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As a common cultural phenomenon in China and the West, alchemy not only embodies the scientific spirit of people before modern times, but also contains certain religious beliefs, and even creates unrealistic secular imaginations. When Catholicism entered China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Chinese also projected this imagination of alchemy onto the missionaries. Behind this imagination actually lays the strong interest of Chinese people in the financial resources of the missionaries. On the one hand, there is the historical influence of traditional Chinese alchemy, and on the other hand, there is the curiosity caused by the lifestyle of missionaries in China. The imagination of alchemy not only reflects a historical aspect of the encounter between China and the West during the Ming and Qing dynasties, but also reflects a complex social psychology of mixed curiosity, panic, suspicion, and vigilance in pre-modern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to qualitatively/historically examine and compare the characteristics of China's traditional "Hanfu" and Japan's traditional "Kimono" garments. A survey model was adopted based on a literature review of these traditional garment characteristics. In the findings, it is explained that the Chinese Han traditional garment hanfu has not been able to preserve its features until today. With the help of sources and visuals, it is stated that the kimono, which is derived from hanfu, has not undergone changes in cultural exchanges, unlike China, and thus many basic elements of the original hanfu have been preserved. Hanfu, the traditional dress of the Chinese before the 17th century, includes all kinds of traditional clothing worn by the Han Chinese ethnic group. The teachings of Confucius, which enlightened Chinese society for thousands of years, recognized the hanfu as a very important part of Chinese ceremony and ritual. This traditional garment has a history as long as the history of the Han Chinese. The hanfu, with its ethnic and aesthetic characteristics, was eradicated in the 17th century due to repression by the Manchu invaders. When the Manchus ruled China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), they thought that they would have great difficulty ruling the Han Chinese. Thus, all Han Chinese in the Manchu system were forced to wear a garment called "Gipao". Over time, the traditional Han Chinese dress, the hanfu, was completely replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Today, the historical Chinese hanfu is usually only worn at festivals, religious ceremonies and movies. The hanfu is usually wide and long-sleeved. The hanfu is a long garment because in ancient Chinese thought it was impolite to show the feet. The kimono has been recognized as a traditional Japanese garment since the 12th century, although it was adapted from the hanfu. Historically, the hanfu has had a significant influence on the traditional costumes and styles of many other Asian countries. Wearing the kimono, like wearing the hanfu, signifies both the spirit and the garment. Passed down from generation to generation, traditional kimonos, with their fabric characteristics and patterns, express the age, social status and style of the wearer. From the 1600s onwards, Japan had a period of two hundred and fifty years in which it closed its doors to all foreigners. During this period, the Japanese continued to focus on their own tradition and art, advancing the art of kimono patterning and weaving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the theoretical level, Bartsch shows that Plato's I Republic i and the creation myth underpinning the ideal city, Kallipolis, have been the subject of considerable discussion in China. I Plato goes to China i is an expanded version of the Martin Lectures that Shadi Bartsch delivered at Oberlin College in 2018. [Extracted from the article]

The New Text school Gongyang Commentary on the Confucian classic the Spring and Autumn Annals operates on the principle that the classical text contains deep meanings that lie beyond the literal sense of the words and need to be discovered by reading between the lines. Such a principle of the hermeneutics of suspicion makes it possible for the interpreter to fit the text into any context or framework with political implications, and the Gongyang school commentaries have indeed often been used for a particular political purpose, with the general tendency of establishing the dichotomy of the Chinese and the barbarian in political Confucianism. Although the Gongyang commentaries did not have much influence for a very long time in Chinese history, it was revived during the last imperial dynasty of Qing and by the royalist and reformist Kang Youwei at the end of Qing. Some Chinese scholars have taken a new interest in the Gongyang commentary tradition for expressing their views on contemporary geopolitics, and therefore it is important to review the Gongyang Commentary and its hermeneutic principles to help us better understand the connection of hermeneutics with politics in contemporary scholarship in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 1911, as a revolution continued to unfold in China, the secretary of the Melbourne-based revolutionary group the Young China League wrote a scathing letter to the Chinese Consul General in Australia criticising the consulate for raising the 'hateful flag' of the Qing Dynasty, and showing sympathies with the 'despotic' Manchu government. At the centre of this letter was a clear frustration at the Manchu ethnic group that then ruled China. This article examines this letter as a case study in the development of anti-Manchu rhetoric among Chinese people all over the world, revealing its impact on Chinese Australians' changing concepts of loyalty during the Qing Dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Virtual Archaeology Review is the property of Virtual Archaeology Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholarship on the origins of modern territoriality and the modernist conception of territory has largely been confined to Europe and its colonial histories. Few attempts have been made to understand modern territoriality from an alternative epistemic starting point. This article moves beyond critiques of Eurocentrism by examining the territorial metamorphosis of the Qing Empire to modern China. Like the United States and Russia, China has retained its early modern continental colonial possessions. In order to explain the territorialisation of the multi-ethnic Qing empire, this article engages empirically with cartographic and textual representations of China from Confucian literati scholars, European Jesuit cartographers and the Manchu imperial court from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. The empirical study shows that by the early 19th century, a new territorialised conception of 'China' closely resembling that of modern territoriality had emerged. This 'modern' and Sinocentric form of territoriality encompassed areas that were hitherto seen as foreign and non-Chinese. In opposition to the extant Eurocentric historiography, this article traces the emergence of modern territoriality in imperial China to a nexus of European cartographic techniques, Qing imperial conquests and the literati synthesis of Manchu imperial and Sinocentric forms of territoriality. By showing the deep historical processes and global entanglements behind the emergence of modern China as a territorial state, the article makes a case for a polycentric account of modern territoriality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Chinese state sacrificial ritual represented a symbolic system of integrating religious belief, divine authority, and political legitimacy. The Northern Stronghold (Beizhen 北鎮, i.e., Mount Yiwulü 醫巫閭山) was equal in status to the other four strongholds, which, moreover, served as a strategic military fortress and represented the earth virtue in the early state sacrifice system. In the late imperial era of China, and during the Yuan (1279–1368) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties in particular, the Northern Stronghold swiftly achieved prominence and eventually became an instrument used by minority ethnic groups, namely the Mongolians and Manchus, when elaborating upon the legitimacy of their political regimes. During the Yuan dynasty, the mountain spirits of the five strongholds (Wuzhen 五鎮) were formally invested as kings and, as a result, were accorded equivalent sacrifices in comparison to those given to the five sacred peaks (Wuyue 五嶽). Given that the Northern Stronghold was located near the northeast of Beijing, the Yuan government considered it the foundation of the state. Thereafter, the Northern Stronghold was regarded as the most important of the five stronghold mountains. In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Northern Stronghold Temple (Beizhenmiao 北鎮廟) was reconstructed as both a military fortress and religious site, while its representation as a significant site for a foreign conquest dynasty diminished and its significance as a bastion of anti-insurgent suppression emerged. By the Qing dynasty, the Northern Stronghold was regarded as an integral component of the geographic origin of the Manchu people and thereby assumed once again a position of substantial political significance. Several Qing emperors visited the Northern Stronghold and left poems and prose written in graceful Chinese to present their high respect and their mastery of Chinese culture. The history of the Northern Stronghold demonstrates how the ethnic minority regimes successfully utilized the traditional Chinese state sacrificial ritual to serve their political purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qiu Jun of Ming China, with the aim of "rendering the Zhuzi jiali both accessible and practicable for ordinary folks," compiled the Jiali yijie. Among the annotations of Jiali in the Ming dynasty, Jiali yijie gained the widest popularity and greatest influence, and was regarded as a new classic, on par with the Jiali itself. In the 16th century, Jiali yijie was also introduced to Joseon Korea, where it was regarded as "an important supplement to the Zhuzi jiali" by Korean scholars, attaining a high level of popularity. This paper draws on 23 versions of the Jiali yijie from the Ming dynasty and 33 from the Qing. Historically, the Jiali yijie was introduced to the Joseon dynasty from China by Kim Anguk in 1518. Through the comparison of these four Joseon print versions and their Chinese counterparts, we are led to the conclusion that it was the Yingtian prefecture's print, dated the twelfth year of the Zhengde Era, that Kim Anguk brought back to Joseon from Ming China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism Tribune / Lvyou Xuekan is the property of Tourism Institute of Beijing Union University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article traces the Chinese accommodation of foreigners in the lower section of the Pearl River delta during the Opium War to the region's social ecology in late imperial times. With a long tradition of living with foreign sojourners and their vessels, Chinese people in the delta congregated on an unprecedented scale at the outer anchorages within the present-day Hong Kong region in 1839–1841 to trade with Euro-American merchants and the British expedition. As mobile and violent provisioners and opium dealers, they flourished in the littoral borderland between the Qing and British empires. Their cross-shore ventures constituted an intensification of their prewar activities and an economic adaptive strategy in the competitive society of mid-Qing Guangdong. Centering on the socioeconomic lives of ordinary Chinese people, this article problematizes the usage of "Hanjian" and "collaboration" as nationalist and statist labels to summarize Chinese assistance to foreigners in times of external war in modern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tells the intertwined tales of two historical routes that testify to the extensive geographical distance and profound political connections between Tibet and China throughout the modern era. In much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Sichuan Route operated as the transportation artery upon which the Qing empire depended to maintain authority in Kham and Tibet. It was also the site of a rite of passage for frontier functionaries and a meeting ground between imperial agents and the indigenous population. Despite its destruction after the implosion of the Qing in 1911, the histories and memories of the Sichuan Route continued to influence decision-makers in both China and Tibet in the following decades. The Maritime Route, which emerged in the late nineteenth century with the proliferation of steam transportation in Asia, revolutionized the way in which Tibet connected to China and the rest of the world. It also competed with the Sichuan Route and encouraged the Qing to reconfigure its presence in its non-Chinese territories in the southwest. After the empire fell, political tensions continued to evolve around the Maritime Route, which functioned simultaneously as the reluctant choice of Chinese emissaries and a strategic tool that the Lhasa government wielded to curtail China's influence. Through an exploration of the Sichuan Route and the Maritime Route on the levels of experience and representation, this article sketches the two routes' troubled interconnections with each other and with every twist and turn in Sino-Tibetan relations from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decoration with feathers is a universal phenomenon in human history. Objects decorated with feathers were regarded as fine artworks and hence were enormously prized. In ancient China, dotting a surface with blue kingfisher feathers was a famous, complex and delicate decoration technique called diancui. Although various ancient diancui artworks appear in many museums around the world and researchers have realized significant results in studies of the history, technique and conservation of diancui, some key historical details are still not clear. In this research performed during restoration, an important object from the Palace Museum, the "Feather Decoration Hanging Screen with Birds and Flowers Pattern", was analyzed by various scientific technologies. This object is a Chinese imperial artwork of the Qing dynasty (seventeenth to eighteenth century) decorated with kingfisher feathers and the feathers of several other birds, and it represents the highest level of this period. As a typical and valuable case, the results provide important clues for solving questions arising from related academic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confucian culture has always been the most glorious component of Chinese culture. Governing the mainstream world of China for more than two millennia, it has cast a profound and long-lasting influence on the way of thinking and cultural-psychological formation of the Chinese people. Confucianism emphasizes caring about others with benevolence and governing a state with ethics, reflecting the importance of moral principles for politics. "Ren" and "Li" are important parts of the core values of Confucianism, so analyzing the differences between them and their evolution is of great significance for further understanding Confucian culture. This paper selected 132 classic Confucian works from SikuQuanshu , a large collection of books compiled during the Qianlong's reign of the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912), to calculate the use of frequency of "Ren" and "Li" in those books by means of big data. Then the data was analyzed to show the development trajectory of "Ren" and "Li" from the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC) to the Qing Dynasty, providing a new perspective for the study of Confucian culture. The analysis result shows that from the Spring and Autumn period to the Qing Dynasty, both the frequencies of "Ren" and "Li" record a peak and a bottom: "Ren" has its peak in the Sui and Tang period (581–907) while "Li" reaches its climax in the Wei and Jin period (220–420); both "Ren" and "Li" hit their bottom during the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368). The average frequency of "Li" is higher than that of "Ren" during most of the time (eight dynasties and periods). In general, "Li" is more frequently referred to in classic Confucian works than "Ren," especially in those of the pre-Sui and Tang era. The An-Shi Disturbances in the Tang Dynasty may mark an important turning point for the frequencies of "Ren" and "Li" in classic Confucian works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most of Qing domination over China, the Manchu rulers strictly controlled or even prohibited migration of Chinese people to the dynasty's Motherland (long xing zhi di 龍興之地). Only two brief phases are an exception, namely the mid Shunzhi to early Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. During the former, in 1653, a "Regulation for the repopulation and land reclamation of Liaodong" was promulgated, establishing alluring incentives for whoever managed to move a hundred or more people to the region east of the Liao river. Only fifteen years later, when the maneuver had just started to produce some results, the Qing court abolished it. In the long term, such a change of direction appears perfectly normal, considering that later on most of the lands would be assigned to the Eight Banners and the state would have striven to keep the Chinese out. Nevertheless, in the short term, the decision seemed to come out of the blue. An interesting debate on what might have determined the turnabout began in the early twentieth century, and some most recent contributions have been published in the 2000s; yet none of the thesis proposed so far is fully convincing. On the basis of sources that have not yet been taken into account, this paper further investigates into the matter and aims at demonstrating that the concerns which compelled the rulers to officially oppose immigration in the following decades already existed in the very first years of Kangxi reign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many missionaries arrived in China. While spreading Catholicism, they also pushed the cultural exchanges between China and the western world to an unprecedented new height. Up until our times today, there has been an abundance of researches on the missionary strategies of the Jesuits, while the Franciscans, another vital force, has received little mention among scholars, neither have Spanish language historical materials been properly used. This lack of research has proved unhelpful for reproducing missionary history, both from the perspective of Chinese scholars, and from the perspective of putting eastern and western scholars in an equal conversation. Therefore, this article uses the example of the Franciscans' first mission in Chaozhou to analyze their missionary strategies in China (based on the letters collected in Sinica Franciscana). This article intends to point out that during the 17th century, the Franciscans in China had forgone their early rigid strategy, and had later adopted more flexible strategies, in order to adapt to Chinese culture and to preserve their religious mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how Si-shu, a traditional form of local, private education grounded in classical instruction, responded to the rapid modernization of education during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China and to explain why these schools, once extraordinarily adaptable, finally disappeared. Design/methodology/approach: The authors have examined both primary and secondary sources, including government reports, education yearbooks, professional annals, public archives, and published research to analyze the social, political and institutional changes that reshaped Si-shu in the context of China's late-19th- and early-20th-century educational modernization. Findings: Si-shu went through four stages of institutional change during the last century. First, they faced increased competition from new-style (westernized) schools during the late Qing dynasty. Second, they engaged in a process of intense self-reform, particularly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Third, they were marginalized by the new educational systems of the Republic of China, especially the Renxu School System of 1922 and the Wuchen School System of 1928. Finally, after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, they were considered remnants of feudal culture and forcibly replaced by modern schools. Originality/value: This paper brings hitherto unexplored Chinese sources to an English-speaking audience in an effort to shed new light on the history of traditional Chinese education. The fate of Si-shu was part of the larger modernization of Chinese education – a development that had both advantages and disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the twenty first century rise of China and the ensuing shift in the world order, the shortcomings of the Western-based nation state system are becoming apparent, and the traditional concept of I Tianxia i is being reconsidered as a valuable conceptual alternative. It is normal for an ancient civilization to have thought of itself as the center of the world at some point, but only China incorporated this idea into its own name: I Zhongguo i , "the Middle Kingdom". Ma Rong examines how China went from being the Middle Kingdom at the center of its own I Tianxia i system to being a modern nation state in a Western dominated world. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, Huang provides a historical account of the way intellectuals have conceptualized democracy, representative assemblies, and political parties from the end of the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the Republican period. He outlines thirteen items that characterize Chinese democratic thought during this period, before tracing the historical origins of each. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Editor's Note: The essay that follows is based on a conference paper by Dilip K. Basu that has long circulated informally, in the process exercising an unusually high degree of influence for an unpublished commentary. Most notably, some ideas embedded in it have been spread via literary scholar Lydia Liu's engagement with and quoting of the paper in The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Liu 2006), a provocative and much-cited book that calls for a radical rethinking of some of the standard terms and concepts used in the past to refer to the Qing Empire's ties to and conflicts with other political and territorial units. Those familiar with Liu's work will find here an essay that complements some arguments in her book; those who have not read it will be introduced to those ideas for the first time. Beyond this, though, all readers will find a discussion of various ideas and events—visions of China's place in the world, how the story of the Opium War is thought about in different settings, the history of Sinology—shaped by personal as well as scholarly concerns.The essay's ties to the author's life and associations, which come into play more as the essay proceeds, make it a good fit with the goals of our recently introduced and still evolving “Reflections” genre. In addition, since it revisits critically ideas about China associated with the work of John K. Fairbank, it can be placed well beside some of the essays published in the “Legacies” series launched by Kenneth George, in his time as editor of the journal. And regular attendees of the Association for Asian Studies annual meetings may notice that much that follows resonates with the keynote address by Amitav Ghosh, one of those familiar with Basu's essay in draft form, when that conference was held in Toronto in 2012. The pages that follow are tightly focused on China, but Basu's discussion of “xenology” (a term for the ways that cultures think about those deemed “others,” which has, of course, the same root as the more familiar term “xenophobia”) clearly has implications for widely varied times and places, just as the handling of Fairbank's distinctive role in Chinese studies may bring to mind parallels to the influence that other prominent Western academics from the last century once shaped and via their legacies can continue to shape academic work on other parts of Asia. While focused tightly on China, in other words, it has much to offer readers whose primary interest is not in that country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the Ming-Qing period, there lived a certain "wolf people" (Langren) in Southwest China. Some scholars believe that the "wolf people" were part of the Zhuang nationality. This essay argues that the "wolf people" were an independent nationality different from the Zhuang, who were formed in early Ming times and were probably descendants of the "wolf barbarians" (langman) from the Tang dynasty. The "wolf people" inhabited principally in the river basins of Longjiang, Dunijiang, Zuojiang, and Youjiang in western Guangxi prior to the mid-Ming, and gradually expanded to regions in eastern Guangxi and western Guangdong. From mid-Ming to mid-Qing, they were famed nationally for serving as "wolf troops" (langbing). In addition to fighting in wars as soldiers, they were also engaged in farming, fishing, hunting, and other economic activities. The "wolf people" had their own language and unique customs, and they excelled at singing as well. Due to their constant and continuous war involvements, they suffered severe manpower losses over the times. Moreover, as a result of their eastward movement, they spread thinly and scattered in many places in southeastern China. Gradual- ly, they were assimilated by the Zhuang, Yao, and Han nationalities, and then disappeared from historical records by the time of late Qing period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the history of Chinese ideas regarding the Ottoman Empire during the Qing Dynasty. Details are given noting the use of the Mongolian term "Khungghar" to describe the south-western civilization on the edge of the Chinese empire as well as the confusion and unfamiliarity of the group within the Han Chinese nation within the central regions. The development of Chinese military intelligence and political knowledge regarding the Ottomans throughout the 18th and 19th centuries is then described and analyzed.

This is part of a series of "Notes on Qing Political History" that discusses how Qing scholarship has been enriched by new social and cultural research methods, academic exchanges abroad, and cross-disciplinary research. The author contends that Manchu military conquests did not provide a strong enough reason for ethnic strife between Han Chinese and Manchus. This is due to the fact that many Han officials came to support the Qing dynasty by sabotaging the "rebels" who remained loyal to the Ming dynasty. This article discusses the contradictions in the nature of ethnic identity in the context of publically recognized state legitimacy. The first section discusses the relationship between concepts of family units and nationhood. The second discusses state legitimacy. The third discusses private and public interests.

The present study of Qing history has changed its trailing position in the studies of dynastic histories, possibly catching up with and overtaking those on other dynasties. The abundance of primary sources available for research on Qing history cannot be matched by those of any other dynastic history. These sources should be utilized fully and appropriately. To make further improvements, the field of the Qing history study still needs work to rid itself of the interference of ideology. The ongoing compilation project on the Qing History (Qingshi) requires all participants to maintain an attitude of "reverence and trepidation" (chenghuang chengkong) or the utmost respect, to try to avoid the negative influence of the common practice of haste and impatience that prevails today. While compiling the Qing History, contributors should pay special attention to the ethnic conflicts between the Manchu and the Han peoples. The conflicts continued throughout the entire Qing history, and intentional avoidance of the discussion of those conflicts is not recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the historical roots, social implications, and inherent paradoxes of jus sanguinis—a legal principle that uses blood lineage to defines one's nationality—during the years of state succession in twentieth-century China. The study begins with a discussion of why the Qing dynasty established the first Chinese nationality law and chose jus sanguinis over jus soli at a time when anti-Manchu ethno-nationalism was on the rise. Qing lawmakers imported and invoked jus sanguinis not to define an exclusive or homogeneous nationhood, but to maintain individuals' perpetual allegiance to the state. In periods of state succession, legal cases involving nationality law reveal the paradoxes inherent in defining Chinese national membership and loyalty by bloodline, though the principle itself is practiced as if objective. Today, jus sanguinis still defines Chinese nationality and requires nationals' loyalty to China, with unintended, problematical consequences for people from border-crossing communities and historical borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lectures on political science of the Japanese political scientist Kiheiji Onozuka circulated in a number of Chinese translations in the late Qing. They were mainly used as textbooks in schools of law and political science. Most of the translators were Chinese students educated in Japan in Hosei University's intensive courses in law and political science. Onozuka's political theories, which stressed the steady progress of the state and played a role in reinforcing the Japanese political system of the Meiji period, were well suited to the Qing government's desire to follow the Meiji example of constitutional rule. They thus circulated widely as officially sanctioned knowledge with the government seal of approval. Disseminated by means of the new school system, Onozuka's political science became the "model" political science of late Qing China and provided a staged theoretical framework and conceptual tools for the development of modern political science in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces how the concept of the "Central State" (Zhongguo), the term used to refer to China in classical and modern Chinese, experienced thorough transformation and gained its modern meaning as a territorial, sovereign country during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Qing empire once defined its Other primarily diachronically as previous dynasties. As the Qing empire reconceptualized itself from a dynastic state to an imperial nation, its Other became redefined horizontally as foreign colonial powers. This article argues that the translation of international law and experiences of diplomats overseas, both facilitated by the Qing's systematic engagement with the Euro-centric "family of nations" following the Arrow War (1856–60), played an important role in this conceptual revolution. By the last decade of Qing rule, the "Central State" was perceived by many of its own intellectuals and officials as but one "parallel" (pingxing) country competing for survival in a globe comparable to the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China; meanwhile, the Qing was viewed as but one regime in Chinese history whose fate warranted special concern only as a means to save the trans-dynastic entity that was the Chinese nation (Zhongguo). Boding ill for the fate of China's last dynasty, this nineteenth-century reenvisioning shaped how the "Central State" has been imagined domestically and internationally ever since. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]