From Tributary Relations to Religio-Commercial Networks: Sino-Japanese Exchanges during the Tang Song Transition

In 839, after the last Japanese tribute delegation to the Tang left China, the tributary relationship between China and Japan entered a long hiatus. From the mid-ninth century to the mid-eleventh century, the two hundred years witnessed not only changes within the Chinese society but also new formats of exchanges maturing among China and its neighboring countries.

This study focuses on the changes in Sino-Japanese relations between the 840s and 1070s. Examining both official dynastic histories and private records such as Japanese monks’ pilgrimage diaries and correspondences between monks and merchants, this article demonstrates that networks comprised of pilgrim monks and traveling merchants took shape during that period. The unofficial networks replaced the former tributary relations and became the main channel for religious and commercial exchanges between China and Japan.

The collaboration among monks and merchants already appeared in the late Tang and likely contributed to the suspension of the tributary relationship between Tang China and Heian Japan. After the founding of the Song dynasty, when the relationship between the new dynasty and Japan was still obscure, pilgrim monks from Japan played an increasingly prominent role in diplomatic affairs. The Japanese monks, who relied on Chinese merchants’ help for their journey, sometimes even received audiences with Song emperors. Meanwhile, the developing of the Maritime Trade Office system (shibosi) in China provided an alternative way for the Song to engage the outside world. Therefore, in 1072, when the Japanese monk Jōjin openly admitted to Song Emperor Shenzong that Japan would not dispatch tribute delegations to China any time soon, Emperor Shenzong also recognized the unofficial network as an efficient conduit for exchanges with Japan. Under the support from high authorities on both sides and fulfilling the Song court’s interest in maritime trade, the religio-commercial networks between China and Japan were further consolidated and exerted a long-lasting impact on Sino-Japanese relations.