Borderlands of Ebb and Flow: Shared Histories and Imperial Encounters between China and Russia, 1600s to the Present

Workshop report

On the 14^th of December 2023 the first day of the Workshop “Borderlands of Ebb and Flow” commenced with opening remarks by Roland Vogt, the Head of School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong. Loretta Kim outlined the first key concept of “Shared History”: she emphasized how the workshop was going beyond China-Russia relations as well as simplistic, lopsided perspectives., “Shared history” transcends mere co-existence by highlighting cooperative behavior. This approach takes inspiration from the field of entangled history and focuses on the meaning of exchanges through interaction, to break out of molds of China studies and Russia studies. The concept of “shared history” shows a desire to de-classify and de-essentialize products and natural resource that have been formerly seen as symbols of separate cultures. Kim points out the challenges to this multilateral approach, such as attaining proficiency in both languages, familiarity with archives and field-based loyalty.

Rachel Lin followed with the second key concept “intersection”, which embodies the workshop’s shift away from bi-lateral approaches by looking at interactions locally and internationally. Lin points out the immediate urgency of such an approach in a contemporary climate, when nationalistic rhetoric is strengthening. Lin favors the concept “intersection”, as in its approach to a shared landscape does not predispose cooperation. Through the lens of “intersection” it is possible to explore parallel and intersecting understandings of frontier, competing policies of colonial solidification and the nationalizing moment of imperial management. At the same time, it is important to consider that both sides are tapping into global and international ideas in their approach to frontier management. Lastly, the concept of “intersection” substantiates the decolonizing and decentering of the metropolis, which is a main concern for this workshop.

Sören Urbansky concludes with the third key concept “borderlands”. He explains that characteristics of the frontier, understood as the sparsely populated area beyond the imperial zone, persist even after the border has been established. One such key component of the frontier is the diverse population, as the borderland continues to be populated by people not of the country’s ethnic majority. Several borders remain within the borderland, while incomers recognize the national border. Another key feature is that territorial control is not established by the borderland, as the openness and closeness of borders is constantly contested.

The workshop was structured in breakout sessions, to allow in person and online participation as well as a more in-depth discussion on the paper drafts. Each breakout sessions comprised three groups, which were reconfigured each session to give all participants the opportunity to comment on each paper. On the second day, Friday the 15^th of December, the first session was spent on organizational matters regarding a proposal for publication, style guide as well as cross-references between papers.

Two workshop papers focus on the Russian and Qing empires in Central Asia:

Yuan Gao focuses on irrigation projects along the Ili River both before and after 1881, when the Qing and Russian empires settled the Sino-Russian borders in the Treaty of St. Petersburg. Her paper examines the construction and maintenance of an “Imperial Canal (huangqu 皇渠)” network by the Qing in the upper Ili Valley. She contrasts the Qing’s costly endeavor of maintaining irrigation in Central Asia with the irrigation project plans envisioned by the Russian/Soviet technocrat Evgenii Skorniakov in the lower Ili Valley. Yuan Gao reveals the dynamics of geopolitics and colonization along the Sino-Russian border during a time when ideas such as nation-states, borders, and citizens were emerging rapidly. This provides insights into the complex interactions between the two empires and their differing visions for the development of their territories in the arid borderlands of Central Asia.

Tomohiko Uyama’s paper on Xinjiang’s border focuses on the ambiguity Central Asians had and still associate with China. He explores the experiences and observations of people who crossed the borders between today’s Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang. These people include Shoqan Wälikhanov (1835–1865) and other Kazakh intellectuals; Kazakh and Kyrgyz refugees who fled to China because of the suppression of the 1916 uprisings, the Russian Civil War, famine, and the forced agriculture collectivization; Xinjiang Muslims who emigrated to the Soviet Union to escape conflict, hunger, and oppression; people from Central Asia and China who visited each other’s countries after the fall of the Soviet Union. He concludes that due to China’s failure to effectively use Xinjiang Muslims as intermediaries with Central Asia, Central Asians have perceived and continue to perceive China as a “civilizational other”.

Three papers concern knowledge production on the Northern Manchu-Russian borderland and its people and religions:

Daigengna Duoer focuses on the Japanese Empire and its knowledge production on “Lamaism”, a term widely used in early twentieth-century Japanese discourses to discuss Buddhism in Mongolia and Manchuria. She showcases how since the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, there was an explosion of publications on “Lamaism” in Japanese (ramakyō) that peaked in the 1930s after the establishment of Manchukuo and the Japanese annexation of eastern Inner Mongolia. The Japanese Empire urgently needed knowledge production about the powerful religious institutions of “Lamaism” that is remnant of Qing imperial arrangement in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet to gain control over Inner and Central Asia. These Japanese discourses on “Lamaism” are diverse products of historiography and ethnography that show a strong desire to know the geopolitically relevant Other, especially in competition with knowledge production in the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. This chapter discusses some examples of these discourses as well as how Russian and Chinese discourses on “Lamaism” related to the Japanese ones.

Kamal A. Kariem’s paper concerns V. K. Arsen’ev’s ethnographic writing in the Ussuriiskii krai during the late Russian Empire. In the service of the empire, V. K. Arsen’ev strove to categorize the demographic diversity of the region by intentionally constructing Indigenous peoples as separate from East Asian populations (especially Chinese settlers) in the region along the divisions in their relationships to the Russian Empire and to nature. For Arsen’ev, Indigenous peoples came to be both helpful for nature and helpful for empire, while Chinese settlers and other East Asian peoples became bad for both. Thus, Arsen’ev embarked on a theorization of Indigenous peoples as not only different from other East Asian peoples within the region but as opposed to them. This paper traces these lines of separation from the late empire into the early Soviet Union through various genres of writing with an eye on how these histories and constructions are mobilized, edited, and forgotten today.

Stephanie Ziehaus argues that one of the main shared features of Russian and Qing empire building was the institutionalization of ethnicity (and ethnic groups) as an administrative and social unit via the establishment of native self-governance systems. Her research focuses on the establishment of native self-governance institutions such as the Russian Inorodnoe Upravlenie and the Qing’s Butha Eight Banners in the Manchu-Russian contact zone of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century as a process of imperial (dis)entanglement. The integration of local Barga and Khori people’s social organization structures via extended kinship ties highlights the shared history not only of borderland peoples, but transimperial connections across an imperial border that conceptually remains detrimentally demarcated in historiographical studies of empires.

Two papers cover the economic aspect of the borderland in trade relations and currency reforms:

Aleksandr Turbin explores ethnic and national nuances of “Russian” trade in the imperial borderland. His paper focuses on government policy and public discourse surrounding the nationalization of the Romanov Empire in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In his paper he re-evaluates Russianness amidst the fundamental ethnic and socio-political diversity of the imperial space in the Russian Far East. Exploring various forms of legitimate representatives of Russian trades, such as Chinese merchants and the leased port of Dalny, allows for a better understanding of how national identity was constructed in the late imperial period.

Chia-Yin Hsu studies the persistence of the old (silver) regime in the Soviet Far East and the cross-border trade with Manchuria in the early 1920s. She shows how various currencies such as the Japanese yen and imperial silver ruble coins persisted after the formation of the Far Eastern Oblast. Policies to monetarily “unify” the new oblast with Soviet Russia promoted the newly created Soviet money, the chervonets, as a trusted “hard currency” by manipulating exchange rates and banning imports from Manchuria. In effect, Soviet authorities carried out a protectionist policy against Manchuria to safeguard the chervonets, shutting down Chinese and Russian commercial ties to enact the currency “unification” of the FEO with the Soviet Union.

Closely connected to transborder transfers, but more focused on the political influences on borderlands and the metropole are the following two papers:

Anran Wang’s paper focuses on the grassroots dynamics in Sino-Soviet-Mongolian Relations 1956-1966, by concentrating on the border town of Ereenhot, in the middle of the Gobi Desert where the Trans-Mongolian Railway linking Mongolia, China, and the Soviet Union enters China. The paper, based on documents of local party-state organs in Ereenhot, scrutinizes the ways routine work and life in Ereenhot evolved from the opening of the railway in 1956 to the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which relations underwent rapid changes from socialist brotherhood to ideological and military antagonism. Anran Wang argues that the border town experienced impacts from the changing international relations in a distinct manner from the rest of China. He contrasts the tensions in border-crossing formalities in Ereenhot to the Sino-Soviet-Mongolian honeymoon period, and highlights the paradoxical continuation of daily life, unhindered by ideological interference in the period of Sino-Soviet antagonism.

Miin-Ling Yu’s paper explores the autonomy of the CCP in relation to the Comintern after the Zunyi workshop in January 1935. By focusing on the Moscow Trials (1936-1938) and the two pacts, Soviet –German Non-Aggression Pact and Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, the paper questions the full autonomy claimed by the CCP. In its persecution of internal enemies, the CCP followed the Comintern line set by the infamous Moscow trials. Soviet authorities demanded the accusation of Trotskyists, Fascist German, or Japanese special agents and the CCP followed through with eliminating Chinese Trotskyist-Fascists. The author questions the CCP’s varying levels of autonomy in internal party affairs opposed to foreign policies, illustrated by the shift in Soviet interpretations following the pacts signed in 1939 with Germany and 1941 with Japan. The author furthermore.

In all these papers the underlining key concepts of the workshop – shared history, intersection, and borderlands – were recurring features. Omnipresent was the shared aspect of imperial competition as well as cooperation in knowledge production, trade, and irrigation projects, as well as the decolonizing approach by centering local people’s perspective – such as the Mongols, Buryats, and indigenous people. These papers underscore the relation of borderlands to the designs and demands made by the governing metropole and cover the multifold aspects of the borderland – such as religious, economic, political, ethnic, and social.