I. With Countries in Central Asia

Peoples in Central Asia immigrated into the Central Plains (ancient China) in large quantities during the Tang Dynasty (581-618), which was the most favorable factor to spread the culture of Central Asia, as well as institutions, systems, customs and religious beliefs of India and Persia. Emigrants to China during the Tang Dynasty mainly came from the Kang Kingdom and the An Kingdom, falling into 5 categories: the first, noble offspring who lived in the west of the Yellow River and Guangzhong as envoys, or served as guards in Chang'an; second, career soldiers of Turkish tribes and Sute area in the north; third, traders traveling between Gansu, Liangzhou and Chang'an, Luoyang; fourth, missionary monks; and finally, artists, bandsmen and dancers.

These emigrants had great influences on military, political and economic life of the Tang Dynasty, as well as in cultural and arts fields. At the same time, deeply influenced by Chinese culture and institutions, they adopted Chinese characters and Chinese names, dressed in Chinese styles, followed formality of the Tang Dynasty, married women of the Han nationality, and established gravestones after death. Hence, they were almost the same as people of the Han nationality.

At the same time, countries in Central Asia were deeply affected by Chinese culture. For example, the Turkish people built Suiye City completely imitating Chang'an City, capital of the Tang Dynasty, which was seen and recorded by Monk Xuan Zang in 630 when he passed by. Chinese paintings were spread into the He Kingdom, whose capital was on the northwest of Samarkand. In the corner of the capital building, there were drawings of Chinese Ancient Emperors on the north wall, copied from Emperors' Pictures drawn by Yan Liben, a famous artist of the Tang Dynasty. On the east wall, there were pictures of kings of Turkish and Brahmanism; while on the west wall were pictures of kings of Persia and Byzantine.

II. With Arabic & Islamic Countries

The territory of Arab Empire spanned three continents -- Asia, Europe and Africa, composed of different nationalities. Inside the Empire, Persia was the nearest to China, so the two countries had the earliest contacts. Persians called themselves as Dashi at that time. They established friendly relationship with China in 651. Then in the following 148 years (by 798), Dashi sent emissaries to Chang'an for 39 times. Arab emigrants in China were mainly Persian and Omani, mostly living in Guangzhou and Chang'an, some in Yangzhou, Hongzhou and Zhangye. Persian emigrants were good at absorbing excellent parts of foreign cultures, and improved themselves by combining characteristics of their own, thus they were active on the stage of Chinese culture and arts. They played an important role in promoting cultural and art exchanges between China and Iran and the Arab world. Li Shang, Li Xun and Li Shunxian, famous poets of the Tang Dynasty, were all Persian emigrants. The hostess in Huxuan Women, written by Bai Juyi, was a Persian. Iranian ancient literature works, such as Rosary, were widely spread in China, and Islam has used it as canon and listed it as required textbook for hundreds of years. Philosophy of the book was almost the same as Chinese traditional thoughts. Besides, there was much resemblance between much folklore of Tajik and legendary stories of Iran literature, which was obviously the result of mutual influence.

In terms of music, there were many exchanges between China and Iran. China introduced ancient musical instruments such as pipa and flute to Iran, and learned Suona and dulcimer from Iran. There were close relations between Iranian music and that of minorities in Xinjiang. Both used almost the same musical instruments. There was some music both popular in Iran and among minorities of Xinjiang.

Through exchanges between China and countries in the West Regions, fashions from there and other foreign countries had been popular in China from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. In Tri-colored Glazed Pottery of the Tang Dynasty, people produced figures of Hu as funerary objects. These figures were of deep eyes and high nose, wearing capuche on head and folded collars; some held Western musical instruments, and some led camels. We could see that they took great pains in traveling through deserts, mountains and hills for economic and cultural exchanges between China and Arab countries.

In this period, Chinese papermaking and spinning techniques, painting art, as well as pottery and porcelain were spread into Arab countries and the West. Chinese craftsmen helped the Arabs to establish papermaking workshops in Samarkand, and hence the technique was passed to the Muslim world via Iran. At the same time, Chinese spinning technique was widely spread in Mesopotamia. Chinese fine arts were highly praised by Arab people, promoting their designs of gold and silver instruments. After many pottery and porcelain articles were passed to the Muslim world, Arabs added their favorite designs, and porcelain of Chinese and western combined styles developed prosperously in the heart of the Arab world.

III. With Southeast Asian Countries

The Tang Dynasty (618-907) saw a perfect legal system, flourishing economy and well-developed culture in Chinese feudal society, reaching the peak of prosperity of Chinese feudal society and attracting many foreigners for economic and cultural exchanges and friendship activities.

During early Tang Dynasty, exactly the year of 641, Hindustan Zhong Tianzhu sent some emissaries to the capital Chang'an City, thus starting the diplomatic relationship between the two countries. The Tang Dynasty also sent Wang Xuance on a diplomatic mission. Wang went to India in 657 when it was his third time to India, with a mission of sending Buddha cassock. When he went to India in 663 for his fourth time, he promulgated the principal theory and protocol towards each small country. In his four visits to India, he made great contribution to spread Chinese culture, promote cultural exchanges, and improve the transportation among China, India and Tibetan region. His story has been recorded in the history of friendship between China and India.

Since Indian Buddhism entered China in the late years of the Han Dynasty, some Chinese monks made continuous visits to Western Paradise (India) for Buddhist scripture, crossing mountains and paddling for long distance. These Buddhist disciples not only worked hard to introduce Buddhism, but also made contributions to the mutual exchanges of natural conditions and social customs by their many written notes and recordation. The well-known monk going to India for scriptures is Xuan Zang, with original name of Chen Yi, a Native of Henan Province. He set out to Tianzhu (ancient name of India) in 627, and returned in 645 with reputation, bringing back 657 volumes of classic sutras of Buddhism and a batch of Buddha figures. He visited all Buddhist shrines around India and studied in famous Buddhist temples. After returning to China, he organized magnificent translation projects of Buddhist scriptures; meanwhile he wrote out 12 columns of Great T'ang Record of Western Regions, recording information he collected in his visits to a dozen of countries in more than ten years including history evolution, geographical division, folk origin, resources and customs, religious beliefs, languages and literature and so on. His records with broad contents and clear consecution have turned out to be key materials for studying such ancient countries and regions as Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Another famous monk is Yi Jing (635-713), original named Zhang Wenming. He was said to admire the elegance of Fa Xian and the loftiness of Xuan Zang, so he was determined to study Buddhism in the Western Regions., He set out to India by sea from Guangzhou in 671 and returned to Luoyang in 695 after his visit for 25 years, bringing back about 400 copies of Sanskrit Buddhist theories. He was proficient in Sanskrit and wrote a book named Fanyu Qianzi Wen (Kilo-Character Sanskrit) as the first Sanskrit work in China. His major contribution was to organize translation work and elaborate the extract and gist of Buddhist classics. He wrote two books named Stories of A Famous Monk of Tang Dynasty Going to Western Regions for Buddhism and Stories of Getting Buddhist Scriptures from the South Sea, recording religions, geographical conditions, folk customs and medical prescription and becoming a guide for the Tang Dynasty to learn about countries around the South Sea. The tale of Tang Seng and Sun Wukong in Journey to the West was summarized from the travel legend of these Buddhist disciples.

Nepal, lying between India and China, was the land pathway from China to India, playing a hinge role in communication between China and India. The first Chinese to visit Nepal is Monk Fa Xian. He went to Nepal via India in 406, making his courtesy visit to Lumbini, birthplace of Sakyamuni, and Shorea robusta, the death place of Sakyamuni. Following his visit, Xuan Zang, Li Yibiao and Wang Xuance ordered by Emperor Tang Taizong all paid their visits to Nepal.

Sri Lanka was called Lion Country or Sinhala during the Tang Dynasty, and called Ceylon by Arabians. The diplomatic exchange between the Tang Dynasty and Sri Lanka reached its peak, represented by the travel and study of Buddha Bu Kong. Bu Kong was a Brahman disciple in North India. When young, he immigrated into China together with his uncle. In 741, he went to India and Sri Lanka for Buddhist scriptures. In Sri Lanka, he collected more than 500 scriptures of all kinds and brought them as well as the credential of Emperor of the Lion Country back to Chang'an. From then on, China and Sri Lanka made continuous exchanges.

During the Tang Dynasty, Indian literature played a certain role in Chinese literature. Some works of legend literature has rather similar features on structure and contents with Indian classical literature. For instance, Wang Du's The Ancient Mirror was affected on structure by Indian legend works. This essay has an antique mirror as the clue, which links several tales in the essay. This structure is similar to Pancatantra (A Book with five volumes), a well-known Indian classical work in the world. There are many works influenced by India on contents, typically such as Shen Jiji's The World Inside a Pillow, the so-called Golden Millet Dream, which has the content that the leading actor had a dream of prosperity and nabobism for scores of years; but when he woke up, he found that it was just an absurd instant dream, and the maize put in the pot by him just before dozing off was still not ready. In the Legend of Nanke Procurator, the main character was drunk and had a dream, in which he tasted various ways of the world. After he woke up, he tried to seek the sources of his dream but only found a burrow of ants. These sorts of stories are the same style and commonplace in Indian literature.

In terms of sculpture of Buddha figures, Gandhara Art had a clear influence on China, with an Indian origin of cutting into a mountain and digging caves to engrave Buddha figures. During the Tang Dynasty, the so-called Gupta Art in India was also introduced into China. The famous Longmen Grotto, Yungang Grotto, Dunhuang Mogao Grotto and Leshan Buddha in Sichuang Province are all the combination products of Indian sculpture of Buddha figures and Chinese folk sculpture arts.

The skills and practicality on painting and music were also once introduced from India. Tianzhu Kingdom once paid tributes of music and musical instruments to China, in turn, Chinese musical works were also introduced into India; for example, Music of Emperor Qin Breaking Battle Array prevailed in India for a time. Some classic works concerning the Tang Dynasty has records that Indian acrobatics and magic were introduced into China. The Music Record in the Old Tang History has that, Musical amusement and acrobatics generally belong to magic. The magic all comes from the Western Regions, especially Tianzhu (India).

IV. With Japan

After entering China, Buddhism was introduced into Japan through Korean Peninsula by Monks from Baekje in 538. Jian Zhen, the well-known monk in China was invited to Japan to give lectures in 742. After five failures of going east to Japan, he finally got to Japan at the sixth time in 753, when he was 65 years old. In the East Temple in Japan, he built the altar where he preached for the then emperor, empress, prince of Japan and more than five hundred monks. Later, he established Buddhist rites for Buddhism in Jietan Court of the East Temple and the Tangzhaoti Temple, hence normally introducing Buddhism into Japan. Jian Zhen also brought knowledge on architecture, sculpture, painting, calligraphy and medicine into Japan. His stories are still much-told in current cultural exchanges between China and Japan.

The Tang Dynasty saw the peak of cultural exchanges between China and Japan. Japan learned and transplanted Chinese culture into its own culture. Encouraged by the then Japanese dominant class, Japan was introduced with Chinese architecture arts, painting, music and dance. Japanese even imitated the living habit of Chinese people in Tang Dynasty in terms of food, housing, transportation and other customs. Now in Nara and Kyoto, the Nara capital Pingchengjing and Ping'an capital Ping'anjing, modeling on the layout of Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty, still exist. The art of calligraphy of Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi and Ouyang Xun were also introduced into Japan and prevailed at a time, causing a fever of imitation. The appearance of the so-called Three Calligraphers reflected that Japanese calligraphy got the gist and extract of that of the Tang Dynasty after learning from Chinese calligraphy. Japan continuously sent its envoys to China, as well as exchange students, monks, painters and various technicians, to enhance cultural and academic exchanges between the two countries. A Japanese scholar named Abeno Nakamaro (with a Chinese name of Chao Heng) built strong friendship with Li Bai, the famous poet of Tang Dynasty. When rumor said that Chao Heng was dead for misadventure, Li Bai was so sad that he wrote a poem in memory of this Japanese friend.

V. With African Countries

Despite long distance with countless high and dangerous mountains, vast deserts and seas, China and Africa started cultural exchanges since the Qin and Han dynasties (221BC-220AD). First in the Roman reign of Egypt, Egypt and the Qin and Han dynasties started communications. In the 1st century, a navigator residing in Alexanderia in Egypt wrote a book named Honghai Huihang Ji (Notes of Return Navigation around the Red Sea), in which he mentioned Qinni (China) and viewed it the end of the sea. He also mentioned Chang'an, the capital of the Qin Dynasty, and the transportation of Chinese silk to India. In the 2nd century, an Egyptian Ptolemy wrote Record on Geography, in which he made a further description of China and thought there was possible trade pathway from Egypt to China. The first country that sent the envoys to China is Ethiopia. In 629, a black racial country named Shu Nai in South Somali also sent its envoys to China. The envoys got to Guangzhou after a voyage of 6,000 sea miles, which contributed a significant page in the mediaeval navigation history on the Indian Ocean. After the Western Han diplomat Zhang Qian reached the Western Regions, Chinese people began to know the port named Lixuan, which was assumed to be the Alexandria Port. In 97, Ban Chao sent Gan Ying to Da Qin, with a direct destination of Alexanderia. From 166AD to the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), the envoys and merchants of the Rome Empire set out from Alexanderia to China with abundant presents of African special ivories and rhinoceros horn through sea way of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. China had a more detailed and specific knowledge about North Africa and Egypt. Du Huan, a capital official of Tang Dynasty, was caught by Arabian army in a battle in Central Asia and sent to Kufa. Hence, he had chances to travel around Arabian countries. In 762, he returned to Guangzhou on a business ship. He wrote a book Notes on Travels, recording his experience and information collected in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. He was the first Chinese recorded with name to travel in Africa.

Through more and more developed business activities, Chinese silk and porcelain were continuously transported to Egypt and other African countries. According to records, the silk robes worn by the last empress of Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt were made of Chinese silk. Besides silk trading and silk technique, Chinese metal and production technique were also introduced into Africa at that time. Chinese porcelains were transported into Africa in large quantities -- they were first sent to each port of the Red Sea, and then collected in Fusitate in South Cairo, and then transported to Alexandria, Morocco and Maghrib; some were sent upstream along the Nile River to Nubia and northern places. Chinese porcelains also entered the African daily life -- maharajas and patricians as well as civilians were all proud of collecting Chinese porcelains. The excavation of Gedi City in East African coast shows that in the Middle Ages, the rich families there all had dishware of Chinese porcelains, and using Chinese porcelains as decoration on buildings turned out a special custom in coastal places in East Africa.

In the Talas Battle in 751, Arabians captured many Chinese soldiers, who brought many benefits for Arabians. Some Chinese soldiers were good at papermaking and other crafts, and introduced these techniques to Arabians. Therefore, Chinese papermaking technique was spread fast in Samalhan, Bagdad and Damascus, etc., and later into Egypt, substituting Egypt thousand-year-old grass paper. Later, papermaking technique entered Morocco and Spain. Generally, what was introduced into Egypt simultaneously with papermaking was the printing technique.

Arabians played a bridge role for the introduction of Chinese culture into the western world.