Sinocentrism
[2] Depending on the historical context, Sinocentrism can refer to either the ethnocentrism of the Han society and culture, or the modern concept of zhonghua minzu, popular among the Korean elites up to the final demise of the Qing dynasty.
The dynastic succession was at times subject to radical changes in interpretation, such as the period of the Southern Song when the ruling dynasty lost the traditional heartland to the northern barbarians.
After investiture (冊封; cèfēng) of the ruler in question, the missions were allowed to come to China to pay tribute to the Chinese emperor.
[10] Within Asia, the cultural and economic centrality of China was recognized, and most countries submitted to the Sinocentric model, if only to enjoy the benefits of a trading relationship.
[citation needed] In the mid-Goryeo period, Korea idealized the Song dynasty and actively sought cultural assimilation into the Sinosphere.
In 1815, Gia Long claimed 13 countries as Vietnamese vassals, including Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Burma, Tran Ninh in eastern Laos, and two countries called "Thủy Xá Quốc" and "Hỏa Xá Quốc", which were actually Malayo-Polynesian Jarai tribes living between Vietnam and Cambodia.
[32] Trousers and tunics on the Chinese pattern in 1774 were ordered by the Nguyễn Phúc Khoát to replace the sarong type Vietnamese clothing.
The Jinnō Shōtōki provided a Shinto view of history stressing the divine nature of Japan and its spiritual supremacy over China and India.
In the Tokugawa era, the study of Kokugaku (国学) arose as an attempt to reconstruct and recover the authentic native roots of Japanese culture, particularly Shinto, excluding later elements borrowed from China.
In 1657, Tokugawa Mitsukuni established the Mito School, which was charged with writing a history of Japan as a perfect exemplar of a "nation" under Confucian thought, with the emphasis on unified rule by the emperors and respect for the imperial court and Shinto deities.
In the early Edo period, neo-Confucianist Yamaga Sokō asserted that Japan was superior to China in Confucian terms and more deserving of the name "Chūgoku".
Other scholars picked this up, notably Aizawa Seishisai, an adherent of the Mito School, in his political tract Shinron (新論 New Theses) in 1825.
As a country that had much to gain by eclipsing Chinese power in East Asia, Japan in more recent times has perhaps been most ardent in identifying and demolishing what it dismissively calls Chūka shisō (中華思想), loosely meaning "Zhonghua ideology".
One manifestation of Japanese resistance to Sinocentrism was the insistence for many years in the early 20th century on using the name Shina (支那) for China, based on the Western word 'China', in preference to Chūgoku (中国 Central Country) advocated by the Chinese themselves.
[41] Wei Yuan, the 19th century Chinese scholar, considered Thailand to be the strongest and most loyal of China's Southeast Asian tributaries, citing the time when Thailand offered to directly attack Japan to divert the Japanese in their planned invasions of Korea and the Asian mainland, as well as other acts of loyalty to the Ming dynasty.
[42] Thailand was welcoming and open to Chinese immigrants, who dominated commerce and trade, and achieved high positions in the government.
This alliance led to the removal of Vira Alakesvara of Gampola from the throne in favor of Parakramabahu VI, with documented details found in Chinese records.
[44] This collaboration marked the beginning of an era characterized by increased economic interaction between the Ming dynasty and the Kotte kingdom.
[44] A notable legacy of Parakramabahu VI's reign is attributed to Admiral Zheng He, who made a lasting impact on Sri Lanka.
This is exemplified by the installation of the Galle Trilingual inscription, serving as an artifact that attests to the interactions between the two nations during this historical period.
This is altogether far from the truth, for China should be in the center of the world, which we can prove by the single fact that we can see the North Star resting at the zenith of the heaven at midnight.
'Biographies of Astronomers and Mathematicians'), a book by the Qing dynasty scholar Ruan Yuan which adopted the point of view that some Western sciences had an ancient Chinese origin.
Until the Sino-Japanese War, some intellectuals believed that some of the sciences and technologies coming from Europe were actually lost ancient Chinese knowledge.
[46] Cultural Sinocentrism was the political and cultural core of the region: traditional Chinese language and writing system, ideological frames of the Confucian social and familial order; legal and administrative systems; Buddhism and the art of historiography were used in China, the Korean peninsula (Korean Confucianism) and also Vietnam.
When Buddhists had influence in the court, such as in the minority-led Yuan dynasty, they successfully persuaded the imperial governments to censor and destroy Daoist texts.
[51] Liu Ji, one of the key advisors of the Ming-dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang, generally supported the idea that while the Chinese and the non-Chinese are different, they are actually equal.
[52] Culturally, one of the most famous attacks on Sinocentrism and its associated beliefs was made by the author Lu Xun in The True Story of Ah Q, in which the protagonist is humiliated and defeated; satirizing the ridiculous way in which he claimed "spiritual victories" in spite of this.
The Sinocentric ideology suffered a further blow when Imperial Japan, having undergone the Meiji Restoration, defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War.
[54] However, some historians, such as John Friend and Bradley Thayer believe there are individuals in the Chinese government who doggedly hold onto Sinocentric beliefs.
[55] Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping has called for a 'pan-Asian security concept', which has been compared to Imperial Japan by commentators.
