Mini-Conference on Asian Political History: China’s Many Contentious Frontiers: Ancient Battles, Modern Struggle

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Part of Mini-Conference

• Mini-Conference on Asian Political History

Session Description

This panel focuses on issues related to China’s contentious peripheries in various times of history. He and Hong argue that civilian victimization by foreign military ingrains memories of the violence among the targeted population, which facilitates nationalist mobilization in other international conflicts, drawing evidence from the atrocities committed by the Japanese army against Chinese civilians during the Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945). Peng and Mattingly build an extensive new dataset of all prefectural military officers in Qing China from 1644-1911 to investigate how multi-ethnic states prevent rebellion and maintain stability. Jiang and Lan show that traditional networks and cleavages within rural society can be exploited by movement entrepreneurs to mobilize peasantry based on CCP uprising data from 1927—1936. Vu compares and contrasts ancient Korea and Vietnam, arguing that the divergence of regime stability was due to different geopolitical environments of the two Han frontiers and the various ways Chaoxian people and polities were connected to the steppe and its people.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• The Military Consequence of Civilian Victimization: Evidence from Two Wars in East Asia - Ning He, University of Georgia; Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong, University of Michigan

• Insurgent Empire: How the Military Thwarted Ethnic Rebellions in China, 1644-1911 - Peng Peng, Washington University in St Louis; Daniel Mattingly, Yale University

• From Kin to Comrades: Rural Clan Society and the Rise of Communism in China - Xingchen Lan, New York University; Junyan Jiang, Columbia University

• War and Ancient State Formation along China’s Eastern and Southern Frontiers: Korea and Vietnam in Comparative Perspective - Tuong Vu, University of Oregon

Chair

• Xiaobo Lu University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Huan Gao

• Howard Liu University of South Carolina