Beyond the Pass : Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864

“This is a strikingly original, thoroughly researched study of the conquest and administration of the vast region of Xinjiang under the Qing empire. It is an outstanding work that deserves wide attention from all readers interested in modern Chinese history. Millward opens a field almost completely unexplored in Western scholarship and presents new conclusions that reshape our vision of modern China.”

Peter C. Perdue, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Beyond the Pass examines the fiscal and ethnic policies that underlay Qing imperial control over Xinjiang, a Central Asian region that now comprises the westernmost sixth of the People’s Republic of China. By focusing on a region of the Qing empire beyond the borders of China proper, and by treating the empire not as a Chinese dynasty but in its broader context as an Inner Asian political entity, this innovative study fills a gap in Western-language historiography of late imperial China.
As analysis of the revenue available to Qing garrisons in Xinjiang reveals, imperial control over the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries depended upon sizeable yearly subsidies from China. In an effort to satisfy criticism of their expansion into Xinjiang and make the territory pay for itself, the Qing court permitted local authorities great latitude in fiscal matters and encouraged the presence of Han and Chinese Muslim merchants. At the same time, the court recognized the potential for unrest posed by Chinese mercantile penetration of this Muslim, Turkic-speaking area. They consequently attempted, through administrative and legal means, to defend the native Uyghur population against economic depredation. This ethnic policy reflected a conception of the realm that was not Sinocentric, but rather placed the Uyghur on a par with Han Chinese.
Both this ethnic policy and Xinjiang’s place in the realm shifted following a series of invasions from western Turkestan starting in the 1820s. Because of the economic importance of Chinese merchants and the efficacy of merchant militia in Xinjiang, the Qing court revised its policies in their favor, for the first time allowing permanent Han settlement in the area. At the same time, the court began to advocate provincehood and the Sinicization of Xinjiang as a resolution to the perennial security problem. These shifts, the author argues, marked the beginning of a reconception of China to include Inner Asian lands and peoples – a notion that would, by the twentieth century, become a deeply held tenet of Chinese nationalism.

James A. Millward is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University.

Cover illustration is from a bilingual edition of the Qianlong Atlas, c. 1175, based on the map drawn by Father Benoist. This detail of the region around Jiayu Guan is used courtesy of the British Library (India Office records Map collection x/3265/1-10, roll 10).

This is a reproduction edition from a scanned copy of the original 1998 publication. You can find more reproductions editions from Stanford University Press on QOOP.com.

Contents
LANDMARKS 20

The Lay of the Land 21 The Historical Terrain 25 High Qing 36

FINANCING NEW DOMINION 44

Planting the Frontier 50 Local Sources of Revenue 52 Merchant 72

Xinjiang Military Deployment 77 Tea and the Beginnings 91

Proper 91 The Southern Commissaries 92 The Qing and the Silk 101

Sancheng Goes Too Far 105 Nayancengs TeaTax Plan 106 109

CHINESE MERCANTILE PENETRATION 113

The OpenGuan Policy 114 135

The Southern March 138 Manchu Cities or Chinese Cities? 149

QING ETHNIC POLICY AND CHINESE MERCHANTS 194

TOWARD THE DOMESTICATION OF EMPIRE 232

CHARACTER LIST 255

NOTES 261

BIBLIOGRAPHY 315

INDEX 343

The Yili military complex c 1809 78 6