One
hundred years ago today, China kick-started a rebellion which overthrew
centuries of imperial rule, stripping the young emperor and regent of power.
Ecstatic revolutionaries did away with the
reviled pigtails mandated by the Manchu rulers and decried feudal practices.
But one thing was kept by the new republic:
the maps of the land.
This was no mere coincidence. Maps play a role
in preserving the national sense of identity in China. They are also a means of
patriotic education. And they are likely to continue to be used to stir
patriotism, and to project China's image and power, into the 21st century.
In 1911, the Qing ruled over an empire that
was the largest in expanse in China's history, occupying a territory that
stretched across five time zones, twice the size of what was considered China
when the Qing first ruled the land in the 1600s.
"To China Proper, through alliances,
warfare and guile they added Mongolia, East Turkistan, Tibet - and
Taiwan," wrote analysts Charles Horner and Eric Brown in the latest issue
of the China Heritage Quarterly.
This legacy of the Qing - adding land to
empire - continues to make itself felt today as China and global Chinese
communities celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1911 rebellion, also called
the Xinhai Revolution in China (after the Chinese calendar year).
One century on, China's rulers have done well.
Despite turbulent changes of regime, and a major invasion by the Japanese, the
territory of the People's Republic of China (PRC) today largely corresponds
with that of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. With the exception of Mongolia and
Taiwan, seen as a renegade province by China, the leaders in Beijing today
control much the same amount of land as Pu Yi, the last emperor.
Today's China is as much a multi-ethnic empire
as it was during the Qing Dynasty. China has successfully calibrated the
imperial concept of unbounded domain (jiangyu) to fit the modern idea of a
bounded sovereign territory (zhuquan lingtu).
It has survived as a sovereign entity with
intact boundaries, where others failed. The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991,
joining the ranks of the British and Ottoman empires.
This achievement is the result of more than
just pure might, militarily or economically. China's ability to preserve its
geographic boundaries is due in no small part to its systematic use of maps as
patriotic tools. For the past century, Chinese governments, whether headed by
the Kuomintang or the Communist Party, have drummed into the people a
cartographic national education.
"National humiliation maps" in
Chinese atlases seared into the popular mind the perils of lost territories.
They played up fears of the country being once again "carved up like a
melon", a popular phrase that conjures up the grim era of unequal treaties
in the 19th century that saw a feeble China ceding territories and other
concessions to foreign powers.
One such map was printed in the best-selling
hypernationalist book, China's Road Under The Shadow Of Globalisation, in 1999.
It shows China divided into pieces, with Tibet, Manchuria and Taiwan presented
as independent states.
Professor William Callahan of the University
of Manchester sees a link in the rise in publication of these maps with key
political events in the past 20 years.
They appeared during the handover of Hong Kong
in 1997, and during the 60th anniversary of China's victory over Japan in World
War II in 2005, with the apparent intent of stirring patriotic sentiments.
Some came into prominence in history textbooks
after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, as the Communist Party sought to divert the
young people's anger outwards, he observed.
Such efforts have largely paid off. Young
Chinese today hold strong views about the inviolability of their country's
territory. What's more, they are likely to push back against any perceived
threats.
Last year, Chinese college students angered by
Japan's claims over the Diaoyu Islands took to the streets in protest in
several cities. When China discussed with Russia the disputed sovereignty of
two islands in 2004, Chinese netizens slammed their government for attempting
to give up part of the motherland.
But China's ability to retain the boundaries
of the Qing empire has not been without cost. Besides disputes with
neighbouring states, it has had to struggle with control over restive ethnic
minority regions.
Tibet and Xinjiang chafe under Han Chinese
rule, just as the Han Chinese had resented the Manchus and used that as a
rallying cry for the 1911 uprising.
Repeated bouts of insurrection in Xinjiang and
cases of self-immolation by protesting Tibetan monks point to the difficulty of
maintaining a multi-ethnic sprawling state.
Externally, China has fought border wars with
nearly all its neighbours between 1949 and 1980, including India in 1962,
Russia in 1969, and Vietnam in 1979.
"The PRC's boundary disputes since 1949
thus are an imperial legacy," wrote Prof Callahan. "Although the PRC
has negotiated most of its disputed boundaries, yearnings to recover a vast
collection of 'lost territories' continue to emerge in official, semi-official
and popular discourse," he added.
The ongoing dispute over South China Sea
islands and waters is one example. Beijing's claim to sovereignty over the area
is said to be based partly on Qing era demarcations.
As China Maritime Law Association member Jiang
He wrote in the China Daily last year: "During the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese
government marked the Nansha Islands (Spratly Islands) on the authoritative
maps and established control over them. All these facts are in line with the
requirements of the occupation principle."
Cartographic continuity 100 years after the
Xinhai Revolution has given the Chinese much pride. "Territorial
integrity", a phrase Beijing loves to use, has become sacrosanct. But one
empire's notion of territorial integrity can easily overstep into another
nation's boundary.
China has much to celebrate at this centenary,
and other nations will also laud its successes. But they will also be watching
to see how China manages the ambivalent legacy of empire.
Peh Shing Huei
The Straits Times
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