'南蠻' 및 '海南'諸國과 隋唐代 中國의 국제관계 - '冊封朝貢關係'를 중심으로

Abstract

This article examines the Chinese tribute system from the seventh century to the tenth century in Huanan(華南, South China), which involved foreign states in the South Seas(海南諸國, Southeast Asia). The states in the Huanan region and the Southeast Asia area also communicated with Chinese states by participating in the heqin (和親,friendly relations) system or the neishu (內屬, internal obedience) system in a similar way that the political entities of other regions of ancient East Asian world did. The Chinese tribute system can be characterized as investiture-tribute relations (冊封朝貢關係), which involved the conferment of office and peerage and the tribute exchange either in the form of heqin or neishu . A summary of the findings of this article follows. First, this article reveals how Chinese people understood the states of the Huanan region and the Southeast Asia area in the Tang period. Chinese people gathered information on most of the Southeast Asian area, though that information was more or less incorrect. This article shows that, through “the maritime Silk Road,” communication between Chinese states and the states of the Southeast Asian area expanded and that Buddhism, the most common religion in Southeast and East Asia,also played a role in this process. Second, relationships between Chinese states and each of the political entities of the Huanan region and Southeast Asia in the Tang period varied. The regions of that period were called “southern barbarians” and “southwestern barbarians” or divided into jiaoneiman (徼內蠻, barbarians within the frontier fortress) and jiaowaiman (徼外蠻,barbarians beyond the frontier fortress). In general,“southern barbarians” and jiaowaiman meant the people residing in the states of today’s Southeast Asia(海南諸國) while the “southwestern barbarians”and jiaoneiman pointed to the people of the states of today’s Huanan region. “Jiao ” (徼) was a military facility similar to “se ” (塞) in the northern region. It can be speculated that historical memories of the establishment of bianjun (邊郡, frontier prefectures) were deployed in separating jiaoneiman from jiaowaiman . Third, although different names were used to identify peoples and states in the Southeast Asia and Huanan regions, there were similarities between them when it came to their diplomatic ties to Chinese states. Furthermore, the states of ancient Southeast Asia and the Huanan region were quite similar to those of ancient East Asia in terms of their diplomatic and political practices involving Chinese states, which included acts of exchanging delegations, forming an alliance,establishing administrative districts such as jimizhou (羈縻州),appointing government employees, and sending tribute to Chinese states. This article emphasizes that the relationship between Chinese states and the states in the Huanan region and part of the Southeast Asia in ancient times should be seen as a relationship between states, not as a relationship between a central government and local governments. In this way, this article argues against the claim of the People’s Republic of China, which has defined the boundary of the historic “China” based on the current borders of the People’s Republic of China. This article also argues that the history of the investiture-tribute system between ancient Chinese states and states in Southeast Asia and East Asia cannot be used to discern which ancient states near Chinese states belonged to the historic “China.” Rather, the history of the investiture-tribute relations or the investiture-tribute system shows us that the system was used to distinguish the historic “China” from the historic “non-China.”