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Characteristics of the Political Units



In the feudal era, the main political unit was the Chou monarchy, which dispensed land, titles, and favors upon its vassals. The bureaucratic organization of the monarchy was already well-developed in this period and differentiated to serve a variety of government functions.

In addition to the central monarchy, which theoretically held title over all the known territory of China, a number of small feudal units, created and sustained by the central monarchy, also played an important political role. The Chou kings donated tracts of land, including towns and villages, to feudal lords and retiring civil servants in return for the payment of taxes. Vassals were also obligated to carry out certain other duties, such as following the king in wars and expeditions against the wu, guarding the frontiers of Chou lands, and supply­ing manpower to the king for his armies. The territorial extent of these feudal units varied considerably. Most consisted of walled cities and surrounding lands, • extending over a radius of up to sixty miles;2 but, in some instances, the monarch would reward a deserving noble with a tract of land the size of New York State. The noble could then subdivide the land into fiefs ranging in size from several fields to several hundred square miles, an area comparable to a large Texas ranch.3 The literature of the period indicates that there were at least 130 large , feudal states subservient to the central monarchy during the Western Chou period, although some authorities mention as many as l,800.4

In theory, nobles and vassals were not allowed to expand their territory at the expense of neighboring feudatories without royal sanction. But even during the height of Chou power, feudal lords maintained some relations with each other (rather than directly through the monarchy) and in some cases fought wars over territorial spoils.

Within their own states, the nobles enjoyed considerable autonomy, appointing their own officials and levying taxes in accordance with their own needs. They maintained their own armies (partly for purposes of internal secu­rity) and, if they desired, could split up their land among relatives and subvassals,

2 Owen and Eleanor Lattimore, China: A Short History (New York: Norton, 1944), p. 66.

3 Dun J. Li, The Ageless Chinese: A History (New York: Scribner's, 1965), p. 47.

4 There seems to be little agreement regarding the number of units in the feudal system. Richard L. Walker, in The Multi-State System of Ancient China (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1953), mentions that in 722 в.с, when the feudal order was declining rapidly, there were 170 states (p. 20); Edward T. Williams, in A Short History of China (New York: Harper & Row, 1928), mentions the existence of about 1,800 states during the height of the Chou dynasty (p. 56); and Friedrich Hirth, in The Ancient History of China to the End of the Chou Dynasty (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923), claims that about 130 states were noted in the Chou literature (p. 11).

31 Historic International Systems

creating even smaller political units (fiefs). During the early parts of the Spring and Autumn period (771 to 483 в.с), the strength and independence of feudal lords grew rapidly at the expense of the central Chou authority. Emulating the administrative mechanisms within the Chou domains, the vassals themselves created regular government organizations as state functions expanded and be­came more pervasive in the lives of ordinary people. Large-scale irrigation and construction projects, collection and storage of grains, construction of walled cities, and organization and maintenance of armed forces required the establish­ment of coherent administrative structures and processes.5 With the aid of admin­istrative mechanisms that made them independent and self-sufficient, the feudal lords and royal princes were able not only to maintain control over their own expanding territories, but to resist the influence of the central monarchy as well.

Another development that strengthened the independence of the feudal states was the growth of rudimentary forms of nationalism. In the Western Chou period, popular patriotism had been directed toward village chiefs and the "Son of Heaven," the Chou monarch, and only occasionally to the feudal lord. But, after 771 в.с, ordinary people began to recognize and emphasize the differences in dialects, customs, religion, and cults among the states as their contacts with others began to proliferate, and the position of the Chou mon­arch—the symbol of unity—eroded. Pride in local distinctions and loyalty to the prince of the state became much more pronounced toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period. The significance of this development was that during the period of the Warring States, princes could more easily organize peasant militias and armies to fight their wars for them. In turn, peasants and townsmen believed that they were fighting not just as a duty to a feudal lord but for the independence and honor of their own state.6

In addition to the Chou monarchy, the feudal realms of the early Chou period, and the large independent states that developed in the Spring and Au- • tumn period, a fourth type of political unit also existed in the Chinese system. This was the attached state (fu-yung), independent only in relation to some purely local affairs. These attached states were mostly holdovers from the feudal era, small bits of territory that had not been conquered and absorbed by the larger feudal rulers as they developed their administrative mechanisms and armed forces. In external relations, the attached states were almost totally depen­dent upon their neighbors.7

The Structure of the Chou System

The center of influence during the Western Chou period resided with the political unit—the central monarchy—which could create or extinguish lesser political

5 Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 37.

6 Ibid., p. 36.

7 See Derk Bodde, "Feudalism in China," in Feudalism in History, ed. Rushton Coulborn (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), p. 56.

32 Historic International Systems

' ,'entities. The structure of the system in the feudal era was hierarchical. Most feudal lords were dependent upon the Chou monarchy for lands, subsidies, і and protection against each other; but because of the difficulty of transportation and communication between units on the territorial fringes of the system, as well as the development of administrative mechanisms within the feudal units, ; there were different degrees of dependence and subservience between the small і political units and the monarchy. The Chou kings ruled directly over extensive tracts of territory near the present city of Sian. Next to this they created a " circle of small states, each ruled by a direct relative of the king's family. Because of close family and geographical relationships, these local rulers—usually princes—were in a weak position to increase their authority at the expense of the Chou monarch. Another circle of states farther from the capital was ruled by other nobles who had also received their territory from the king but who were distant members of the ruling house or relatives by marriage. Toward the fringes of the system (called the "region of tranquil tenure") the monarchs created a multitude of small states governed by former military or civil officials, who were awarded territory, villages, and towns in return for services to the Chou kings. The function of these states (termed kuo) was to watch over the activities of hostile tribes beyond the borders of the system. For this service, the vassals received special royal subsidies. At the farthest region of the system stood the area of "wild domain," land inhabited by barbarian tribes, Chou vassals whose loyalty was doubtful, and groups that retained sporadic connections with the Chou but were not wholly sinicized.

In part, this feudal structure was held together for several centuries by obligations that the vassals and members of the royal family had to fulfill toward the central monarchy or their immediate superiors. The relationships of dominance and subordination were also sustained by an official mythology, which held the king to be the "Son of Heaven," ruling by divine decree. A challenge to his power could thus be interpreted as a form of sacrilege.

But the Chou dynasts were incapable of preventing the eventual growth of power among the many vassals. The feudal lords through the centuries had consolidated political, military, and administrative power over ever-larger pieces of territory and had succeeded in creating self-sufficient states. By the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period, many of them had acquired or conquered enough territory to make it possible for them not to rely on the royal family for subsidies or grants of land. When ambitious nobles went to war and defeated a neighbor, they no longer turned the conquered rulers into subvassals but incorporated them and their land as integral parts of their own territory.8 The smaller units were simply swallowed up by the larger.

Moreover, the rulers of these territories increasingly derived their au­thority from inheritance, rather than from the central monarchy. Regardless of lineage, they called themselves princes, and by the fifth century many were

8 Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 59.

Historic International Systems

known as kings.9 By the beginning of the eighth century, successors of the original vassals and princes were already going to battle against each other and even against the Chou monarchy itself. In 707 B.C., a vassal actually defeated the Chou monarch's army;10 and, fifty years later, a group of leaders from the more powerful states determined the succession of the Chou throne.11 Increas­ingly, the central monarchy had to rely for its prestige and power on those ' theoretically subordinate to it. Between the eighth and seventh centuries, there­fore, the patterns of dependency had become reversed. Although the monarch retained a certain ceremonial importance, leaders of independent states in no way felt compelled to observe the wishes of the king.

In four centuries, the structure of the Chou system changed from one in which the characteristic relationship was of a feudal type, with clearly estab­lished patterns of dominance and subordination, to a system in which a small number of independent states interacted with each other, with no permanent hierarchy of power and influence. The most important conditions that made this development possible were the relative isolation of many of the feudal units from the central authority,12 their aggrandizement at each other's expense (thereby creating larger territorial units), growth of popular loyalties, and estab­lishment of administrative mechanisms that made the political units more self-sufficient.13 The number of units in the late Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods varied with each new conquest or absorption but fluctuated nor­mally between ten and fifteen. By 230 B.C., there were only seven major states and three smaller entities remaining as independent units.

The processes by which smaller states were absorbed into larger ones normally involved the use of force. The state of Ch'i, for example, was particularly successful in expanding its territory at the expense of smaller neighbors. Chroni­cles of the period record that in 664 B.C., Ch'i "brought Chang to terms"; four years later, it "removed" Yang. In 567, Ch'i "extinguished" Lai and T'ang; and in 549, it "seized" Chieh-ken.14 In other cases, the rulers of small states voluntarily sought the protection of larger units and ended up as protectorates, attached states, or quasi-independent provinces. In 645, the government of the state of Chin lost territory when it paid a ransom of eight cities in order to obtain the return of its ruler, who had been seized by the people of Ch'in. In some other cases, states either bartered or sold territory to others.

As unoccupied territory available for absorption declined, states warred increasingly between themselves. One result was a tendency toward the polariza-c tion of power between the states of the north, which (for ceremonial purposes

9 Williams, A Short History of China, p. 62.

10 Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 50.

11 Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 27.

12 Cf. Wolfram Eberhard, A History of China (London: Routledge and Regan Paul, Ltd., 1950), p. 34.

13 The economic reasons for the decline of feudalism are discussed in Li, The Ageless Chinese, pp. 60-61.

14 Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 29.

34 Historic International Systems

only) still identified themselves with the Chou monarchy but were under the effective leadership or domination of Ch'i, and the several states of the south under the domination of Ch'u. These two groupings constituted crude alliance subsystems and were also the instrumentalities of Ch'i and Ch'u, used partly for their own purposes. These two blocs were roughly analogous to the Western

-, and Soviet blocs after World War II, except that they were never very stable. The period of the Warring States, for example, saw members of both blocs fight vigorously against their own allies.

In a system where territorial expansion became a prime objective of state policy and power was distributed among ten or fifteen large states, there was no role for neutrals. Those units that attempted to remain outside the quarrels of other states or alliances ultimately faced extinction, absorption by another state or bloc, or, in the case of the Chou (northern) alliance, a type of quasi independence that allowed for considerable cultural and political auton­omy but not military neutrality.15

By the third century, whatever was left of Chinese unity dissipated as all states began to wage war against each other, regardless of alliance commit­ments or traditional friendships. Wars became great campaigns of massacre and annihilation, with serious consequences to the political and economic stabil­ity of both victors and defeated. Between 230 and 221 в.с, the westernmost state of Ch'in, a semibarbarian and partly isolated political unit, conquered Han, Chao, Wei, Ch'u, Yen, and finally Ch'i, bringing to an end the Chou dynasty and the system of independent states. The system was replaced by the Chin empire, ruled by the Han dynasty, which successfully destroyed all symbolic vestiges of feudalism and the political independence of separate territorial units.16

The forms and criteria of stratification during the Western Chou period

\ were similar to those in the European medieval order: The status and prestige of each political unit was based upon the personal relationship between the central dynast and his vassals. Thus, each political unit was ranked at diplomatic and ceremonial functions according to the original title conferred on its leader by the monarch, corresponding approximately to the titles of prince, duke, mar­quis, earl, viscount, and baron. By the Spring and Autumn period, stratification became established upon the visible elements of a state's power and prestige; rulers who attended international conferences in the eighth century B.C. no longer ranked themselves according to the official titles of their feudal ancestors. Prestige and status in the system after 771 B.C. were based primarily upon a

* state's available military resources and secondarily upon the prestige, wealth, and family connections of its rulers. The number of four-horse military chariots

" was the most conspicuous indicator of a state's power.17 Another indicator of

15 Ibid., p. 101.

16 Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 56.

17 Cf. Cheng Te-k'un, Shang China (Cambridge, Eng.: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1960), p. 295. Richard Walker points out that even today, the translation of the term "great power" is commonly rendered in Chinese as a "country of ten thousand four-horse chariots."

35 Historic International Systems

a state's prestige and status was the number and quality of allies it could count upon for military assistance.

Since the Chinese were very conscious about their international ranking, they frequently attempted to impress neighbors, allies, and enemies by winning spectacular military victories or, if warfare was wanting, by conducting large military reviews before visiting dignitaries from other states. In 529 B.C., for example, the government of Ch'i organized a military performance in which it displayed more than 4,000 chariots.18 Since the largest army mobilized for battle during the early Chou dynasty contained only 3,000 chariots,19 it is clear that this state exhibited almost its entire military capability in an effort to impress others with its might.

Whether measured by available military forces, family connections, wealth, or allies, there was no persistent hierarchy of status or power after the strength of the Chou monarchy had declined to symbolic proportions. Military power and diplomatic status were diffused among a number of relatively large and equal states. These could be considered the great powers of the epoch, states that, although roughly equal with each other, determined the fate of lesser political units either by absorption or through leadership of alliances. During the early part of the Spring and Autumn period, no one state was predominant in the system, as alliance patterns shifted rapidly and leadership passed back and forth among Ch'i, Chin, and Ch'un in the north, and Ch'u, Wu, and Yueh in the south. During the latter portion of this period and throughout the Warring States period, however, power and status gravitated primarily to the leaders of the two main alliance systems, Ch'i and Ch'u, and ultimately to Chin, which conquered all the other states.

Below these great powers were smaller states, political units that main­tained all the requisites of independence but, for lack of military capabilities, economic resources, family connections, or defense establishments (such as walled cities), had to rely for their survival upon the great powers and their alliances. A third tier of states included the fu-yung, or attached states, and smaller protectorates that owed their independence to the goodwill of their protectors. These units were seldom over eight square miles in size and, as the lowest units in the political order, did not have direct diplomatic access to the ceremonial center of the system, the Chou monarchy, but had to communicate indirectly through their protectors.20

Forms of Interaction

During the feudal period, levels of political and commercial interaction among the units were low, except when formal diplomatic and ceremonial exchanges * were arranged between the dukes, princes, and other nobility and the central Chou monarchy. Interaction and communication followed closely the hierarchical

18 Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 48.

19 Cheng, Shang China, p. 295.

20 Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 38.

36 Historic International Systems

pattern of authority in the system, although feudal units in close proximity natu­rally had many relations with each other.

In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, each of the independent states conducted its external relations without reference to the official center of the empire. There was a proliferation of contacts between states, not only formal and diplomatic, but trade and commercial as well. The

■1 Chinese states never established permanent diplomatic organizations, but recur-

' ring occasions for arranging alliances, declaring war, making peace, or maintain­ing prestige in the system through ceremonial or military displays led to almost <J constant diplomatic exchanges between the units. Chinese sources of this period list such diplomatic exchanges as ch'ao, a court visit paid by one ruler to another; hui, meetings between permanent government officials of two or more states; p 'in, friendly missions of information or inquiry; shih, exchange of emissaries; and shou, hunting parties where government representatives combined diplo­matic affairs with recreation.21 The ceremonies attending these types of ex­changes were so lengthy that many states did have, in effect, permanent diplo­matic communication with each other.

These exchanges often had a direct connection with a state's security or expansionist objectives, even when contacts ostensibly had ceremonial pur­poses. Almost all the major events in the life of a ruling family—assumption of a throne, burial of a former ruler, marriages between families or rulers, or

t even births of children into a ruler's family—required diplomatic representation

I from other friendly states, and these occasions were used for bargaining over

state interests.22 Marriages between ruling families were a means of creating

land sustaining alliances, a practice familiar to students of early European diplo­matic history.

A unique aspect of transactions within the Chinese system was the extent to which they occurred between states with different religious or cultural tradi­tions. Though Ch'u and Ch'in were not fully sinified states, they were able to interact with the others essentially on a basis of equality. Apparently wars, alli­ances, and peace were made in the light of a state's immediate objectives and interests, whereas ideological or cultural distinctions remained largely irrelevant to a state's orientation toward others. Hence, if a state found it in its own interest to conclude an alliance with even the most uncultured barbarians at the fringes of the system, it would not hesitate to do so.23

Commercial exchange was another form of interaction. Normally this "j was a private affair of merchants, who were free to travel from state to state and conduct their transactions without administrative interference. However, insofar as grain and other commodities were necessary to feed armies, govern­ments maintained an interest in having sufficient stores to support their forces in times of poor harvest. Since they could not always obtain adequate supplies

21 Ibid., p. 75.

22 Ibid, p. 78.

23 Ibid, p. 99.

37 Historic International Systems

from their own peasants, occasionally they had to send out economic missions to purchase agricultural products from other states.24

War was a frequent form of interaction between states during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. It is recorded, for example, that Duke і Huan of Ch'in went to war twenty-eight times in a reign lasting forty-three p' years.25 In the feudal order, force (provided partly by the vassals) was used primarily by the Chou dynasts against the wu and occasionally against errant nobles whose actions were deemed damaging to the interests of the empire. In the system of independent states, all the units used organized violence as a method of achieving objectives—whether territory, slaves, "honor," or allies. During the feudal era, engagements were seldom fought as battles of annihila­tion, but more as trials of strength, finesse, and glory.26 Fairly rigid rules of warfare prevailed (for example, a charioteer could not fight against anyone of lower or higher rank) and helped to moderate the destructiveness of battle. By the period of Warring States, however, wars had become great contests, fought brutally by huge armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Mass slaughter replaced duelling by charioteers, and the casualties of battle reached proportions enormous even by contemporary standards. In 274 B.C., a Ch'in' general reportedly killed 150,000 enemy soldiers, and the massacre of prisoners " of war was a common occurrence.27

The Chinese also used various forms of subversion and intervention in other states' internal affairs as methods of achieving their objectives. The number of dynastic quarrels and marriages arranged between families of different states led to situations in which one government could support certain claimants to the throne in a neighboring territory and, if it succeeded in creating disloyal factions or cliques, could then help foment revolutions or coups d'etat and place a subservient, or at least friendly, ruler on the throne. According to one author­ity,28 the Chinese states persistently employed the techniques of subversion to ' expand their influence into other areas. In the Spring and Autumn period, for example, there were at least thirty-six instances of successful subversion, fre­quently brought to a conclusion when the intervening state made a show of force at the last moment in order to ensure the victory of rebel elements.

The Rules of the System

In the latter periods of the Chou dynasty, there was considerable discrepancy between the official rules, traditions, and myths that were supposed to govern relations between political units and the actual behavior of independent states.

24 Ibid., p. 80.

25 Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 50.

26 Kenneth S. Latourette,The Chinese: Their History and Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1959), p. 61; Marcel Granet,Chinese Civilization (New York: Meridian Books, 1951), p. 290.

27 Cf. Eberhard,A History of China, p. 57; Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 56.

28 Walker,The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 86.

38 Historic International Systems

The official mythology and customary rules of behavior, buttressed by the writ­ings of philosophers such as Confucius, emphasized unity, obedience to the

- "Son of Heaven," harmony among all parts of the political order, and the obliga­tion of all lower entities—whether sons to fathers or vassals to lords—to higher authorities.

But practice during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods did not accord with the myths and customs appropriate to the feudal order. In a system of many powerful, ambitious, and independent states, such rules

v'were anachronisms. Instead, the main units developed rules or customs that reflected the major political and military characteristics of the system. The official theories of hierarchy, imperial rule over all subjects, and attending patterns of superior-subordinate relationships were belied by the assumptions of later peri­ods, which recognized that the great powers, at least, were more or less sovereign equals, free from all restraints imposed by the Chou monarchy. Treaties con-

\ eluded after 771 в.с were treaties between equals, even where the Chou authori­ties were involved. Obligations were entered into only by the consent of both parties to the treaty, and no authority had legal or customary rights in another independent state's territories, as they did in the Western Chou era. Even com­pacts between the Chinese states and various barbarian groups were concluded on a basis of equality. There was, however, no belief in the sanctity of indepen­dence; throughout the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the larger units conquered and amalgamated lesser territories, with no intention of returning their independence after a short period of occupation. Conquered territories were simply annexed.

More explicit rules were formulated into treaties, which contained the specific obligations of states toward each other and provided means for enforce­ment. One guarantee of compliance with treaties was the practice of exchanging hostages. A state would concede several cities or members of the ruling family as hostages, to be kept—or destroyed—by the other treaty partner if the first broke its obligations. Among customary rules were those demanding that states send envoys to each other at frequent intervals, that members of the two main alliance systems send a minimum of one mission every three years to the court of the league president, and that "summit" meetings be held at least every five years.29 Other rules prescribed in detail the types of conduct and behavior appropriate in warfare, although towards the end of the system the rules of warfare were systematically violated in great campaigns of annihilation.

Most conflicts during the feudal era were mediated directly by the Chou monarchy—except those on the periphery of the system, where central influence was at a minimum. With the decline of the Chou dynasty's effective position among the newly arising independent states, conflicts had to be resolved directly by those involved. During the early Spring and Autumn period, there were no institutions that could provide mediatory or conciliatory services; but, as the

'Ibid., p. 81.

Historic International Systems

two alliance systems developed, they did establish techniques for resolving con­flicts arising within the alliance. It was in the interest of the alliance—or at least to the advantage of the predominant powers in each alliance—to maintain peace and collaboration between alliance members. When disputes broke out among them, therefore, other members often found it necessary to intervene, either to secure a mediated resolution or, if that was impossible or improbable, to threaten or force one or both parties to terminate their quarrel. In 546 B.C., moreover, some of the smaller states that had been increasingly victimized by larger neighbors called a conference of states, which successfully drafted a multi­lateral treaty of nonaggression. This resulted in forty years of relative stability and nonviolence in interstate relations. Whatever techniques were employed by the Chinese states in the Spring and Autumn period were quickly cast aside, however, in the period of Warring States, when conflicts were resolved almost і entirely by the use of force.30

We can now summarize two points that will be of particular concern to us throughout this book: the sources of change from one system type to another and the influence that the structure of the system has on the foreign-policy outputs of the individual components. For the first, let us put in chart form those social, political, and economic factors that brought stability or change to the system. By stability, we do not mean the absence of war or conflict, but rather that the essential characteristics of the system (boundaries, nature of the units, structure, forms of interaction, and rules) remained essentially the same. Other developments were occurring, however, that brought about fundamental changes in any one or more of the system's characteristics.

How can these three fundamentally different types of Chinese interna­tional systems be related to the foreign policies of the typical states making them up? How, in particular, can the structure of the system serve as one variable explaining the foreign policy outputs of the political units?

In the feudal era, the units were weak in relation to the central monarchy and had little freedom to maneuver in their external relations. Bound to the center by traditional mythical and contractual obligations, the lesser units seldom had a choice but to conduct their relations with each other in accordance with the policies and rules set forth by the emperor. In parts of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, however, when military capabilities and diplomatic influence were widely diffused among a number of relatively equal political units and when the blocs were not operating, the structure placed fewer . limitations on external actions and objectives. To be sure, the smaller states were virtual satellites or protectorates, but the medium and large states enjoyed considerable freedom of action. They could forge or destroy alliances, seek security through isolation, or attempt, although usually unsuccessfully, to defend themselves by remaining neutral. Unlike the feudal system, wherein objectives and policies were either set by the monarchy or agreed upon through bargaining

30 Li, The Ageless Chinese, p. 53; Walker, The Multi-State System of Ancient China, p. 88.

Table 2-1Sources of Stability and Change in Ancient Chinese International Systems

    SOURCES OF
PERIOD SOURCES OF STABILITY CHANGE
Western Chou "Son of Heaven" myth Poor communication
(1122-771 ВС) Emperor's control over all land between outer
    "states" and central
    monarchy
  Grants of titles Developing admin-
  Contribution of troops and taxes istrative and military
  by units to emperor capabilities of states
  Emperor's superior military and Beginnings of local
  administrative capacities nationalism
    Territorial aggran-
    dizement by some
    states
Spring and Autumn Continuing myth of emperor's Tendency toward
(771-483 ВС) unity polar power structure
  Development of bilateral and Development of in-
  customary rules to regulate in- creasingly large
  teraction between states armies
  Development of conflict resolu- Decline of custom-
  tion mechanisms (mostly domi- ary rules of warfare
  nation of small states by large) Growth of large
  Easier communication states
  Rough balance of power be-  
  tween major antagonists  
Warring States Weak operation of alliances No more territory
(403-221 Be)   for external expan-
    sion
    Rise and predomi-
    nance of Ch'in
    Destruction of blocs
    and balance between
    them
    Wars of annihilation

between the monarch and vassals, the diffuse system involved bargaining directly between competing independent states. The Chinese system during the Spring and Autumn period thus suggests that if power is diffused, the latitude for choice of foreign-policy orientations is substantial, but security from outside attack may be low. Strategy, alliance making, war, and rapid shifts in orientation toward neighbors and more distant states are characteristic features of the diffuse system. In the feudal system, on the contrary, most action is confined to court intrigues and secret bargaining, and major objectives are determined for the units by the emperor. Freedom of action is limited, but security from outside

41 Historic International Systems

attack may be enhanced. In the bloc system of the Warring States period, the I* latitude of choice of lesser alliance partners was considerably restricted. The goals and diplomacy of all lesser states were made to conform to the interests of the bloc leaders. Generalizations such as these seem to be confirmed from > other historical international systems as well.

 




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