费正清：《中央沿海的贸易和外交》读书摘记

中国过度成熟和稳定的社会结构和政治制度阻碍了走向现代化，它相比于其他成熟的非西方文明而言更不适应现代社会的调适，“它向现代世界的转型只能通过旧秩序的崩溃来实现。中国社会已被迫融入近代世界的大家庭中”【5】（More than any other mature non-Western state, China has seemed inadaptable to the conditions of modern life. … Perhaps the very maturity and stability of Chinese social structure and political institutions have proved a handicap. Their dissimilarity to the West was so deep and ingrained that adjustment to the modern world has been possible only through the break-up of the old order. pp.4-5.）提及拉铁摩尔的研究【7】朝贡体系的理论依据：文化主义（culturalism），其要义一是中国人怀有文化上的优越感，不遵循中国方式的人被视为劣等人；【36】二是榜样力量，即作为文化中心的中国与周边未开化部落之间的关系是，无论未开化的外族怎么愚不可及，都不能不欣赏优越的中国文化，寻求来化以从中获益，这就必须承认天子独一无二的地位，因此这是一种等级制的而非平等主义的制度模式【37】（pp.26-27.）双向的而非单向的关系【38】“贡物是贸易的幌子”【43】tribute was a cloak for trade p.32. 强调大陆帝国属性，习惯通过陆地边疆确立外交关系，但新出现的海洋关系则破坏了朝贡制度【45】（China had been for too long a continental empire, accustomed to foreign relations across a land frontier. Her new maritime relations not only caught her unprepared but destroyed her ancient defense, the tribute system itself. p.33.）颠倒了拉铁摩尔的论述。从朝贡体系到条约体系：tribute has signified Chinese superiority, while the treaties represented a new phase of foreign domination. pp.465-465.

在《论清代的朝贡体系》一文中，费正清指出，理解19世纪中国的对外政策必须要理解其传统背景，即朝贡体系（Chinese foreign policy in the nineteenth century can be understood only against its traditional Chinese background, the tributary system. p.135.）1. 朝贡体系是早期中国文化成就的产物；2. 它通常被中国统治者用作自卫的目的；3. 在实践中它有着商业基础；4. 它是中国国际关系和对外政策的媒介。“总之，它是一个完整的规划，并且作为一项世界组织问题的历史性方案，值得关注。”（p.137.）认为朝贡体系的基础是中国文化优于蛮夷的传统（Behind the tributary system as it became institutionalized in the Ming and Ch'ing periods lay the age-old tradition of Chinese cultural superiority over the barbarians p.137.）来化和天子（p.138），这与其《中国沿海的贸易与外交》的论述基本一致。互惠关系：Relations between the Son of Heaven and his tributaries were on an ethical basis, and hence reciprocal. The tributaries were submissive and reverent, the Emperor was compassionate and condescending. These reciprocal relationships required formal expression p.147. 满清的征服建立大陆帝国（p.163.）比较值得注意的是，费正清认为朝贡体系是建立在陆地经验基础之上的，没有海洋的经验（Like the Chinese state as a whole, the tributary system had developed upon the land without experience of the sea; and in accord with the position of the Middle Kingdom as the center of eastern Asiatic civilization, it had functioned passively. The barbarians came to China, the Chinese had no reason to go abroad. During the first two millennia of Chinese history the tributary system had continued to be based upon land frontiers, and whenever the government was even moderately strong the trade which crossed these territorial boundaries could be controlled. p.204.）

J. K. Fairbank and S. Y. Têng, “On The Ch'ing Tributary System”. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , Jun., 1941, Vol. 6, No. 2.