Advances in Social Behavior Research
ASBR ICEIPI 2022, 03 March 2023
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Sinocentrism in Relation to the First Han-Xiongnu Heqin Agreement- The Silk Road in Global History
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Abstract
This paper explores the approval of the first Heqin treaty between the Han and the Xiongnu empire with a focus on unravelling the internal sociopolitical motivations of the Han in making the treaty. Through textual analyses of the Shiji and Hanshu, this paper rejects the depiction of the treaty’s military failure as a blind extrapolation of the Han system of centralized power. Instead, it puts forth the argument that the innate inapplicability of the Heqin treaty to relations with nomadic states was ignored by the Han imperial court because of a greater atmosphere of preference for sinocentric policies based on sinicizing other cultures in contemporary Han politics. These findings carry significance through its caused-based nature and approach to the Heqin treaty and provide contextualization for future studies on Han-Xiongnu relations.
Keywords
politics., Heqin, Xiongnu, sinocentrism, Han
References
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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