What does the concept of China people and foreigners mean?

In ancient East Asia, there was a circle of Chinese-barbarian order, and "Chinese-barbarian" was a self-sufficient space composed of a huge central government and a small barbarian country guarding its periphery. The suzerain state and the vassal state have their own obligations and responsibilities.

We can examine the characteristics of the Hua-Yi order circle from different angles. From our own research purposes, we can sum up its two characteristics. First, Huayi Order Circle has a "center-edge" master-slave structure. The first thing to maintain the order of Chinese and foreigners is tribute trade. Tribute between the suzerain state and the tributary state has its own obligations and responsibilities. Tribute, in the historical context of China, is not only an equivalent word of "economy and trade". It contains complex concepts of etiquette, politics, social communication and culture. As far as its original intention is concerned, it is a political concept, and the substantive economic and trade relations are actually in a secondary position [v]. Corresponding to the tribute pattern of East Asia's politics and economy, ancient East Asian culture also showed a "core-outer edge" structure, with both ends existing at the same time.

Secondly, in addition to the inner "center-edge" structure, "Hua Yi" constitutes a self-sufficient space with boundaries relative to the ignorant and chaotic outer world. Although this boundary is vague, it does exist. It's basically China's sphere of influence. Whether to obey China's "Wang Hua" is the standard to enter this boundary. Out of bounds, it is called "out of China". This is the traditional basis of modern Asian discourse. The concept of "Hua Yi" itself implies an Asian perspective, and the whole of Asia (East Asia) is composed of "Hua Yi" and "Yi".

The region inside "Hua Yi" has its own thinking unit and its cultural significance. The overseas anecdotes in Zou Yan's "Da Jiu Zhou" and "Shan Hai Jing" are rationally abandoned outside the "world" because they do not conform to the arrangement of China culture for the world order, and the world order constitutes one of the basic pillars of China's traditional knowledge. So if Zou Yan is outside the border of "Hua Yi", it will be all right. It has also been marginalized in the traditional knowledge system. The word "Hua Yi" was often used in the world maps drawn by the ancients. In addition, it is often named "Jade Emperor", and the latter word reveals this sense of boundary more clearly. Ge pointed out: "Yu Di", as the name implies, is the place where ships and cars go. From Jia Dan's "Description of Ancient and Modern County Roads by Hua and Si Yi", it is natural that it does not belong to the "world". [7] It can be seen that the flow range is one of the original standards for judging and drawing. Of course, the footprints and vision of ancient China people are still far away from the whole of Asia today, but the "Hua Yi" circle still has a relatively stable border. An obvious example is that Zheng He's voyages to the West through South Asia and the West did not make those countries permanently enter the Chinese-foreign order circle.

Speaking of the border experience of Chinese and foreign order circles, Japan is more rigid than China. This seemingly abnormal phenomenon can still be analyzed from the perspective of "center-periphery". For China, one of the principles of Chinese and foreign order is that whoever wants to be king will come to the net. So when western European countries demanded trade, the Qing dynasty regarded them as tributary countries; Japan was originally a marginal country of Chinese and foreign order, so when the shogunate ended, Russia and Britain asked to keep in touch and trade, but the shogunate didn't think they were from Dehua, Japan, and didn't treat them as a tributary country, so they took great pains to turn them back. The custom of locking up the country is "communication is limited to North Korea and Ryukyu, trade is limited to China and Holland, and everything else is refused". Lin Xiya Saburo once analyzed this relationship between China and Japan. Japan is an island country, which is related to the regional differences surrounded by the sea [viii]. Compared with China in the center, Japan on the edge places more emphasis on the sense of boundary between China people and foreigners. This may be a distant source that Japanese "Asian space consciousness" was stronger than that of China in modern times.