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The literal meaning of ‘tianxia/天下’ is ‘under the heaven’. The word originates from ‘tian/ 天’ which refers to sky, heaven or celestial. For ancient Chinese people, ‘tian’ was something distant, unknowable, invisible, intangible and incorporeal but at same time omnipresent and a real entity (Ren, 2014). It had such awesome power that it was sacred and holy, and played a vital role in an agrarian society that depended on favourable weather for crops. Thus, they held rites and ceremonies to worship ‘tian’ (heaven), praying ‘tian’ to bless them. It maintained nature and ruled people’s life and upheld the order of society. For example, a natural disaster was considered as an act of ‘tian’, usually interpreted as a warning of a

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regime change (Lin, 2013, cited in Ren, 2014). Thus, in the name of ‘tian’, Chinese ancient emperors called themselves as ‘tianzi/天子’ (the Son of the Heaven), and their empire as ‘tianchao/天朝’ (Kingdom of Heaven or the Celestial Empire).

In general, before the appearance of modern nationalism, ancient ethnic groups used to regard their own culture and society as the only reasonable world order. Ancient civilizational consciousness generally has an exclusive and closed character (Jin, 1993). Ancient China more or less fits this pattern. Sinocentrism refers to the world order understood by ancient Chinese people. It included the order and relationships between ethnic groups as well as attitudes towards ethnic groups that all followed the ethical and moral order of Confucianism. Within this order, the Chinese cultural system was regarded as the best and most advanced, and no other system could transcend it. China is in the middle of the world. Tianxia concept is Sinocentric. Hua-Yi distinction is the way of identifying the Self and the Other.

In Chinese terms this Far Eastern world was sinocentric. T’ien-hsia1_{, ‘all-under-Heaven’ presided over by}

T’ien-tzu2_{, the ‘Son of Heaven’, sometimes was used to embrace the whole world including everything}

outside of China (Chung-kuo3_{, ‘the Central States’, the Middle Kingdom); but in common usage it was}

taken to designate the Chinese empire, which in any case included most of the known world. (Fairbank, 2013 [1968]:2)

Having achieved a consensus among Chinese scholars, at least two main aspects - China’s geographical position and relatively rich culture compared to its neighbors, lead to the formation and development of tianxia and Sinocentrism.

Chinese scholars argue that there is a connection between geography and the way ancient Chinese people viewed the world. The geography of China influenced Chinese people’s way of thinking to a large extent. The Yellow River Valley and Yangtze River Valley, as the origin

1

In the quotation, the ‘T’ien-hsia’, ‘T’ien-tzu’ and ‘Chung-kuo’ follow Wade-Giles romanization system of Mandarin Chinese. For this paper, the author uses Hanyu Pinyin System which is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China. ‘T’ien-hsia’- ‘Tianxia’ in Hanyu Pinyin System.

2

See footnote 1. ‘Tianzi’ in Hanyu Pinyin System.

3

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of Chinese civilization, are very far from other great civilizations from a geographical perspective. A continent-sized country, China is bordered by the Pamir and Himalayan mountains, vast deserts and seas. Although East Asia is part of the huge Eurasian continent that is also attached to Africa, the interactions among them were limited by difficulties in transport and communication in ancient times. It took a very long time to travel from China to other civilizations overland route or by sea. These natural barriers formed China as a unique and isolated unit. In other words, it means that, compared to other civilizations, Chinese civilization was relatively isolated. Chinese civilization interacted and communicated mostly with the surrounding areas and neighboring ethnic groups. As a result of these barriers of ocean, deserts, plateaus and mountains, and the lack of strong communications with other civilizations, China independently evolved a culture with unique traits (Liu, 2014; Qian, 1994 [1948]; Hu, 2013 [1919]; Feng, 2013 [1947]). For the ancient citizens who lived there, the world consisted of only what they knew. Thus, Chinese people used ‘tianxia/ 天下’, which means ‘under the heaven’, and ‘sihaizhinei/ 四海之内’, which means ‘within Four Seas’, to refer to ‘the world’. Another direct example is the word ‘rén/ 人’ which means ‘man’ or ‘person’. For the ancient Chinese, ‘man’ referred to all mankind, who were the Chinese people. Thus, during early ancient time, people’s understanding of world was not beyond the territory of China (Feng, 2013 [1947]).

The use of ‘tianxia’ can be dated back to the Zhou Dynasty. Zhou emperors called themselves Zhou Tianzi, and the territory and area ruled by Zhou emperor was called ‘tianxia’.Not until the Pre-Qin Dynasty, did the Confucian meaning of morality and order get brought into this concept (Ren, 2014). The Hua-Xia nation/civilization was relatively well developed by the early Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC). It established a unique political and cultural system – Grand Unification, which had a significant influence on subsequent dynasties. In relation to Confucianism, ‘tianxia’ could be regarded as concentric circles. Tianxia, on the one hand, refers to the geographical world known by ancient Chinese people; on the other hand, it was a realm divided into different levels based on the degree of the acceptance of Confucianism, where virtuous people lived in the core of it; those partly accepted lived in the outer layer;

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while those who did not follow the principles of Confucianism as barbarians lived in the peripheral layer (Jin and Liu, 2010a). Wang points out that this relatively advanced system, compared to other neighboring ethnic groups, facilitated the waking up of national consciousness (1997). Chinese scholars have warned that the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ should be treated with great caution, because both of these are modern concepts that were introduced into China from the West (Zhong, 1997; Wang, 1997). However, it does not mean that there was no national consciousness in ancient China.

Hua-Xia people’s relatively advanced rites and music cultures gave rise to a sense of cultural superiority, looking down on their neighbors – the Yi people. This kind of cultural superiority was further legitimated by Chinese ancient classic philosophical doctrine. At that time, for Hua-Xia people, their culture and ethics were regarded as the only and the best culture and ethics in the world (Wang, 1997). Chinese scholar-officials believed there existed a universal ‘Law of Heaven’ (tiandao/天道- natural law), shared by all humanity that transcended all ethnic groups and cultures. They believed the ethics and morality of Confucianism was better than any other culture and knowledge, and considered it as the sign of identification rather than language, race and territory. The rejection of foreign cultures was not because they were foreign, but because they contradicted the ‘Way of Heaven’ (Liu, 1993). It appeared only right and natural that Yi groups needed to be conquered and civilized. The Hua rulers just had no interest to know and explore their cultures (Jin and Liu, 2006; 2010a). The order and relationships between different ethnic groups was comprehended from the perspective of Confucian ethics. John King Fairbank coined the term ‘Sinocentrism’ to refer to this way of understanding of the world order by ancient Chinese people (2013 [1968]; Liu, 1993).

For these reasons, Chinese people believed that they had the mission to spread the ‘Way of Heaven’. They believed that a nation’s territory would keep extending till it reached the whole world. Where people applied these ‘rites’, the land belonged to the territory of China. In such a formulation ‘tianxia’ takes on the meaning of where the ‘Way of Heaven’ was implemented, the realm of Great Harmony under the principle of Confucianism (Liu, 2013;

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Liu and Jin, 2006, 2010a).

All these factors - the extreme confidence in its ‘Way of Heaven’, the strong urge to unify, as well as the limited knowledge of geography - can be found in the Pre-Qin dynasty in China’s first literary anthology, the Book of Poetry:

溥天之下, Under the wide heaven, 莫非王土。 All is the King’s land.

率土之滨, Within the sea-boundaries of the land, 莫非王臣。 All are the King’s servants.

-《诗经·小雅·北山》

- Book of Poetry · Minor Odes of the Kingdom · Decade of Beishan Translated by James Legge (1991: 360).

From the point of view of contemporary world, this is a naïve and utopian vision arising from ancient Chinese’s ignorance and pride. However, Wang argues that this concept did work effectively throughout Chinese history in the assimilation of nomadic neighbors. For example, in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), the area of culture and ‘rites’ constantly expanded (Wang, 1997). The first unification of China by the Qin empire (221 BC) was believed by the Chinese people at that time to be the unification of the world. For most of the time since the Qin Dynasty, 2000 years ago, China was in a united state and was governed by one central government of different empires, in order to keep a peaceful ‘tianxia’, or in other words, to maintain a peaceful world. In contrast, the disunited status was considered to be abnormal (Feng, 2013 [1947]: 174-175).