<P> The Son of Heaven was the supreme universal emperor, who ruled tianxia ("all under heaven"). His status is rendered in English as "ruler of the whole universe" or "ruler of the whole world ." The title, "Son of Heaven", was interpreted literally only in China and Japan, whose monarchs were referred to as demigods, deities, or "living gods", chosen by all the ancient gods and goddesses . </P> <P> The title "Son of Heaven" stems from the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, created by the Zhou Dynasty monarchs to justify their having deposed the Shang Dynasty . They held that Heaven had revoked its mandate from the Shang and given it to the Zhou in retribution for Shang corruption and misrule . Heaven bestowed the mandate on whomever was most fit to rule . The title held the emperor responsible for the prosperity and security of his people by the threat of taking away his mandate . </P> <P> The ancient Han Chinese imperial title, tianzi (天子), "Son of Heaven", was later adopted by the Emperor of Japan during that country's Asuka period . Japan sent diplomatic missions to China, then ruled by the Sui dynasty, and formed cultural and commercial ties with China . Japan's Yamato state modeled its government after the Chinese Confucian imperial bureaucracy . A Japanese mission of 607 CE delivered a message from "the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises...to the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun sets ." But the Japanese emperor's title was less contingent than that of his Chinese counterpart; there was no divine mandate that would punish Japan's emperor for failing to rule justly . The right to rule of the Japanese emperor, descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, was absolute . </P> <P> The Vietnamese also adopted the title, known in Vietnamese as Thiên tử (Chữ Hán: 天子). A divine mandate gave the Vietnamese emperor the right to rule, based not on his lineage but on his competence to govern . Vietnam's adoption of a Confucian bureaucracy, presided over by Vietnam's Son of Heaven, led to the creation of a Vietnamese tributary system in Southeast Asia, modeled after the Chinese Sinocentric system in East Asia . </P>

Chinese tradition held that the emperor was the son of heaven