朝贡制度中建设性的自然秩序——对费正清中国传统世界秩序观的批判

The Constructive Natural Order in Tributary System --A Critical Analysis on John King Fairbank＇s View of Traditional Chinese World Order

与欧洲基于民族一国家主权平等的国际关系相比，中国的朝贡制度是一种封闭、落后的外交制度，必然会在代表主权平等的条约制度的冲击下瓦解，中国的外交因此得以进入近代国际关系网络之中。费正清的这种见解是其研究中国近代史的一个基本观点。本文通过分析朝贡制度和条约制度的实质，认为费正清将二者对立起来是欧美二元对立、线性社会发展的简约化思维逻辑。我们既要看到条约制度的积极作用，也要看到其背后彰显的帝国主义的霸权主义和殖民主义；既要看到朝贡制度保守落后的一面，也要看到这种长久形成的制度具有积极意义的一面。就其实质而言，中国的朝贡制度是一种差序包容的互系性的外交关系制度，主张社会、自然、道德、精神的和谐与稳定，在上下有别、尊卑有序的差序中主张主客包容、反对对立。因此，中国传统的外交制度，对于解决在欧美霸权逻辑和强权政治下产生的国际关系的紧张、对立、冲突，有着很好的借鉴意义。

John King Fairbank was the first scholar in Europe and America who did deep and systematic research into Chinese tributary system. According to him, the tributary system, as a kind of Chinese world order, was a component part of Chinese traditional culture, an extension in political and social orders based on Confucian hierarchy. Compared with relations between European nations based on nation-state equal sovereignty, he argues the Chinese tributary system was an isolated and conservative diplomatic system, and would surely collapse under the impact of the treaty system of equal sovereignties, by which the traditional Chinese diplomacy could get into the networks of modern international relations. This view helps Fairbank form a basis for him to study modern Chinese history. Fairbank＇s idea on the two systems follows the logic of binary opposition and linear social development. When we study the two systems, we have to see both of their positive and negative sides： the treaty system had its positive impact on Chinese modernization, but had clear signification of imperialist hegemonism and colonialism ; the Chinese tributary system is in nature a correlative diplomatic system of hierarchical inclusion which laid emphasis on the harmony and stability of society, nature, morality and spirit, and on the correlative inclusion between the suzerain and vassals, instead of the opposition between them. So, the traditional Chinese diplomatic system is a good reference for accommodating the tension, opposition, conflict in current international relations caused by Western hegemonic logic and power politics.