D03: Empire-Building on China's Frontiers: Reclamation, Religion, and Rebellion, 1644-1911

Organizer(s)

• YW

  YuanChong Wang

  Department of History
  University of Delaware, United States

Chair(s)

• 

  Laura Hostetler

  History
  University of Illinois Chicago, United States

Paper Presenter(s)

• YW

  YuanChong Wang

  Department of History
  University of Delaware, United States
• SC

  Shuang Chen

  University of Iowa, United States
• 

  Ji Li

  University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
• YZ

  Yang Zhang

  American University, United States

Discussant(s)

• 

  Laura Hostetler

  History
  University of Illinois Chicago, United States

By the end of the eighteenth century Qing China grew into an enormous Eurasian empire and faced the huge challenge of managing its multiethnic frontiers stretching from Manchuria to Central Asia and the Himalayas. This panel explores the prolonged empire building on Qing China’s frontiers by investigating domestic immigration, land reclamation, religion practice and confrontation, ethnic conflicts, rebellions, and state-sponsored civilizing projects and reforms. Ji Li explores how the Catholic Missions to China produced and used maps, numbers, and texts to measure and interpret the local religious experience into the global religious imagination. Yang Zhang examines the major Muslim rebellions in late Qing and argues that ethnic and religious identities were not only intricate but also often rapidly reconfigured as the mobilizing bases for political contentions. Shuang Chen observes the increase in civilian immigrants and the subsequent establishment of civilian governance in Manchuria in the twilight of the Qing that had transformed the local society at the local level. Yuanchong Wang discusses the Sino-Korean cross-border trade in Southeast Manchuria and the remarkable development of China’s uncultivated land near the Yalu River. The panel can contribute to discussions about empire-building, state-making/unmaking, and social change in late imperial and modern China.

Presentations:

• Sino-Korean Cross-border Trade and the Construction of China's Eastern Frontier, 1644-1910
  

  Paper Presenter: YuanChong Wang – University of Delaware
• Empire Building from the Ground Up: Local Governance and Social Transformation in Manchuria, 1880-1911
  

  Paper Presenter: Shuang Chen – University of Iowa
• Constructing God's Empire in China's Frontier
  

  Paper Presenter: Ji Li – University of Hong Kong
• Rhythms of Revolt: Religion, Ethnicity, and Rebellions in the Qing Empire, 1850-1873
  

  Paper Presenter: Yang Zhang – American University