People in the current age use the word feudal as a pejorative, indicating it is old, obsolete, unjust, and silly but romantic. Western Europe - specifically Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy all went through a feudal era.
In the rest of world, there were some analogs to feudalism found in a few nations such as Japan, Vietnam, and perhaps Persia, but generally speaking, feudalism does not exist outside of Europe.
What is Feudalism?
Feudalism emerged in Western Europe as a direct response to the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions. It was solidified by the Viking assault on Western Europe shortly after the death of Charlemagne to the adoption of Christianity by the Norse around the year 1050. Feudalism lasted in Europe into the 1500s and elements of feudal mores and social structures lasted into the Industrial era.
To simplify a complex topic, feudalism had these core elements.
1) Christianity - with the attendant notion that there was a higher morality which governed everyone. No one was above the law, not even the King.
2) Reciprocal relations - Lords owed duties to their superior, just as the superior lord / king owned duties to their subordinates. These duties flowed up and down the feudal hierarchy. Failure to follow the duties represented a legitimate reason to cease honoring the laws.
3) Inherited land holdings. This is absolutely essential for feudalism as it transformed each feudal lord into a small king, a ruler over his land, his people, his taxes, his duty to protect his people from harm.
Can you have feudalism without Christianity? The Sonoma Sage believes the answer is yes, but… Why do people fight for their lord? There must be some higher justification for rule than merely might makes right. In Japan, in the feudal era (roughly 1200 to 1868) the obligation to one’s feudal lord stemmed from their holding authority delegated to them by the Tenno - the Emperor of Japan. In Vietnam, the great families traced their power back to ancient times, and later to the recognition of their land holdings by the King of Vietnam. In both Japan, and Vietnam, the Tenno or the King could withdraw the great lord’s authority to rule land for sufficient reasons.
Can you have feudalism without inherited land? No. Inherited land is essential. Just as reciprocal relations are essential. The lords of the land must have a strong, long-lasting commitment to their land and their people. The people living on the land must feel the same way, that they have loyalty to their lord above anyone else, except the King/Tenno/Wang.
Can you have feudalism without reciprocal relations? To the Sonoma Sage’s mind, the answer is no. Feudal relations between Kings to Counts, Counts to Knights, Knights to Serfs must be bilateral. At every stage, there are mutual obligations. If the obligations are all one way, that is not feudalism. In Japan, it is not clear that there were any obligations owed by the Tenno to his lords, nor by the Daimyo to the peasants living in their territory. In practices, the Daimyos did not actually serve their ruler, the Tenno, as we know the Tenno had lost all real authority to actually give orders by the end of Go Daigo’s reign in 1339. By the same token, it’s not clear the Daimyos owed any obligations to the peasants who farmed their lands. I’m hard pressed to think of a single example where the peasants were able to make the legal argument to their lord’s superior that their lord had failed to do his duty to them.
Historians do not describe the Eastern Roman Empire (AKA Byzantine Empire) as having a feudal society. Why? Because the Eastern Roman Empire assigned positions based on merit or service for the government. The Eastern Roman Empire had a detailed organization, with leaders such as Exarchs: rulers of provinces; Strategos: the ruler of a theme (a part of a province). Logothetis: a civil minister of state, etc. These positions were all given at the Emperor’s direction, and they came with a salary. However, no one in the Eastern Roman Empire - other than the Emperor - held their position by right of inheritance. All government positions were appointed positions. There were rich landowners in the Eastern Roman Empire, but these people did not have automatic military or judicial positions which came with ownership of their land.
This is not the way Western European feudalism worked. In Western Europe, if you owned, for example, the County of Flanders, then you - the Count of Flanders - had both military obligations to your king, and judicial authority over the people living in Flanders.
China was feudalistic early in its history.
China, the oldest functioning state in the world today, has a complex history - to say the least! At one time, one can describe the Chinese society as feudalistic. The famous, Three Kingdom’s Period looks very feudalistic with knights, powerful land owners who commanded the personal loyalty of their troops not because of their connection to the Huang Di (Chinese Emperor) but because they had a connection to the land and they had moral authority. This feudal era lasted from roughly 180 CE to the start of the Sui Dynasty in 586 CE.
During this Chinese feudal era, great families owned land, and they raised armies of men who were loyal to their land owners. Efforts by the central government to replace these powerful land owners with more loyal individuals often resulted in open rebellion by the land owners.
However, the Chinese Feudal era came to an end. The new governmental system which ruled China was an organized, rule-based, non-hereditary system. Men were assigned to highly important positions not because their fathers had held that position, but because the men in question seemed to be skilled at the job (or good at flattering the Huang Di, which was at least equally important).
The An Lushan rebellion brought a version of feudalism back to China. The Tang government broke down under the nearly successful revolt by the rebellious army of An Lushan. From 760 to 960, China looks rather feudal as powerful lords took control over provinces, and these men then passed control over their provinces to their eldest sons, without regard to what the Huang Di wished. The power struggle between these new provincial rulers and the central government ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Tang Dynasty and the emergence of The Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history. During this time, each provincial leader declared that they were now the Huang Di of China. What had been defacto independent rule by provincial lords became officially recognized rule by hereditary families.
The End of Feudalism in China - 960 CE
Once again, this feudal period of Chinese history ended. When the Song Dynasty conquered all of China in 960, they transformed the Chinese political system and adopted a new model of government based entirely on merit and the ability to pass an extraordinarily difficult written test. This new system eliminated the connection between high government position and land ownership. All salaries were paid by the Court of the Huang Di. Wealthy landowners continued to exist, but owning land gave you no position of power in the government and very little influence over the judicial proceedings.
The Song Dynasty was not feudal. Instead, the Song created the world’s first modern governmental system based on fair, unbiased admission to the governmental service, followed by reviews conducted every three years for promotion, or removal from government service. Salaries were paid by the government, not based on transferring control over land to the high authorities of the Song Dynasty government. Only the job of the Huang Di was inherited. All other positions were temporary.
The Yuan Dynasty was an alien government, set-up and run by Mongols, ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan. It is not a Chinese government - nor was it feudal.
The Ming Dynasty is much like the Song’s government. The Ming also used the Imperial exam to bring men of learning into the government. The Ming attempted to improve the Chinese military by making positions in the Army inherited. This effort, while well-intentioned, failed. The Ming was not a feudal government.
The Qing Dynasty was again, not feudal. The ruling class of the Qing were all ethnic Manchus (actually a racial/cultural mix of Jurchins from Manchuria and Mongols). The Qing, having conquered all of China by 1660, did not divide the land into a large number of personal fiefdoms - which is what William the Conquerer did in 1066 in England. Instead, the Qing kept the Ming government largely unchanged, and they diverted a substantial amount of the tax revenues to support their own people as the military elite of the new government. Oddly, they failed to handle this and by 1800, the majority of the Manchu families living in China had a legally enforced superior status, but almost no wealth.
Conclusion : China before 1911 was Not Feudal
At times, for several hundred years, China has some similarities with feudalism as practiced in Europe. Most of the time, China was not feudalistic. Most of the time, China was run by a powerful central government which concentrated nearly all of the military and legal authority into the hands of the Huang Di and his large selected staff.
Yes, there were times when the Han collapsed, and in the later part of the Tang Dynasty, when China looks rather feudal. If you want to call these times - 180-580, and 770-960 - feudal eras, go ahead. But to say the Song, Ming, and Qing Dynasties were feudal is simply wrong. They were not feudal governments in any meaningful sense.