Diplomacy on the Move between Song and Yuan Traditions: The Case of Annam

• In Event: Asia In Motion under Mongol rule: The Routes of Cultural Transfer

Abstract

Not all the campaigns of Qubilai Khan were fought on the battlefield: in the Yuan relations with Southeast Asia, the game of diplomacy also played an important role. Taking the example of Annam as a case study, the paper analyses the impact of Qubilai’s diplomatic relation as a means of cross-cultural contacts between China and the neighboring regions. The diplomatic exchange with Annam constituted not only an important channel for the exchange of goods and peoples between the two territories, but it was also the ground where the founder of the Yuan dynasty sought his imperial legitimation. Therefore, the ideological and practical interests of the Mongol ruler competed in creating a diplomacy constructed between Confucian and Mongolian traditions. The official records, the correspondence between rulers and the reports of the envoys reveal how Qubilai dealt with the previous patterns of Chinese-Annam relations and the Song tradition, without forgetting his Chinggisid heritage. The paper shows how the new diplomacy of Qubilai was centered around the constant movement of tributes, and much more of people, as a representation and acknowledgment of charismatic authority. Not only envoys moved between courts but part of the tribute was human- technicians, scholars, hostages, etc. This fundamental aspect of the new Yuan diplomatic protocol was an expression of Mongolian heritage and became the main ground of a long dispute between the Yuan and the rulers of Annam, who used it, in their records, even as a metaphor of Mongol oppression.

Author

• Francesca Fiaschetti, Hebrew University