Social Sciences in China, 2025

Vol. 46, No. 4, 2025

The State-Building of China and Europe under the Impact of the “Crisis of the 17th Century”

(Abstract)

Zhu Hu

Under the impact of the global crisis of the 17th century, both China and Europe experienced large-scale state collapse and initiated new rounds of state-building, shaped by their respective political logic. During the Qing dynasty, China achieved multi-ethnic and large-scale national unification by reconstructing the concept of “Da-yi-tong” (great unity). In Europe, the state theory of the Natural Law School emerged, laying the political theoretical foundation for the Westphalian system. China, as the dominant country in East Asia during the Qing dynasty, refrained from pursuing the kind of hegemonic supremacy typical of traditional Western empires. Instead, it effectively maintained long-lasting peace throughout East Asia. In contrast, the European multinational system, which aimed at achieving a power equilibrium and enduring peace, remained burdened by the pressures of war arising from inter-state competition for survival. These pressures fueled both the “military revolution” and the “scientific revolution.” To judge whether China’s national evolution from the Ming to Qing dynasties was progressive solely through the lens of state theory derived from the European experience is inevitably a one-sided perspective rooted in “Eurocentrism.”

Keywords: Da-yi-tong (great unity), natural law, Ming-Qing transition, Thirty Years’ War, Westphalian system