Interaction between Interlocutor Relationship. Through the Analysis of Japanese Conversations

DELEGITIMIZING TRADITIONAL SINO-TIBETAN "INTERNATIONAL" RELATIONS The failure of the British to understand the existing complex Sino-Tibetan relations had as much to do with their heady faith in the superiority of European norms as with their conflicting interests in the region. Where does this leave indigenous modes of interaction between China and Tibet? The "intent expressed by both sides through this relationship was not founded on the present-day under standing of sovereignty and interstate relations, influenced for the most part by the West" (Schmitz 2004, 48). The nature of the Tibetan state was interlinked with Sino-Tibetan relations. Traditionally, political actors interpreted and understood their interstate relations in vocabularies familiar to them. Sino- Tibetan intercourse was no exception. The same relations could have been understood by the Chinese imperial officials in Confucian tributary terms and by the Tibetans as Buddhist mchod-yon. This does not validate the primacy of either worldview but reveals the complexity of the issue involved ...»