Opportunism in Foreign Affairs in First Century BCE China: Chen Tang, His Fellows, and Their Patrons

T oung Pao ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 233-261
Author(s):  
Wicky W.K. Tse
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
First Century ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Imperial Court

Abstract By examining the career of a contingent of action-prone mid-level military officers and diplomats, this article aims to explore how opportunism functioned in foreign affairs during the last decades of the Former Han dynasty (202 BCE–9 CE). To safeguard and advance the empire’s interests, especially in Central Asia, these characters would carry out their missions with expediency, usually by the means of assassination and surprise attacks, and sometimes without formal authorization. Yet their successful operations always earned, if retrospectively, the endorsement of the imperial court, which in turn encouraged further ventures. The investigation of the front-line opportunists and their patrons presents a lively picture of the politics and political culture of the time.

scholarly journals Translation and Historiography: How an Interpreter Shaped Historical Records in Latter Han China1

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-252
Author(s):  
Rachel Lung
Keyword(s):  
Sichuan Basin ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Written Language ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
The West ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article analyzes evidence of interpreting activities in first-century China between the Latter Han (25–220 AD) Chinese administration and non-Han Chinese minority tribes along the then Southwestern frontier (modern Yunnan and the west of Sichuan basin). Besides confirming the existence of interpreting events and the subsequent Chinese translation of three tribal sung poems, a tribal tribute to Emperor Ming (r. 58–75) in a Qiang dialect (without a written language, apparently), this piece of evidence is also of interest to historians of interpreting in four aspects, namely, the nature of interpreting activities in China in antiquity; possible political rewards for the amateur interpreter who was a frontier clerk by profession because of possible translation manipulation; textual traces from the Chinese translation of the poems that suggests a possible manipulation in meaning and style; and the (interpreter’s) superior’s part in the manipulation of the translation, which eventually found its way into the standard history of the Latter Han dynasty. Considering the political needs of Latter Han China to promote the Sinicization cause among non-Han tribesmen in the empire, this article argues, based on analyses of the four factors above, that the interpreter, with his rare knowledge of the tribal tongue in the imperial court, might have consciously shaped the translation of the poems to pander to the liking of his superior and the emperor. This article further shows how and why the interpreter, in his official capacity as a frontier clerk, might have capitalized on his competence in a tribal language and manipulated, albeit mildly, the historical records on the Chinese translation of the poems.

scholarly journals Varro, the Name-Givers, and the Lawgivers: The Case of the Consuls

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 588-609
Author(s):  
Valentina Arena
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
The Republic

Abstract This essay aims at identifying a tradition of lawgivers in the political culture of the late Republic. It focuses on the antiquarian tradition of the second half of the first century BC, which, it argues, should be considered part of the wider quest for legal normativism that takes place towards the end of the Republic. By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers. In turn, the language of political institutions and its etymologies, conceived along philosophical lines, could become a weapon in the constitutional battles of the late Republic.

The Role of Natural Resources

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-66
Author(s):  
Richard Pomfret
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Resource Curse ◽  
First Century ◽  
Economic Diversification ◽  
Commodity Export ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines the characteristics of the natural resources that are important for Central Asia. At independence, cotton was the most important commodity export from Central Asia, but cotton did not share in the commodity boom, never repeating the 1995 peak price of over a dollar per pound. In the twenty-first century, cotton has been displaced by oil and gas and minerals. However, all the governments have shown concern about ongoing dependence on primary product exports, whose importance increased after independence despite plans for economic diversification. The chapter then reviews the resource curse literature that highlights why primary product dependence may be harmful. Resource curse outcomes are not inevitable, but resource-abundant countries do face significant obstacles if they want to avoid such an outcome.

scholarly journals Contours of an Islamo-Christian Civilization

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
David Johnston
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Early Years ◽  
First Century ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Roman Catholics

Books Reviewed: Jack Goody, Islam in Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press,2004; Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2004; James A. Bill and John Alden Williams,Roman Catholics and Shi’i Muslims: Prayer, Passion, and Politics.Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.There can be no doubt that the twenty-first century has begun – and continues– under the ominous cloud of enmity between Muslim groups or nationsand western ones, from the attacks on American soil on 11 September 2001to those in Madrid and London, to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, andnow in the growing tension with Iran. Unsurprisingly, this has spurred amushrooming of publications on the troubled relations between “Islam andthe West,” with almost every book pointing out the bold Christian rhetoricemanating from a militarily aggressive White House.Kenneth Cragg, the veteran Christian expositor of the Qur’an, more prolificthan ever in his nineties (seven titles since 2002), astutely named one ofhis latest books The Qur’an and the West (Georgetown University Press:2006). Not only is “Islam” misleading in terms of the wide diversity of cultures,sects, and spiritualities inspired by the Qur’an and the Hadith literature,but for Cragg, Muslims in today’s globalized world, whether living as“exiles” in the West or within Muslim-majority states, will have to choosebetween the vulnerable faith proclaimed in the early years in Makkah andthe religion cum political rule exemplified by the Prophet in Madinah. Asusual, Cragg also challenges the Christian side, which, in its American incarnation,largely rationalizes the use of power to extend its hegemony fromIsrael-Palestine to Central Asia in the name of democracy.Though all three books under review here share Cragg’s motivation toreduce tension and foster greater understanding between Muslims andChristians, only the third (on Shi`ites and Catholics) represents the kind oftheological dialogue that Cragg and others have nourished over the years ...

scholarly journals Servant of Tsar and Motherland. Basil Oskarovitch von Klemm (1861–1938) in Bukhara Emirate

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-125
Author(s):  
T. N. Zagorodnikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Political Agent ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Training Department

From the very beginning of his adulthood Basil Oskarovitch von Klemm dreamed of the diplomatic career in the Orient. So he graduated from Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages and after that from Training Department for Oriental Languages affiliated to the Asiatic Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In summer of 1885 he began working in that Department and after a year was send to Bukhara Emirate to work as an interpreter in Russian Imperial Political Agency. The article concentrates on the beginning of Basil Oskarovitch von Klemm’s service in Central Asia, when he studied the traditional life of the Emirate and of the Emir’s court, the details and peculiarities of Oriental diplomacy, as well as etiquette, being the dragoman of the Agency in Bukhara Emirate. He acted instead of the Political Agent, when the latter was absent. The Attachment to the article contains the Report of B. O. von Klemm, where he analyzes the highly charged political situation in Bukhara and gives his recommendations on the ways to stabilize it and to deal with the ruler of the Emirate in order to appease him. The document shows the difference between the views of Russian Empire towards her vassal state and the views of Great Britain towards India.

The Idea of Europe and the Origins of the American Revolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.H. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Public Politics

This book advances a new interpretation of the origins of the American Revolution by looking at how conceptions of Europe and Europeanness shaped British-American political culture. It reconstructs colonial debates about the European states system and European civilization, and Britain’s position within both. From this basis, it shows how these concerns informed colonial attitudes towards American identity and America’s place inside—and, ultimately, outside—the emerging British Empire. The book explores the way in which colonists inherited and adapted Anglo-British traditions of thinking about international politics, how they navigated imperial politics during the European wars of 1740–63, and how the burgeoning patriot movement negotiated the dual crisis of Europe and Empire in the period between 1763 and 1775. In the process, it sheds new light on the development of public politics in colonial America, the anglicization/Americanization debate, the political economy of empire, the place of art and poetry in political culture, the interplay of history and prophecy with identity, eighteenth-century geopolitical thinking, and the relationship between international affairs and revolution. What emerges from this story is an imperial crisis and an American Revolution that seem both decidedly arcane and strikingly relevant to the political challenges of the twenty-first century.

Information and communication technologies in work of the foreign affairs ministries of Central Asian countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-95
Author(s):  
Y. Agafonova
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Central Asian Countries ◽  
Foreign Ministries

Taking into account the rapidly developing sphere of ICT and its importance, it seems relevant to consider the role and features of the practical use of information and communication technologies in the activities of the Central Asian foreign ministries. The article emphasizes that the use of such an important tool as ICT in the work of the ministries of foreign affairs of Central Asia countries is not developed enough, although, there is a positive trend.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document