From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China: Sung’s Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao

This study of relations between Sung China (960-1279) and Kitan Liao (916-1125), a state on Sung’s northern border, is both a military and diplomatic history and a history of diplomacy. Its first chapters historically contextualise the equality of Sung-Liao diplomacy and narrate how, during the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, the two states fought each other to a standstill before concluding peace at Shan-yuan in 1005. Later chapters cover the forms and textures of peaceful diplomatic contact between Sung and Liao that endured for the rest of the century. It will be useful for scholars and interested general readers who wish to probe beyond generalisations and explore in more detail mid-imperial China’s warfare and diplomacy with its northern neighbours.