The PRC's Official Discourse on Mongolia since 1990

Abstract

The issue of interactions between the Han Chinese and Mongolian minority national in the PRC has been drawing serious attention of western scholars in recent years. The focal point of this thesis, however, is the textual representation of what used to be called `Outer Mongolia' and its people. in Chinese authoritative writings since the beginning of the 1990s, a period marked by the onset of a new era in the history of Mongolia and Sino-Mongolian relations. This thesis assesses the current, arguably competing or complementing, discourses on Mongolia embedded in officially approved and published texts meant for a general, Chinese-speaking readership. It analyses the evolution of these discourses over the last decade and highlights the discrepancies between the authoritative discourses on Mongolia of the party and government publications. The objective of the study is to try to understand the meaning of such changes and discrepancies within the discursive formation regarding Mongolia, and to do so from the perspective of the developments found in the more dominant, all-embracing discourse on Chinese/Zhonghua nation that have gained strength in the PRC throughout the 1990s. The thesis argues that Zhonghua discourse has lost its hegemonic position in formulating the official line on how Mongolia should be represented, interpreted, and acted upon. A wide range of official publications including Chinese government statements, publications of various Party organs, articles from mass-circulation periodicals, academic writings and reference literature, personal accounts, and fiction are drawn upon to illustrate the argument. This thesis uses discourse analysis as an analytical framework complemented by detailed case studies of particular representational practices and linguistic devices employed by the producers of Chinese texts to construct Mongolia's `true' identity through their writings. In order to avoid a purely structural analysis of the texts, they have been read against the socio-political context of China-Mongolia interactions since 1990, including Mongolian perspectives on the most controversial topics addressed by the Chinese authors, for example, the issues of Mongolia's independence