes

~GREEN PASTURES OF BELONGING~

I wrote down about 40 pages of quotes from this book during the month of reading it. If I read it with a yellow highlighter instead, there would be no page left unmarked. For all the brilliance of meaning and artful writing of separate sentences and passages, the whole landscape of the book stayed covered in thick fog for me. "Perhaps, I do not embrace my longing and deny my need of belonging, and thus cannot see clearly," I would joke, routinely, over the weeks of marinating in the atmosphere of soulful writing and deeper than my conscious comprehension messages of the philosopher.

I was advised to switch off my logic and read with the heart, knowing that whatever my soul craves from this book, it will open up to. It helped; though I connected (read: understood) chapters on suffering and grief the most.

The foundation of O'Donohue's book lays in ancient Celtic teachings and mysteries with added flavors of theosophy, spirituality and Hegel's influence. Thus the study of longing and belonging becomes larger than life and connects itself in a never-ending circle of the snake, biting its tail, to conclude that we are shuffling God out of our lives and until we bring Him back in, we'll never belong fully and never satisfy our immense longings in all the areas of life and beyond.

The book dives into the meanings of presence (the flame of longing), suffering (the dark valley of broken belonging), prayer (a bridge between longing and belonging), and absence (where longing still lingers).

This deep and beautiful book is full of many-layered wonders and gems. It lullabies the reader into its embrace. It does not give simple answers on what "belonging" is, but gives you enough material to create your own house of understanding.

Especially, if you are willing to take time with the book and your own inner dialogue.

Which I should do once again, on a re-read, in hope of connecting the dots and stepping out of the fog onto the green pastures of belonging to Self and the Universe of Spirit.

Victoria Evangelina (less)
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Apr 01, 2008Karunagrace rated it really liked it
Shelves: books-i-bought
I just love John O'Donohue's writing. His gently probing reflections, woven with rich Celtic and Catholic learning and a love of language, combine to form a deepening meditation that spirals inward and outward at the same time. You feel like you are participating in or witnessing his creative thought process, and that he enjoys the process, and the process itself brings new insights to light.

Eternal Echoes is about the soul's deep thirst for belonging, or "Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing." He reflects on the shapes this longing takes and the ways in which it can--and cannot--be satisfied in earthly life. "The heart is an eternal nomad," he says. When I read this book I wanted to quote big chunks of it on a myspace page I didn't have. If nothing else, read the beautiful introduction; the whole book is encapsulated there anyway. (less)
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Apr 17, 2012Cliff rated it it was amazing
Shelves: owned-books
Mr. O'Donohue, in his masterful book - Eternal Echoes, takes you on an exquisitely organized, vastly scenic, interpretive journey through the corridors of the human soul. His profound knowledge and sensitivities in the realm of the human condition are astounding; And the language with which he chooses to impart these insights to the reader, is equally fantastic. With lyric like imagery, he weaves words that touch the senses like beautiful music - pure literary excellence!

"It takes a lifetime of slow work to find a rhythm of thinking which reflects and articulates the uniqueness of your soul" - John O'Donohue

Eternal Echoes will forever rattle around in the brain, helping you gain a better understanding of others and, more importantly, a better understanding of yourself! READ this book! It will move you, amaze you, and give you a new appreciation of what it means to be human! (less)
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Nov 11, 2011Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: motivational
Like Anam Cara the words in this book just washed over me soothingly, making me receptive to the ideas contained within. It gave me some insight into where that 'search to belong' comes from and what to expect from the world in terms of an answer.
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Dec 09, 2018Katherine rated it really liked it
Shelves: adult, inspirational
This little book felt nothing short of sacred. O'Donohue takes spritual concepts and applies them directly to our world today in a way that is uplifting but doesn't tiptoe around real issues.
My only complaint is that I can't have excerpts read to me every morning before I start my day.
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Jun 01, 2014Amy added it · review of another edition
This was a somewhat disappointing read but not without it's strong points. The main theme was the cohabitation of longing and belonging in the human experience. It explored the role of both feelings and the importance of a balance between them. I would not recommend this book for its theology as it seems to advance a nominally Christian, watery sort of spiritualism. However, some meditations and thoughts were insightful and worthwhile never the less. The strongest sections were the sections on longing and belonging and the first part of the section on absence. However, the book's greatest shortcoming is that it is much longer than it needs to be. In my opinion the best sections could be made into a book half it's size and even those sections have a tendency to ramble on long after they have exhausted their message.

I did pick up a new favorite quote: "To be here is so much." (less)
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Oct 12, 2014Victoria rated it it was amazing
Some books are to be returned to again &amp; again, and this is one of them. I picked this up in a charity shop and I had no idea what to expect from it. I quickly fell in love with John's reflections and deep insights, drawn from the Celtic way of life; his simple, honest and engaging writing style; and his ability to conjure up vivid imagery and analogies to transmit his wisdom in a way that is accessible to anyone. His humility, understanding and love of life come through on every page, as well as the solace and inspiration he found in the Irish landscape. There is so much in this, it is hard to capture it in a few words, but it is simply a source of impeccable wisdom from a beautiful soul. (less)
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May 23, 2016Patricia rated it really liked it
I love John O'Donohue and wish I could sit across from him in front of a warm hearth as we discuss the fertile dynamism that exists between longing and belonging. Sadly, as that is not possible, I will have to settle for spending time with him through his books. This one is densely packed with wisdom and is probably best read in bits over a span of weeks or months so that his reflections can be processed and savored.
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Apr 04, 2010Emily Davenport rated it it was amazing
Shelves: nonfiction, spiritual
This is my fourth John O'Donohue book, and I'm continually amazed at the depth and breadth of wisdom his books encompass. Reading them is like reading a long, beautiful prayer. It is so sad to think he died so young. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand their place in the world.
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Sep 05, 2011Laura Uplinger rated it it was amazing
A soulful symphony of thought. An essential read for those who love flights of freedom in the realm of longing and belonging.
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Jul 08, 2011Angela Joyce rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: faith-in-general
This is an extraordinary work. The man possessed unusual insights and had such a way of expressing them. I'm sorry there won't be more books from him, but I intend to read all his existing work.
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Sep 15, 2009Lcord rated it it was amazing
One of those books I've read and reread. John O'donohue had such a beautiful soul. So sad that he died so young. He had much to teach and share
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Jul 27, 2014Julie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
a wonderful meditation read
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Oct 28, 2018Brian Wilcox rated it liked it
The late O'Donohue was a superb writer in that his prose is captivatingly poetic. And for persons with a romantic orientation, as in, romanticism as emerged late 1700s ff, with accent on, among other things, subjectivity and nature, this would likely prove an inspiring read. Yet, romanticism being part of the truth, over-emphasizes part of the truth. The same applies to the fade of focus on Celtic spirituality, which represents our human tendency to glorify a past in avoidance of the challenge of the collective present.

To me, Eternal Echoes, as romanticism itself, tends to a sentimental (as in, subjective, emotive) glorification of nature. Here we see what we would like nature, and ourselves as part of nature, to be. A rock may be a part of oneness, even embodying intelligence to the extent a rock can do that, but a rock is a rock, not a He or a She.

O'Donohue represents a popular regressive movement, which is understandable, seeing we of modernistic cultures seem lost and increasingly suffering isolation amid the morass of impersonal technology. Yet, retro-ing to an earlier relationship with the natural world is not the answer, any more than an adult returning to the egoic innocence of the cooing infant kicking its hands and legs in gleeful ignorance.

Also, in personifying nature, with all its beauty, in such romantic spirit, is exemplified the romantic accent on the beauties of nature and fails rightly to be honest about nature as a theater of perpetual violence. Simply put, nature is brutal, and we are part of that brutality: we eat, we are being eaten. My body, part of nature, as your body, is being eaten by nature, now. Nature is deadly, not simply lovely.

So, concluding, I rated the book 3, for the book reflects a truth about what nature partly is, and O'Donohue is right-on in our needing to recover a healthy relationship with the natural world and the benefits of that reunion. Technology offers an immediate, easy substitute to communion with the vitality of living, life-affirming, breathing forms, and does tend toward leaving persons physically and emotionally unhealthy, as well as feeling isolated, even while connecting through machines with persons all over our world. There is a difference between walking along a wooded path with a friend and chatting on-line with someone one has never met and, truly, very-little knows. Nature, indeed, does present eternal echoes and of so much more than nature. And, possibly, we must sate our adoration of technology to realize it cannot fulfill the intuitions of those timeless, true echoes calling us to integrate a forgotten past with the living, onward-moving moment. O'Donohue's voice, with its regression, like regressive voices, arises to remind us of forgotten wisdom. (less)
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Mapping China and the Question of a China-Centered Tributary System | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

Mapping China and the Question of a China-Centered Tributary System | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus







Mapping China and the Question of a China-Centered Tributary System 中国の文化地図作成と朝貢制度の問題
Richard J. Smith
January 27, 2013
Volume 11 | Issue 3









Preliminary Remarks

Does it make sense to refer to a Chinese “tributary system?” A number of influential Western scholars, including John Wills Jr., James Hevia and Laura Hostetler, have argued that it does not—largely on the grounds that previous China scholars, John K. Fairbank “and his followers” in particular, have over-generalized its historical significance. The result, however, has been that much of Fairbank’s painstaking and valuable research on the structure and functions of the tributary system has been ignored. Although Fairbank may well have overestimated the degree to which Chinese assumptions about tribute shaped Qing policy toward foreigners, it seems unhelpful and misleading to suggest that they were of no consequence whatsoever.

Also, as Gene Cooper has reminded me in a recent email, it is important to view the tributary system as part of a much larger framework of Ming-Qing tributary relations. This is a point that Mark Mancall made long ago in his essay for Fairbank’s edited volume, The Chinese World Order (1968). As Cooper puts the matter, “the very structure of the Chinese state was ‘tributary’," in the sense that Eric Wolf uses the term in Europe and the People without History(second edition, 2010). Using Wolf's conception, and following Karl Polanyi's idea of "redistributive" transactions, Cooper argues persuasively that “European feudal systems and China's bureaucratic redistributive system were both tributary structures (insofar as they involved the citizenry passing tribute (taxes) up the pipe either to the local lord or to the central government).” Viewed in this way, “European feudalism and the Chinese bureaucratic redistributive system represented differing outcomes in the struggle between centripetal and centrifugal forces.” Once one accepts this characterization of the Ming-Qing state, it is easier to recognize that the Chinese government’s treatment of foreigners was fundamentally no different than its treatment of its own subjects (who were expected to yield “domestic” tribute on many occasions—for instance in the “tribute grain” [caoyun or caogong] system). Figure 1, from a widely distributed Ming dynasty encyclopedia, provides an excellent visual illustration of the way that Ming-Qing tributary rituals mirrored “domestic” rituals.

Figure 1. Images from a Ming dynasty work titled Wanyong zhengzong buqiuren quanbian (The complete orthodox ask-no-questions [handbook] for general use; 1609). See also R.J. Smith, Chinese Maps: Images of ‘All under Heaven’ (1996), p. 14


For his part, Takeshi Hamashita provides a valuable perspective on "external" tribute relations that avoids the extremes of both Fairbank and his critics. His China, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives (2008), makes a powerful case for the existence of a long-standing, vibrant, multifaceted and organically evolved “network of [tributary] relations linking the center and its peripheries, including the provinces and dependencies of the [Chinese] Empire, rulers of native tribes and districts, tributary states and even trading partners.” In other words, the tributary system provided a framework—both land-based and maritime—for economic and other interactions in which multiple actors played multiple roles. It may have been a “Sinocentric” system, as Hamashita avers, but it was certainly not a static or a monolithic one. As Song Nianshen emphasizes in a recent online article (see “Bibliographical Note” below), the tributary system “was an institutional mechanism mutually constructed by both the central and peripheral [East Asian] regimes.”

A balanced analysis of the so-called tributary system requires, then, a historically sensitive appreciation of its assumptions and its institutions, its theories and its practices, its goals and its actual outcomes. This kind of understanding compels us to consider, among other things, exactly how the offering and acceptance of “tribute” were conceived (by all parties; not simply the Chinese), and how much flexibility the system allowed. Clearly any conception of the tributary system that suggests a stagnant, “unchanging China” is hopelessly wrong-headed. Yet to ignore or downplay the tributary system as an important historical and cultural frame of reference for Chinese emperors and officials would be equally misguided.

The Tributary System and Qing Cartography

From the Song dynasty onward, most large-scale Chinese maps that deal explicitly with foreigners refer to a set of institutionalized practices involving, among other things, the formalized “presentation of tribute” (jingong, zhigong, chaogong, etc.) to China by “representatives” of foreign countries. A few prominent examples of such maps include the anonymous Huayi tu (Map of China and the barbarians; 1136); Yu Shi’s Gujin xingsheng zhi tu (Map of Advantageous Terrain, Past and Present; 1555); Luo Hongxian’s Guang Yutu (Enlargement of [Zhu Siben’s fourteenth century] Terrestrial map; 1579; Cao Junyi’s Tianxia jiubian fenye renji lucheng quantu (A complete map of allotted fields, human events and travel routes [within and without] the nine borders under Heaven; 1644); and any number of the popular cartographic works known generically as “complete maps of all under Heaven” (Tianxia quantu)—works that seem to have dominated Chinese visual representations of “the world” from around 1700 until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Even the maps of the world produced by the Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth century (see below) often refer to a Chinese tributary system.

Let us look more closely for a moment at the popular Tianxia quantu genre. [Figures 2-4] Invariably, at least in my experience, these maps include textual information on important Sino-foreign tributary relationships, including their historical background and their contemporary status (frequency of missions, indications of major tributary routes, etc.) In so doing they reveal a rich lexicon of tributary terminology. The preface to each map of this variety refers explicitly to the process by which barbarian envoys come to China and offer themselves as vassals of the Qing dynasty. This process of symbolic submission is often described as an arduous one, involving “the scaling [of mountains], the sailing [of seas], and several stages of translation [ti hang chong yi].”


Figure 2: Da Qing wannian yitong tianxia quantu (Complete map of all under Heaven, eternally unified by the great Qing; 1811) Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


Figure 3: Detail from the 1811 Da Qing wannian yitong tianxia quantu, including a long description of Korea’s historical relationship with China. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


Figure 4: Detail from the 1811 Da Qing wannian yitong tianxia quantu, including a long description of Vietnam’s historical relationship with China. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


Such cartographic clichés reflect deep-seated attitudes toward foreigners expressed in a number of official documents, including the Huang Qing zhigong tu (Illustrations of the tribute-bearing people of the imperial Qing [dynasty]; 1761), the Huang Qing fanbu yaolüe (Essentials of the vassal [tribes] of the imperial Qing [dynasty]; 1845), and the Chouban yiwu shimo (Management of barbarian affairs from beginning to end; 1880). The prefaces to each of these compilations display the same condescending tone. The first emphasizes how “within and without the empire united under our dynasty, the barbarian tribes have submitted their allegiance and turned toward [Chinese] civilization [xianghua].” The second, by the great Qing geographer, Li Zhaoluo, refers to the way the emperor “nourishes [his dependencies] like their father and their mother,” and “illuminates them like the sun and the moon.” And the third, using much the same language as the first, describes the historic process by which foreigners gravitate to China, become “cultivated” and learn “elegance and etiquette.”

The ten volumes of the Huang Qing zhigong tu provide a detailed picture of the Qing tributary system in its theoretical heyday. Most of these volumes deal with the peoples of Inner Asia and the ethnic minorities of Southwest China. The first, however, focuses on China’s overseas tributaries, listed in the standard order: Korea, the Liuqiu Islands, Annam (Vietnam), Siam, Sulu, Laos, Burma, and the Great Western Sea (Da Xiyang). [Figures 5-7] These discussions are followed by sections on the Small Western Sea (Xiao Xiyang), England, France, Sweden, Holland, and Russia. There are also sections on Asian kingdoms such as Japan, the Philippines, Java, Malacca and the Soloman Islands. This work is in several respects comparable to Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur’s (1757-1810) Tableaux des principaux peuples de l’Europe, de l’Asie, de l’Afrique, de l’Amérique, et les découvertes des Capitanes Cook, La Pérouse, etc. etc. (1798).




Figure 5: Depiction of a Korean official. Source: Huang Qing zhigong tu (Illustrations of the tribute-bearing people of the imperial Qing; 1761)




Figure 6: Depiction of a person from the Land of the Great Western Sea. Source: Huang Qing zhigong tu




Figure 7: Depiction of a “black ghost’ [i.e. African] slave in the Land of the Great Western Sea. Source: Huang Qing zhigong tu


Both of these ethnographically oriented productions contain texts and illustrations that project worldviews reflecting the assumed cultural superiority of their respective “centers”—China and Europe respectively. And in both cases, misconceptions abound. In the case of the Huang Qing zhigong tu, which lacks any sort of cartographic representations, the so-called Land of the Great Western Sea (Da Xiyang guo) is located vaguely in the Atlantic region and identified both with Italy and Portugal. Other Western nations, including England, France, Sweden, Holland, and Russia are lumped together indiscriminately with Asian countries such as Japan, Borneo, Cambodia, Java, and Sumatra. Modern France is confused with Ming dynasty Portugal, and Portugal is naturally confused with Spain (since Spain ruled Portugal from 1580-1640); and England and Sweden are recorded as countries dependent on Holland. According to the Huang Qing zhigong tu, Italy presented tribute in 1667 (it was actually Holland that did so), and the Pope himself is reported to have once brought tribute to China. In religious matters the Huang Qing zhigong tu informs us that the Portuguese/French/Spanish were Buddhist countries before they accepted Catholicism.

The same kind of misinformation can be found in the section on “tributary states” in various editions of the Da Qing huidian (Collected statutes of the great Qing [dynasty]). Thus we read in the Collected Statutes of the Jiaqing reign (1796-1820), that “Portugal/Spain [Gansila] is in the northwestern sea near England,” and that “France [Falanxi], also called Fulangxi, is the same as Portugal [here, Folangji].” After absorbing the Philippines (Lüsong), this account goes on to say, “they [the French/Portuguese/Spanish] divided their people and lived there, still governing it at a distance.” Other nineteenth century Chinese sources identify Portugal not only with the Land of the Great Western Sea but also with Italy (Yidaliya)—apparently because in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century a number of Italian missionaries had entered China through the Portuguese settlement at Macao. Small wonder, then, that Qing mapmakers found it difficult to acquire accurate data on foreigners and foreign places.

More reliable information was, however, available, as we can see from a large (147 x 105 cm), hand-colored cartographic scroll produced by a scholar named Zhuang Tingfu (1728-1800) in 1794 (unfortunately, this document, which is available online at the Library of Congress Map Room website, could not be reproduced clearly here). The title of Zhuang’s production is: Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi (Model of the myriad tributary states of the great Qing dynasty from around the globe). This work includes four maps. Two of them are relatively unsophisticated renderings that are often included in tianxia quantu productions—notably, the various editions of Ma Junliang’s (fl. 1761-1790) Jingban tianwen quantu (Capital edition of a complete map [based on] astronomy; c. 1790). One of these maps is based on a very loose rendering of Matteo Ricci’s mappamundi that appears in the Ming encyclopedia Sancai tuhui (Illustrated compilation of the Three Powers; 1607) [Figure 8]; the other is borrowed from a similarly structured Chinese map of the eastern hemisphere, first published by Chen Lunjiong (fl. 1703-1730) in his Haiguo wenjian lu (Record of things heard and seen in the maritime countries; 1730) [Figure 9]. But the other two maps are more “modern” looking renderings of the Eastern and Western hemispheres, both produced by Zhuang himself. These latter two spherical maps were reprinted by Western-oriented Korean exponents of “practical learning” during the 1830s.




Figure 8: Detail from the Jingban tianwen quantu, showing a world map derived from the Sancai tuhui (Illustrated compilation of the Three Powers; 1607). Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)




Figure 9: Detail from the Jingban tianwen quantu, showing a map of the Eastern Hemisphere, first published by Chen Lunjiong in his Haiguo wenjian lu (Record of things heard and seen in the maritime countries; 1730). Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


A pair of long, written inscriptions, totaling about five thousand characters illustrate Zhuang’s two major themes: one, the transmission to China of new Western scientific knowledge by Jesuit and other missionaries in the eighteenth century; the other, the historic process by which foreigners came to be ruled (laiwang) as vassals; that is, they “knocked on [China’s] gates,” “sincerely offered tribute,” and asked to become “attached” (shu) to the Central Kingdom. The interesting feature of Zhuang’s document is the way it accommodates simultaneously the idea of embracing new knowledge from the West and the notion of enrolling Westerners as traditional-style tributaries.

From a scientific standpoint, Zhuang seeks to show that he has learned a great deal from the Jesuits about geography, cartography and astronomy, which, indeed, he did. He waxes at length about latitude and longitude, time and seasonal change, the circumference of the earth (90,000 li), the north and south poles, and so forth. He also writes knowledgeably about how different cartographic projections yield different pictures of the world.




Figure 10: The Eastern Hemisphere of Matteo Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu (Map of the myriad countries of the earth; 1602). Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


According to Zhuang, previous maps, including those offered by the Jesuit fathers, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), distorted China’s size by placing it too far north, thus compressing it (making China appear too small and the foreign countries, too big). [Figure 10] His own map, drawing upon the work of the famous Qing scientist Mei Wending (1633-1721), provides, he says, a more accurate picture. Significantly, Zhuang cannot resist remarking on how, cosmologically speaking, the Chinese are fortunate to have been born in the Central Land (Zhongtu), where the radiance of the sun nourishes them like a sovereign or a father—unlike those people whose misfortune it is to be in far northern or southern regions, where beneficial qi is less direct and therefore not very helpful.

Although Zhuang devotes a great deal of attention to science, his primary concern is a cultural one: the Chinese tributary system. In particular, the Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi commemorates the well-known Macartney embassy of 1793, which, in turn, marked what Zhuang considers to be the high water mark in the development of China’s age-old system of hierarchical foreign relations. This system, he notes, expanded significantly during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns to include many new parts of the “Western Regions.” The peoples of these areas, Zhuang goes on to say, have been registered as part of the Chinese empire [ru banji], and having offered tribute to the Qing dynasty, along with the British, had engaged in no official communication with China prior to 1793.

Earlier maps, Zhuang tells us, did not include all of China’s tributaries; but the Macartney mission, together with the “coming to court” of other tributaries, and the “return” (laigui) of various tributary peoples from the “Western regions” during the eighteenth century, offers a fitting moment to celebrate the transformative effect of the throne’s glory (shenghua) with a set of maps. His renderings, then, are respectfully offered on this magnificent occasion. Significantly, but not at all surprisingly, Zhuang’s remarks about the civilizing role of the Chinese emperor (shengjiao) correspond closely to those provided in the major cartouche of Ma Junliang’s Jingban tianwen quantu and other such maps.

It is worth mentioning that decades before the Macartney embassy of 1793 the Qianlong emperor had already commissioned a set of paintings that conveyed the same sense of collective “barbarian submission” that came to be celebrated in the Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi. Indeed, at almost exactly the same time that the Huang Qing zhigong tu appeared in print (1761), two of the emperor’s court painters—Yao Wenhan (dates unknown) and Zhang Tingyan (1735-1794)—produced a beautifully executed work titled “The Myriad [Tributary States] Coming to Court” (Wanguo laichao), which depicted representatives from dozens of countries in East Asia and the West, all gathered together with their “local products” in the Forbidden City under the watchful eye of Qing officials. [Figures 11-13]




Figure 11: The Wanguo laichao tu (c. 1760). Source: The Palace Museum, Beijing.




Figure 12: Details from the Wanguo laichao tu, showing tributary representatives from predominantly European states such as England, France, Holland and the Great Western Ocean (above), and Asian states such as Vietnam, Japan, the Liuqiu Islands and the Philippines. Source: The Palace Museum, Beijing.




Figure 13: Details from the Wanguo laichao tu, showing tributary representatives from predominantly Asian states such as Vietnam, Japan, the Liuqiu Islands and the Philippines. Source: The Palace Museum, Beijing.


Illustrations such as these, along with the eighteenth century maps by Ma, Zhuang, and others, bring into sharp focus the issue of how best to characterize the Qing tributary system. Was it, in fact, a “system” and, if so, what role did it play in China’s foreign relations? James Hevia’s book, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (1995), provides a fascinating case study. Hevia considers the Sino-foreign negotiations surrounding the Macartney mission to represent a confrontation involving two great empires, the Qing and Great Britain, rather than one involving two different “cultures.” In his view, instead of interpreting the Macartney episode as “an encounter between civilizations,” we should consider it as “one between two imperial formations, each with universalistic pretensions and complex metaphysical systems to buttress such claims.” There is much of value in this approach, and Hevia performs a useful role in describing at length the ritual beliefs and practices that seem to have been at the center of the Qing approach to tributary relations. Ironically, however, he fails to link these beliefs and practices to any sort of tributary system itself, steadfastly refusing to see Chinese “guest ritual” as a manifestation of “culture.”

The reason for this reluctance, as Hevia states explicitly in his Introduction, is that certain influential historians of China’s foreign relations—John Fairbank and John Wills in particular—have treated the tributary system as a reflection of Chinese “culturalism,” which he suggests these scholars equate with inflexibility and irrationality. According to Hevia, “Fairbank and his followers” have persistently held a dualistic vision of China, “maintained through the use of binary oppositions such as tribute and trade, ritual and diplomacy, ideology and pragmatism, culture and practical reason, . . . [and] appearances and political realities.” In this view, culture is automatically juxtaposed to practicality and rationality. These are, however, false dichotomies, which neither Fairbank nor Wills would accept as an accurate representation of their approach. In fact, the Qing tributary system was, in their view as well as Hevia’s, an extremely sophisticated mechanism for dealing with outsiders; it was flexible, multi-purposed, rational and flexible. It also changed substantially over time in response to varying conditions.

To be sure, tributary rhetoric reflected a long-standing worldview based on the notion of China’s cultural superiority to all other peoples and the idea that foreigners would gravitate to China out of admiration and “turn toward civilization” (xianghua). This was the theory, even though it was not always the practice. For instance, the Qing rulers, themselves “barbarians” in the eyes of many Japanese and Koreans, recognized that foreigners who came to China were not always motivated by admiration for Chinese culture. Moreover, as a number of Asian and Western scholars have clearly shown, the Qing emperors, like their predecessors for hundreds of years, developed a wide variety of institutions and practices for “managing” foreigners that had little if anything to do with the formal features of the tributary system. Most of these studies also indicate a great deal of flexibility within the general framework of the tributary system, especially in times of China’s military weakness. Nonetheless, it was always important for the ruling dynasty to preserve as much of the rhetoric and as many of the formal features of the tributary system as possible, not least as a reflection of their claim to rule “all under Heaven” (tianxia). Understandably, this was especially the case when tributary representatives from other countries were present (as they were during the crucial month of September, 1793).

The tributary system may thus be seen as a political “myth”—not in the sense that it was “false” or “irrational,” but rather in the sense that it asserted and sustained uniquely Chinese claims to political legitimacy (see, for example, the article by Hsiao-ting Lin listed in the “Bibliographical Note” below); it was part of the hoary notion, dating back to the Zhou dynasty, of a “Heavenly mandate (tianming), an expression of the emperor’s morally grounded right to rule “all under Heaven.” No impartial reading of the historical record could fail to reveal that the rituals and rhetoric associated with the tributary system were designed to affirm China’s claims to cultural superiority and moral suasion, to emphasize the submission and subordination of all foreign peoples, and to bring harmony and solidarity to the world. Hevia may believe that such characterizations of Chinese policies toward tributary states are “orientalist” and somehow serve to “constitute the ‘West’ as a privileged area of intellectual, political and economic activity,” but I see them in no such light. Nor do most other scholars of the Qing period.

In fact, as Hevia’s own analysis of “guest ritual” makes clear, adherence to the ceremonies mandated in the Da Qing tongli (Comprehensive rites of the great Qing dynasty; 1756) created the conditions under which a harmonious world order could literally be performed into being. The more the British could be brought to accept Chinese ceremonial practices, the more efficacious the ritual. This is precisely why the Qing authorities tried so hard to resist British efforts to alter the terms of their diplomatic interaction in favor of a European understanding of international relations. To accept this sort of understanding was anathema to China’s self image as the superior party responsible for harmonizing the lands and peoples represented by “a multitude of lords.”

As it turned out, during the Macartney visit the Qing authorities preserved most major elements of Chinese tributary ritual and refused British requests for regular diplomatic representation and the opening of trade. Marcartney’s apparent failure to abide by some of China’s ceremonial stipulations, notably his refusal to kowtow (ketou; lit., to kneel three times and knock the head three times after each kneeling) to the Qianlong emperor, although a cause of some consternation on the part of the Qing authorities, did not undermine the overall ritual significance of the event. (The Qianlong court had, after all, already accepted a modified kowtow in receiving a Portuguese embassy in 1753.) Chinese officials and the throne had long understood that all rituals were susceptible to modification under certain specific conditions. As the Qing scholar Zhao Yi (1727-1814) put the matter in speaking specifically of China’s foreign relations: “The teachings of true principle cannot always be reconciled with the circumstances of the times. If one cannot entirely maintain the demands of true principle, then true principle must be adjusted to the circumstances of the time, and only then do we have the practice of true principle.”

Throughout the entire period of the Macartney visit, the Qing government continued to view the embassy as a tributary mission and treated it as such. It was also described as a tributary mission in official documents designed for the edification of future generations. The fact is that the Chinese had no “illusions” about the event. The rituals performed and the policies decided upon accorded perfectly with Chinese assumptions about both the theory and the practice of the tributary system. From a Chinese standpoint, the outcome was entirely satisfactory, although the negotiations were certainly frustrating at times.

In short, the Macartney mission involved much more than an encounter between “two imperial formations.” It was also a cultural clash, representing fundamentally different understandings of how the world in general, and how foreign relations in particular, should be understood and effectively managed. Hevia argues that Qing guest ritual “does not appear to deal in crude distinctions between civilization and barbarism.” Surely the word “crude” is not an apt characterization of the Qing dynasty’s approach to foreign relations; yet it seems clear to me that Hevia vastly underestimates the problem of cultural difference. What distinguished the “Chinese” from so-called “barbarians” was precisely the difference in their levels of “civilization”—specifically, differences in their ritual behavior.

There is another problem with Hevia’s approach. Although his stated aim is to understand events “through their multiple recountings,” his analysis is marked by a curious asymmetry. In his zeal to expose the “orientalizing” tendencies of both Westerners and post-Qing Chinese scholars (who have, according to Hevia, appropriated “the intellectual framework of the colonizer”), he virtually ignores similar “occidentalizing” gestures on the part of the Qing intelligentsia—essentializing and condescending moves that are abundantly evident not only in the Chinese documents that Hevia has quite obviously studied, but also in Chinese cartographic materials, which he apparently has not. The result is an account of historiographic “distortions” that is itself “distorted” by Hevia’s inclination to view precolonial China through a postcolonial lens.

Let us now return briefly to the specific issue of whether, all things considered, it is possible and productive to speak of a Chinese tributary system. John Wills, in his introduction to a recent set of excellent essays titled China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (2011), refers specifically to a “mode of management of [Chinese] foreign relations in which everything was governed by a single set of hierarchical concepts and bureaucratic precedents, a ‘tribute system’ in the full sense of the word.” He hastens to point out, however, that “many important facets of Chinese relations with maritime Europeans . . . had little or nothing to do with the tribute system.”

Wills goes on to say that if we take a “longer view” of the history of Chinese foreign relations, we find that the tribute system of the Ming and early Qing period—which reflected, in his words, “persistent tendencies toward the unilateral and bureaucratized control of relations with foreigners and toward the ceremonial superiority of the Son of Heaven over all other sovereigns”—was limited in duration. His argument is that “the years from about 1425 to 1550 were theonly time when a unified tributary system embodying these tendencies was the matrix for policy decisions concerning all foreigners.” Thus, he believes that the term “tribute system” should apply only to the Ming system and not be used to refer to the “less systematic and more varied diplomatic practices of other times.”

While there is a certain logic to this position, I maintain that as long as tributary institutions, regulations, policies and rhetoric were a significant part of the Chinese worldview and self-image, indicated at least suggestively in maps, encyclopedias and almanacs, and described at length in a great many Qing documents—including the dynasty’s Collected Statutes (huidian), its Comprehensive Rituals (tongli) and its Veritable Records (shilu)—until the very end of the nineteenth century, the term “tributary system” is apposite. The fact that many changes took place in the system over time, and that many other forms of Sino-foreign diplomatic interaction occurred outside the formal framework of the system, does not negate the concept. We know, for example, that in contemporary American political life not all negotiations and interactions with foreign countries take place within the formal framework of the State Department, and yet its institutions, regulations and rhetoric obviously remain important to an understanding of American foreign policy.

Qing documents from the last Dutch embassy to China in 1794-1795, a year or so after the Macartney episode, help to explain why the Chinese tributary viewpoint proved to be so tenacious, and why the Qing authorities were so confused and dismayed by Great Britain’s failure to meet Chinese expectations in 1793. Although the Dutch mission, designed to celebrate the Qianlong emperor’s sixtieth birthday (and, of course, to promote trade), was considered an irregular event, it conformed in every respect to the basic requirements of Chinese tributary ritual. Holland’s preliminary letter, sent from its fictitious “king” to the Qianlong emperor in the summer of 1794, captures the distinctive flavor of a vassal’s petition to his feudal superior. The Chinese version reads in part: “From the time of the Kangxi emperor’s reign [1662-1722] onward . . . [we foreigners] have all been transformed by China’s civilizing influence [xianghua]. Throughout history there has never been a monarch with such a peerless reputation as you possess, my exalted emperor.”

Small wonder China had such a well-developed sense of its exalted status. In response to the Dutch mission, the Qianlong emperor replied:


I have now reigned for sixty years, so that the four seas are forever pure and all the regions of the world have all been transformed by Chinese culture. My virtuous reputation has spread far and wide . . . and I have [always] treated Chinese and foreigners as one family. . . . Now [representatives of] the myriad countries, scaling mountains and sailing seas, have come, one after another, to offer birthday congratulations. . . . [This] heavenly dynasty views all [people of the world] with equal benevolence, and although some may come to China with only meager [tributary presents], all will leave amply rewarded . . . . [Since you admire Chinese culture [muhua] and will be receiving valuable tokens of imperial favor with this edict,] may these gifts strengthen your bonds of loyalty and integrity, preserving good government in your kingdom and making you forever worthy of my esteem.”

Well into the nineteenth century Qing documents on foreign relations, including maps, continued to reflect this condescending tone, using the same basic vocabulary.

It simply will not do to dismiss these statements as empty rhetoric. One can acknowledge the flexibility and sophistication of traditional China’s approach to foreign relations—and even accept James Polachek’s (1992) argument that the “inertia of the [Chinese] central-government political system . . . [was] the chief obstacle to foreign policy change”—without denying, as Polachek himself puts the matter (somewhat indelicately), “the pompous ‘Celestialism’ of the late Ch’ing [Qing] court posed a very real problem for those would have brought China more speedily into the modern world.”

This much we know: On the eve of the first Anglo-Chinese War of 1839-42, Jesuit-influenced world maps of the sort produced by individuals such as Cao Junyi and Zhuang Tingfu were at best a dim memory for most Chinese scholars and officials. From the late seventeenth century into the nineteenth, the vast majority of Chinese mapmakers ignored Jesuit constructions of the world almost entirely. Most did not even choose to pattern their cartographic productions after Luo Guangxian’s grid-oriented Guang Yutu. Far more popular were maps of the Tianxia quantu variety, which depicted India, Europe and even Africa as small entities sitting on the extreme western margins of China. [Figure 14]




Figure 14: Detail from the far upper left hand corner of the 1811 Da Qing wannian yitong tianxia quantu (see Figures 2-4). Here, from top to bottom, we see several amorphous and somewhat ambiguously labeled land areas, all depicted as islands in the sea lying to the west of the strategic Central Asian region known as Yili (in modern-day Xinjiang): Holland, [the Land of] the Great Western Sea [probably Portugal], Spain, Arabia [lit., “The Homeland of Islam,” also identified with the name of an area in Central Asia known as Hami], the Small Western Sea, and Africa [lit. (the Land of the) “Black Ghosts”]. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)


Yet at least a few indigenous mapmakers carried on the cartographic traditions established by the Jesuits—assisted now by the efforts of a new breed of Western missionaries, primarily Protestants. For instance, Li Mingche (1751-1832), a well-known Daoist priest and scientist with foreign contacts, included two relatively “modern” illustrations of the Eastern and Western hemispheres—complete with lines of latitude and longitude—in his Huantian tushuo(Illustrations of encompassing Heaven; 1819). Moreover, every late eighteenth and early nineteenth century example I have seen of the defensively oriented scrolls known generically as Haijiang yangjie xingshi quantu (Complete map of [China’s] coastal configurations) begins with a colorful and reasonably faithful line-drawn rendering of the eastern hemisphere based on Chen Lunjiong’s Haiguo wenjian lu—the same basic model that appears on Ma Junliang’s maps in the Tianxia quantu tradition and Cao Junyi’s Da Qing tongshu zhigong wanguo jingwei diqiu shi.

After China’s defeat at the hands of the British in the so-called Opium War of 1842, editions of the Haijiang yangjie xingshi quantu began to reflect a new awareness of the Western presence in treaty port areas—significantly, by means of textual remarks to the effect that “during the Daoguang period [1820-1850] Western countries [began to] trade at this place.” Such cartographic changes were part of a growing sense on the part of at least some Chinese scholar-officials that China had to acquire more up-to-date knowledge about the outside world in order to survive. The two most important books to provide this information, both based substantially on Western maps, were Wei Yuan’s Haiguo tuzhi (Illustrated gazetteer of the maritime countries; 1843), ably analyzed by Jane Kate Leonard (1984), and Xu Jiyu’s Yinghuan zhilüe (A short account of the maritime circuit; 1849), cogently discussed by Fred Drake (1975). What these two pioneering works had in common was a desire to, in Wei’s words, “describe the West as it appears to Westerners.”




Figure 15: Eastern half of America from the Haiguo tuzhi (1875 edition)


From the 1860s to the early 1890s, as part of China’s Self-Strengthening Movement (1862-1895), study associations, books, and journals devoted to geographic and cartographic issues began to proliferate in China. Cartography became a recognized profession, and Chinese mapmakers increasingly produced maps of all kinds, including Western-influenced strategically oriented maps of potential trouble-spots. [Figures 15-17] Yet maps of the tianxia variety continued to circulate widely in Chinese society, not only as stand-alone items (sometimes displayed in multiple hanging scrolls) but also in almanacs and popular encyclopedias, and occasionally even as decorations on fans. Moreover, as late a 1881 a version of the explicitly strategic Qi sheng yan hai quan tu (Complete map of the seven coastal provinces) could still offer a map of the Eastern Hemisphere in which most of India and Southeast Asia remained totally unidentified. [Figure 18]

Then came the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, which sounded the death knell of traditional Chinese cartography. From this time onward, in elite journals and even popular publications, Chinese readers sought ever more accurate knowledge about other parts of the world, including once-despised Japan. The rise of Chinese nationalism—generated by China’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the so-called “dwarf-bandits” (wokou)—brought a heightened awareness of the wages of foreign imperialism. Chinese cartography, as with many other areas of Chinese life after 1895, became suffused with the spirit of patriotism and political action. One revealing illustration can be found in a map contained in a 1912 almanac (Zhonghua minguo yuannian lishu), issued in the name of the newly established Republic of China. Although not particularly sophisticated in terms of mathematical accuracy, the map is fascinating because its commentaries strikingly identify the various places “originally attached to our country” (yuan shu wo guo) but recently taken away by foreign imperialism. These places included the newly established (1885) province of Taiwan and the tributary states of Korea, the Ryukyu Islands and Vietnam. From this time onward, Chinese nationalism affected in fundamental ways the rendering of geographical space by cartographers in China.




Figure 16: Beiyang fentu (Sectional map of the Northern Seas; 1864)—part of a comprehensive collection of strategically oriented maps produced by Chinese cartographers in 1864. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)




Figure 17: The Da Qing sanshi sheng yudi quanshu (Complete map of the twenty-three provinces of the Great Qing [dynasty]; 1885-1894). A particularly striking feature of this map—in addition to the two hemispheres drawn to scale on the bottom right—is the strategic emphasis on the trouble-spot of Korea, looming disproportionately large to the east of China Proper as an “appendix.” The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 began over competing claims of suzerainty over Korea. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)




Figure 18: Detail from a map of the Eastern Hemisphere in the Qisheng yanhai quantu (Complete map of the seven coastal provinces; 1881). Note that in a map spanning from Korea to the Philippines in the east and Europe to Africa in the west, most of India and Southeast Asia remains completely unidentified. Source: The Library of Congress Map Room (online collection)




This material draws from, adapts and introduces “Mapping China’s World: Cultural Cartography in Late Imperial China,” chapter 2 of Richard J. Smith, Mapping China and Managing the World: Culture, Cartography and Cosmology in Late Imperial Times (Routledge, 2012)

Richard J. Smith is George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, Houston, Texas. His book The I Ching: A Biography, was published by Princeton, 2012).

Recommended citation: Richard J. Smith, "Mapping China and the Question of a China-Centered Tributary System," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 3, January 28, 2012.

Bibliographical Note

In addition to the Asian-language sources cited in the book version of this chapter, see the excellent recent collection of Chinese maps edited by the Zhong hua yutu zhi bian zhi ji shu zi zhan shi xiang mu, titled Zhong hua yu tu zhi (An atlas of [ancient] Chinese maps) Beijing: Zhong guo di tu chu ban she, 2011. For a few additional English-language studies relevant to this chapter, consult Angela Schottenhammer and Roderich Ptak, The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources (Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006); Wang Gungwu and Chin-Keong Ng, Maritime China in Transition: 1750-1850 (Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004); Zhijun Ren, “Tributary System, Global Capitalism and the Meaning of Asia in Late Qing China” (MA thesis at the University of Ottawa, 2012), available here; Nianshen Song, “‘Tributary’ from a Multilaterial; and Multilayered Perspective,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, first published online (April 23, 2012) here, and Hsiao-ting Lin, “The Tributary System in China’s Historical Imagination: China and Hunza, cs. 1760-1960,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 19.4 (October 2009): 489-507. For a useful analysis of the Wanguo laichao tu, see Jiang Peng, “Qianlong chao ‘Suizhao xingle tu,’ ‘Wanguo laichao tu’ yu shinei kongjian de guanxi ji qi yihan” (Interior space and the artistic motifs of “The myriad countries come to court” and “Having fun on New Year’s Day” in the Qianlong reign, along with their implications; Beijing Central Academy of Fine Art, MA thesis, 2010).

A wealth of online cartographic materials pertaining to the content of this chapter can be found at the magnificent Library of Congress Map Collection website. Most of the illustrations for this essay have been drawn from this source. Specific queries can be directed to their search engine, found here. To find a general item, enter, say, “China Maps” indicating a maximum of 400 bibliographic records for the category “Search All Map Collections.” This will yield 336 entries, including maps of all kinds—some large, some small; some produced by Chinese, Japanese or Korean mapmakers, some produced by Westerner cartographers; some modern, some ancient (the earliest are dated 1136); some rough, some strikingly beautiful in color and design. Some maps are mislabeled by the LOC, and so it takes a bit of trial and error to search for all the cartographic possibilities, but they are astonishing in their number and especially in their variety.

For a specific example of how one might look for maps, again focusing on China, go to “Search All Map Collections,” enter a term like “China Coast,” then “match any words” and keep the default at 100 bibliographic records.This will eventually yield “Eastern Hemisphere,” designated “Map 11 of 100.” You can then click on any of the several maps in the collection (all marked “880-01Hai jiang yang jie xing shi quan tu”), and go to the bottom of the page where it says “Download JPEG2000 image.” Click on this link. The download may take a minute or so, since it will be a rather large file, but then you’ll have a magnificent image on your desktop, which you can roam around in and magnify to a remarkable extent. From this action you can isolate and “grab” the specific image you want. It’s great deal of fun to poke around in this way, and I can guarantee that you will find some amazing material. Below, the titles of a few maps that I have downloaded recently, as a small indication of the possibilities for scholars of East Asia (these titles can all be entered directly into“Search All Map Collections,” sans the dates in brackets, which I have added):

Aihun, Luosha, Taiwan, Nei Menggu tu [1689-1722]

Bei yang fen tu [1864]

Chōsen hachidō no zu [1785]

Chungguk sipsamsong to [c 1800]

Da Qing fen sheng yu tu [1754-82]

Da Qing nian san sheng yu di quan tu [1885-1894]

Da Qing tong shu zhi gong wan guo jing wei di qiu shi [1794]

Da Qing wan nian yi tong di li quan tu [1814-16]

Da Qing wan nian yi tong tian xia quan tu [1811]

Da Qing yi tong yu di quan tu [1864]

Dian Yue Yuenan lian jie yu tu [1864]

Haedong chido [19th century]

Haejwa chondo [1822]

Hai jiang yang jie xing shi quan tu [1684-1787]

Hai jiang yang jie xing shi quan tu [1787-1820]

Hainan dao tu shuo [1820-1875]

Hamgyong-pukto chondo [19th century]

Hubei Anhui he tu [1864]

Hua yi tu [1136]

Huang chao yi tong yu di quan tu [1832]

Huang chao yi tong yu di quan tu [1842]

Huang chao zhi sheng yu di quan tu [1896]

Huang yu quan lan fen sheng tu [1693-1722]

Jiang hai quan tu [1800-1854]

Jing ban tian wen quan tu [c 1800]

Jing cheng ge guo zan fen jie zhi quan tu [1900]

Jing cheng quan tu [1870]

Kunyu wanguo quantu [1602]

Ming shi san ling tu [1875-1908]

Nan yang fen tu [1864]

Qi sheng yan hai quan tu [1881]

San cai yi guan tu [1722]

Sangoku tsūran yochi rotei zenzu [1785-1793]

Sankai yochi zenzu [1785]

Shan dong Zhi li Sheng jing hai jiang tu [c 1700]

Sheng jing yu di quan tu 1734

Wan li hai fang tu shuo [c. 1700]

Wan li hai fang tu shuo [1725]

Xia lan zhi zhang [c. 1647]

Xizang quan tu [1862]

Yihe yuan [post-1888]

Yojido [19th century]

Zhao tong Yun nan [1730-1820]