Military Force and Elite Power in the Formation of Modern China

Military Force and Elite Power in the Formation of Modern China PDF Author: Edward A. McCord
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317907787
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The China we know today emerged at the end of a long period of internal rebellions, civil wars, foreign invasions, and revolutionary insurrections that stretched across the nineteenth century to the mid-point of the twentieth. This book explores one important consequence of this situation—the increased role of military force in the determination of elite social, political, and economic power, and presents fascinating case studies of the warlords, militia leaders, and military officers who benefited from this. Examining the intersection of military force and elite power in the formative years of modern Chinese history, this book highlights just how important military force was to elite power in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China in a context of frequent warfare and political turmoil. It shows that the way in which military empowerment unfolded and who exactly was empowered, depended heavily on shifting military and political conditions, and each case confirms the extent to which military force emerged as a consistently significant determinant of elite power across this period. Indeed, the transformative effect of military force on social and political structures of power revealed by these studies sheds distinctive light on the prevalence, and wide-ranging impact, of military conflicts in this period. In turn, these studies also provide a particular perspective on the fluid boundaries of, as well as the constraints on, elite power in Chinese society in a time of intense social and political change. This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the rise of modern China, and provides a keen insight into impact of war on the country, as such, it will be welcomed by students and scholars interested in Chinese history, Asian history, and military history more broadly.

Military Force and Elite Power in the Formation of Modern China

Military Force and Elite Power in the Formation of Modern China PDF Author: Edward A. McCord
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317907787
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
The China we know today emerged at the end of a long period of internal rebellions, civil wars, foreign invasions, and revolutionary insurrections that stretched across the nineteenth century to the mid-point of the twentieth. This book explores one important consequence of this situation—the increased role of military force in the determination of elite social, political, and economic power, and presents fascinating case studies of the warlords, militia leaders, and military officers who benefited from this. Examining the intersection of military force and elite power in the formative years of modern Chinese history, this book highlights just how important military force was to elite power in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China in a context of frequent warfare and political turmoil. It shows that the way in which military empowerment unfolded and who exactly was empowered, depended heavily on shifting military and political conditions, and each case confirms the extent to which military force emerged as a consistently significant determinant of elite power across this period. Indeed, the transformative effect of military force on social and political structures of power revealed by these studies sheds distinctive light on the prevalence, and wide-ranging impact, of military conflicts in this period. In turn, these studies also provide a particular perspective on the fluid boundaries of, as well as the constraints on, elite power in Chinese society in a time of intense social and political change. This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the rise of modern China, and provides a keen insight into impact of war on the country, as such, it will be welcomed by students and scholars interested in Chinese history, Asian history, and military history more broadly.

Governing the Dead

Governing the Dead PDF Author: Linh D. Vu
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501756524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
In Governing the Dead, Linh D. Vu explains how the Chinese Nationalist regime consolidated control by honoring its millions of war dead, allowing China to emerge rapidly from the wreckage of the first half of the twentieth century to become a powerful state, supported by strong nationalistic sentiment and institutional infrastructure. The fall of the empire, internecine conflicts, foreign invasion, and war-related disasters claimed twenty to thirty million Chinese lives. Vu draws on government records, newspapers, and petition letters from mourning families to analyze how the Nationalist regime's commemoration of the dead and compensation of the bereaved actually fortified its central authority. By enshrining the victims of violence as national ancestors, the Republic of China connected citizenship to the idea of the nation, promoting loyalty to the "imagined community." The regime constructed China's first public military cemetery and hundreds of martyrs' shrines, collectively mourned millions of fallen soldiers and civilians, and disbursed millions of yuan to tens of thousands of widows and orphans. The regime thus exerted control over the living by creating the state apparatus necessary to manage the dead. Although the Communist forces prevailed in 1949, the Nationalists had already laid the foundation for the modern nation-state through their governance of dead citizens. The Nationalist policies of glorifying and compensating the loyal dead in an age of catastrophic destruction left an important legacy: violence came to be celebrated rather than lamented.

The Chinese Navy

The Chinese Navy PDF Author: Institute for National Strategic Studies
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160897634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.

Famine Relief in Warlord China

Famine Relief in Warlord China PDF Author: Pierre Fuller
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684176026
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Famine Relief in Warlord China is a reexamination of disaster responses during the greatest ecological crisis of the pre-Nationalist Chinese republic. In 1920–1921, drought and ensuing famine devastated more than 300 counties in five northern provinces, leading to some 500,000 deaths. Long credited to international intervention, the relief effort, Pierre Fuller shows, actually began from within Chinese social circles. Indigenous action from the household to the national level, modeled after Qing-era relief protocol, sustained the lives of millions of the destitute in Beijing, in the surrounding districts of Zhili (Hebei) Province, and along the migrant and refugee trail in Manchuria, all before joint foreign–Chinese international relief groups became a force of any significance. Using district gazetteers, stele inscriptions, and the era’s vibrant Chinese press, Fuller reveals how a hybrid civic sphere of military authorities working with the public mobilized aid and coordinated migrant movement within stricken communities and across military domains. Ultimately, the book’s spotlight on disaster governance in northern China in 1920 offers new insights into the social landscape just before the region’s descent, over the next decade, into incessant warfare, political struggle, and finally the normalization of disaster itself.

Women and Their Warlords

Women and Their Warlords PDF Author: Kate Merkel-Hess
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022683431X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Explores the complex history and legacy of elite wives, concubines, and daughters of warlords in twentieth-century China. In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives and personalities of the female relatives of the military rulers who governed regions of China from 1916 to 1949. Posing for candid photographs and sitting for interviews, these women did not merely advance male rulers’ agendas. They advocated for social and political changes, gave voice to feminist ideas, and shaped how the public perceived them. As the first publicly political partners in modern China, the wives and concubines of Republican-era warlords changed how people viewed elite women’s engagement in politics. Drawing on popular media sources, including magazine profiles and gossip column items, Merkel-Hess draws unexpected connections between militarism, domestic life, and state power in this insightful new account of gender and authority in twentieth-century China.

From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes

From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes PDF Author: Jeff Kyong-McClain
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000964337
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
From Missionary Education to Confucius Institutes examines the history and globalization of cultural exchange between the United States and China and corrects many myths surrounding the incompatibility of American and Chinese cultures in the higher education sphere. Providing a fresh look at the role of non-state actors in advancing Sino-American cross-cultural knowledge exchange, the book presents empirical studies highlighting the diverse experiences and practices involved. Case studies include the U.S.-initiated missionary education in modern China, the involvement of private foundations and professional associations in education, the impact of Chinese and American laws on student exchanges, and the evaluation of the experience of U.S. Confucius Institutes. This book will appeal to students and scholars of U.S. and Chinese higher education from the past to the present, as well as international admission officers and university executives who are concerned about the global educational partnership with China and questions around the internationalization of education more broadly.

Frontier Fieldwork

Frontier Fieldwork PDF Author: Andres Rodriguez
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774867582
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
The centre may hold, but borders can fray. Frontier Fieldwork explores the work of social scientists, agriculturists, photographers, and missionaries who took to the field in China’s southwest at a time when foreign political powers were contesting China’s claims over its frontiers. In the early twentieth century, when the threat of imperialism loomed large in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, these fieldworkers undertook a nation-building exercise to unite a disparate, multi-ethnic population. Andres Rodriguez exposes the transformative power of the fieldworkers’ efforts, which placed China’s margins at the centre of its nation-making process and race to modernity.

Governing the Dead

Governing the Dead PDF Author: Linh D. Vu
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501756516
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
In Governing the Dead, Linh D. Vu explains how the Chinese Nationalist regime consolidated control by honoring its millions of war dead, allowing China to emerge rapidly from the wreckage of the first half of the twentieth century to become a powerful state, supported by strong nationalistic sentiment and institutional infrastructure. The fall of the empire, internecine conflicts, foreign invasion, and war-related disasters claimed twenty to thirty million Chinese lives. Vu draws on government records, newspapers, and petition letters from mourning families to analyze how the Nationalist regime's commemoration of the dead and compensation of the bereaved actually fortified its central authority. By enshrining the victims of violence as national ancestors, the Republic of China connected citizenship to the idea of the nation, promoting loyalty to the "imagined community." The regime constructed China's first public military cemetery and hundreds of martyrs' shrines, collectively mourned millions of fallen soldiers and civilians, and disbursed millions of yuan to tens of thousands of widows and orphans. The regime thus exerted control over the living by creating the state apparatus necessary to manage the dead. Although the Communist forces prevailed in 1949, the Nationalists had already laid the foundation for the modern nation-state through their governance of dead citizens. The Nationalist policies of glorifying and compensating the loyal dead in an age of catastrophic destruction left an important legacy: violence came to be celebrated rather than lamented.

Malaysia's Defeat of Armed Communism

Malaysia's Defeat of Armed Communism PDF Author: Ong Weichong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317626893
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The Malayan Communist Party’s (MCP) decisive defeat in 1960 led many academics and Counterinsurgency (COIN) experts to overlook the resurrection of its armed struggle in 1968. Most scholars continue to regard the so-called ‘Second Emergency’ in Malaysia (1968-1989) as a non-event, and most of the recently published work on the MCP tends to focus on the earlier Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). This book looks at the Second Emergency through recently released archival material from the National Archives in London, the National Australian Archives and the Australian War Memorial, as well as interviews with military and diplomatic officers from the UK and Thailand. It presents the first serious strategic and operational study of the Second Emergency, and analyses three areas of historical significance: the CPM’s strategy for armed struggle in the Second Emergency; the actual effectiveness of the CPM’s subversive propaganda on its target population and most importantly; the counterinsurgency (COIN) response and strategy of the Malaysian state and to a lesser extent the counter-subversion strategy of Singapore in the post-colonial era.

Britain and China, 1840-1970

Britain and China, 1840-1970 PDF Author: Robert Bickers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317419030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This book presents a range of new research on British-Chinese relations in the period from Britain’s first imperial intervention in China up to the 1960s. Topics covered include economic issues such as fi nance, investment and Chinese labour in British territories, questions of perceptions on both sides, such as British worries about, and exaggeration of, the ‘China threat’, including to India, and British aggression towards, and eventual withdrawal from, China.