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Tribute and Tribute Missions Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Isenbike Togan*
Affiliation:
Bogazici University, Turkey
*
Isenbike Togan, Asian Studies Center, Department of History, Bogazici University, Bebek, Istanbul 34342, Turkey. Email: istogan@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The term “tribute” had a strong presence in Western literature on China, as a result of Sino-European encounters in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. In these studies tribute was examined from the China angle. When views of the neighboring peoples are taken into consideration, it becomes evident that the smaller states in Inner Asia had not adopted the notion of China. A comparison with the practices of the Ottoman empire reveals that they also were using a strategy similar China. The paper suggests examining the practices of the smaller states in their own terms rather than in the shadow of the larger states.

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