In the Xix W.

The belief in the supreme providential mission of the Middle Empire, or the Celestial Empire, was based on the "cosmogonic" origin of Chinese statehood, where all the surrounding China and the countries far from it are only a part, an appendage or continuation of the Celestial, regardless of whether they realized this truth or not. The highest duty of Chinese dignitaries is to clarify this to the "barbarians".

The emperors in Beijing never thought of China as part of the big world. On the contrary, the entire surrounding world was perceived by them only as one or another "belonging" to the Middle Empire, i.e., as part of the "Chinese world system", the external environment of the "center of the universe", its service periphery. Feudal China, in the person of its rulers, never thought of itself in the family of equal sovereign states. Kiaty in the XIX century ....

Since the Qing Empire could not be similar, all other countries could initially exist only as its tributaries and dependent suburbs. Such "barbarians" allegedly needed Chinese trusteeship and "ordering" in the framework of Confucian ethics, which determines the relationship between "senior" and "younger". The Confucian principle of "filial piety" was thereby transferred to the sphere of international relations, and the relationship of the emperor with the rulers of other countries Could be built exclusively from the standpoint of Sino-centrism, regardless of whether this or that tributary was a subordinate outskirts of the border to China or a distant one that had already submitted obedience or even not even known to the Chinese Emperors.

The Middle Empire was conceived as the only center of culture surrounded by "savage" tribes. In connection with the "inferiority" of the latter, due to the exceptional providential and cosmogonic mission of the Middle Empire, it was allegedly called upon by Heaven to dominate the "barbarians", to bring them into subjection, having the "moral right" to punish.

It was believed that the "barbarian countries" had only one duty - honoring the supremacy of the Chinese emperor over the rest of the world and the gradual adoption of Confucian norms of ethics. The "barbarians" were supposedly so "lower" than the Middle Empire, that the emperor could not fight with them as equals, but only punish them as subjects who "forgot the principle of filial piety." The arrival of their embassies was viewed in Beijing as an expression of humility, the desire to "join civilization" and recognize their status as a tributary. Presentation of investment to the visiting governors was considered "compassion" and "grace" of the emperor to the "barbarians".

Kiaty in the XIX century.