Workshop on East Asia:
Politics, Economy and Society Presents
“From ‘Territorial’ Segregation to ‘Regional’ Segregation: The Transformation of Inner Mongolia Frontier and the 1911 Revolutionary Crisis”
Liping Wang
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Sociology
University of Chicago
4:00-5:30pm, Tuesday
May 4, 2010
Pick Lounge
5828 South University Ave.
Workshop website: http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/eastasia/
Student coordinator: Jean Lin (jeanlin@uchicago.edu)
Faculty sponsors: Dali Yang, Cheol-sung Lee, Dingxin Zhao
The workshop is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance, please contact the student coordinator in advance.
Abstract:
This presentation is built upon two chapters of my
dissertation. It is guided by the puzzling question: Why
despite the dethronement of the Manchu emperor as well as
the declared independence of the Outer Mongolia over the
1911 revolution, was the Inner Mongolia frontier not split
from the new Chinese Republic? To answer this question, my
presentation first analyzes the nature of the 1911
revolution, giving particular discussion on how to pin down
the “ethnic” character of the revolution. Then my
presentation moves to the eventful analysis of the Inner
Mongolia frontier during the revolution. By using the
archives from the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan
Affairs (Mengzangyuan), I delineate how the Inner Mongolia
frontier was actually involved in the political anarchy
created by the revolution, even though a direct attack from
the revolutionaries was insignificant. In this part, I pay
most attention to the structural transformation of Inner
Mongolia frontier since the New Policy reform, which I call
the transformation from “territorial” segregation
to “regional” segregation. I argue this structural change is
indispensible for us to understand the specific choices and
negotiations made between the frontier military officials,
the Mongol nobles and the central government over the
revolutionary crisis. And therefore it is crucially
important for the explanation of the stability of Inner
Mongolia frontier during a tumultuous revolutionary crisis.