CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: FROM THE SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD TO THE 1911 REVOLUTION

The history of China’s international legal policy is not only of interest as an original artefact; it is also an important factor in determining China’s perception of contemporary international law and a permanent point of reference – a kind of myth embedded in official discourse and constantly referred to by state leaders and scholars alike. This article examines five key aspects of China’s relationship with international law: 1) the peculiarities of international relations in ancient China during the period of fragmentation; 2) the peculiarities of the tributary system that existed in the imperial period and the Tianxia concept that underpinned it; 3) the evolution of relations between the Chinese empire and the West, culminating in the 1911 Revolution and the establishment of the Republic; 4) the legal regime of unequal treaties concluded between China and Western powers in the XIX century; 5) the legal aspects of Confucianism and other traditional Chinese ideologies. For each of these issues, the assessments of Chinese and Western authors and, in some cases, the author’s own position are given. The author draws conclusions regarding China’s perception of international law: 1) international law is seen as an instrument that has been used against China and, together with other instruments, has caused China great suffering; 2) it is seen as belonging to the «realm of moral» rather than the «realm of law», i. e. it is primarily evaluated in the system of moral and ethical coordinates rather than in the system of coordinates used by legal scholarship; 3) it is seen as imposed on China from the outside and as alien to its culture; being non-Chinese, it is perceived as temporary, non-binding and uninteresting; 4) for China, the history of international law begins in the XIX century, i. e. at the moment of its encounter with the West; it begins with the enslavement of China and should end with its emancipation; 5) one of the results of the encounter was the loss of China’s territories; the restoration of titles to them is an important task of the Chinese government and Chinese doctrine; 6) international law is seen as a ritual, that is, as a rigidly regulated set of formulas and actions.