Ethnicity and Politics in Republican China

Abstract

The northwestern frontier of China and the northwestern frontier of America have much in common. Rough wilderness, sparse population, lawlessness, distance from the affairs of the greater society-these characterize the desert places of a nation, the outposts of its civilization. Frontiers lack the sharpness of definition we attribute to more central regions. They are perceived as important for the defense of the nation, not for their contributions to its character. Even America, the frontier nation par excellence, cannot be described mainly by reference to Montana. ' The peripheries remain underdeveloped compared to more central regions, or even to their own regional centers. In Skinner's mapping, Gansu lies on the periphery of the periphery, the border region of the northwestern Chinese macroregion. To a contemporary Han Chinese going there, the journey really was like the Bozeman trail: