Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia

by Kathlene Baldanza

Overview

Studies of Sino-Viet relations have traditionally focused on Chinese aggression and Vietnamese resistance, or have assumed out-of-date ideas about Sinicization and the tributary system. They have limited themselves to national historical traditions, doing little to reach beyond the border. Ming China and Vietnam, by contrast, relies on sources and viewpoints from both sides of the border, for a truly transnational history of Sino-Viet relations. Kathlene Baldanza offers a detailed examination of geopolitical and cultural relations between Ming China (1368–1644) and Dai Viet, the state that would go on to become Vietnam. She highlights the internal debates and external alliances that characterized their diplomatic and military relations in the pre-modern period, showing especially that Vietnamese patronage of East Asian classical culture posed an ideological threat to Chinese states. Baldanza presents an analysis of seven linked biographies of Chinese and Vietnamese border-crossers whose lives illustrate the entangled histories of those countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107124240
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Pages:	237
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Kathlene Baldanza received a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction: the power of names; Part I. Southern Scholars in the North: 1. A brief history of Annan; 2. A record of the dreams of an old southerner; 3. The northern emperor and the southern emperor; Part II. Officials in the Borderlands: 4. An official at odds with the state; 5. The fearsome panther; Part III. The Return of the Le Dynasty: 6. Ruler and minister; 7. The sparrow and the bamboo; Conclusion: Dai Viet in the Ming-Qing transition; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Kathlene Baldanza uses Vietnamese and Chinese materials from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries to fundamentally change our understanding of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship. She shows that Chinese administrators understood how Vietnamese leaders contributed to the management of border security, and that Vietnamese leaders used relations with China to maximise both border security and leverage against domestic rivals. This book will reorient all future scholarship on the topic."
Keith Weller Taylor, Cornell University, New York

'Baldanza sheds welcome light on how this fascinating dimension of diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural history unfolded between China and Vietnam.' David Robinson, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

'… a rich mixture of analysis of the contemporary textual record, written and oral, as well as critiques of recent studies from Vietnam, China, and elsewhere.' John Whitmore, CrossCurrents

'I would have no hesitation in assigning the book for an introductory class on early modern Vietnam or South-east Asia. I may also recommend reading it in relation to a book such as Naomi Standen’s Unbounded Loyalty (2007) for an advanced class on borders or transnational history.' Joshua C. Herr, The English Historical Review

From the Publisher