The PRC Empire:
Centers and Peripheries
HI 168: Lecture 17
Dr. Howard Chiang
OVERVIEW
-
The ‘Sinophone’ World
Mongolia
Tibet
Xinjiang
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Beijing
Sinophone World
Mongolia
- Inner Mongolia
- 1911to 1927: no central government
- Outer Mongolia
- 1911 – end of Qing/Manchu – independence?
- 1911 – delegation of Mongol Princes
- 1911 – under the support of Tsarist Russia, a
sovereign Mongolia declared independence
- 1920 – Chinese almost won back Mongolia
- 1921 to 1924 – Mongolia was a constitutional
monarchy and became a People’s Republic
- the only frontier free of Chinese control
Tibet
13th Dalai Lama:
Tubten Gyatso
(1876-1933)
Fled twice:
- 1903-4: Mongolia
- 1910: Darjeeling
1912-1951: Tibet’s
de facto
independence from
China
Tibet
- 1951: Seventeen Point Agreement
- formalized China’s sovereignty
- 1959: China’s crackdown on Tibetan rebels
led to the Uprising of Lhasa (the Tibetan
capital) – Dalai Lama retreated to India
- 1965: an autonomous region of the PRC
- Cultural Revolution: attacks on Tibetan
Buddhism and its material culture under the
slogan of ‘destroying the Four Olds’ (old
customs, habits, cultures, and thinking)
- Tibetan = old; Chinese = new, progressive
Tibet
- 1976: Death of Mao in September
- relative liberalization
- 1987-9: a wave of demonstrations for
independence
- 1989: Chinese declared Martial Law
- controversy over Penchen Lama selection
- 2000: Tibet claimed that the Beijing
government aimed at ‘total destruction’
- 2006: Qinghai-Tibet Railroad
- a continuation/reconsolidation of early
modern Qing colonial enterprises?
Xinjiang
Ma
Xinjiang was formally
incorporated into the
Chinese empire as a
province in 1884
1911 to 1928: ruled by
the Chinese governor
Yang Zengxin
Yang
Mid-1930s to mid-1940s:
under the control of
Muslim warlord Ma
Zhongying
Xinjiang
- 1944-1949: Eastern Turkestan Republic
- 1949: Chinese Communist Party
- 8 ETR leaders died on their way to Beijing
- 1955: an autonomous region of the PRC
- 1958 to 1971: radical policies and criticisms
- Muslim Uyghur resistance:
- the Khotan rising in 1954
- East. Turkestan People’s Revolutionary Party
- climaxed in the 1980s and 1990s
- the Urumqi Riots in July 2009
- Chinese regulation:
- Chinese Islamic Association
Hong Kong
- December 1941 to August 1945: Japanese
Occupation of HK (‘3 years and 8 months’)
- After WWII: returned to Britain instead of the
Nationalists (under Chiang Kai-shek)
- Anticipated eventual handover (in 1997) led to
a priority placed on economic development
- Near the end of the Chinese Civil War (194549): a mass migration to the South from
mainland, because HK became a ‘shield’ from
communist China
Hong Kong
- Since 1976: Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform
& ‘opening up’
- Negotiations between British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and China’s leader Deng
- In theory, difference between:
- Hong Kong Island – ceded to Britain in perpetuity
since 1842
- Kowloon Peninsula – ceded to Britain in 1860
- the New Territories – 99 year lease since 1898
- Sino-British Joint Declaration on HK:
September 29, 1984
Margaret Thatcher in Beijing, 1982
Hong Kong
- Thatcher discusses HK’s future prior to
handover to China (1:24-9:49):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ2AJGoPZSA
- Under the Joint Agreement:
- HK returned on July 1, 1997
- Special Administrative Region (SAR) – enjoy a
considerable degree of autonomy in all questions
with the exception of foreign policy and matters
connected with defense
- “one country, two systems” – also for Taiwan?
- Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) replaced Chris Pattern
- Macao returned to China in December 1999
Retrocession of Taiwan in Taipei, October 1945
Taiwan
- Cold War in Asia
- Nationalist Taiwan vs. Communist China
- Nationalist/GMD arrival in Taiwan
- military officer and civilian administrators
established themselves as new elites
- excluded native aborigines and the ‘indigenous’
Taiwanese from political power
- Conflicts between the ‘indigenous’ Taiwanese
and the new GMD Han Chinese since 1945
- GMD ‘enemy’ changed from the CCP to the
Taiwanese Democratic Progress Party
(allowed only after 1987)
Chen Shui-bien
2000-2008 (DPP)
Ma Ying-jeou
2008-2016 (GMD)
Sichuan Earthquake, May 12, 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJBYxxQwTZo (0’00 to 5’20)
Beijing Olympics, August 8-24, 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii-n_QSS0og
Beijing at 2008
- Sichuan Earthquake on May 12
- Beijing Olympics: August 8-24
- Shenzhou 7 (神舟七號): September 25-28
Hu Jintao
PRC President
2003-2013