Studies of imperial Chinese and Byzantine diplomacy conventionally assume that their diplomatic norms had indigenous origins that became models for neighbouring polities. This chapter questions this assumption by comparing the diplomatic traditions of empires of Sui and Tang China (581–907), Byzantium (395–1453), Sasanian Iran (224–651), Turkic polities, and smaller Eurasian states. Eurasia shared diplomatic protocols incorporating pageantry, status ranking, displays of obeisance to the ruler, gift exchange, and feasting. Visiting envoys enjoyed rights to safe passage that sometimes were violated during periods of interpolity tension. Peaceful relations were normally signalled when a greater power invested a lesser one as a vassal, and sometimes when two great powers negotiated and ratified written treaties. Diplomatic agreements were reinforced via marriage or fictive kinship relations between rulers, trade accords, and/or direct payments from one polity to another. This customary diplomatic tradition provided rulers with shared standards to negotiate agreements that protected their perceived strategic, political, economic and symbolic interests.

Thes chapter argues that both Britons and South Asians made use of instruments such as treaties and a broader world of diplomatic paperwork to construct a framework for interstate legality in the eighteenth century. South Asian efforts to make and remake arrangements with British traders and government agencies constituted a source of inter-imperial legal forms. Inter-imperial treaties were not blunt instruments of European imperialism, but legal documents co-produced by South Asian bureaucrats. By emphasising the activism and political thought of South Asian actors in their pursuit of a new inter-imperial order, this chapter rethinks the focus on European actors as the architects of international law. Of course, multilingual and multipolar claim making did not impose a stable legal order in South Asia. Treaties were regularly abrogated and renegotiated. Nevertheless, such efforts to negotiate relationships among states and enshrine them punctuated and shaped the upheavals of the eighteenth century as well as the explosion of new projects of state building. Inter-imperial lawmaking emerged as a vital site for politics in the eighteenth century.

Elizabeth Maconchy became Chair of the Composers’ Guild in 1959 and oversaw important diplomatic visits to Canada and the Soviet Union during her tenure. The Guild was ostensibly a professional organisation representing composers’ interests in such matters as BBC opportunities, performing rights’ payments, and film composing. However, as this chapter outlines, its early years up to Maconchy’s tenure were characterised by a concerted effort in diplomacy with countries of the emerging Communist Bloc, particularly under the Chairmanship of Alan Bush from 1947. While Bush’s efforts to align the Guild with similar organisations east of the Iron Curtain were ultimately rejected by the membership, his efforts paved the way for Maconchy’s 1960 visit, and constituted an important example of ‘unofficial’ cultural diplomacy with the Eastern Bloc preceding the more famous state-sponsored visits of Benjamin Britten to the Soviet Union.

Chapter 1 traces the emergence of the social wife in late Qing diplomacy, showing how concubines became the earliest Chinese women to assume this role. By focusing on chahui, an important form of Western social gathering typically hosted by officials’ wives, it demonstrates how Qing diplomats observed the significant role of the social wife in the West. It begins with the first well-known case of an official, Guo Songtao, bringing his concubine abroad and attending public functions with her during their stay in London (1877–1879). Ambassador Guo was criticized by conservative factions at the Qing court and later recalled as punishment, partially for breaching Confucian gender propriety. It then examines how other diplomats, such as Guo’s successor, Zeng Jize, and his family adjusted to the expectation of a social wife’s presence in diplomatic functions in Europe. Finally, it shows how chahui and its gender-related etiquette were adapted to suit the cultural contexts of late Qing China to entertain Western dignitaries, enabling Chinese officials’ wives to attend without violating the Confucian norm of gender separation.

This Chapter discusses legal and policy options for reforming security exceptions through implementing substantive and procedural mechanisms to maximize joint gains from international trade and investment and the protection of the national security interests of WTO members. In particular, relying on the theories and concepts relevant to this book and the conducted comparative research, this Chapter attempts to reconsider the role of security exception clauses in international economic law and contemplates additional institutional responses to remedy the current flaws in their interpretation and application. What is needed, and what this book seeks to provide, is an analytic perspective for assessing when more restraint on the application of security measures is desirable and when it is not.

Chapter Four explores the politics of sectarianism and statecraft within the context of the triangular relationship among the Ottoman state, the Safavid state, and the Qizilbash communities situated between them. The chapter examines how the Ottoman state and its Qizilbash subjects devised diverse strategies to navigate their religious sensitivities, sociopolitical realities, and fiscal imperatives. A new set of questions is introduced to challenge the prevailing notion that the relationship between the “Sunni Ottoman” state and its “non-Sunni Qizilbash” subjects was inherently irreconcilable and characterized by continuous persecution of these supposedly powerless, defenseless religious nonconformists. It reveals the existence of a range of policies and approaches adopted by the Ottoman state, from providing financial support to establishing quid pro quo arrangements, from accommodating Qizilbash subjects to resorting to surveillance and heavy-handed suppression and persecution of the very same populations. The chapter emphasizes that the Ottoman Qizilbash, as significant powerholders during this period, exerted their influence not only through practices of conversion and reconversion but also through negotiation, migration, intervention, and at times rebellion.

Chapter 6 describes Gao Pian’s carrot-and-stick strategy for winning the second war against Nanzhao. “Securing the Dadu” narrates his rout of the invading army, their expulsion across the Dadu river, the symbolic frontier with Nanzhao running through a wide border zone in southern Sichuan. Gao consolidates his military advantage by reinforcing the border defenses and reforming the Sichuan military, among other measures, through the bloody suppression of a militia mutiny in 875 (“Mutiny and Malediction”). Sichuan was the historical birthplace of Daoism. “The Cradle of Daoism” illustrates the general’s increased recourse there to Daoist ritual and occult strategy. In “A Letter to Shilong,” an intimidating and peremptory missive addressed to the king of Nanzhao, Gao reminds the ruler of his past defeats in Annan and on the banks of the Dadu, and threatens further punitive action. In stark contrast with his public stance, Gao’s “Tantric Diplomacy” opens a parallel, secret channel of diplomacy through which his envoy, a Buddhist monk, conveys a conciliatory peace proposal to the Tantric kingdom.

Chapter 11 explores Gao’s strategies for defending Huainan, maintaining its economic and financial viability, ensuring its local administration, and pursuing external relations. Huainan was one of the wealthiest and most populous regions in the empire. “Great Bounty” outlines Gao’s policies of economic, agricultural, and commercial administration. “Commodity Taxes” discusses his role in southern China’s financial administration and his approach to using monopoly taxation for funding Huainan’s government. “Border Defense” details Gao’s actions as commander-in-chief and military governor responsible for building and funding armies capable of securing Huainan. “Inked Edicts” refers to the emperor’s privilege of appointing prefects and other provincial officials by personal edicts, a prerogative delegated to Gao Pian and other military governors in 881. In “Friend or Foe,” Gao engages in diplomatic exchanges with external actors to prevent attacks on Huainan’s borders and join forces with potential allies. After Huainan’s military and fiscal decoupling from the government-in-exile, Gao gains full powers over the region’s administration.

This chapter explores the interactions of high-level Chinese and North Korean leaders. It argues that the actions of Chinese and North Korean leaders – especially Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung – were critical to building political order in the PRC and the DPRK. It shows how the utterances and actions of these leaders were particularly influential in shaping popular emotions and establishing the legitimacy of the PRC and DPRK.

The conclusion offers a broader look into the role of emotions in alliances and the similarities and differences between Sino-North Korean friendship and other Cold War alliances. It shows how the idea of Sino-North Korean friendship limited emotional freedom in China and North Korea.

This chapter provides brief conclusions drawing together the threads of the story and its wider analysis, the political and religious context, its transnational significance and the insights a single document and event have provided. Returning to some of the themes raised in the introduction, reflects on the role of truth and secrecy amid the practicalities for ministers of upholding an ideological cause.

Chapter 6 focuses on fears of espionage and treachery, but also the extensive use of information and intelligence-gathering by all sides, and the fine distinctions between these. The close connection with ambassadors and their contacts is discussed, alongside how spies and spying were viewed by contemporaries, through correspondence and judicial records. Explores extensive fears of plots and foreign intervention and how this affected diplomatic and confessional relations; the execution of experienced courier, Jean Abraham, secretary to the prince of Condé, exemplifies this. Looks in detail at contemporary English concerns about a Franco-Scottish alliance in support of Mary Queen of Scots, making links from these concerns to the activities of Norris, cardinal Châtillon and to the network exposed by the letters carried by Tivinat. Attention is given to the role of female agents and especially to double agents, such as Edmund Mather, whose career and connections to Norris, Regnard/Changy and the wider network are explored in detail.

Chapter 5 explores the importance of the communication of news and information through correspondence, but also the problems of its interception and betrayal. Couriers faced the risk of violence and incarceration, particularly at times of diplomatic tension, and strategies of concealment could be quite sophisticated to counter this, such as the use of ciphers, pseudonyms and other methods. Nevertheless, the dangers to which Tivinat and other couriers were exposed was considerable, their detention was a frequent occurrence, as was that of Huguenots carrying books and papers, as shown in cases drawn from the Conciergerie in Paris. Consideration is given to the importance of correspondence as a source for both contemporaries and historians. The news content of the letters carried by Tivinat is discussed in detail, revealing concerns with events both international and domestic. Connections between the letters and those found in other circumstances, such as on the body of the prince of Condé and in the English State Papers, are made, identifying Regnard/Changy as their author and the complexity of the network in which he operated.