From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China

'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-yüan in 1005. Later chapters cover the forms and textures of peaceful diplomatic