Inspired by this tweet of a new publication in East Asian IR, I'm also sharing a close friend's work on the co-construction of Chinese hegemony by both Chinese and non-Chinese (Korean) elites in early modern East Asia. He challenges the conventional notion of Chinese hegemony.1/ https://twitter.com/daveckang/status/1355758871839526913

He argues the pre-modern Chinese hegemony was not unilaterally dominated by the Chinese empire but mutually constructed by the transnational elites, shi (士). 2/ ‘Chinese’ hegemony from a Korean shi perspective: aretocracy in the early modern East Asia https://academic.oup.com/irap/advance-article/doi/10.1093/irap/lcaa019/6032872#.YBdT9b8I_C8.twitter

He comes up with a neologism, aretocracy, which combines arete (excellence, virtue) and kratia (government, governance), to refer to a reciprocal hegemonic ordering project among both the dynastic states and social forces of China and its neighbors, Korea in particular. 3/

In the early modern period, Choson Korea's socio-cultural elites "participated in the construction of the Ming-centered empire as a smaller but equally competent agent" and they "even surpassed its Ming counterpart in using symbolic cultural resources for its benefits." 4/

It was possible because the Chinese socio-cultural elites (士) since the Southern Song dynasty "consciously pursued a non-statist approach to constructing a universal cultural authority" with the Neo-Confucian moral philosophy in the face of militarily superior nomadic forces.5/

In this period, the Ming and Choson (Korea) developed a tradition of envoy poetry exchanges where the Chinese and non-Chinese elites competed with and tested each other in presenting the appropriate and better interpretation of Chinese hegemony at the moment. 6/

Through such a medium of aretocracy, Chinese hegemony was sometimes better articulated and reformulated by non-Chinese (Korean) elites even when the Chinese emperor occasionally sought to sideline Korea as the periphery without the political agency. 7/

It is also striking that Choson (Korea) sometimes remained loyal to the Chinese hegemony when the rise of the Qing empire made such a political enterprise futile and even menacing to the survival of the dynastic state. 8/

The author addresses this puzzle and notes,"non-Chinese rulers and elites risked their dynamic interests because Chinese hegemony was a cultural authority they actively co-produced with their Chinese- counterparts." They distinguished the civilization from the Chinese state. 9/

For instance, "the mid-Choson literati, Ho Pong and Cho Hun, heavily criticized the corrupt Ming government practices and heterodox followers of Wang Yangming." Historical examples replete with both Chinese and non-Chinese sociocultural elites contending claims of ownership.10/

He primarily seeks to depart from both sino-centrism and state-centrism by advancing the claim of aretocracy as the transnational hegemonic ordering beyond the simple understanding of the tributary system. 11/