A Garrison in Time Saves Nine: Frontier Administration and ‘Drawing In’ the Yafahan Orochen in Late Qing Heilongjiang

In 1882 the Qing dynasty government established the Xing’an garrison in Heilongjiang to counteract the impact of Russian exploration and territorial expansion into the region. The Xing’an garrison was only operative for twelve years before closing down. What may seem to be an unmitigated failure of military and civil administrative planning was in fact a decisive attempt to contend with the challenges of governing borderland people rather than merely shoring up physical territorial limits. The Xing’an garrison arose out of the need to “draw in” the Yafahan Orochen population, one that had developed close relations with Russians through trade and social interaction. This article demonstrates that while building a garrison did not achieve the intended goal of strengthening control over the Yafahan Orochen, it was one of several measures the Qing employed to shape the human frontier in this critical borderland.postprin

THE MANCHU QUEUE: A COMPLEX SYMBOL IN CHINESE IDENTITY

The queue hairstyle that was enforced on all Chinese men for over 260 years in China was, in fact, not a Chinese hairstyle. It can be traced to the Jurchen tribes north of the Great Wall and became a complex political and cultural symbol under the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The queue signified many things to different people at different times from its 1645 widespread implementation to its sudden disappearance following the revolution of 1911. It is in this ambiguity that the queue provides a rich analytical window through which curious minds can observe sentiments of Ming loyalism, bodily modification, nationalism, and tradition in late imperial and early republican China

Hero or Villain? The evolving legacy of Shi Lang in China and Taiwan

For over two centuries, some of China’s most prominent officials, literary figures, and intellectuals have paid special attention to the legacy of Shi Lang. Compared to many other historical figures, in East Asia’s cross-strait tensions and geopolitics, Shi Lang remains essential to our understanding of this region’s troubled past and the murky outlook for its future. Although the image of Shi Lang continues to mean different things to different people, to some degree, his significance to one particular community is also communicated to other communities. As a result, by analysing most of the previous appraisals and examinations of Shi Lang, we can see the historical narratives of this man as being continually under construction in a shifting and mutually reinforcing process. This paper aims to examine the ways in which the legacy of Shi Lang has percolated throughout Chinese history, since the Qing Dynasty, and also how it continues to function in the present day. It is fascinating to not only delineate how the story of Shi Lang has evolved as a legacy, but also to explore the rich variety of ways in which an individual or a community has adapted the narratives that makes up the story of Shi Lang to suit the demands of different historical settings and perspectives

Asymmetry and Elastic Sovereignty in the Qing Tributary World: Criminals and Refugees in Three Borderlands, 1630s-1840s

This dissertation analyzes how Qing China (1636-1912) and three of its tributary states (Chosŏn Korea, Vietnam, Kokand) handled interstate refugees and criminals from the 1630s to the 1840s. I use Classical Chinese and Manchu memorials and diplomatic documents from Qing archives in Beijing and Taipei as well as Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese published sources to construct a bilateral view of these interstate relations and compare them. My research reveals multiple, flexible, and shifting conceptions of boundaries, jurisdiction, and sovereignty. Boundaries between Qing and its tributaries were not absolute to a Qing court that claimed universal rule, and the court often erased them by adopting tributary refugees as Qing subjects or encroaching on tributary domains. Further, the Qing court often asserted jurisdiction over tributary subjects committing crimes on its soil or against its subjects. In contrast, no tributary court openly asserted jurisdiction over Qing subjects. Together, these cases reveal two defining characteristics of the Qing tributary order: asymmetry and elastic sovereignty. They show how the political norms of early modern Asia defy post-Westphalian norms of inter-state equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of fellow sovereign states. This work breaks new ground in Chinese history by highlighting Qing imperial projects outside today’s Chinese borders and by comparing borderlands in Northeast, Southeast, and Central Asia. It is also a work of world history that combines the connective method and the comparative method in a novel way, focusing on interactions across interstate boundaries in Asia while comparing these Asian borderlands with those in other early modern empires such as Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Lastly, my work engages with the field of international relations by reconstructing the contours of interstate affairs in early modern Asia before the introduction of public international law to the region, thus answering the recent call by scholars for a more inclusive, pluralistic view of international relations.PHDHistoryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144072/1/jaymin_1.pd

Piracy, Prejudice, and Perspectives: An Attempt to Use Shakespeare to Reconfigure the U.S.-China Intellectual Property Debate

Since the mid-1980s, the U.S.-China intellectual property conflict has entered into the public debate. It was frequently debated in Congress and was widely covered by the mass media. Despite the importance of this issue, the debate thus far has been one-sided, focusing primarily on the unfair competition aspect. While there are undeniably some greedy Chinese who are eager to free ride on the creative efforts of Western authors and inventors, greed alone cannot explain the century-old U.S.-China intellectual property conflict. To understand the roots of this conflict, one must focus on the significant political, social, economic and cultural differences between China and the West. Unless the Chinese government introduces reforms that are sensitive to these differences, the piracy problem will continue. Indeed, the problem will exacerbate as the Chinese economy grows. To help skew the debate back to its correct perspective, this Article articulates the various differences between China and the West and explains how these differences have contributed to the failure of the United States\u27s repeated conversion attempts. The Article also highlights the undesirability for and ineffectiveness of forced conversion by juxtaposing the piracy problem with one of Shakespeare\u27s legal masterpieces, The Merchant of Venice. By comparing China\u27s experience in the international intellectual property community to Shylock\u27s predicament in the play, this Article seeks to challenge the readers\u27 cultural presumptions and invites readers to step outside their own world to rethink the U.S.-China intellectual property conflict. The Article concludes that Shakespeare\u27s teachings in the play may provide insights into how policymakers can resolve, or at least minimize, this century-old conflict

Propaganda and the 21st Century Student

This short piece provides a way of thinking about the Enlightenment’s legacy and the strength of modern propaganda in order to enable world history teachers to use these themes in their classes, both for teaching history and for helping students to reflect on their own lives. The authors provide background on the ideas of 1930s critical theorists and their impact on the interwar period, then suggest practical ways that world history instructors (in high schools and universities) can use these insights in developing lectures, lesson plans, and assignments for their classrooms

Confucian Jurisprudence in Practice: Pre-Tang Dynasty \u3ci\u3ePanwen\u3c/i\u3e (Written Legal Judgments)

Most scholarship on Chinese legal philosophy has neglected the study of Confucian jurisprudence in practice. As a result of this incomplete portrayal, scholars predominantly view the premodern Chinese Confucian legal tradition as lacking a rule of law system, which has led to blaming Confucianism for much of China’s modern and historical rule of law problems. This article seeks to complicate this view by examining Confucian jurisprudence in practice: specifically, the development of pre-Tang dynasty panwen (written legal judgments). Through analysis of specific panwen from various Chinese primary sources—many of which have never been translated into English—this article will show that even in Chinese antiquity the legal system was not solely marked by codification or the lack of the rule of law, but was far more complex and diverse than most scholars have portrayed. For example, elements of case law played an important role in Chinese legal history. Indeed, it is an especially good time to build our understanding of the use of cases and the role of panwen, in China’s legal past given the Supreme People’s Court’s recent emphasis on the role of case law in contemporary Chinese jurisprudence

Some considerations on China's minorities in the 21st century: conflict or conciliation?

"On a global scale, there has been a significant increase of ethnic conflicts in the last decade. They constitute one of the main sources of domestic political instability in multi-national countries. Recent opinion polls among Chinese citizens point to growing ethnic conflicts even in China. This paper addresses primarily five sources of conflict: collective memory, political conflicts, economic conflicts, cultural conflicts and new conflicts arising from economic and social change. It explores various forms of ethnic resistance (active and passive ones, violent and peaceful ones, formal and informal patterns) and suggests possible measures of conflict prevention and reduction of conflicts. Finally it argues that China may provide a good basis for such measures, as ethnic minorities are not only recognized as nationalities, but also are respected by public law and - according to this law - enjoy the same rights as the ethnic majority." (author's abstract)Im internationalen Maßstab ist das Ausmaß ethnischer Konflikte in der vergangenen Dekade stark angestiegen. Ethnische Konflikte gehören zu den wichtigsten Ursachen politischer Instabilität in multiethnischen Gesellschaften. Wie jüngste Meinungsumfragen zeigen, gibt es sogar in China wachsende ethnische Konflikte. Der Verfasser diskutiert fünf Quellen solcher Konflikte: kollektives Gedächtnis, politische Konflikte, wirtschaftliche Konflikte sowie neue Konflikte, die Ergebnis des wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Wandels sind. Er behandelt verschiedene Formen ethnischen Widerstands (aktive wie passive, gewaltförmige und friedliche, formelle und informelle) und schlägt Möglichkeiten der Konfliktprävention und -bewältigung vor. China bietet nach Einschätzung des Verfassers hierfür gute Perspektiven, da China ethnische Minderheiten nicht nur als Nationalitäten anerkennt, sondern ihnen auch die gleichen Rechte wie der Majorität zuerkennt. (ICEÜbers

Toward Sovereignty: Zhang Zhidong’s Military Strengthening of China, 1884-1901

The conventional history of China’s late nineteenth-century Self-Strengthening movement charted a failure of military reforms. My research explores this period through the perspective of the prominent governor-general Zhang Zhidong. From 1884-1901, Zhang consistently pursued new military academies and western-style armies aiming to secure the nation against foreign imperialist incursion. At the same time, the governor’s understanding of regional differences as well as his increasing experience in military affairs distinctly shaped his effective new military institutions. At the turn of the century, Zhang Zhidong’s military apparatus was arguably one of the best in China. In the wider analysis of Chinese military history, the governor’s career contrasted with other historical figures by its peripatetic nature and its continuity through the Sino-Japanese War and Boxer Rebellion. Zhang’s many jurisdictions showed not only his consistent dedication to military power as a means to national sovereignty, but also created numerous military institutions for study. More importantly, the continuity in the governor’s effective military reforms underlined fundamental historical misunderstandings about the nature of late-Qing China. First, Zhang’s successful military institutions contended with China’s deterioration narrative from 1895 to the dynastic fall in 1911. Second, the reason for historical misinterpretation stemmed from the obscuring of both late-Qing historians’ and the historical actors’ perceptions by the influences of western imperialism. Ultimately, the study of Zhang Zhidong’s military reforms shows a discontinuity in the conventional historical narrative, and thus creates space for increased Chinese agency in their own history

Confucius and the Chinese Legal Tradition

More than two thousand years ago, Confucius transformed and perfected an institution for governing Chinese people, which has been religiously replicated by subsequent dynasties. Within the Confucian institution, the King, at the pinnacle of the pyramid, held absolute authority; regional lords were loyal to the King; and commoners were submissive to the privileged. Confucius held that peace and order could only be achieved when people acted according to their hierarchical worth assigned by the ruler. This article offers an overview of the transformation of Confucianism. It then examines competing schools of thought-Legalism and Taoism-and explains why Confucianism triumphed to become the official Chinese ideology. Through a series of case studies, the article theorizes that the central theme of Confucian-inspired laws was the perpetuation of inequality. With the declining influence of Marxism, the Communist Party has revived the Confucian tradition to maintain its legitimacy and project its soft power to the world. This article concludes that, against the massive weight of tradition deeply ingrained in the people\u27s minds and souls, the rule of law and equality will unlikely be an important force in China