The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Reins of Liberation: An Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1911-1950
The author's purpose in writing this book is to use the Mongolian question to illuminate much larger issues of twentieth-century Asian history: how war, revolution, and great-power rivalries induced or restrained the formation of nationhood and territoriality. He thus continues the argument he made in Frontier Passages that on its way to building a communist state, the CCP was confronted by a series of fundamental issues pertinent to China's transition to nation-statehood. The book's focus is on the Mongolian question, which ran through Chinese politics in the first half of the twentieth century. Between the Revolution of 1911 and the Communists' triumph in 1949, the course of the Mongolian question best illustrates the genesis, clashes, and convergence of Chinese and Mongolian national identities and geopolitical visions.
What People are Saying
"With the publication of this book, Mongolia and the Mongols will be central to any study of China's history of modern diplomacy, China's nationalism, communism, the Chinese Communist Party-Nationalist struggle for supremacy, and studies of ethnicity. A truly monumental piece of scholarship."—Uradyn E. Bulag, City University of New York
Chapter List
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I Independence and Revolution, 1911–1945
1 China and Mongolia: From Empire to National States
2 "Red Protective Deity": World Revolution and Geopolitics
3 Dialects of Brotherhood: The Chinese Communist Party and the Mongolian People's Republic
Part II Autonomy and Civil War, 1945–1950
4 "National Fever": The Genesis of an Autonomous Movement
5 Ethnic Strategy: The Eastern Mongolian Experience
6 "Restoration": The Guomindang's Administrative Endeavor
7 "Liberation": The Chinese Communist Party's
Part III Ethnicity and Hegemony, 1945–1950
8 "New Frontier": America's Encounter with Inner Mongolia
9 The Range of "Wild Wind": Moscow's Inner Mongolia Stratagem
10 The Structure of Bloc Politics: Mao, Stalin, and Mongolian Independence
11 Epilogue: Territoriality, Power, and Legitimacy
A Note on Transliteration
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index