The Making of the Modern Chinese State: 1600–1950

Description

The Making of the Modern Chinese State: 1600–1950 offers an historical analysis of the formation of the modern Chinese state from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth centuries, providing refreshing and provocative interpretations on almost every major issue regarding the rise of modern China. This book explores the question of why today’s China is unlike any other nation-state in size and structure. It inquires into the reasons behind the striking continuity in China's territorial and ethnic compositions over the past centuries, and explicates the genesis and tenacity of the Chinese state as a highly centralized and unified regime that has been able to survive into the twenty-first century. Its analysis centres on three key variables, namely geopolitical strategy, fiscal constitution, and identity building, and it demonstrates how they worked together to shape the outcome of state transformation in modern China. Enhanced by a selection of informative tables and illustrations, The Making of the Modern Chinese State: 1600–1950 is ideal for undergraduates and graduates studying East Asian history, Chinese history, empires in Asia, and state formation. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures List of tables List of maps Preface 1. Introduction The modern Chinese state: why “big” and “strong”? Geopolitics, finance, and identity: amacrohistorical analysis Preliminary arguments Notes PART I: The formation of the Qing state 2. The rise of an early modern territorial state: China in the early to mid-Qing period Frontier expansion Governing the frontiers Governing the interior provinces The uniqueness of the Qing in Chinese history Notes 3. Limits to territorial expansion: fiscal constitution and war-making under the Qing War and finance under the Qing The low-level equilibrium in Qing finance Qing China in world historical perspective Notes PART II: The transition to a sovereign state 4. Regionalized centralism: the resilience and fragility of the late Qing state Fiscal regionalization The rise of conditional loyalty Regionalized centralism Notes 5. Between the frontier and the coast: geopolitical strategy reoriented The ending of the traditional geopolitical order Frontier Defense versus Maritime Defense Centralized regionalism at work The transition to asovereign state Notes 6. A nation-state in the making: Manchu–Han relations under the New Policies Modernization and fiscal expansion Recentralization and alienation The making of anew nation Acomparison with the Ottoman empire Notes PART III: The making of a unified and centralized state 7. Centralized regionalism: the rise of regional fiscal-military states Warlordism Why did the Nationalist force win? China as alatecomer: from regional to national in state-making Notes 8. In search of national unity: frontier rebuilding under the Republic Under the “suzerainty” of China: Tibet in 1912–1950 From autonomy to independence: Outer Mongolia, 1911–1946 Recovering China’s territorial entity China’s territorial entity: lost and rescued Notes 9. The fate of semi-centralism: the nationalist state succeeded and failed Toward aunified state The making of anew orthodoxy Political identity under the party-state The semi-centralism of the nationalist state Notes 10. Total centralism at work: the confluence of breakthroughs in state-making Political identity under Mao Manchuria and the Civil War Fueling the war: the making of acommunist fiscal regime Acomparison Notes 11. Conclusion Making sense of the Chinese leviathan State rebuilding in China: an unfinished task Note List of characters References Index