Before the 'Yellow Peril': Russian Administrators Views of Chinese Labor and Commerce in the Far East, 1860s-1890s

• In Event: Empire, Political Economy, and Urban Life in the Russian Far East: Past and Present

Abstract

The paper explores how the administrators of the newly annexed territories in the Russian Far East viewed Chinese laborers and merchants before the arrival of the racialized discourse of the "Yellow Peril." These views mixed admiration for the perceived efficiency of the Chinese with doubts about the nature of the Chinese labor and commerce. These views were often shaped, especially in the 1880s, by transplanting mental maps of the Western borderlands into the Far East, all the while gradually incorporating European and American influences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the debates on the nature of Chinese mercantile activity in the Far East in the early 1890s.

Author

• Sergey Glebov, Smith College/ Amherst College/ Ab Imperio