POLS 264 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Silk Road, Comparative Advantage, Mao Zedong
22 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
Imperial court gift system emphasises the imperial court and therefore chinese centrality. When embassies came to to the imperial court, distance determined frequency. Korea 4 times a year, annam (vietnam) every 2 years, burma every ten years. A matter of choice how many times a year. A ritualistic arrival into the city guarded by imperial troops, bearing gifts, escorted to the imperial court also an opportunity to open a market in the imperial centre. Embassy lodged in the imperial palace large and formal celebration with ritualistic entertainment. Audience granted with emperor and performed the kowtow. The emperor in turn would shower his gifts on the envoys and after this the marketplace was able to be opened. Ritual in general would take several days and the celebrations would continue throughout a highly consensual ritual overall. Subservience of this kind of relationship eventually clashed with ideas of nationalism for the periphery states especially korea.
