Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and its Neighbors.

• Author: Drompp, Michael R.
• Position: Review

By PAN YIHONG. Studies on East Asia, vol. 20. Bellingham, Wash.: CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES, WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 1997. Pp. 428 + maps, tables. $35 (paper).

Scholars have long examined sources from China's Sui (581618 A.D.) and Tang (618-907) dynasties for the information they provide concerning non-Chinese peoples; nevertheless, the book under review is the first systematic study in a Western language to focus on Chinese foreign policy throughout that period. International relations in East Asia at that time were quite complex, and Tang China in particular confronted a sometimes daunting array of real and potential enemies in almost every direction. Faced with this intricate international system, the author has concentrated on the major foreign policy concerns of the Sui and Tang empires, particularly the Turks, Uighurs, Koreans, Tibetans, and Nanzhao, although there are also substantial references to other peoples, such as the Khitans, Tuyuhun, etc. Readers interested in Sui-Tang relations with areas of less frequent contact, such as Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and the far West, will find only occasional remarks of interest.

Although Chinese writers of the Sui and Tang dynasties often devoted their attention to the topic of foreign peoples and China's relations with them, many works from the period have been lost, and researchers must now rely heavily on general works and compilations (official dynastic histories, etc.). Pan, who is unquestionably an authority on these sources, incorporates into her introduction an essay on the primary sources used for the study (along with a discussion of those sources' biases), including some - but not all - relevant non-Chinese texts. She also has a firm acquaintance with much of the secondary literature in Chinese and other languages (discussed in an appendix, pp. 366-75), primarily in Japanese, English, and French, but there are some surprising omissions. In addition, Pan does not engage scholarship in Russian at all - a serious deficiency, given the significance of Russian works on the history of Inner Asian peoples in particular - nor does she seem familiar with the important German scholarship in the field.

The Chinese sources now at our disposal frequently treat interactions with foreign peoples in a desultory manner that can be discouragingly short on analysis or even information in regard to motive and context, as well as effect. Non-Chinese sources, which might be used to help complete the picture, are few and often difficult. The limitations of the extant Chinese sources are...