著者

桃木 至朗

出版者

東洋史研究會

雑誌

東洋史研究 (ISSN:03869059)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.3, pp.464-497, 1992-12-31

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This paper aims to examine the history of Vietnam's "external" relations in a new perspective, especially with regard to its southern and western neighbors after its independence in the tenth century. As for its neighbor in the south, it has been said that Champa had suffered from constant and continual Vietnamese southward aggression or Nam-tien since the latter's independence. In my view, it was only in the latter years of the fourteenth century that the balance of power between Vietnam and Champa was definitely lost. Before then, their relations had rather followed the "Southeast Asian" pattern in which the two polities or mandalas often struggled with each other for hegemony on one hand while maintaining close relations with each other on the other. Concerning the western neighbors, its relations with the Yunnanese polities were central concerns of the Vietnamese polity in the early centuries after independence as they shared similar cultural traits and a comparable level of Sinicization. Later, when the Thai-Lao group became powerful on its western borders, rivalry within the Vietnamese realm between those in the non-Sinicized mountainous areas with Thai cultural traits and those in the Sinicized delta region became evident. In the early centuries after independence, Vietnam was not yet to show its arrogance of claiming to be the "unique Sinicized country with the central status in the Southeast Asia" for claiming preeminence over its southern and western neighbors. In the fourteenth century, however, the Vietnamese began to see their polity as the "Southern Country" or "Middle Kingdom of Southeast Asia" which was entitled to reign over the surrounding barbarians. Later, in the fifteenth century when Vietnam had more or less realized such a dominant position, especially in its relations with Champa and Laos, the country definitely established its self-image as the "Southern Country."