Xi Jinping Thinks China Is World's Only Sovereign State

Many Chinese policymakers believe they are entitled to dominate others, especially peoples on their periphery. That concept underpinned the imperial tributary system in which states near and far were supposed to acknowledge Chinese rule. Although there is no "cultural DNA" that forces today's communist leaders to view the world as emperors did long ago, the tributary system nonetheless presents, as Stephen Platt of the University of Massachusetts points out, "a tempting model" of "a nostalgic 'half-idealized, half-mythologized past.' "

In that past, there were no fixed national boundaries. There was even no concept of "China." There was, as Yi-Zheng Lian wrote in the New York Times, "a sovereignty system with the emperor's compound in the middle." Around that were concentric rings. "The further from the center, the less the center's control and one's obligations to it," Lian noted. The Chinese, in fact, were perhaps the first to develop the idea of a borderless world.

In short, Chinese emperors claimed they had the Mandate of Heaven over tianxia, or "All Under Heaven," as they believed they were, in the words of Fei-Ling Wang of Georgia Tech, "predestined and compelled to order and rule the entire world that is known and reachable, in reality or in pretension." As acclaimed journalist Howard French writes in Everything Under the Heavens, "One can argue that there has never been a more universal conception of rule."

Unfortunately, the current Chinese leader harbors ambitions of imposing the tianxia model on others. As Charles Horner of the Hudson Institute told me, "The Communist Party of China remains committed to ordering the People's Republic of China as a one-party dictatorship, and that is perforce its starting point for thinking about ordering the world." In other words, a dictatorial state naturally thinks about the world in dictatorial terms.

[I would call it more of a “China Uber Alles” mentality. ]

If that’s a reference to Nazi Germany, that’s not really what it’s all about. The real focus of all this activity was for the ruler to cover himself in glory for posterity, much like Caesar, Alexander or Darius. As far as he was concerned, all subjects in his realm were equal under the law.

The kind of sectarianism practiced by Hitler is fairly unique among aspiring empire-builders. Alexander embraced his conquered subjects because his most dangerous rivals were the Macedonian generals who served under him. And they may in fact have killed him by administering poison. They certainly slaughtered his kin. Alexander’s generals, the Diadochi, were certainly anything but sectarian in outlook. That was how the dynasties they founded lasted centuries.

“That concept underpinned the imperial tributary system in which states near and far were supposed to acknowledge Chinese rule. Although there is no “cultural DNA” that forces today’s communist leaders to view the world as emperors did long ago, the tributary system nonetheless presents, as Stephen Platt of the University of Massachusetts points out, “a tempting model” of “a nostalgic ‘half-idealized, half-mythologized past.’ “

“In that past, there were no fixed national boundaries. There was even no concept of “China.” There was, as Yi-Zheng Lian wrote in the New York Times, “a sovereignty system with the emperor’s compound in the middle.” Around that were concentric rings. “The further from the center, the less the center’s control and one’s obligations to it,” Lian noted. The Chinese, in fact, were perhaps the first to develop the idea of a borderless world.”

I am very made that I have had nothing published.

I have been saying since the 1990s that the Communist Party of China did not kick out or abandon the imperial system of the Chinese emperors, beginning with Mao, followed by Deng, and then by the committee of the politburo itself they simply occupied the seat of the emperor, and have used and relied on the imperial system as their means of selling their hold on “nationalism” to the Chinese people.

I say “Chinese people” and not “mainland” Chinese people, becasue just as with the emperors old, they think places like Taiwan, Hong Kong or even Singapore or someother places “belong” to China no matter the poltical realities that have changed over time.

The Chinese 9-dash line which drawn around a good part of the South China sea is a line the Chinese use to claim everything within it as part of China. It is an artifact of the imperial age, when Chinese sea voyagers and fisherman and mercahants would return to China from some sea voyage, and would report on their travels to the emperors administratora. Often having NOTHING to do with Chinese occupying or even being a continuing presence at some place (most often) the emperor would place another pin in the map of the sea surrounding China, and from then on Chinese emperors would claim that spot as theirs. The realities on the ground in MOST instance gave no such recognition. That did not matter to the imperial rulers of China. To them it was only that they had chosen not to occupy the place, not that they did not have every right to.

On result is a little atol (tiny island) that is over 1,000 miles from the nearest land of China, and only 90 miles Malaysia, and claimed by China just because it is in that 9-dash line. Sometime during Obama’s term China sent an aircraft carrier down there just to remind Malaysia of the Chinese claim.

It is from that 9-dash line that all the disputes between China vs Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan and Indonesia arise.

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