Song Dynasty Diplomatic Instruments

Concepts of diplomacy in ancient China were different from today's. The "countries" in those days are either countries today, like Korea, Japan and Thailand, or inseparable parts of China because their nationalities have emerged into the Chinese nation as ethnic groups. So the choice of the word "diplomacy" here is only in a broad sense so that historical laws and nature can be found and they can be helpful to today's diplomacy.Diplomatic documents are a vehicle for diplomatic work. As a special species of official documents, diplomatic documents on the one hand have the characteristics of officialdom, on the other have their own features. They have stricter formats and are more standardized. But due to the involvement of international interchange, those cultural backgrounds, social structures, political features, diplomatic policies and international relations of the related countries all propose special requirements for such documents. The process of their formation is also more complicated than ordinary official documents. The ways these documents function are also different from common official files. Therefore, the purpose of studying diplomatic documents is to find these specialties.The Song Dynasty is a special period in China's history: its policy of respecting civility and oppressing militaries fostered cultural prosperity in the Song Dynasty, which was later praised side by side with the Tang Dynasty as "Prosperity in Tang and Boom in Song". But this policy also led to overstaffed organizations, deserted and loose arms, and weak national power, etc. Together with the fact that The Song never united the Northern region, the disputes between the agricultural Song and nomadic Liao, Jin, Xia, etc. brought the Song Dynasty into an embarrassing chaos. The Song diplomatic policies and activities were both the continuation of diplomacy with respect, and criticism and destruction of traditional diplomacy.Diplomatic documents in the Song Dynasty were quite stable in forms and types if compared with history, e.g. Oaths and Agreements started from the Warring States Period down to today's diplomacy. Additions in the Song Dynasty were chiefly Downward Letters, etc. The formats for those documents were more standardized and the process of composition was stricter. Such documents were on behalf of emperors or the country, and the supreme ruler of the country had direct control over diplomatic relations and diplomatic documents. The choice of document types and the way of expression embodied international relationships. Every detail, every signature, every punctuation mark and every choice of word might incur a great turbulence in international diplomacy. So the composition of diplomatic documents can never be carried out too carefully.The relations between Song and Liao, Song and Jin, Song and Korea, Song and Western Xia were of different diplomatic modes. Though military disputes arose between Song and Liao, Song and Jin, Song and Western Xia, Song had a basically equal diplomatic relationship with Liao, while the relationships between Song and Jin, between Song and Western Xia, between Song and Korea were emperor-subject relationships. We can find diplomatic laws by examining those diplomatic documents and historical traces.Diplomacy is close to social systems, traditional decorum, sociopsychology, religions and philosophy, etc. a new perspective into diplomatic documents can expose cultural values in international documents. The study of diplomatic documents still has some referential significance for today's Chinesediplomacy.