“Sinosphere” is defined as, “an area of influence across East Asia in which Chinese culture predominated—to designate a distinct cultural unit in the premodern era.” Yet, the term “Sinosphere” attaches more significance to China and its influence, which loses the nuance of the development of East Asia during the premodern era. The term “Sinosphere”, when defined as an area of influence across East Asia in which Chinese culture predominated, fails to consider cultures where Chinese culture may have been influential/ dominant, but only when the elite and noble classes are considered. It also unnecessarily lumps all East Asian peoples together in a way that continues to negatively affect those peoples today. A better and more inclusive term would be the “East Asian Sphere of Influence” or EASI.
Using the term Sinosphere fails to recognize the distinct cultures that existed before Chinese influence. The first known written records of Korea and Japan come from China—which does show China’s influence in East Asia because of their written language—paints a picture of Korea and Japan that is foreign to these Chinese travelers writing the accounts, such as, marriage customs in Korea, “…after the words of contract have been fixed, the girl’s family builds a small house behind the big house, which they call ‘the son-in-law’s house’. In the evening the son-in-law comes to the outside of the girl’s family gate and, naming himself, bows in obeisance, begging permission to approach the girl’s room…Such is the lewdness of their customs” (De Bary, Sources of East Asian Tradition, “Korea In The Chinese Dynastic Histories” p.490). This matrifocal marriage system completely juxtaposes China’s marriage customs and therefore the Chinese documenters of the time referred to it as “lewd”. While it could be argued that China’s influence helped change these customs, the term “Sinosphere” still overlooks the existence of these differing cultures before Chinese influence and implies that China always influenced the customs of other cultures in East Asia. Even after Chinese influence on other East Asian cultures, there is an emergence of unique mythology. In Japan, The Kojiki is a mythno-history that explains the origin of Japan and Japanese people and directly links the imperial family to be descendants of the sun god—Amaterasu. It was commissioned by Emperor Tenmu but finished during the reign of his wife, Empress Jitō. “So the two spirits [Izanagi and Izanami] stood on the floating bridge of heaven, and when they lowered the jeweled spear to stir the sea below…When they pulled it up, clumps of salt dripped down from its tip to pile up into an island” (Heldt, Kojiki, p. 8). This origin story only explains the origin of the Japanese islands and does not explain the origin of China or the remainder of East Asia. The Kojiki dates from the early 8th century and the first record of contact between China and Japan dates from around the first century BCE (De Bary, SEAT, p. 621). Thus, despite China’s influence and the “Sinosphere” Japan continued to have its own mythology and identity where Chinese culture did not overall dominate.
The term “Sinosphere” also fails to acknowledge that Chinese culture was only accessible to the elite and literate of non-Chinese cultures in East Asia. Heian Japan, for example, was heavily influenced by China—specifically the Tang Dynasty. Buddhism, Chinese cosmology, Confucianism, and Chinese writing/ characters were all popular and used among people in Heian Japan. However, one distinct difference is in who Chinese writing and characters were accessible. All official government documents, men’s diaries and poetry, and many Buddhist scriptures were written in Chinese logography. However, in most cases, women and people of lower classes were not permitted and/or did not learn to read or write Chinese. These class relations can be seen in Murasaki Shikibu’s “The Tale of Genji”. When discussing their tastes in women, Genji and his best friend, Tō no Chūjō, they mention how a woman’s family and class is important to their appeal, “‘If a woman is of good family and well taken care of, then the things she is less than proud of are hidden and she gets by well enough. When you come to the middle ranks, each woman has her own little inclinations and there are thousands of ways to separate one from another. And when you come to the lowest—well, who really pays attention?’” (Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, pgs. 311-312). While Genji and Tō no Chūjō favor middle ranked women, they don’t even pay attention to lower-class women, not even providing them any merits. Their indifference and ignorance of the lower-class majority show the large class divide between Heian Japan elites and the lower-class majority. Therefore, it can be safely assumed only elite men had unlimited, free access to the education of and reading of Chinese characters. This means that the influence of Chinese literature could not be experienced firsthand by most of Japan’s population during the Heian period. “Sinosphere” fails to account for the fact that much of Japan’s population during the heavily Tang influenced Heian period had little to do with Chinese culture beyond the codes their government was enforcing. Chinese literature, writing, and culture were stiffly limited to the elite of Heian Japan.
Elite women, however, were not completely without a writing system, or illiterate. “Kana” was known as “the woman’s hand” and was a purely Japanese syllabary that focused on phonetic Japanese. Kana is what much of the early Japanese literature canon such as “The Tale of Genji” and “The Pillow Book” was written in. These were stories and poems written for (and often by) elite Heian period women. Waka poetry is a Japanese form of poetry written by both men and women and often about love. Waka was written in kana script, therefore, distinguishing itself as a purely Japanese artform. While it’s possible Chinese influence may have crept into the content of the poems themselves, the form and script were all of Japanese origins. Using the term “Sinosphere” loses this nuance and doesn’t acknowledge the literary canon of Japanese women, both of premodern era and the modern era. “Sinosphere” only acknowledges the work of elite Japanese men and not the contributions of elite women.
While the Heian period government and elite society has obvious Chinese influence, the subsequent Kamakura period and onward showed the ruling of a warrior class—samurai. Samurai existed purely outside of Chinese influence and are unique to Japan both within East Asia and outside it. The idea of a warrior ruling class goes against much of Chinese policies, especially Confucianism. “‘Sufficient food, sufficient military force, the people’s trust.’ Zigong said, ‘If one had, unavoidably, to dispense with one of these three, which of them should go first?’ The Master said, ‘Get rid of the military.’” (De Bary, The Analects, SEAT p. 37). Confucianism favors education and self-improvement over war and warriors and a good Confucian ruler would avoid war at all costs. While it’s arguable if the Chinese rulers who espoused Confucianism truly were Confucian rulers or not, but regardless, Confucian teachings were valued in China and often were part of China’s influence. The samurai defy the “Sinosphere” and their mere existence after contact, trading, and wars with Japan show that the “Sinosphere” did not always predominate exclusively and considering the various shōgunates ruled Japan almost continuously for nearly 700 years, the samurai cannot be discounted as a short-lived dalliance away from Chinese influence.
Sinified Buddhism is one of the hallmarks of Chinese influence in East Asia. Japan is no exception to this rule; Buddhism is extremely influential from the time it comes to Japan until today. This certainly seems to support the use of the term “Sinosphere” as it is due directly to the Sinification of Buddhism and the subsequent spread of that Sinified Buddhism through East Asia, that Buddhism was influential in Japan. However, there is more nuance to the spread of Sinified Buddhism to Japan than the term “Sinosphere” can capture. Buddhism, first, had to be embraced by the elites of Japan before the common person could become a Buddhist in Japan. It took money and local influence to spread Buddhism to the lay Japanese populous and if the Japanese government and elite had not accepted Buddhism, Buddhism would not have flourished in Japan and the average Japanese person could not have been a Buddhist in the premodern era.
“Sinosphere” is an overall inadequate term to describe Chinese influence in East Asia and does not fully capture the nuance of East Asia and its peoples. Using the term “East Asian Sphere of Influence” or abbreviated as EASI, more accurately represents East Asia’s influence. When discussing the influence of a specific East Asian culture or country, it is simply best to refer to “Chinese influence” or “Japanese influence” rather than to define the entire influenced culture area by its influencer, like “Sinosphere” does, especially when the modern history of colonialism and modern wars are considered. EASI is also a transferable term that could be used to refer to East Asian influence in a global sense. While this use of the term has no bearing on premodern East Asia, the term itself can more accurately represent the commonalities of East Asia, instead of attributing all similarities in East Asia to China.
Works Cited
De Bary, Wm. Theodore, editor. “Confucius and The Analects.” Sources of East Asian Tradition, Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 37–37.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore, editor. “Korea In The Chinese Dynastic Histories.” Sources of East Asian Tradition, vol. 1, Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 490–490.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore, editor. Sources of East Asian Tradition. Columbia University Press, 2008.
Heldt, translator. “Kojiki.” Kojiki, pp. 8–8.
Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. PDF, 2019.
Alisan Keesee 