AHA Session 330
Monday, January 6, 2025: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Murray Hill West (New York Hilton, Second Floor)
Chair:
C. Patterson Giersch, Wellesley College
Papers:
Comment:
C. Patterson Giersch, Wellesley College
Session Abstract
Following the Qing military expansion of the eighteenth century, Han Chinese traders and migrants ventured into non-Han border regions, bringing goods, capital, and technologies into the grasslands, oases, mountains, and forests, while also procuring products from these regions into the markets of China proper. Centering on Chinese commercial endeavors in Mongolia, Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, this panel delves into the way in which commerce and merchant networks facilitated the integration of these frontiers into both the Chinese and global market systems, and the impact of such expansion on local societies. Wei-chieh Tsai investigates the process of nativization among Han settlers on both Qing Inner Asian and maritime frontiers and reveals parallel strategies of adaptation employed by these settlers in distinct frontiers, in response to the Qing court’s segregation policy. Kwangmin Kim analyzes the organization of timber production in Manchuria and examines how the timber commodity chain reconfigured this mountain frontier, influencing its spatial relations with the larger rim region of the East China Sea. Eric Schluessel explores the conflict of competing Islamic and Han economic elites in Xinjiang and traces the ecological changes and emergence of Chinese capitalism in this Muslim frontier brought by Qing reincorporation and land reclamation after 1877. Yi Wang focuses on the development of long-distance wool trade and banking institutions in the thriving town of Baotou in Inner Mongolia and discusses how frontier capitalism facilitated urbanization and trans-regional incorporation by tying the nomadic frontier to an increasingly integrated world economy. Taken together, the panelists argue that mutual adaptation between Han settlers and local societies on Qing frontiers had far-reaching consequences, impacting political economy, ecological transformations, and cultural practices within both the settler society and indigenous communities. Ultimately, these dynamics paved the way for the incorporation of diverse frontiers into the imperial framework and the global capitalist system. This indicates that the emergence of Chinese capitalism cannot be solely attributed to the influence of western imperial powers; it must also be situated within the context of indigenous commercial development.
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