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The Significance behind the Creation of Mongolian Banner System in Qing Dynasty: An Innovation of International

Political System under the Tianxia Concept Chang TengchiAssistant Professor, Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University

Abstract The Mongolian banner system is not something originally created by the Mongolians. It is not similar in nature to the county system practiced by ancient agricultural empires. The relationship between the Mongolian banners and Qing Dynasty emperors was different from the one between inland local officials and Qing Dynasty emperors in that the former had a higher level of flexibility as well as uncertainty, as shown in the irregularity in the conditions of tribute sent by the Mongolian banners to Qing Dynasty emperors. To stabilize the situation in Mongolia, the Qing Dynasty imperial court introduced transformed versions of its Eight Banners system in Southern Mongolia (also known as Inner Mongolia), Northern Mongolia (Outer Mongolia), and Western Mongolia (Oirat Mongolia) and relied on the "Yellow Hat" Gelugpa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism, headed by the Dalai Lama) followed by the Mongolians to settle conflicts. The Qing Dynasty imperial court also set up several Lama Banners in honor of lamas in Mongolia to keep the Mongolian banners in check. The system proved quite successful, ensuring peace and high-level autonomy among Mongolian banners while also keeping them under the rule of Qing Dynasty imperial court. The Mongolian banners made alliance with each other to form a unified nomad regime against the Central Plain regime of China, just like the situation before the Ming Dynasty. This paper draws the inference that Mongolias banner system is a creative invention of the Manchu Qing Dynasty rulers, deriving from the Eight Banners system. Since Mongolia was a vassal state belonging to the Qing Dynasty imperial court back then, the evolution and diversity of its banner system are a true reflection of the Tianxia (all China) concept under Chinas tributary state system, which means Mongolia was a multi-morphic state that follows a system of multi-morphic units. This innovative system is a result of historical factors as well as political and economic calculations, and may inspire future political and international relations studies in a number of ways as well as facilitating the exchange between Mongolian and Tibetan studies and other disciplines of social science. Key Words: banner system, Mongolia, international system, Tianxia, tributary state system, Eight Banners . Introduction

The Significance behind the Creation of Mongolian Banner System in Qing Dynasty: An Innovation of International Political System under the Tianxia Concept

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The banner system is not an invention of the Mongols. It derived from Qing Dynasty Manchus Heshuo system (meaning administrative banners), which had been derived from pre-Ming Dynastys Mongols Otog and Aimag systems.1 The Later Jin or Qing Dynasty was not a regime dependent on agriculture production. Like the Mongol banners, it designated households and livestock as administrative units, instead of dividing territories into administrative units. However, after Qing Dynasty seized China, the Manchu rulers imitated the previous agricultural empire and introduced clear administrative divisions to Mongolian banners, in order to divide and rule Mongolia and ensure accountability in the event of riot. Yet the banner system was not exactly the same as the system of prefecture and county of agricultural empires. It was not uncommon for nomadic Mongol banners to fight over resources. The relationship between Mongol banners and the Qing Emperor was more changing and uncertain between the relationship between other counties and prefectures of China and the Qing Emperor, as demonstrated by irregularities in the amount of Mongol tributes presented to Qing Dynasty. To stabilize the situation in Mongolia, the Qing rulers introduced their invention of the eight banners system to Southern Mongolia (also known as Inner Mongolia), Northern Mongolia (Outer Mongolia), and Western Mongolia (Oirat Mongolia), and relied on the Mongols belief in the "Yellow Hat" Gelugpa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism, the leader being the Dalai Lama) to settle disputes. The Manchu rulers also established certain lama banners in Mongolia as a gesture of goodwill to the lamas of Mongolia and also to keep the Mongol banners in check. The introduction of eight banners system proved rather effective: the Mongol banners were able to coexist peacefully and at the same time maintained a high degree of autonomy under the rule of Qing Dynasty. The system also ensured that the pre-Ming Dynasty history of Mongol banners ganging up as a nomadic regime against China would not repeat. The system was so effective that the Republic of China government also adopted it, establishing first the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Yuan and later the

This paper was submitted for review on July 27, 2010. It was approved for publication on October 26, 2010. * Some parts of this paper are taken from the authors research project Development and Applications of the Chinese School of International Relations Theories: Taking the Tianxia Order and Tribute system as an Example. The author of this paper would like to extend gratitude to Taiwans National Science Council for funding this research project, and also thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. 1 Dali Zhabu (ed.), A Brief History of Mongolia (Beijing: Central University of Nationalities Press, 2006), pp.255-256.

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Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission to carry on the operations of Qing Dynastys Lifan Yuan and deal with political affairs in Mongol, Hui, and Tibetan regions. In the 1940s, the Republic of China government made a foiled attempt to weaken autonomy of Mongolia by introducing a provincial government there. In 1949, the Peoples Republic of China government abolished all the Inner Mongolia provinces established by the previous Republic of China government. The Peoples Republic of China government wasted no time in opening a communist party headquarter in Inner Mongolia, and incorporated the banners of the Three Northeast Provinces into Inner Mongolia in order to dilute the Mongolian majority. The Chinese government also actively pushed for ethnic identification measures, to the point of creating the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. These measures allowed Inner Mongolia to maintain a certain degree of autonomy under the banner system, and also allowed China to tighten its control over Inner Mongolia.2 Qing Dynastys administrative banner division and religious Jimi measures in Mongolia led to a prolonged period of regional stability prior to the fall of Qing Dynasty. Compared to modern countries in the West, Qing Dynasty China was unique in that under the administrative banner system, the Emperor maintained a unique and flexible political-religious relationship with the Mongol banners. In recent years, the concepts of a Chinese Empire, Tianxia, and reconstruction of Asia have become popular among the circles of international relations and history in China and Taiwan,3 and the Mongol banner system seems to be an example of successful realization of these concepts. Regarding the current international situation, the rise of China has become an objective reality in post-Cold War international politics. Such a reality left those dedicated to the study of international relations wondering just what kind 2 Wu Zhe, Ethnic Autonomy versus Centralization--How Beijing Integrated Regional National Autonomy into the State in the 1950s, Journal of Institute of Modern History Academia Sinica, No. 65 (2009), pp. 81-129. 3 For the former, see Chang Chi-Hsiung, The Origin of Chinese World Order, in Wu Zhipan et al. (ed.), The Value of East Asia (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2010), pp. 105-146; Huang Chih-Lien, A Study on Tribute system of Qing Dynasty China (Beijing: China Remmin University Press, 1992); He Fangchuan, The Chinese Order Versus the Western Order, Journal of Beijing University, No. 190 (1998), pp. 30-44. For the latter, see Zhao Tingyang, A World without Worldview: Anthology of Works on Political Philosophy and Cultural Philosophy, (Beijing: China Renmin University, 2005); Chang Tengchi, Paradigm Shift in Chinas Diplomacy: From Great Power Diplomacy to World Harmony, presented in the annual conference of Chinese Association of Political Science, September 28, 2008 (Chiayi: National Chung Cheng University Department of Political Science); Chen Weichih and Shih Chih-yu, An Asian Perspective on China: Hamashita Takeshi's Study on the Tribute System and Its Implications, Taiwanese Journal of Political Science, No. 39 (2009), pp. 59-84. Shih Chih-yu and Chang Tengchi, The Epistemology of China's Rise and Its Narrative Derivatives, World Economics and Politics, No, 353 (2010), pp. 37-51.

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of impact it would have on existing mainstream international relation theories as well as international political and economic order initiated by the West. They also wondered whether the old tribute system would stage a comeback in a new appearance in East Asia.4 The recent hot issues of Beijing Consensus (or China Model) versus Washington Consensus,5 the idea of Chimerica raised by American experts, as well as post US hegemony, non-polar world, and the future of the West,6 are just a few examples of the many much-debated issues. The questio