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Chinese historians generally describe the process of Chinese territorial expansion as one of ‘unification’ rather than ‘conquest’, with expansion being seen as a progressive evolution towards a preordained and inevitable unity. Territory, once taken, has been regarded as immutably Chinese. [721] There is a powerful underlying assumption that the numerous races and nationalities have always demonstrated undivided loyalty to the imperial regimes. [722] The truth, in fact, is rather different. Far from China’s expansion to its present borders being a harmonious and natural process, the realization of a nation always waiting to be born, it was in fact, as one would expect, a complicated process of war, rivalry, ethnic conflict, hegemony, assimilation, conquest and settlement. [723] The embryo of contemporary China was born out of the military victory of the Qin kingdom (221–206 BC), following the Warring State period during which over 100 states fought for supremacy in north and central China. The Qin dynasty — which, prior to its triumph, roughly coincided with the present north-west province of Shaanxi — eventually emerged victorious over six other kingdoms and succeeded in expanding its territory sixfold. [724] During the 2,000 years that followed the Qin victory, China expanded southwards to the South China Sea, northwards to incorporate much of the steppe lands, and westwards into Central Asia. Far from this enormous geographical expansion being characterized by a natural process of fusion, peace and harmony, it predictably entailed much conflict and many wars. [725]
The growth of China is the story of the outward expansion of the northern Chinese. The best-known area of conflict concerns the region to the north of Beijing, bordering on what we now know roughly as Mongolia and Manchuria. For thousands of years this region was contested between the northern horse-bound nomads of the steppes and the agrarian-based Chinese. The picture painted by official Chinese histories is of aggressive, rampaging nomads and peace-loving Chinese peasants. [726] While it is true that the Chinese were constantly preoccupied with the security of their northern borders — until the Qing dynasty, the steppe nomads showed themselves to be highly effective fighters — the Chinese frequently sought to conquer and hold the steppe lands to their north. Rather than seeing the Great Wall as a line of fortified defence against the nomads, in fact, it is more appropriate to regard it as the outer perimeter of an expanding Chinese empire. [727] The names of the fortifications reveal the nature of the Chinese intent: ‘Tower for Suppressing the North’ and ‘Fort Where the Barbarians are Killed’. The Chinese saw the nomads as much their inferior, referring to them as barbarians. It was the long-ru
The conquest of the lands to the south is less well known. It took place over a period of nearly three mille
The expansion of the Chinese empire over such a long historical period involved what might be described as a steadily moving frontier or, to be more precise, many moving frontiers. One of the characteristics of Chinese expansion was the resettlement of enormous numbers of people across China, with population movement, always highly regulated, being an important instrument of government policy. The Qin, for example, deployed it on a massive scale to occupy and pacify their greatly expanded territory. One of the most remarkable examples was the huge resettlement of Sichuan province in the south-west, whose population had fallen to around half a million by 1681, but which reached 207 million in 1812 as a result of the movement of migrant-settlers, organized and orchestrated by the Qing dynasty. [735] This process is still evident today, with the steady influx of Han migrants into I
[721] Geoff Wade, ‘Some Topoi in Southern Border Historiography During the Ming (and Their Modern Relevance)’ in Sabine Dabringhaus and Roderich Ptak, eds, China and Her Neighbours: Borders, Visions of the Other, Foreign Policy 10th to 19th Century (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), p. 147.
[722] Perdue, China Marches West, pp. 510-11.
[723] Zhao, A Nation State by Construction, p. 169; interview with Wang Xiaodong, Beijing, 29 August 2005; and Wade, ‘Some Topoi’, pp. 135- 57.
[724] Zheng Yangwen, ‘Move People Buttress Frontier: Regime Orchestrate [sic] Migration-Settlement in the Two Mille
[725] Johnston argues that Chinese military strategy, contrary to much conventional wisdom, has traditionally placed the major emphasis on what he calls a ‘parabellum’ approach — that conflict is a constant feature of human affairs; Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 249-59. Wang Xiaodong points out: ‘Chinese academics say China has a peaceful history but the Qing dynasty was very violent in its imperial expansion. When people tell you that China was peaceful, it is lies.’ Interview with Wang Xiaodong, Beijing, 29 August 2005.
[726] Lovell, The Great Wall, pp. 43-4.
[727] Ibid., p. 83.
[728] ‘The Mongol threat was defined in essentially racialist, zero-sum terms.’ Johnston, Cultural Realism, p. 250.
[729] Lovell, The Great Wall, p. 109.
[730] Wang Gungwu, Joining the Modern World: Inside and Outside China (Singapore and London: Singapore University Press and World Scientific, 2000), p. 11.
[731] Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, pp. 124- 6; and Lovell, The Great Wall, p. 37.
[732] Perdue, China Marches West, pp. 333-42.
[733] Ibid., p. 544.
[734] Ibid., p. 345.
[735] Zheng Yangwen, ‘Move People Buttress Frontier’, pp. 1–4, 11–12.