In a 2013 essay, I employed the idea of the tributary system—most often associated with China’s international relations from antiquity—to interpret how America relates to the rest of the world. More specifically, I argued that the United States has instituted the most successful tributary system the world has ever seen. As the hub or epicenter of the most extensive network of formal and informal alliances ever built; the U.S offers its allies and partners—or tributaries--military protection as well as economic access to its markets. Through an equally impressive array of international institutions and organizations, many of which it created, America transmits and imposes its values and its preferred rules of the game on the international system. The ensuing economic and politico-military “orders” are construed as “public goods” provided by a benign American hegemony. In return for all its exertions, the tribute America seeks is straightforward: first, that it be recognized as the power or hegemon, and second, that others emulate its political forms and ideas. With both tributes in hand, the United States finds equanimity; it and the world are safe, at least from the United States’ point of view.
The talk will revisit the above arguments in light of recent scholarship and real world developments. It will address questions such as did the Chinese tributary system really exist? Is my conception of “tribute” in need of revision? And has the Trump administration upended the above claims?