In this ground-breaking study, Hsiao Ting Lin demonstrates that the Chinese frontier was the subject neither of concerted aggression on the part of a centralized and indoctrinated Chinese government nor of an ideologically driven nationalist ethnopolitics. Instead, nationalist sovereignty over Tibet and other border regions was the result of rhetorical grandstanding by Chiang Kai-shek and his regime. Tibet and Nationalist China's Frontier makes a crucial contribution to the understanding of past and present China-Tibet relations. A counterpoint to erroneous historical assumptions, this book will change the way Tibetologists and modern Chinese historians frame future studies of the region.

The essays in this volume look at these issues over a long span of time, questioning whether the process of expansion was a benevolent civilizing mission.

About the Author
Diana Lary is a professor of history and director of the Centre of Chinese Research at the Institute of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia. Among her many publications, she is co-editor with Stephen MacKinnon of Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on Modern China.

Reviews
By presenting new work, much of it by younger and Canadian scholars, this volume, complete with a comprehensive bibliography, offers access to a burgeoning literature on China's borders from the Ming to the present. -- Valerie Hansen, Yale University * International History Review XXX, 3 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780774813341
Author Diana Lary
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 480g